The master coolly removed his coat, throwing it on top of the safe. On the coat he laid a big “cannon.” I opened the small parcel containing the “dan” and “stems” (drills). From the blacksmith shop we had taken a carpenter’s hand brace and a pinch bar. With this primitive outfit George attacked the box in a most workmanlike manner. I went outside, but there was nobody in sight, and the only sound was the pawing of a horse in the stable across the street. At two o’clock George came out to look around himself. He was ready to “shoot her.” The make of the box required that the door be blown entirely out of place and the explosion seemed tremendous in the dead, quiet night with nerves on edge. But the town slumbered on. George waited outside, but there was no alarm, and he went back, returning in five minutes with a small but heavy bag of gold pieces that clinked sweetly when he dropped it into his coat pocket. “You carry this head of cabbage, Kid,” passing me a pack of greenbacks about the size of a brick. Dawn was graying the east as we went into the stable and bridled the horses. George went out first, pulling his reluctant horse by the bridle rein pulled over his head. In the door his horse stopped, and George, standing outside on the inclined platform, tugged with both hands while I slapped the horse on his rump. Suddenly George dropped the bridle rein and his hand went to the waistband of his trousers for a gun. A voice shouted, “Here, you damned horse thief,” and a shotgun belched murderously, then again. George got both barrels. He was almost blown off his feet. He toppled over sidewise and his body rolled slowly down the incline to the ground. The man with the shotgun knew his bloody business. I plainly heard the sinister click of the breech-lock as he snapped it shut after reloading. Neither of the horses was gun-shy; they stood still. The gunshot echoes died away. A whiff of powder smoke drifted above and across George’s body. The silence was awful. I could feel the shooter outside standing at “ready” with his murderous gun. I was trapped; my pistol was useless against such odds. Somewhere in the stable a horse, heaving heavily to his feet, shook the floor and roused me from my trance of fear and shock. I remembered having seen a door in the side of the barn opposite where the man with the gun was. I ran to it and out into a lot. Across the street was the courthouse and the general store. There was a cellar beneath the store. I had looked into it while George was working on the “box.” Its old-fashioned inclined doors were open and it was piled full of farm implements, empty boxes, crates, kegs of nails, etc.