Raymond S. Spears

“ They stopped to close and lock the door, too, and, when they went down the levee, they were conscious of the fact that, when the policeman came along on his beat, he would see nothing wrong in the store, except that the electric light had burned out.
The sand was loose on the bar, and that made lugging the safe a hard proposition. They grunted as they stumbled and staggered along—the involuntary grunts of men heavily burdened. A little noise did not alarm them, nor would it alarm any one. The banks of the Mississippi are strangely silent at times and curiously noisy at other times. ”

“ Long arms reached out through it; horrors crawled along under the dark. And several sets of teeth chattered and clicked out there on the sand-bar.
The long, rising, screaming shrill of a policeman’s whistle shot through the fog like a bullet—or explosion—with the sting of a freezing gale. ”

“ They entered the famous “Duck and Deer” store, and one sweep of the flash disclosed the fact that it contained goods to please their fancy. They wasted no time on imagination, however; they set to work.
They dumped boxes of ammunition into bags; they caught up and tied rifles and shotguns into rolls; they filled a big tub with jack-knives and other cutlery—with flashlights, compasses, fishing-tackle and other sporting-goods-store material—and scurried across the street, down the wharf and over the sand-bar to the shanty-boat moored in the gray gloom. ”