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Title: The Wire Devils

Author: Frank L. Packard

Release Date: May 16, 2016 [EBook #52084]
Last Updated: March 13, 2018

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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THE WIRE DEVILS

By Frank L. Packard

Author of “Greater Love Hath No Man,” “The Adventure of Jimmie
Dale,” Etc.

A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York

1918




CONTENTS

THE WIRE DEVILS

I—THE SECRET CODE

II—THE TEN-DOLLAR COUNTERFEIT NOTE

III-THE PAYMASTER'S SAFE

IV—AT BALD CREEK STATION

V—IN WHICH A CASH BOX DISAPPEARS

VI—SOME OF THE LITTLE SPIDERS

VII—WANTED—THE HAWK—DEAD OR ALIVE

VIII—THREADS IN THE WEB

IX—THE LOOTING OF THE FAST MAIL

X—THE THIRD PARTY

XI—THE LEAD CAPSULE

XII—BLINDMAN'S-BUFF

XIII—THE MAN WITH THE SCAR

XIV—THE CLUE

XV—THE LADYBIRD

XVI—AN EVEN BREAK

XVII—A HOLE IN THE WALL

XVIII—THE HAWK PACKS HIS VALISE

XIX—BIRDS OF A FEATHER

XX—“CONFIDENTIAL” CORRESPONDENCE




THE WIRE DEVILS




I—THE SECRET CODE

TWO switch lights twinkled; one at the east, and one at the west end of
the siding. For the rest all was blackness. Half way between the
switch lights, snuggled close against the single-tracked main line,
the station, little more than a shanty and too insignificant to boast a
night operator, loomed up shadowy and indistinct. Away to the westward,
like jagged points sticking up into the night and standing out in relief
against the skyline, the Rockies reared their peaks. And the spell of
the brooding mountains seemed to lie over all the desolate, butte-broken
surrounding country—for all was utter silence.

And then there came a sound, low at first, like a strange muttering from
somewhere to the westward.

It died away, grew louder, was hushed again—and broke into a sustained
roar. Came then the quick, short gasps of the exhaust—it was a
freight, and a heavy one. And suddenly, from up the track, circling
an intervening butte, an electric headlight cut streaming through the
black. It touched the little station in a queerly inquisitive way in the
sweep of its arc, lingered an instant over the platform, then swung to
the right of way, and held there, the metals glistening like polished
silver ribbons under the flood of light.

Straining, panting at its load, reddening the sky as the fire-box door
was flung open, the big tenwheeler stormed by, coughing the sparks
heavenward from its stack. The roar in the still night grew deafening,
as boxcar, flat and gondola, lurching, swaying, clanking, groaning,
an endless string, tugging at one another, grinding their flanges,
screaming as they took up the axle play, staggered with a din infernal
past the lonely and unlighted station.

The roar sank into a gradually diminishing murmur. The tail-lights
winked like mischievous little red eyes in the distance—and vanished.

All was stillness and that brooding silence again.

And then a man's form, like a black shadow in the darkness, rose from
the trackside, and crept to the platform, and along the platform to the
station door.

The man bent forward, and the round, white ray of a pocket flashlight
played upon the lock. He examined the lock for an instant appraisingly,
then drew a bunch of skeleton keys from his pocket, and, selecting one
of the number without hesitation, unlocked the door, stepped inside, and
closed the door behind him.

The flashlight swept in a circle around the interior of the little
station. There were but two rooms—the small waiting room which he had
entered, and in which he now stood; and, partitioned off from this, the
door open, a still smaller inner room, the agent's office. He moved at
once into the latter, and his flashlight, swiftly now, searched around
the walls and held upon the clock. It was six minutes to ten.

“Pretty close work!” muttered the man. “Six minutes to wait.”

The ray travelled now over the operator's table, and from the table
to the switchboard. He reached out, “cut in” the office circuit,
listened for an instant as the sounder began to chatter—then the ray
swept over the table again. Under a newspaper, that the day man had
apparently flung down at haphazard on leaving the office, he found a pad
of telegraph blanks, from which, evidently wary of the consequences
of using a pad with its resultant tell-tale impressions on the under
sheets, he tore off a sheet and laid it down ready to hand before him.

This done, he nodded complacently, sat down in the operator's chair,
tilted the chair back, put his feet up on the table, and coolly picked
up the newspaper. It was the evening edition of the Selkirk City
Journal, that had presumably been tossed off at the station by a
charitable train crew of some late afternoon train out from the city.
He held the paper in one hand, the flashlight in the other, scanned the
page, which happened to be an inner one, cursorily, turned it over,
and suddenly leaned forward a little in his seat. He was staring at
the headline at the top right-hand corner of the front page. NOTORIOUS
CRIMINAL RELEASED FROM SING SING POLICE ARE WARNED THAT MAN MAY BE IN
THIS VICINITY HARRY MAUL, ALIAS THE HAWK, KNOWN TO BE IN THE WEST

The telegraph sounder chattered volubly for an instant, as though to
challenge and silence the raucous ticking of the clock, and ended in a
splutter of wrath, as it were, at the futility of its attempt. The clock
ticked on. There was no other sound. And then the man spoke aloud.

