"Opinion indorsed!" said the other convict.

For a few moments there was complete silence on the summit of Devilbrow.

Somewhere, on an upland farm in the distance, a cow mooed. Then a rooster challenged all comers.

"That's the word, old top!" agreed the tall man. "It expresses my feelings," He clapped his hands against his legs and cried in his tenor, imitating the singsong of the rooster, "We're here because we're he-e-ere!"

Then he and his fellow sat down on a ledge outcropping that overtopped and commanded the position of the other men. The convicts surveyed Vaniman and Wagg with a complacent air of triumph. "Are you willing to take things as they stand, or do you feel that you can't go ahead till your curiosity has been scratched?" inquired the short man.

"Curiosity!" stormed the ex-cashier. "Do you dare to call the feeling I have in me curiosity?" He thumped his fist against his breast.

"And how about my feelings, with escaped convicts racing and chasing all over this country?" shouted the guard. "What has happened to that prison since I've been off my job?"

"One at a time!" The dumpy man put up his hand to shut off the stream of questions that were pouring from Wagg. "The young fellow has his innings first. He has more good reasons for rearing and tearing. It's easy enough to get out of a state prison when you have a trick that can be worked once." He winked at Wagg. Then he directed his remarks strictly at Vaniman.

"I'm going to talk free and open. We're all in the same boat. We're a couple of pots, and both of you are kettles, all black. Now, listen! I'm Bill." He stuck his finger against his breast and then tagged with it his pal at his side. "He's Tom. Bill and Tom have been humble and hard-working yeggmen, never tackling anything bigger than country stores and farmers' flivvers. Once on a time they were in a barn, tucked away waiting for night, and they heard a man running a double shift of talk--beating down the farmer on the price of cattle and blowing off about gold coin h.o.a.rded by the bushel in a rube bank."

Stickney's unruly mouth! Vaniman understood. "So, says Bill to Tom: 'Why not go up like everything else is going up these days?' Says Tom to Bill: 'I'm on.' We took our time about it, getting the lay of the land.

We went down to the big burg to buy drills and soup and pick up points on how to crack a real nut. Equipment up to that time had been a gla.s.s cutter and a jimmy for back windows and padlocks."

He was humorously drawling his confession. He stopped talking and lighted a cigarette. Impatience that was agony urged Vaniman, but he controlled himself. Wagg did not venture to say anything. His thoughts were keeping him busy; he was mentally galloping, trying to catch up with the new situation.

"And let me tell you that when Bill and Tom got back up here, they had colder feet than the weather accounted for. General headquarters, that camp!" He jerked thumb gesture toward the log cabin. "It had been our hang-out in times past when we operated in this section. Handy place!

Finally got up courage enough to go to the job. Fine night for it!

Deserted village. Peeked into Town Hall and saw the general round-up.

Light in the bank. Bill was boosted up by Tom and got a peek over the curtain. One fellow inside adding figures--much taken up. Bank-vault door wide open. Front door unlocked. Crawled in. Kept crawling. Crawled into bank room. Grille door wide open. Bill up and hit fellow with rubber n.o.b-knocker--it snuffs, but is not dangerous. Tom is handy by with the chloroform--always carried it for our second-story work."

The young man began to stride to and fro, striving by using his legs to keep from using his tongue.

The narrator snapped the ash off his cigarette. "Bill and Tom looked at each other. Did they expect such easy picking? They did not. The stuff had been fairly handed to 'em. They dragged the stuff out--all the sacks of it. Transportation all planned on. Couple of handsleds such as we had seen leaning up against the houses in the village. Slipped the fellow into the vault with his hands tied and shut the door with a trig so that he couldn't kick it open right away. Idea was that anybody stepping in later would think he had gone home; we intended to put out the light; nothing desperate about us; we wouldn't shoot the bolts. Bill said to Tom that there'd be a hunt for the fellow when he failed to show up at home, wherever he lived, and he'd sure be pulled out of the vault in good season. Thoughtful, you see! Not b.l.o.o.d.y villains. Simply wanted time for our getaway. Slow pulling up this hill with handsleds! But we slit a bag to make sure of what we would be pulling. And we kept on slitting bags. And--" the short man shook his head and sighed. "You say it, Tom. I'm trying to be sociable in this talk with these gents--showing a full and free spirit in coming across with the facts.

