CHAPTER XVI
Summercame and the memorable World’s Fair. I saw it all, but it put an awful dent in my bankroll and winter was coming. I heard wonderful tales of New York City and its opportunities, told by the hop smokers in California Jack’s, and had almost made up my mind to go there for the winter when I met an intelligent young chap who knew all about it. He advised me to stay away from New York.
“It’s the toughest town in the United States for an outsider to get by in,” he said in answer to my questions. “I’ll tell you what you’re up against. You go in there single-handed. If you get by the wise coppers and the hungry fences, you’ve still got the gangs to beat. Almost all the thieves belong to gangs—the Irish, the Jews, and the dagoes. They fight each other, but they make common cause against an outsider, especially if he’s from the West, and they’ll know you in a minute with your soft hat and your Western talk.
“The gangs are made up of natives and ‘home guards,’ and some of them are not above snitching on you if you go in there and get too prosperous. If you show up in any of the hangouts with money they will beat you up and take it away from you like any sucker. Of course if you got into a gang they wouldprotect you. The gang protects you, and the ward alderman protects the gang, see? But even then you’d never have anything, for the money’s split too many ways.
“Those hop fiends are raving when they tell you New York is a simple spot to make a living in. Everything is simple and easy and rosy to them when they get a few pills under their belts; but you take my advice and stay away from it. I can get dollars in the West where I couldn’t get dimes in New York, and I wouldn’t go back there on a bet. I’m for Chicago and points west where you don’t have to wear a derby hat to get by a policeman,” he finished in disgust.
Turning this gloomy picture over in my mind for a few days, I decided to let New York alone and go back West. My spare clothes were left with the landlord, and after a soft, easy year I went back to the hardships of the road almost gladly. I made long jumps under fast trains into St. Paul and then on to the Dakota harvest fields.
Thousands of harvest hands were leaving with their season’s earnings and a horde of yeggs, thieves, gamblers and their women beset them on every side. Some of the more wary and experienced laborers bought tickets and got out of the danger zone unscathed; others dallied with the games of chance and were shorn, or fell into the yeggs’ clutches and got “catted up.”
Harvest workers were called blanket stiffs or gay cats, and the process of pistoling them away from their money was known as catting them up. Train crews flourished by carrying the gay cats over theirdivisions in the box cars at a dollar each. Bands of yeggs worked with the brakemen, who let them into the cars, where they stuck up the cats, took their money, and forced them to jump out the side doors between stations. By the time they walked into a town and reported their losses, the train was far ahead, the money split with the train crew, and the yeggs were holding a convention in some safe jungle.
After several seasons the cats began buying tickets out of the harvest fields and the profitable industry of catting up went by the board.
I traveled along slowly now, uncertain where to go or what to do. Meeting many who had seen me and Foot-and-a-half George on the road, I told them freely the story of his finish and my getaway. My prestige grew and I came to be accepted everywhere as “Stetson,” which, in the language of the road, means first class.
Being young I naturally got puffed up and superior. I looked wise and mysterious, said nothing, and “connected” only with the higher-ups among the knights of the road. Stepping out on the street one morning at Great Falls, Montana, an icy wind out of the north reminded me that winter had come. I was almost broke, and fearing a Montana winter without money, I made a dash for the coast. I traveled north through Lethbridge, at the Canadian line, and into Calgary, Alberta; then west over the Canadian Pacific toward Vancouver, where I hoped to spend the winter. The snow had piled up in the Selkirk range, delaying trains for days and making life on the road uncertain and very unpleasant. My money had dwindled till buying a ticket was out of the question. Riding the rods ofpassenger trains meant freezing, and I was forced to take the slow and infrequent freights with their open box cars. At one of the larger towns in British Columbia I stopped off to rest up, get a decent night’s sleep, and thaw myself out.
In the office of the hotel I went to stood a safe that attracted me. It was of a make that George always favored, and we had beaten a half dozen of them in the two years we were together.
No explosives were needed. It could be got “on the quiet.” I put down my last dollar for a week’s board and room, and began planning an assault on the ancient “box.”
