“There is one bad objection to a safety box for a thief. The coppers are beginning to get wise that they are the greatest receptacles of loot in the world. They are loaded with stolen money, jewelry, bonds; and the larger boxes are often used to store smuggled opium and other contraband drugs. The coppers hang around them, doing a little locating themselves, and if I were known in the town I wouldn’t think of having anything crooked in one of them. I will pay for the box, and tell them I play poker and may want to get money before or after banking hours, and that you are to have access to it at any time.”

He got two keys and gave me one. “You can carry the key with you if you want, kid. There’s nothing crooked in the box yet, but if there is later on, and I hope there will be, you must plant it till you need it. And here goes the receipt,” he said, tearing it to bits and giving them to the wind.

“Tomorrow, Kid, while we have plenty of coin, I want you to get a couple of guns. Thirty-eights,” and he named a certain standard make. “No other kind, remember. You heard what Soldier Johnnie said, and he knew what he was doing. I suppose you’ll go to the first hardware store for them, eh?” he said rather severely.

Those were the good, or bad, old days when any wild-eyed maniac could rush into a hardware store or pawnshop with money enough and buy a gun, guaranteed to kill a man a block away. They would take the number of it, to be sure, in order to get witness fees if the gun worked properly. Today it’s a little more difficult to buy a gun in California. The better stores will not sell them unless the purchaser has a permit. The other stores, and they are quite numerous, take your money today for the gun, and tomorrow you go to the store and get it.

“Oh, I don’t know, I might look around a bit,” I said. “How about getting them in a hockshop?”