“That's me,” he said. “The Hawk.” The paper rattled in his
hand. There was a twisted smile on his lips in the darkness. “I guess
I'm pretty well known.”

The Hawk's eyes fixed on the text, and he began to read:

“It is reported that Harry Maul, better known to the police as
the Hawk, safe-breaker, forger and thief, one of the cleverest
'gentleman' crooks in the country, who is at large again after a
five-years' penitentiary term, is somewhere in the West.

“The crime wave that has recently been sweeping over Selkirk City
and its vicinity, and particularly the daring and, in too many cases,
successful outrages with which the railroad officials and detectives
have been called upon to cope of late, may, as a very plausible theory,
have lured the Hawk here as to a promising field in which to resume his
criminal operations. Certain it is that, while we have been the victims
of a band of mysterious desperadoes for some time past, the last week
or so has seen a very marked increase in the number of crimes that have
been committed—a significant coincidence with the Hawk's release
from Sing Sing.

“A twenty-thousand-dollar diamond necklace was stolen from a private
car two nights ago; there was an express car robbery on Monday of this
week; and a sleeping car was thoroughly and systematically looted the
night before. True, it is mere conjecture to connect the Hawk with these
in any way, since the gang that has been operating in this neighbourhood
has proved itself quite capable of all and more than this without any
outside and highly specialised assistance, and it would appear is in no
whit inferior in resource and devilish ingenuity to the best, or worst,
that Sing Sing has to offer in the shape of this so-called Hawk; but,
out of conjecture, one question naturally suggests itself.

“Granting the presence of the Hawk, is he here as a rival of the
criminals of whose existence we are already only too well aware, or
is he one of them through old-time associations before Sing Sing put a
temporary check upon his activities?”

There was more—a virulent outpouring of wrath at the intolerable
extent to which the community, its life and property, was being
endangered, and a promise of summary vengeance upon the criminals if
caught.

“Quite so!” murmured the Hawk, lowering his feet slowly to the
floor. “I guess it wouldn't be healthy to get caught around these
parts. I have a feeling that it would be the nearest telegraph pole
instead of a trial!”

He tossed the newspaper back on the table. The sounder, spasmodic in its
chatter, for the moment was still. All was silence, profound, absolute.
Then the clock struck, loud, resonant, smashing through the silence,
startling. And at the same instant the sounder broke into a quick
tattoo. The Hawk snatched a pencil from his pocket, and jerked his body
forward—then relaxed again.

“Stray stuff,” he muttered. “Got in ahead of him. We'll get it
in a minute now.”

Pencil poised in his hand, the flashlight playing on the blank sheet
of paper before him, the Hawk waited. The sounder ceased—and almost
instantly broke again, rattling sharply through the room. The Hawk
nodded, as his pencil began to travel across the paper.

“'mtlky'—stroke at five. Two-three-one tonight,” he said
aloud.

Without pause, without hesitation, without the slightest indication of
spacing to break its continuity, the sounder rattled on—and finally,
as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped.

On the sheet of paper the Hawk had written this:

mtlkyeqodktrpcvkqlmtp kpwrtrgtftuqcyqtnt tsghv ukopgfkxtiku kqprelcn
rcatocuvgdatf gumttlvgpvjf qwucpmtfkp uckjihg vqptkijvrsa wvpxodtt
dgtqprg qplqosd

He reached out for the pad, tore off another sheet, and in two parallel
columns set down the letters of the alphabet, one column transposed.
There was a faint smile on his lips, as he turned again to the cipher
and began to write in another line of letters under the original
message.

“I wonder what Poe and his predominant 'e' would do with this!”
he chuckled. “'Combi'—stroke two. Key letter—stroke three.”
He frowned the next instant. “What's this! Ah—stroke three,
instead of one.” He completed the transposition, stared at the several
lines which were now scattered with vertically crossed-out letters,
whistled low under his breath, and a grim look settled on his face.

The message now read:

—-combi—natio—-ninup-perdr—eftsi—dediv—sion—al
paymasterdesk—fousan dinsaj—feton-ight-autnum—-beron-eonjob

Mechanically, he separated words and sentences, and, eliminating the
superfluous letters, wrote out the translation at the bottom of the
sheet:

“Combination in upper drawer left side divisional paymaster ('.)
desk. Ten thousand in safe to-night. Put Number One on job.”

The Hawk stood up, “plugged out” the station circuit, and, gathering
up the two sheets of paper he had used, put them in his pocket; then,
leaving the door of the operator's room open behind him, as he had
found it, he stepped out from the station to the platform, and, with his
skeleton key, relocked the station door. He stood for a moment
staring up and down the track. The switchlights blinked back at him
confidentially. He listened. The eastbound freight, from which he
had jumped some twenty minutes before, would cross Extra No. 83, the
westbound way freight, at Elkton, seven miles away, but there was no
sound of the latter as yet.

He turned then, and, jumping from the platform to the track, swung into
a dog-trot along the roadbed. The Hawk smiled contentedly to himself.
It was all timed to a nicety! A mile or so to the west, the right of way
rose in a stiff grade that the way freight would be able to negotiate at
no better speed than the pace at which a man could crawl. He could make
the distance readily, board her there, and the way freight would get
him to Selkirk—and the divisional paymaster's office!—by about
midnight.

