Black Jack, page 169 by Max Brand
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u knew the trick. The facts is these: he sold his ranch. You know that?"
"Sure, we know that."
"And you know he wouldn't take nothing but gold coin paid down at the house?"
"That so?"
"It sure is! Now the point's this. He had all his gold in his own private safe at home."
Denver groaned.
"I know, Denver," nodded Sandy. "Easy pickings for you; but I didn't find all this out till the other day. Never even knew he had a safe in his house. Not till he has 'em bring out a truck from town and he ships the safe and everything in it to the bank. You see, he sold out his own place and he's going to another that he bought down the river. Well, boys, here's the dodge. That safe of his is in the bank tonight, guarded by old Lewison himself and two gunmen he's hired for the job. Tomorrow he starts out down the river with the safe on a big wagon, and he'll have half a dozen guards along with him. Boys, they's going to be forty thousand dollars in that safe! And the minute she gets out of the county--because old McGuire will guard it to the boundary line--we can lay back in the hills and--"
"You done enough planning, Sandy," broke in Joe Pollard. "You've smelled out the loot. Leave it to us to get it. Did you say forty thousand?"
And on every face around the table Terry saw the same hunger and the same yellow glint of the eyes. It would be a big haul, one of the biggest, if not the very biggest, Pollard had ever attempted.
Of the talk that followed, Terry heard little, because he was paying scant attention. He saw Joe Pollard lie back in his chair with squinted eyes and run over a swift description of the country through which the trail of the money would lead. The leader knew every inch of the mountains, it seemed. His memory was better than a map; in it was jotted down every fallen log, every boulder, it seemed. And when his mind was fixed on the best spot for the holdup, he sketched his plan briefly.
To this man and to that, parts were assigned in brief. T