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 hoarded 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 glass
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 nob-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 hou