But I don't trust myself!"

"Nor I!" declared Tom. "We'd better not spoil a pleasant party."

"Well, Bill wrote his sentiments, as they occurred to him at the time.

Then we heard somebody hollering at the front door that we had left open. We ran and jumped behind the door of the bank office. The fellow who galloped in ran a few times in circles and then he galloped out. He might have noticed a rhinoceros if the rhino had risen up and bit him.

But he paid no attention to Bill and Tom behind the door. And Bill and Tom walked out. And we managed to get clear of the village just as that Town Hall crowd broke loose.

"Says Bill to Tom, when they were on their way: 'It's plain that banks are bunk, like everything else these days. Let's stick to our humble line where we know what we're doing.' But, having been studying bank robbing, we had got ourselves nerved up to take desperate chances--and we bulled the regular game in Levant. Coa.r.s.e work, because we were off our stride. All due to the bank. The bank stands liable for damages.

We're up here collecting. Cashier, consider what regular and desperate cracksmen would have done to you! Considering our carefulness where you were concerned, and the trouble we have been put to in getting out and chasing you, what say?"

Again Vaniman got a strong grip on his emotions. He was a fugitive; these cheeky rascals had his fate in their hands; he was not in a position to reply to their effrontery as his wild desire urged. He did not dare to open his mouth just then with any sort of reply; he did not trust himself even to look their way.

"Think it over," advised the short man, composedly. "But please take note that there are now four of us in on the split, and that quartering it makes easy figuring."

Mr. Wagg was not composed. This threat to disrupt his fifty-fifty plan brought him out of something that was like stupor. "You belong back in state prison, and I'll see to it that you're put there."

The man who called himself Bill was not ruffled. He waved his arm to indicate the spread of the landscape. "Doesn't being up here above the world lift you out of the rut of petty revenge? Can't you see things in a broader way? I can. I feel like praising you for that job you put up to get our valuable friend out where he can help all four of us. For many a day, after I saw that you had this friend out in the yard and were interested in him, I tended less to making harness pads and more to watching you through the shop window. I was interested in the gent, too.

Tom and I had made up our minds to be as patient as possible for seven years--and then be rusticating up in these hills, right on hand to help him in the ch.o.r.e of digging it out of whatever hole it's hidden in.

Couldn't let you monopolize him--absolutely not, Mr. Guard! Do you think I was hiding out that noon only by luck and chance? No, no! I saw you monkeying with the chimney door that forenoon. I saw how you were hopping around and I got a good look at your face. Says I to myself, Tom not being handy, 'There's something to be pulled off, and I'll make sure how it is pulled.' That's how I happened to be on the business side of that shield, Mr. Guard. It was good work. It leaves our friend pretty comfortable, so far as the d.i.c.ks are concerned. Tom and I have got to keep dodging 'em. We didn't have your advantages, you know--Tom and I didn't! We simply did the best we could in getting out--realizing the value of time."

The short man was employing a patronizing tone, as if accomplishing an escape from state prison was merely a matter of election of methods. All of the guard's official pride was in arms. He advanced on the convict and shook a finger under his nose. "How did you get out? You don't dare to tell me. It was an accident. You didn't use any brains. You don't dare to tell, I say!"

"Oh yes, I do!" The convict was placid. "I'll tell you because you'll never dare to open your mouth on the matter. Furthermore, you've got to understand the position Tom and I are in right now in regard to a third party. That party is a trusty--he gets out in three months from now and has been having the run of the corridors as a repair man."

Wagg growled something.

"Oh yes, he will!" a.s.severated the convict. "He'll come out on time!

A fine show of yourself you'll make trying to dutch him. The pen is mightier than the sword, but inside a prison pen the little screw driver has 'em all faded when a trusty is the repair man. Cell door, tier door, attic door--all attended to; ventilator grating likewise. Rope in ventilator, up rope--out goes rope and down rope! Roof, wall, drop! Rear window of second-hand shop. Outfit! Hike! Good start, till morning shows the cot dummies! Truss rods of Wagner freight, blind baggage to Levant on the 'tween-days train. Into the bush--and here!"

