第15章 HOLDING UP A TRAIN(4)

But, in my opinion, the main condition that makes train robbing easy is the element of surprise in connection with the imagination of the passengers.If you have ever seen a horse that has eaten loco weed you will understand what I mean when I say that the passengers get locoed.

That horse gets the awfullest imagination on him in the world.You can't coax him to cross a little branch stream two feet wide.It looks as big to him as the Mississippi River.That's just the way with the passenger.

He thinks there are a hundred men yelling and shooting outside, when maybe there are only two or three.And the muzzle of a forty-five looks like the entrance to a tunnel.The passenger is all right, although he may do mean little tricks, like hiding a wad of money in his shoe and forgetting to dig-up until you jostle his ribs some with the end of your six-shooter;but there's no harm in him.

As to the train crew, we never had any more trouble with them than if they had been so many sheep.I don't mean that they are cowards; I mean that they have got sense.They know they're not up against a bluff.It's the same way with the officers.I've seen secret service men, marshals, and railroad detectives fork over their change as meek as Moses.I saw one of the bravest marshals I ever knew hide his gun under his seat and dig up along with the rest while I was taking toll.He wasn't afraid; he simply knew that we had the drop on the whole outfit.Besides, many of those officers have families and they feel that they oughtn't to take chances;whereas death has no terrors for the man who holds up a train.He expects to get killed some day, and he generally does.My advice to you, if you should ever be in a hold-up, is to line up with the cowards and save your bravery for an occasion when it may be of some benefit to you.Another reason why officers are backward about mixing things with a train robber is a financial one.Every time there is a scrimmage and somebody gets killed, the officers lose money.If the train robber gets away they swear out a warrant against John Doe et al.and travel hundreds of miles and sign vouchers for thousands on the trail of the fugitives, and the Government foots the bills.So, with them, it is a question of mileage rather than courage.

I will give one instance to support my statement that the surprise is the best card in playing for a hold-up.

Along in '92 the Daltons were cutting out a hot trail for the officers down in the Cherokee Nation, Those were their lucky days, and they got so reckless and sandy, that they used to announce before hand what job they were going to undertake.Once they gave it out that they were going to hold up the M.K.& T.flyer on a certain night at the station of Pryor Creek, in Indian Territory.

That night the railroad company got fifteen deputy marshals in Muscogee and put them on the train.Beside them they had fifty armed men hid in the depot at Pryor Creek.