He ran on, the swing and ease of a trained athlete in his stride. And,
as he ran, he took the sheets of paper from his pocket, and, tearing
them into small fragments, scattered the pieces at intervals here and
there.

He reached the foot of the grade, and paused to look back along the
track, as suddenly from behind him came the hoarse scream of an engine
whistle. That was the way freight now, whistling perfunctorily for the
deserted station! He had made the grade in plenty of time, though the
nearer to the top he could get the better, for the freight, requiring
all the initial impetus it could attain, would hit the foot of the grade
wide open.

The Hawk broke into a run again, glancing constantly back over his
shoulder as he sped on up the grade. And then, when he was well on
toward the summit, opening the night like a blazing disk as it rounded a
curve, he caught the gleam of the headlight. It grew larger and
larger, until, beginning to fling a luminous pathway up the track
that, gradually lengthening, crept nearer and nearer to him, he
swerved suddenly, plunged down the embankment, and, well away from the
trackside, dropped flat upon the ground.

The engine, slowed, was grunting heavily on the incline as it strained
by the spot where he lay; there was the glimmer of the front-end
brakeman's lamp from the top of one of the forward cars—and, with a
quick, appraising glance to measure the length of the train, the Hawk,
on hands and knees, crawled forward, and up the embankment, and, in the
shadow of the rolling cars themselves, stood up. There would be sharp
eyes watching from the cupola of the caboose. He laughed a little. And
not only the train crew there, perhaps! The railroad detectives, at
their wits' ends, had acquired the habit of late of turning up in the
most unexpected places!

A boxcar rolled by him, another, and still another—but the Hawk's
eyes were fixed a little further along toward the rear on an open space,
where, in the darkness, a flat car gave the appearance of a break in the
train. The flat car came abreast of him. He caught the iron foot-rung,
jumped, and, with a powerful, muscular swing, flung himself aboard.

The car was loaded with some kind of carriage, or wagon,
tarpaulin-covered. The Hawk crawled in under the tarpaulin, and lay down
upon his back, pillowing his head on a piece of timber that blocked the
carriage wheels.

The train topped the grade, gained speed, and roared on through the
night. Occasionally, during what was close to a two-hours' run, it
stopped at intermediate stations, and the Hawk peered furtively out from
under the tarpaulin to locate the surroundings, with which he appeared
to be intimately familiar; and once, nearing the end of the run, as
the faint-suffused glow from the city's lights in the distance showed
under the shadows of the towering peaks, he spoke aloud, “Ten thousand
dollars,” remarked the Hawk pleasantly. “Nice picking for a few
hours' work—ten thousand dollars!”




II—THE TEN-DOLLAR COUNTERFEIT NOTE

THE Hawk crawled out from under the tarpaulin and dropped to the ground,
as the freight, slowing down, began to patter in over the spur switches
of the Selkirk yard. He darted, bent low, across several spurs to escape
the possibility of observation from the freight's caboose; then began
to make his way toward the roundhouse ahead of him. He would have
to pass around behind the roundhouse in order to get up opposite the
station and the divisional offices. The Hawk glanced sharply about
him as he moved along. He dodged here and there like some queer,
irresponsible phantom flitting amongst the low, myriad red, green and
purple lights that dotted the yard; and he carefully avoided those other
lights, the white lights of the yardsmen, now bobbing as the men ran up
and down, now swinging from the footboard of a passing switcher, that
seemed to be unusually ubiquitous—for the Hawk was secretive, and for
certain good and valid reasons was possessed of an earnest desire that
no stranger should be reported prowling around the railroad yard that
night.

He reached the roundhouse, stepped close up against the wall to take
advantage of the security afforded by the shadows, and began to circle
the building. The Hawk was treading silently now. Halfway around the
building he halted abruptly, his head cocked suddenly in a listening
attitude toward a small, open and lighted window on a level with his
shoulders, and in order to pass which he had just been on the point of
stooping down.

“I think,” said the Hawk softly to himself, “I think this sounds
as though it interested me.”

He crept cautiously forward, and from the edge of the window glanced
inside. It was the turner's “cubbyhole,” or office. The door was
closed, and two men were standing there, talking earnestly. The
Hawk's face, dimly outlined now in the window light, smooth-shaven,
square-jawed, the eyes and forehead hidden by the brim of the slouch
hat that was pulled forward almost to the bridge of his nose, set with
a curious and significant smile. It was not a bad place for a private
conference! He had thought he had recognised the voice—and he had not
been mistaken. The big, heavy-built, thin-lipped, pugnacious-faced man
was MacVightie, the head of the railroad's detective force; the other,
a smaller man, with alert grey eyes, his forehead furrowed anxiously,
whose clenched hand rested on the table, was Lanson, the division
superintendent.

“I don't know, damn it, MacVightie!” Lanson was saying savagely.
“I don't know what to think, or believe—I only know that a Pullman
hold-up one night, a twenty-thousand-dollar necklace stolen the next,
an express car looted, and several other little pleasant episodes all
jammed one on top of the other, means hell to pay out here and nothing
to pay it with, unless we can do something almighty quick!”