I was alone, almost broke, and here was opportunity. Opportunity not only to fortify myself with money, but to test myself and prove whether my years with George and the Sanctimonious Kid had fitted me to make my way alone at the profession I had drifted into. I went over the situation carefully. A westbound passenger train passed through the town at one o’clock A.M. The hotel closed at midnight. An hour was time enough for the mechanical work on the box. The time-tables showed that I could be on the “American side” in twelve hours if I got out on the night train. Here was a feasible getaway.
The next thing was to make sure that no one entered the hotel office between the hours of twelve and one. Several nights’ watching satisfied me that I would not be interrupted in that way. The week was almost gone, so was my money, and I saw that more would be needed for my board and lodging before the arrival of my first big night alone. This forced me into a small room burglary that was almost fatal.
Prowling through the one other hotel in the town I found a room door unlocked and stepped inside. There were two beds in the room, both occupied. On a chair by the bed nearest the door was the sleeper’s trousers, from which I got a purse. Pocketing it, I moved to a chair by the second bed, where I could distinguish something dark that appeared to be a bunch of clothes.
Right there I learned that a fair-sized, healthy dog sleeps sound as a human being. Instead of putting my hand on a pair of pants, it touched something furry that came to life with a start and a growl, and fastened a pair of strong jaws on my forearm. Both sleepers stirred. Before I got to the door, dragging the snarling, clawing brute that wouldn’t let go his grip, the man whose purse I had sat up in bed. I was without a gun, but threatened to blow his head off just the same. Being a sensible man, he remained quiet.
I had put out the only light in the hall. Still burdened with the tenacious, growling dog, I was forced to feel my way with my feet toward the back stairway. I couldn’t stop in the hall to choke him loose; my only hope was to drag him downstairs and deal with him outside the place.
At the top of the stairs his struggles and weight overbalanced me, and we rolled and bumped down the long, dark stairway to the landing below. On our way down he weakened, let go his grip on my arm, scrambled to his feet, and tore out into the alley, howling piteously. I gathered myself up and ran in the opposite direction. In my room, I took stock and found he hadn’t injured me, and that I had enough money to carry me for another week.
I now moved into a small lodging house and paid for my room each night. As a transient roomer I could leave at any time without causing comment.
Curious to learn something about the dog I was tangled up with, I went into the office and barroom of the hotel, looking for him. One evening while I was getting a drink I heard a low, threatening growl across the room, and a look in the big mirror back of the bar showed me a good, big, husky shepherd dog standing under a card table. The hair on his neck and back bristled as he eyed me suspiciously. I thought he was going to attack me, and turned around to face him. When I did this, he backed still farther beneath the table, but never took his eyes off me. The room was crowded with loungers and card players, but none of them appeared to notice his actions. I went out of the place and stayed out.
At last the night came that I had decided was to be my last in the town. I had done everything possible in the way of precaution and protection. The stormy night favored me and the box gave up its contents after a few sturdy blows from a short-handled sledgehammer. The train arrived on time, and when it pulled out I got aboard without a ticket. That was part of my plan. I didn’t want to be seen at the ticket office, where I knew inquiries would be made the next day.
The safe contained nothing of value to me but a roll of paper money. I had no chance to count or examine it while waiting for the train, but before the conductor got to me I fished out a worn twenty-dollar bill from which I paid my fare, about fifteen dollars, to Vancouver. I had no intention of going into thatcity now, but paid my fare there to mislead any one making inquiries from the trainmen. I planned to leave the train at a junction and take another across the border. Well satisfied with myself, I was reviewing the night’s work when the train slowed down between stations, about twenty miles from where I got aboard.
After a long wait, the conductor appeared with the information that the train was blocked by an avalanche of snow and rock. “Make yourselves comfortable,” he said, “we won’t get out of here before noon to-morrow.”