"With this added by me," put in the other convict. "That trusty was a pal in the old days. He understands his friends' financial interest is in this thing, and how we needed to get out sudden to tend to that interest. We have given him our word. He took that word like it was a certified check. And he's going to cash in on that word!"

"He sure is!" declared the short man. "We pa.s.s words instead of checks in our business, and a man who lets his promise go to protest is crabbed for keeps. We have incurred obligations so as to get in at the split."

He spread out his palm and tapped a digit into the center of it.

"Cash--here!"

"Strictly on a business basis, of course," said the tall man. "We don't call for a special split for that trusty. It's a personal debt incurred by Bill and me. We ask n.o.body to pay our personal debts. All we ask is that debts due us be paid. And we're drawing a sight draft on you gents.

Bill and I are probably only a few jumps ahead of the d.i.c.ks. Where's the coin?"

He brutally thrust the question at Vaniman. The young man turned to Wagg, seeking support in that crisis, believing that the affair could be held on the basis of two against two in the interests of further dilatory tactics. Wagg had been showing indignant protest against the demands of the interlopers. But his corrugated face was smoothed suddenly. He had evidently decided to cash in on the new basis. "That's what I want to know--and what I have been trying to find out. Where's the coin?"

The realignment--three against one--was menacing. Vaniman surveyed the faces--the glowering demanding countenances, the eyes in which money l.u.s.t gleamed. He knew that the men were in a mood where the truth would serve him in sad stead. He had no knack as a liar. He understood how little chance he had of convincing those shrewd knaves by his inept falsehoods in that extremity. He had already meditated on the plan of running away from Wagg. His reasons for escaping from this intolerable baiting were now threefold.

"It's too near sunset for a job that will take us a long way through the woods," he blurted.

"I'll admit I'm so tired I can't count money till I've had a night's sleep," confessed the short man. "But you make your promise now and here, Mr. Cashier. When?" He emphasized the last word.

"To-morrow!"

"A promissory note--dated and delivered. Don't let it go to protest.

That's language you can understand, Mr. Bankman."

Vaniman walked off toward the cabin and the three men followed him.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SHOW-DOWN

His troubles and his trials had not wholly dulled youth's sense of the ludicrous in Vaniman. He sat down that evening to the meal that had been prepared by Guard Wagg, late of the state prison, for three fugitive convicts, also late of that inst.i.tution. The chimney of the kerosene lamp was smoky and the light was dim, therefore Vaniman's grin was hidden from his companions. Undoubtedly it would have produced no especial wonderment in them if they had noted his cheerful visage. They were decidedly cheerful, themselves. Mr. Wagg was no longer exhibiting the official side of his nature; he was receiving compliments on his biscuits. The three who had aligned themselves against Vaniman seemed to be getting along in a very friendly fashion, being bound by a common interest.

From biscuits in hand the conversation pa.s.sed to the prison fare in retrospect. Wagg admitted that the fare was a disgrace to the state.

From that point it was easy to go on and agree with the short man and the tall man that the prison was mismanaged generally and that a man was lucky in being able to get away from such a place--no matter whether he was a guard or a prisoner. The incongruous friendliness increased Vaniman's amus.e.m.e.nt.

He looked at the two knaves who had recently enlightened their victim in such a matter-of-fact manner. He admitted that the comedy overbalanced the tragedy, in view of the fact that the job had resolved itself into petty sneak-thievery. Taking into consideration the trick money they had found, there was considerable farce in the affair. However, Vaniman, looking ahead to the threatening to-morrow, perceived tragedy looming again.

Victim, criminals, guard of the criminals, they were breaking bread in a temporary comradeship of a bizarre nature--a money quest. But that money interest which bound them of an evening would be a disastrous problem on the morrow, if one man attempted to stand out against three.

The one man made up his mind that there was a risky resource for him--to flee and take his chances alone in the woods; he had decided to put his own personal interpretation on the promise, "To-morrow!"