“Any more of those messages?” inquired MacVightie—there was an
ominous abstraction in his tones.

“Yes—to-night.”

“Make anything of it?”

“No,” said Lanson; “and I think it's about time to put a kink
in that little business, whether they mean anything or not. This
cat-and-mouse game we've been playing isn't——”

“We'll get back to that in a minute,” interrupted MacVightie
quietly. “Here's a little something else that may possibly fit into
the combination.” He reached into his pocket, took out his pocketbook,
opened it, and handed the division superintendent a crisp new ten-dollar
note.

The Hawk's lips thinned instantly, and he swore sharply under his
breath.

“What's this?” asked Lanson, in surprise. “Phony!” said
MacVightie laconically. “Counterfeit!” Lanson turned the note over
in his hands, staring at first one side and then the other. “Are you
sure? I'd take it any time.”

“You'd have lots of company with you”—there was a sudden rasp
in the detective's voice. “Pretty good one, isn't it? The East is
being flooded with them. Two of them showed up in the banks here in the
city yesterday, and one to-day.”

Lanson frowned perplexedly.

“I don't get you, MacVightie,” he said.

“Suppose they were being struck off around here,” suggested
MacVightie curtly. “I don't say they are, but suppose it were
so. They'd likely be shoved out as far away from this locality as
possible, wouldn't they—back East, say. They're so good that a
jag of them got by before they began to be detected—and now suppose we
assume that they're beginning to sift back around the country.”

“Well?”

“Well”—MacVightie caught the superintendent up quickly—“I
didn't say I could prove it; but, coupled with the fact that I happen
to know that the police have traced the work back to somewhere west of
Chicago, I've got a hunch that the gang that is operating around here
and the crowd that is turning out the phony money is the same outfit.
The Lord knows”—he smiled bitterly—“they're clever enough! And
to go back to those messages now. If there was anything in them at
all, anything more than some irresponsible idiot tampering with a key
somewhere, we were face to face, not with a mere gang of train robbers,
but with an organised criminal league as dangerous and powerful as has
ever existed in this country—and that's what made me hesitate. We
couldn't afford to take any chances, to start out after a mare's
nest, and we had to make as nearly sure of our ground as possible before
we played a card. We went on the principle that if it was only somebody
playing the goat, he'd get tired of it before long if no one paid
any attention to him; if it meant anything more than that, he'd keep
on.” MacVightie's pugnacious face screwed up into a savage grimace.
“Well, maybe this counterfeiting idea has had something to do with
deciding me, but, anyway, I'm satisfied now. He has kept on. And I'm
satisfied now that those messages are a cipher code that the gang is
using, and that our cat-and-mouse play, as you call it, instead of being
abortive, is exactly what's going to land our men for us. That's
one thing I came to tell you to-night—that I'm ready now to take the
gloves off on this wire game.”

Lanson smashed his fist down on the table top. “Good!” he exclaimed
grimly. “I'd like to make things hot for somebody, and it'll at
least be easy enough to catch whoever is using the wire.” MacVightie
shook his head.

“Oh, no; it won't!” he said evenly. “I didn't mean to give you
that impression, and don't you make the mistake of under-estimating
the brains we're up against, Lanson. I'm no expert on telegraphy,
that's your end of it, but I know they wouldn't sit in on any game
where they didn't hold trumps up their sleeves. Get me? Now let's
see what it looks like. As I understand it, these messages, no matter
from what point on the division they are sent, would be heard on every
sounder on the line—that's right, isn't it?”

“Yes—sure! Of course!” agreed Lanson.

“And it might be an operator working with them as an inside man;
or, with the necessary outfit, the wire could be tapped at any point,
couldn't it?”

“Yes,” said Lanson; “but the minute he starts in, we could begin
to 'ground' him out.”

“Go on!” invited MacVightie. “I'm listening.”

“We could tell whether he was working east or west of any given
point,” explained the superintendent; “and, with the operators
instructed beforehand, practically narrow him down to, say, between two
stations.”

The Hawk, as he, too, listened, permitted an amused smile to flicker
across his lips.

“Um!” said MacVightie. “And would he be aware that this
'grounding' process was going on?”

“Yes—naturally,” admitted Lanson. “We can't prevent that.”

MacVightie shook his head again.

“That doesn't sound good to me,” he said slowly. “All he'd
have to do would be to beat it then—and the next time start in fifty
miles away, and you'd have to begin all over again. And, besides,
who's receiving the messages? You can't put any tabs on that. Every
sounder from Selkirk City to Rainy River registers them, and all
a man's got to do is listen. You see, Lanson, it's not so
easy—eh?”

Lanson frowned.

“Well, what do you suggest?” he asked uncomfortably. “We can stop
it.”

“But we don't want to stop it!” returned MacVightie. “We could
have done that from the first. What we want is our man now. And it
strikes me that the first thing to do is to find out whether one of our
own operators is in on this or not. Unless the line is tapped somewhere,
it's a cinch that a station key is being used, isn't it? Send some
linemen that you can trust over the division. If they find anything at
all, they'll find the spot where the messages are coming from, won't
they? If they find nothing, we'll know we've got to look nearer
home—amongst our own men.”

