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 houses in the village.  Slipped the fellow into the vault with his hands tied and shut the door with a trig so that he couldn’t kick it open right away.  Idea was that anybody stepping in later would think he had gone home; we intended to put out the light; nothing desperate about us; we wouldn’t shoot the bolts.  Bill said to Tom that there’d be a hunt for the fellow when he failed to show up at home, wherever he lived, and he’d sure be pulled out of the vault in good season.  Thoughtful, you see!  Not bloody villains.  Simply wanted time for our getaway.  Slow pulling up this hill with handsleds!  But we slit a bag to make sure of what we would be pulling.  And we kept on slitting bags.  And—­” the short man shook his head and sighed.  “You say it, Tom.  I’m trying to be sociable in this talk with these gents—­showing a full and free spirit in coming across with the facts.  But I don’t trust myself!”

“Nor 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.”