Gold miners -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; Robbery -- Fiction; Short stories; Western stories
He was out of the door almost before he had finished his sentence and
within half an hour, having an early start in view, was in his bed.
Furthermore so early was that next morning’s start that it was not yet
noon when he was driven up to the cabin which was his destination and
was greeting Rosita Mills and complaining of hunger.
“And you may as well lay in plans, Rosy,” he said to Mrs. Mills, “to
take care of the man from the livery stable down in Wallula, because
he’s going to stay here the rest of the day and part of to-morrow with
us. And after that--I got to talk to the others and think it over a
little before I can say exactly what will happen.”
But what did happen was that on the following afternoon, timing
themselves so that they would arrive in camp late at night, David and
Hank drove away with the man from Wallula and Mrs. Mills knew that on
the next day Goliath was to make the same journey with the partners’
mules and buckboard. Also that if she feared to be left alone she could
accompany him and visit the camp for which she had no very pleasant
recollections.
The “Real-Estate-and-Specialty-in-Mining-Properties” office of Thomas
Shaughnessy stood at almost the end of the business portion of the main
street, modestly, inconspicuously, as befitted a place of such
importance that sooner or later all must visit it. It was later--much
later--at nearly three o’clock in the morning when David visited it,
while Hank kept a watchful eye up Main Street for the solitary night
watchman who seldom strolled that far because frequent visits were not
necessary, and--Wallula paid his wages because Shaughnessy had so
dictated. David, being a very amateur burglar, had a bunch of door keys
big enough to open the doors of a city, all of which he had purchased at
the county seat. Patiently he tried about twenty keys before he found
one that opened the rear door of Shaughnessy’s office after which,
carefully using an electric torch, he pulled down the shades over the
front window and with an air of relief went into Shaughnessy’s rear
office and made straight for the letter files.
He paid not the slightest attention to the small safe in the corner, but
did pay much to the letter files. For a time he began to fear that what
he sought could not be found and then, with a chuckle of satisfaction,
came to a compartment, made the correspondence therein into a roll, and
pocketed it before returning the letter file to the exact position in
which he had originally found it. Cautiously he put the shades up again,
cautiously passed out of the rear door and with the same caution locked
it. Five minutes later he and Hank were slipping through the back
streets to the cabin of a friend which had been put at their disposal
during its owner’s absence, and there, safe, secure, unalarmed, they
gloated over their theft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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