My carefully laid plans crumbled. I wished myself back in the town. I thought of the bill I had given the conductor. I could see the constables with their heads together in the morning “deducing” and “inferring” with the result that they would deduce and infer that their burglar had left on the night train. I could see them arriving at our stalled train some time in the forenoon and buttonholing the conductor. I could see him pointing his finger at me.
It was suicide to leave the train. Not a hut or habitation within miles and a terrific storm raging. I went over every possibility and finished with a helpless, half-trapped feeling. I went into another coach, and, finding an empty seat, cut a slit in the cushion and planted the roll of money, keeping only the change from the twenty-dollar bill. There was nothing else I could do to protect myself. I tried to sleep in a seat, but couldn’t, so I sat around, apprehensive and nervous, till morning. The storm abated at daylight and an hour later a work train pulled in behind us, prepared to dig us out. I got ready for a shock.
Sure enough, in a few minutes, two constables from the town I had left came slowly down the aisle behind the conductor. When he came to my seat, he stopped and nodded his head toward me. One officer stood by me, but said nothing. The other said something aside to the conductor, who took a roll of bills from his pocket, peeled off the top one and handed it to him. He turned the bill over, looked at it carefully, and then at a piece of paper he had in his hand. After more talk with the conductor that I couldn’t hear, he turned and faced me with a gun in his hand.
“Put the irons on him, Mr. Stevens,” he said to the officer beside me. “He is our man.”
I protested against being handcuffed, pushed “Mr. Stevens” away, and demanded an explanation.
“You’re arrested in the queen’s name,” said the officer in charge, “and anything you say will be used against you. You had better submit quietly. If you want force you can have it.” He waved his big, serviceable-looking gun in my direction.
I submitted. They took me forward to a baggage car, removed my shoes and nearly all my clothes, and went through them slowly and thoroughly, but found nothing incriminating. When the train was dug clear it pulled out, carrying my roll of bills with it in the seat cushion, and I congratulated myself on getting rid of it. I was taken back to the town I left so suspiciously the night before, and thrown into the jail wondering what they had on me. They hadn’t asked me any questions; that looked bad. They seemed too well satisfied with the thing.
All my speculations were put to rest the next morning when I was brought before the magistrate.
When I hear the word “technicality” I think of American jurisprudence. If there is any such term used in British courts I never heard it. The procedure in this magistrate’s court was simple, alarmingly simple. The hotel man proved the burglary. The next witness, an old prospector who was wintering at the hotel, testified that he had changed a twenty-dollar bill at the hotel bar the evening before the burglary; that it was the only bill of that denomination he had; that he had carried it with him for six months and had looked at it so many times he remembered the big serial numbers on the back of it. He swore further that he went to the hotel man the next morning and gave him the numbers. The arresting officers now told of following the train, getting the conductor’s statement, and arresting me. They produced the fatal twenty-dollar bill, the only one in the roll that could have hurt me, the prospector’s bill. They testified that they got it from the conductor, who told them I had paid my fare out of it.
The prospector now identified his bill. On top of this it was shown that I had suddenly and suspiciously left the town, avoiding the ticket office and paying cash fare with the deadly twenty.
I hadn’t a leg to stand on in the way of defense, but managed to get up and object to hearsay evidence and ask to have the conductor brought into court. The magistrate and Crown prosecutor laughed. “He’ll appear when you go on trial at the next term of court,” said the “cutor.” “Any defense?” asked the magistrate.
I saw they had me right. “No, your worship, I’ll save my defense till I get into a court where I willnot be laughed at.” He laughed again and made the order to hold me. This court proceeding didn’t take an hour. I went back to the jail wishing the thing had happened in the good old U.S.A., where, with a smart lawyer, I would have got a continuance and sent somebody to the conductor who might listen to reason and not be so cocksure about getting the bill from me.
At the provincial jail I found a drunken Scotchman in charge. He was assisted by two half-breed Indian boys serving six months each. One of them cooked for the jailer and any prisoners that came in; the other scrubbed the jail. Both of them watched me faithfully and fed me regularly when the jailer was drunk. I was locked in a cell and never got out except for a bath once a week. The Indian boys slept on the floor in front of my cell by a big stove that was always hot and kept the jail warm.