Lanson, in his turn, shook his head.

“Not necessarily,” he objected. “We've a number of small
stations where there's no night operator. They might have got into one
of those. The messages all come through at night.”

“Well, I'll call the turn there!” responded Mac-Vightie, with a
short laugh. “See that I get a list of those stations in the morning,
and I'll detail men to take care of that end of it.”

The Hawk drew back a little, shifting his strained position—the amused
smile was no longer on his lips.

“And as for that 'ground' business,” went on Mac-Vightie, “go
slow with it till you get your linemen's report. Don't do any more
than try it out with some operator you can absolutely depend upon, say,
about halfway down the line. You say you would be able to tell whether
the messages were coming from east or west of that point; that'll
cut the division in half for us as far as our search is concerned, and
that's worth taking a chance on. But don't overdo it, Lanson. We
don't want to throw any scare into him—yet.”

“All right,” agreed Lanson. “I'll start things moving to-night.
Martin, at Bald Creek, will be the best man, I guess. I'll send a
letter down to him on No. 8.”

“And warn him to make no reports by wire,” cautioned MacVightie.

“All right—yes, naturally,” agreed the superintendent again.
Then, after a short pause, anxiously: “Anything turned up at all,
MacVightie? Any clue to that necklace? The governor's wife is making a
holler that's reached from here to the road's directors down in Wall
Street.”

“Damn it,” growled MacVightie. “I'm well enough aware of
it—but the necklace isn't any more important than any one of the
other affairs, is it? No; there's nothing—not a blamed thing!”

“Well, what about this Sing Sing convict, the Hawk, that the papers
are featuring to-night?” Lanson asked. “Anything in that?”

“I don't know—maybe,” McVightie answered viciously. “He's
only one more, anyway. This gang was operating before he was
released—and it's likely enough, if they're old pals of his, that
he's come out here to give them a hand. The New York police say
he went to Chicago immediately after his release, two weeks ago. The
Chicago police reported him there, and then he disappeared; then Denver
spotted him a few days later—and that's the last that's been
seen of him. You can make what you like of that. He's certainly been
hitting a pretty straight trail west. He wasn't stopped, of course,
because he isn't 'wanted' at present; he's only a man with a
bad record, and labelled dangerous. We were warned to look out for him,
that's all.”

“Got his description?” inquired Lanson.

“Yes”—MacVightie's laugh was a short bark. “Medium height,
broad-shouldered, muscular, black hair, black eyes, straight nose,
good-looking, and gentlemanly in appearance and manner, dresses well,
age twenty-four to twenty-six, no distinctive marks or disfigurement.”

“There's probably not more than twenty-five thousand men in Selkirk
City who would answer to every detail of that!” Lanson commented
sarcastically.

“Exactly!” admitted MacVightie. “And that's——”

The Hawk was creeping forward again in the shadows of the roundhouse.

“Yes, I guess it interested me,” muttered the Hawk; “I guess it
did. I guess I'm playing in luck to-night.”




III-THE PAYMASTER'S SAFE

FROM the roundhouse it was only a few yards to the rear of the long,
low-lying freight sheds and, unobserved, the Hawk gained this new
shelter. He stole quickly along to the further end of the sheds; and
there, crouched down again in the shadows, halted to make a critical
survey of his surroundings. .

Just in front of him, divided only by a sort of driveway for the
convenience of the teamsters, was the end wall of the station, and, in
the end wall—the window of the divisional paymaster's office. The
Hawk glanced to his left. The street upon which the station fronted, an
ill-savoured section of the city, was dark, dimly lighted, and deserted;
the only sign of life being the lighted windows of a saloon on
the corner of a narrow lane that bisected the block of somewhat
disreputable, tumble-down wooden structures that faced the station. To
his right, on the other side of the freight shed, the railroad yard
had narrowed down to the station tracks and a single spur alongside the
shed. There was no one in sight in either direction.

The Hawk's eyes strayed back to the paymaster's window. The station,
like its surrounding neighbours, was an old wooden building; and, being
low and only two-storied, the second-story window offered inviting
possibilities. From the sill of the lower window, a man who was at all
agile had the upper window at his mercy. Against this mode of attack,
however, was the risk of being seen by any one who might pass along
the street, or by any one who might chance upon the end of the station
platform.

“What's the use!” decided the Hawk, with an abrupt shrug of his
shoulders. “Play safe. There's a better way.”

The Hawk crept across the driveway, reached the street side of the
station, peered cautiously around the corner of the building, and,
satisfied that he was unobserved, edged down along the building for
a short distance, paused in a doorway, glanced quickly about him
again—and then the door opened and closed, and he was standing in a
murky passageway, that was lighted only by a single incandescent far
back by a stair well.

He stood motionless, listening. From above, through the stillness, came
the faint drumming of a telegraph key. There should be no one upstairs
now but the dispatcher, whose room was at the opposite end of the
building from the paymaster's office—and, possibly, with the
dispatcher, a call boy or two. And the hallway above, he could see, was
dark.

Moving stealthily forward, as noiseless as a cat in his tread, the Hawk
took a mask from his pocket, slipped it over his face, and began to
mount the stairs. He gained the landing—and halted again. It was pitch
black here, since even the door of the dispatcher's room, where there
would be a light, was closed.

