"I had been with Bill in the main layout in the next room, and we heard the shout of Gilpin. That’s what took us in there. Jink made his talk, which was a pretty hot and threatening one, and he was backed up in it pretty forcibly by all the rest of his gang.
"’Well, Gately jumped, that’s all,’ said Reeves. ’What am I going to do about it?’
"’Hand over $5200, quick,’ said McAtee and some others of his bunch.
"’I haven’t got anything like that much money in the place,’ said Reeves. ’But I’ll give you a check for it on the bank down the way.’
"They demurred over the check proposition for awhile, but they finally took Bill Reeves’s check for $5200. While they were demurring, Bill Reeves had a chance to scribble a note to the cashier of the bank, telling him not to cash the check when it would be presented—to make some excuse about not having just that amount of money on hand, or something of that sort. Now, I didn’t want to be in that place at all just then, but there was no way of my getting out. I had come into the room with Bill Reeves, and I knew that if I tried to mosey away I’d be called back; that they figured me to have some sort of connection with the layout, which I didn’t.
"Jink took the check and went over to the bank to get the money. The cashier turned the check down on the ground that he had just shipped most of the bank’s money to St. Louis. We knew that there was going to be trouble and a whole lot of it when Jink got back from the bank with that word, and I don’t think any of us expected to last much longer. Jink came a-loping back from the bank, and when he came into the room and tore up the check with appropriate remarks his gang all lined up together, and we figured it that the shooting was going to begin right then. When the whole situation looked so squally that I had my eye on the nearest window to drop out of, Arthur Pendleton popped into the room.
"’What’s all this?’ he yelled, for there was a lot of clicking going on in the room. Jink and his gang thought they saw a final chance of getting their money. So, smoldering, they told the story to Pendleton. Pendleton was a shrewd man, a forceful talker, and a diplomat from away back.
"’All the money I’ve got, or that there is in the roll just now,’ he said, ’is $600,’ pulling the roll out of his pocket. ’You are perfectly welcome to that. When Gately comes back, or when you get him, as I wish you would, you can have the rest that’s coming to you out of the roll he pinched.’