When I reached the ferry-house, no carriage was to be seen. Minutes passed and still I waited in the greatest apprehension. It was nearly time for the bank janitor to come down, and my fears were wrought up to the highest pitch. I had about concluded to go back and chance taking the loot away by hand when the team came up. It had been delayed by the jam caused by the alarm of fire we had sent in. With a great load lifted from my mind I jumped into the carriage and away we started. We drove to opposite the office door. I then went in and found Shinburn about as much wrought up as I had been. He told me that the janitor had already come down, and was, even then, in O’Kells office. This shows the nerve of the man. He could sit quietly in that office, awaiting my return, while the janitor might at any moment detect the robbery and give the alarm. Shinburn was certainly a very nervy man. The presence of the janitor in the next office necessitated careful management on our part if we would get away undetected. We could hear him moving round in cleaning up the room. We got everything in readiness, and, when from the sound we judged that the janitor was where he could not see us as we left, slipped out quickly. The driver started the team and away we went, undetected, with the cashier’s trunk full of plunder. We went directly to my apartments, sending the team back to the stable. Once in my rooms, we opened the trunk and counted its contents. The total amount of the two hauls was two million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, made up as follows:-- Cash $125,000 Cash left as per agreement 200,000 U. S. government bonds 1,475,000 Miscellaneous bonds, salable 100,000 Miscellaneous bonds, unsalable 850,000 ---------- Total $2,750,000 Thus was accomplished the greatest bank robbery on record, so far as the amount stolen was concerned. To preserve its existence, the bank, contrary to the usual method in such cases, gave out its loss as much _less_ than the actual amount. I believe it stated the amount stolen to be about two million dollars. This would be about right--taking out the miscellaneous bonds not salable. CHAPTER XVII MARK MAKES PI OF LOCK TUMBLERS Too many irons in the fire spoiled an opportunity to add a few thousand dollars to our cash capital. This occurred in that busy year, 1869. Mark Shinburn and I got word of a bank at Lambertville, New Jersey, that seemed to hold out golden inducements, so he went to make the strike, while I remained in New York to keep an eye on more important matters, but ready to answer his summons for the final attack. The failure was, I believe, unique in every sense of the word. Neither before nor after did anything like it fall to our lot.