XXVII

BURGLARY

Merely because he believed that the well-known all was over between
Molly Dale and himself, Racey did not relinquish his plans for the
future.

He rode to Marysville as he had intended. That is, he rode to the
vicinity of Marysville. For, arriving at a hill five miles outside of
town in the broad of an afternoon, he stopped in a hollow under the
cedars and waited for night. Daylight was decidedly not appropriate
for the act he contemplated.

"I wonder," he muttered, as he lay with his back braced against a tree
and stared at the bulge in his slicker, "I wonder if I ought to use
all them sticks at once. I never heard that miner man say how much of
an argument a safe needed. I s'pose I better use 'em all."

Luke Tweezy was a bachelor. His office was in his four-room house, and
he did not employ a housekeeper. Further than this, Racey Dawson
knew nothing of the lawyer's establishment. But he believed that his
knowledge was sufficient to serve his purpose.

About midnight Racey Dawson removed himself, his horse, and his
dynamite from the hollow on the hill to where a lone pine grew almost
directly in the rear of and two hundred yards from the residence of
Luke Tweezy. He had selected the tall and lonely pine as the best
place to leave his horse because, should he be forced to run for
it, he would have against the stars a plain landmark to run for.
He thoroughly expected to be forced to run. Six sticks of dynamite
letting go together would arouse a cemetery. And Marysville was a
lively village.

Racey, taking no chances on the Lainey horse stampeding at the
explosion, rope-tied the animal to the trunk of the pine. After which
he removed his spurs, carefully unwrapped the dynamite and stuck three
sticks in each hip-pocket. The caps, in their little box, he put in
the breast-pocket of his shirt. With the coil of fuse in one hand and
the bran sack given him by Lainey in the other he walked toward the
house of Tweezy.

The house was of course dark. Nor were there any lights in the
irregular line of houses stretching up and down this side of the
street. The neighbours had apparently all gone to bed. Through an
opening between two houses Racey saw a brightly lighted window in a
house an eighth of a mile away. That would be Judge Allison's house.
The Judge, then, was awake. Two hundred and twenty yards was not a
long distance even for a portly man like Judge Allison to cover at
speed. And Racey had kn