And then once more the Hawk moved forward—and an instant later, the
paymaster's door at the extreme end of the corridor, under the deft
persuasion of his skeleton keys, had closed behind him.

It was not quite so dark here. The lights from the platform and the yard
filtered in through the window in a filmy sort of way; but it was too
dark to distinguish objects in anything more than grotesque, shapeless
outlines.

The Hawk produced his flashlight, and turned it upon the lock he had
just picked. It was a spring lock, opened readily from the inside by the
mere turning of the doorhandle. He tried it carefully, assuring himself
that it could not be opened from the corridor without a key—and then
his light swept around the room. It played in its circuit upon the
paymaster's flat-topped desk against the wall, and upon a large safe
in the corner, near the window, whose polished nickel dial sent back
an answering flash under the darting ray; but the Hawk, for the moment,
appeared to be interested in neither desk nor safe. The flashlight was
holding in a kind of dogged inquisitiveness upon another door close to
the window, and directly opposite the safe.

He stepped without a sound across the room, and, reaching this door,
snapped off his flashlight. He tried the door cautiously, found it
unlocked, and very softly opened it the space of an inch. He listened
attentively. There was no sound. He pushed the door open, switched on
his flashlight again, and stepped through the doorway. It appeared to be
a clerks' office—for the paymaster's staff, presumably. The Hawk
seemed to possess a peculiar penchant for doors. The only thing in the
room that apparently held any interest for him now was the door that
opened, like the paymaster's, upon the corridor. He slipped quickly
across the room, and, as before, examined the lock. Like the other, it
was a spring lock; and, like the other, he tested it to make sure it was
locked on the outside.

“Ten thousand dollars,” confided the Hawk to the lock, “isn't to
be picked up every night; and we can't afford to take any chances, you
know.”

He began to retrace his steps toward the paymaster's office, but now,
obviously, with more attention to the details of his surroundings, for
his flashlight kept dancing quick, jerky flashes in all directions about
him.

“Ah!” The exclamation, low-breathed, came suddenly. “I thought
there ought to be something like this around here!”

From, beside a desk, he stooped and picked up an empty pay satchel;
then, returning at once to the other office, but leaving the connecting
door just ajar, he dropped the pay bag in front of the safe, and went
silently over to the desk—a mouse running across the floor would have
made more commotion than the Hawk had made since his entry into the
station.

“... Upper drawer, left side,” he muttered, “Locked, of
course—ah!” A tiny key, selected from its fellow outlaws, was
inserted in the lock—and the Hawk pulled out the drawer, and began to
rummage through its contents.

From the back of the drawer, after perhaps a minute's search, he
picked up a card, and with a nod of satisfaction began to study it.

“'Left—two right; eighty-seven, one quarter—left; three...
'” The Hawk's eyes travelled swiftly over the combination. He
read it over again, “Thank you!” murmured the Hawk whimsically—and
dropped the card back in the drawer, and locked the drawer.

A moment more, and the white beam of the flashlight was playing on the
face of the safe, and the silence of the room was broken by the faint,
musical, metallic whirring of the dial. Bent forward, a crouching form
in the darkness, the Hawk worked swiftly, a sure, deft accuracy in every
movement of his fingers. With a low thud, as he turned the handle, the
heavy bolt shot back in its grooves, and the ponderous door swung open.
And now the flashlight's ray flooded the interior of the safe, and the
Hawk laughed low—before him, lying on the bottom of the safe, neatly
banded as they had come from the bank, were a dozen or fifteen little
packages of banknotes.

The Hawk dropped on his knees, and reached for the pay bag. Ten thousand
dollars was not so bulky, after all—if the denominations of the
notes were large enough. He riffled one package through his
fingers—twenties! Gold, yellow-back twenties!

There was a sort of beatific smile on the Hawk's lips. He dropped the
package into the bag.

Tens, and twenties, and fives—the light, in a curiously caressing way,
was lingering on the little fortune as it lay there on the bottom of the
safe. There was only a pile or two of ones, and the rest was—what was
that!

The smile vanished from the Hawk's lips, and, in a rigid, tense,
strained attitude, he hung there, motionless. What was that—that dull,
rasping, sound! It was like some one clawing at the wall outside. The
window!

With a single motion, as though stirred to life by some galvanic shock,
the Hawk's hand shot out and swept the packages of banknotes into the
bag. He snapped off his flashlight. The room was in darkness.

That sound again! And now a creak! The window was being opened.
Something black was bulking there on the sill outside—and something
queerly white, a man's face, was pressed against the pane, peering in.

The Hawk glanced sharply around him. Inch by inch he was pushing the
safe door shut. He could not reach the door leading to the clerks'
office, for he would have to pass by the window, and—he shrank back
quickly, the safe door closed but still unlocked, and crouched low in
the corner against the wall. The window slid up to the top, and with a
soft pad, like some animal alighting on the floor, the man had sprung
into the room.

The Hawk's fingers crept into his pocket and out again, tight-closed
now upon an automatic pistol. The other's flashlight winked, went out,
then shot across the room, locating the desk—and once more all was
darkness.

