American Gun: A History of the U.S. In Ten Firearms by Chris Kyle, William Doyle

up as they passed, realized something was up, and discreetly trailed them as they split up and entered the banks.
    I suspect the rifles they were packin’ gave them away.
    “God damn you! Hold up your hands!” ordered Grat Dalton as he pointed his Winchester inside Condon Bank. With his confederates Bill Power and Dick Broadwell spreading out behind him, Grat told bank employees to fill up a grain sack with cash and silver dollars. Then he went over to the main vault and told one of the bankers to open the inner doors.
    Which prompted bank cashier Charles Ball to utter the most famous lie in the Old West.
    “It’s not time for that to open,” he told the outlaw, explaining that the burglarproof money chest was on a time lock that wouldn’t open for ten minutes. Another employee helpfully turned the handle, but did not pull it.
    Time locks had been around in the West for a while, and Grat was familiar enough with them to recognize that the contraption on the door was indeed such a lock. What he didn’t know was that it had gone off earlier that morning; if he’d’ve simply pulled the handle himself, it would have swung open free and easy. But he fell for the bluff.
    “We can wait ten minutes,” he announced.
    But patience wasn’t his strong suit. Soon he began to fidget, then stalk back and forth. Finally he exploded. “God damn you! I believe you are lying to me. I’ve a mind to put a bullet through you! Open it up or I will shoot you!”
    Ball stuck to his story.
    “Where is your gold?” demanded Grat finally.
    “We haven’t any,” said the banker. Ball then evaded Grat’s questioning with a stream of unintelligible banking lingo, explaining why this was the case.
    Meanwhile, inside the First National Bank around the corner, Bob and Emmett Dalton were also being bluffed by bank employees, including one who insisted he didn’t know the combination to the safe. Finally deciding that time was wastin’, they filled up a bag with what they could find from the teller stations and patrons. This wasn’t chicken feed: a total of twenty thousand dollars went into the sacks. But the Daltons felt like they’d been gypped anyway. Swearing and shouting, they took three civilians hostage as human shields, and moved to the door.
    The delay at both banks had been long enough for the good citizens of Coffeyville to arm themselves, courtesy of the gun dealers at the hardware stores. The decision to go to war against the Daltons seems to have been spontaneous, but sometimes spur of the moment is the best way to do things. Volunteers sprinted to the scene from all over town, many of them gathering at Isham Brothers hardware store, right next to the First National Bank. The staff at Isham’s, along with their rivals at A. P. Boswell’s hardware store a short distance away, gave guns and ammo away to all comers as fast as they could grab them from the display.
    The civilian gunmen scrambled into positions around the two banks. Several men hauled wagons together to create cover. One store owner grabbed a Colt .44 from his basement and ducked behind a wooden sign. A wagon driver pulled a double-barreled shotgun off the shelf at Isham’s and hid behind a post that gave him a point-blank view of the First National Bank. The proprietor of Isham’s ducked behind a big iron stove in the front of the store, backed up by two of his clerks, one with a revolver and the other with a Winchester.
    “Look out there at the left!” Emmett yelled to Bob as he cleared the doorway to the sidewalk. Two citizens blasted the robbers with a Winchester and Colt .44 from the doorway of the Rammel Brothers’ drugstore. They missed, but the Daltons were driven back into the bank, frantically searching for a back exit. One hostage broke free and scrambled across the street, where he grabbed a Winchester of his own to join the opposition. A firestorm of lead sailed into the First National.
    Over at the Condon bank, Grat and his men gave up