Black, Jack, 1871-1932; Criminals -- Canada -- Biography; Criminals -- United States -- Biography
“What shall I do with the balance of the dynamite and drills?” I asked.
“Somebody might step on the bundle and blow the house down. It’s planted
out in the back.”
“I’m going to meet George here in the spring when he gets out,” said
Sanc. “It would save us the trouble of stealing more if we could plant
it.” He was thoughtful for a minute.
“Kid, in the morning you go up to the bank and rent a safety box for a
year—it’s about four dollars. Arrange with them to let any one into it
that brings a key. Tell them there will be nothing of value there, just
papers, and that you may want to send some one else after them and to
let any one open it who comes with the key—better get two keys. After
you get the box arranged for, come down, get the ‘dan’ and ‘stems’
(drills), and put them safely away in the box. When you get the receipt
for the box rent tear it up, throw the pieces away, and bring me the
keys. I’ll plant them here in this joint somewhere where I can find
them when I return.”
Johnnie laughed. “Sanc, are you going to plant that stuff in the ‘jug’?”
“Certainly, the bank will take good care of it and it won’t deteriorate.
I’m not going to carry the box key around on my watch chain and put the
receipt carefully away in my pocket. If I get snared by the bulls they
won’t know I’ve got a safety box unless I snitch on myself, and if I
were going to stay in this town my money would be in that box, too.”
When the bank opened next morning I rented the box and was given two
keys and a password, and was told that anybody bringing a key and the
password would have access to the box. “Even if it’s a Chinaman,” said
the attendant.
The receipt was destroyed, and the stuff, in a neat parcel, put in the
box. Sanc took the keys, planted them somewhere about the premises, and
buried the password in his fertile mind.
“Go down to the depot, kid, and get three tickets to Pocatello. We’ll
all stay uptown till the train is ready to pull out. No good hanging
around that depot, it’s lousy with bulls.”
Johnnie was a typical knight of the road. He believed that beds were for
sick people in hospitals, that room rent was wild extravagance, and
paying fare on the railroad nothing but ostentatious spending. He
protested.
“Sanc, you’re not going to start paying fare?”
“Yes, I am, and I’ll buy you a ticket to California if you’ll come. Just
look at the pleasure you would have beating your way from there back to
your home town in New Hampshire.”
“That’s the funny part of it,” said Johnnie. “My home town is twenty
miles off the railroad and I always have to pay fare on the stage going
in and out.”
Back at Pocatello we paid Mary the borrowed money, and spent some in her
place for interest. She gladly undertook to deliver the money we wanted
to go to our friends at the prison, and we gave it to her, capable woman
that she was, feeling as sure they would get it as if we were doing it
ourselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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