When Egypt Went Broke, Holman Day [free ereaders .txt] 📗

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. Coarse 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 chore 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 dicks 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!" asseverated 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 pass 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 nobody 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 dicks. 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 lust 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 institution. 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 passed 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 amusement.
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!"
Right after supper he turned into his bunk, in order to simulate slumber and avoid the questions that he could not answer.
The two new arrivals had had much to say about their weariness. He expected that they would promptly eliminate themselves as obstacles to flight. Mr. Wagg, at any rate, had shown a confiding disposition all along.
But the tall man and the short man conferred _sotto voce_ and let it be known that they had suspended payment of confidence currency for the time being.
"The idea is," explained the short man, "this being a pleasant party, and all interests being common, it would be a shame to have it broken up. Tom will sit there in the door for two hours--then he wakes me and I sit there. We're not accusing anybody inside of wanting to leave; but who is sure that somebody from the outside may not stroll along and want to come in? Seeing that we went down to the pen from Levant, it may be thought--providing they do any thinking at the state prison--that we have come back here to start in where we left off. On the other hand, providing they don't do any thinking, they may come up into this section because a reasoning man never would believe we'd take chances by coming back into an old stamping ground. Either way it's looked at, we've got to be careful. Therefore, we hope that gents of a pleasant party will consider this double-shift arrangement as being for the general good of all hands."
Mr. Wagg was pleased. He said so unhesitatingly, but not tactfully. He declared that he would mortally hate to