There was not a sound now, save the short, hurried breathing of the
other, panting from the exertion of his climb. Then the man's step
squeaked faintly crossing the room—and the Hawk, a few inches at a
time, began to edge along the wall away from the neighbourhood of the
safe.

Then the man's flashlight gleamed again, lighting up the top of the
desk. There was a sharp, ripping sound, as of the tearing of wood under
pressure, and the upper drawer, forced open by a steel jimmy, was pulled
out.

“Birds of a feather!” said the Hawk grimly to himself. “Number
One, of the Wire Devils! I didn't beat him to it by as much margin as
I thought I would!”

The Hawk shifted his automatic to the hand that was clutching the pay
bag, and, with the other hand, began to feel in wide sweeps over the
wall above his head. The electric-light switch, he had noticed in that
first quick glance when he had entered the room, a glance that had
seemed to notice nothing, and yet in which nothing had escaped the
sharp, trained eyes, was somewhere about here.

“Dangerous—for both of us—if it's seen outside,” communed the
Hawk with himself again. “But when he finds the safe unlocked, and the
goods gone, there'll be trouble. If he gets a flashlight on me, he's
got me where he wants me. Ah—here it is!” The Hawk's fingers
touched the switch. He lowered the pay bag cautiously to the floor
between his feet, his automatic free in his hand again.

There was a rustling of papers in the drawer; then the man's hand,
holding a card, was outlined as though thrown upon a screen, as, with
his other hand, he focused his flashlight upon it. Then the flashlight
swung an arc over the opposite wall, and pointed a pathway to the safe,
as the man turned abruptly and stepped back across the room.

The Hawk, one hand raised to the switch on the wall, his automatic
outflung a little in the other, tense, like an animal in leash, watched
the other's movements.

The dark-outlined form was in shadowy relief against the light, that
played now upon the glistening knob and dial of the safe. The man gave
a preliminary, tentative twist at the handle. Came a quick, dismayed,
hissing sound, like the sharp intake of 'breath. The safe door was
wrenched open with a jerk. There was a low, angry cry now. The man
sprang back, and as though involuntarily, in a sort of uncertain,
panic-struck search, his flashlight shot along the wall—and fell full
upon the Hawk.

The Hawk's finger pressed the switch. The room was ablaze with
light. With a startled, furious oath, the man's hand was sweeping
significantly toward his pocket.

“No, you don't!” snarled the Hawk, covering the other. “No, you
don't! Cut that out!” His eyes, behind the mask, narrowed suddenly.
“Hello!” he sneered. “It's 'Butcher' Rose—I might have
known from the way you opened that drawer!”

It was a moment before the man answered.

“Blast you!” he whispered finally. “You gave me a bit of a start,
you did! I thought at first you were a 'bull'.” His eyes fastened
on the pay bag at the Hawk's feet. The top gaped open, disclosing the
banknotes inside. The man raised his eyes to the Hawk's, and a cunning
look came over his thin, hatchet-like face. “Caught with the goods
this time, eh?” he jerked out.

The Hawk smiled unpleasantly.

“Yes,” he said. “The nest's empty. What is it they used to tell
us in the nursery?—it's the early bird that grabs the worm. How long
you been out in these parts, Butcher?”

“Look here,” said the Butcher ingratiatingly, ignoring the question,
“I guess it's a case of split—eh?”

“You've got a nerve!” ejaculated the Hawk coolly.

“Well, put that light out, then, and we'll talk it over,”
suggested the Butcher. “If it's seen from outside, we'll both get
caught.”

“I'd rather take a chance on that, than a chance on you,” replied
the Hawk curtly. “There's nothing to talk over. I've got the coin,
and you've got a frost—all you've got to do now is beat it.”

Sharp, little, black, ferret eyes the Butcher had, and they roamed
around the room now in an apparently aimless fashion—only to come back
and fix hungrily on the bag of banknotes again. A sullen look came into
his face, and the jaw muscles twitched ominously.

“So you're the Hawk they're talking about, eh?” he said, trying
to speak smoothly. “Well, there's no use of us quarrelling. If you
know me, we must be old pals. Take off that mask, and let's have a
look at you. There ain't any reason why we can't be pals again.”

“Nix!” said the Hawk softly. “Nothing doing, Butcher! It suits me
pretty well the way it is. I've made it a rule all my life to play a
lone hand, and the more I see of the raw work that guys like you try to
get away with, the more I pat myself on the back. Savvy? Why, say,
even a drag-worker on Canal Street wouldn't show his face to a
self-respecting crook for a month, he'd be so ashamed, if he took a
crowbar to a desk drawer the way you did, you poor boob!”

The Butcher's face flushed, and he scowled.

“You're looking for trouble, ain't you!” he said hoarsely.
“Well, mabbe you'll get it—and mabbe you'll get more than
you're looking for. How'd you get wise to this game to-night?”

“It's the way I make my living—getting wise. How'd you
suppose?” queried the Hawk insolently.

The Butcher was chewing at his lips angrily; his eyes, closed to slits,
searched the Hawk's masked face.

“This is the second time!” he said, between his teeth. “You
pinched that necklace, and——”

“O-ho!” exclaimed the Hawk, with a grin. “So you were after that,
too, were you?”

