My mistake in not checking Swede Pete the night before was not repeated here. When the final night came I stood in the snowstorm outside the window, cap pulled down and overcoat buttoned up, looking carelessly at the cheap articles he left there overnight. When he locked his safe as usual, I went back to my room across the street and saw him secure his front door, put out the lights, and go back into his bedroom.

At one o’clock I was at the back door of the store and after a few minutes of the most careful work I stood in the warm workshop where a big stove still glowed in the dark. The doors inside were open to allow the warm air passage into the sleeper’s room and the front room beyond. I had all the luck at last.

There was no serious obstacle. The sleeper slept on. The safe door opened as easy for me as for him. The inside of the safe was like a beehive⁠—fifty watches, wound up, ticked noisily. Some years ago jewelers thought watches should be kept running all or part of the time to insure perfection. I believe this is no longer done. For fear their ticking should wake the sleeper when I passed through his room on my way out, I wrapped them in their box in my overcoat. Taking nothing else except some gold rings, all the stones, and what money was in the cash drawer, I closed the safe, went back out the rear door and, closing it carefully, departed unseen.

All my junk went into a grain bag at the corral, where I kept the old cayuse. He was gentle as a dog, but the ticking of the watches almost drove him frantic. He reared and pawed and snorted in fear. I couldn’t get into the saddle, and had to snub him up to a tree where, for ten or fifteen minutes, I let him listen to the ticks and get over his fright. At last he cooled off and allowed me to mount him and turn his head south toward the line. Riding away, I looked back over the night’s work and thought with satisfaction that no human being could possibly suspect me of it.