There was not a fixture in the cell but a bucket. I had plenty of blankets and slept on the floor. My clothes were taken and I was dressed in a pair of white duck pants and a hickory shirt. They left me my shoes and hat. I was never so bare and helpless before or since. Not a smoke, nor a paper, book, nor magazine was allowed in the jail. When I asked the Scotchman for something to read, he got me a Bible, which I read and re-read with much interest but no profit. I was pestered daily for weeks by the Crown prosecutor to return the balance of the money taken from the hotel safe, eight hundred dollars. He offered me a short jail sentence if I would give it up, but I mistrusted him and decided to let some car cleaner find it rather than admit anything and get myself in deeper.
I gave my case a good thinking over and concluded there was no way out. Judge Powers, J. Hamilton Lewis, and Tom Patterson of Colorado, all rolled into one, couldn’t have acquitted me. All day, every day, I read my Bible and prayed that the conductor might fall under his train before the day of my trial.
A priest visited the jail one day and gave me a pamphlet on which he had printed the Chinook language. In answer to my question he told me it contained about three hundred words—nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It was created by the Hudson Bay traders, years before, and taught to all the Northwest Indians to simplify trading with the different tribes.
I soon mastered Chinook, practicing on the two “breed” boys and any Indians that happened into the jail. I had given up hope of escape. I was bare-handed. Even the tin spoon I ate my stew with was taken away when the meal was finished. The jailer disliked me from the first. He would come into the jail corridor roaring drunk at night, rout out the two “breeds,” and have them unlock my cell and search “the damned Yank,” while he stood away brandishing a big gun. They never found anything; there was nothing there.
One day he came in with a scared-looking China boy about twenty years old. “Yank, here’s a cellmate for you.” He locked the Chinese in, thinking he was punishing me. The China boy later proved the jailer’s undoing and my deliverance. He knew some Chinook, but not one word of English. I learned from the Indian trusty that he was held for trial, charged with stealing a considerable sum of money from hisemployer, and that his case was about as hopeless as mine.
We got along great. I taught him the alphabet and many words of English while he instructed me in Chinese. I even humbled myself to ask the jailer for pencil and paper to teach the Chink writing. He went down to his office at once and brought me a lead pencil and pad of paper. I was surprised, and so grateful I thanked him half a dozen times.
Inside of a week he got drunk and ordered his Indians to take them away from me. I asked him no more for anything, and to this day I believe he gave them to me anticipating the warm, grateful, pleasant thrill he would get from depriving me of them.
The China boy’s company got him a lawyer. When he came to the jail he called me out and offered to take my case. I could have got money by writing to Salt Chunk Mary, but it looked like waste to fight it. When I asked him straight out if he could do anything with the conductor, he was shocked, indignant. “Oh, ah, but, my man! Tamper with the Crown’s witness, what?” He left as if I had the plague, and I don’t doubt he reported me to the prosecutor.
I’ve had a lot of dealings with Chinamen and never got the worst of it from one. If a Chinese doesn’t like you he will keep away from you; if he does like you he will go the route. By signs and a few words I conveyed to my cellmate that our only hope was to beat the jail. There was a barred window in our cell, the outside was not guarded. All we needed was a hack saw. He was for it. His “cousins” visited him regularly every week and if they could be made to understand what we needed they would get it.
There was but one hardware store in the town and to buy the saws there might cause talk. I had him tell his “cousins” to send to Vancouver to their company for them. After weeks of anxiety and uncertainty and much negotiating with their friends at Vancouver the precious saws were put into my cellmate’s hands under the drunken jailer’s nose. My plan was simple. Wait till spring when, if we got out and failed to get a train we could take a chance on foot in the country away from the railroad. Night after night we listened to the trains arriving and departing, checking the time. A freight train departed immediately after the one o’clock passenger. If I could “spring” into a box car, we could make Vancouver in safety. I secreted the saws and we settled down to wait for softer weather.