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Then he brought out the weapons.

He made a little speech about these weapons. They were the latest model of automatic pistols, each precisely like the others. He said it was a great mistake to go out with a different variety of weapons because in a protracted fight there could be no exchange of ammunition.

His voice drawled with nervous jerks at the end of it. He might have been lecturing to a Sunday school. He asked me if I understood the weapon. I did not understand it and said so.

“Well,” he said, “it is simple enough. You have only to pull the trigger and keep on pulling it; whatever happens will be over by the time you get to the last cartridge. Don’t worry about it, my son.”

He added another direction:

“Turn the muzzle up when you shoot; it don’t do any good to hit ’em.”

He made a little ridiculous gesture.

“The maneuvers of train robbing,” he said, “are directed against the mind.”

Then he explained what each of us was to do.

White was to use the ax in order to break in the door of the express car. He, Mooney, would be the gunman, and it was my part in the business to stand on the platform between the express car and the next passenger coach to keep back the conductor or any one else who might attempt to go forward into the train.