The Butcher's flush deepened.

“That's none of your damned business!” he gritted. “And if I
thought——” He bit his lips quickly.

“Go on!” invited the Hawk sweetly. “Don't mind me. If you
thought—what?”

“You've had the luck with you,” mumbled the Butcher, half to
himself. “It can't be anything else, there's no chance of a leak.
But I'm going to tell you something—your luck's going to get a
hole kicked in it. I'll tell you something more. There's a few of us
that have picked out this little stamping ground for ourselves, and we
ain't fond of trespassers. Get that? It ain't going to be healthy
for you to linger around here over more than one train!”

“Are the rest of 'em all like you?” inquired the Hawk maliciously.

“You'll find out quicker than you'll want to, perhaps!” the
Butcher retorted furiously.

“All right!” said the Hawk. “And now I'll tell you a little
something. I don't know who are in this gang of yours, but you might
take them a little message from me. If they're finding it crowded out
here, they'd better move on to somewhere where competition isn't so
likely to put them out of business through lack of brains, because
I'm kind of figuring on hanging around until it gets time to open
my château down at Palm Beach and stick my feet up on the sofa for a
well-earned rest. Do you stumble to that? And”—the Hawk was drawling
now—“I might say, Butcher, that I don't like you. My fingers are
crossed on that trespassing gag. It don't go! I don't scare for
any half-baked outfit of near-crooks! I stick here as long as there's
anything worth sticking for.”

The Butcher's eyes seemed to be fascinated by the pay bag—they were
on it again. He choked a little, swallowing hard; and, attempting a
change of front, forced a smile.

“Well, don't get sore!” he said, in a whining tone. “Mabbe I was
only trying to chuck a bluff, and got called. But, say, how'd you like
to break in here to-night like I did, and find another fellow'd got
all the swag? Say, it's damned rough, ain't it? Say, it's fierce!
And, look here, I'm in on it now, anyhow. I know who took it. I'm
going to keep my mouth shut, ain't I? You ain't going to leave me
out in the cold, are you? All I ask is a split.”

“It's not much!” said the Hawk, in a velvet voice. “It hardly
seems enough. You're too modest, Butcher. Why don't you ask for the
whole of it? You might as well—you'd stand just as much chance of
getting it!”

The smile faded from the Butcher's lips, and his face became contorted
with rage again. He raised his fist and shook it at the Hawk. He cursed
in abandon, his lips livid, beside himself with passion.

“You'll get yours for this!” He choked, in his fury, over his
words. “You think you're slick! I'll show you what you're up
against inside of twenty-four hours! You'll crawl for this, d'ye
hear, blast you—you'll crawl!—you'll——”

The Hawk's automatic, dangling nonchalantly in his hand, swung
suddenly upward to a level with the other's eyes.

“That's enough, you cheap skate!”—there was a cold, menacing
ring in the Hawk's voice now. “I've heard enough from you. You and
your hot-air crowd of moth-eaten lags! If you, or any of you, run foul
of me again, you won't get off so easy! Tell 'em that! Tell 'em
the Hawk said so! And you beat it! And beat it—now!” He caught up
the pay bag, and advanced a step.

The Butcher retreated sullenly.

“Get out of that window!” ordered the Hawk evenly. “And take a
last tip from me. If you try to plant me, if you let a peep out of you
while I'm making my own getaway, I'll get you for it, Butcher, if
it's the last thing I ever do. Go on, now! Step quicker!”

Still sullenly, mumbling, his mouth working, the Butcher retreated
backward toward the window. The Hawk, his lips like a thin straight line
just showing under the mask, followed grimly, step by step. And then,
suddenly, both men halted, and their eyes met and held each other's in
a long tense gaze.

From outside in the corridor came the sound of voices and footsteps. The
footsteps drew nearer; the voices grew louder. The Hawk shot a glance
toward the door. He drew in his breath sharply. No, there was
no fanlight, the light would not show in the hall. That was the
superintendent's voice. That letter Lanson was going to send down on
No. 8! The other, probably, was MacVightie. Yes; it was MacVightie—he
caught the detective's gruff tones now. The door on the opposite side
of the corridor from the paymaster's room opened.

The Butcher licked his lips.

“Me for the window, and for it quick!” he muttered under his breath.

He turned, and, his back to the Hawk now, tiptoed to the window, turned
again sideways, as though to throw one leg over the sill—and his right
hand, hidden, suddenly lifted the side of his coat.

It came quick, quick as the winking of an eye. Racketing through room
and building, like the detonation of a cannon in the silence, came the
roar of a revolver shot, as the Butcher fired through his coat pocket.
Mechanically, the Hawk staggered backward; and then, the quick, keen
brain working like lightning, he reeled, dropped the pay bag, and
clutched wildly at his side. He was not hit. The Butcher had missed. So
that was the man's game! Clever enough! They'd break in here at the
sound of the shot, and find him dead or wounded on the floor!

The Butcher, a devil's triumph in his face now, came leaping back from
the window, and, stooping, snatched at the pay bag.

“I'd put another in you to make sure,” whispered the Butcher
fiercely; “only they'll get you anyway, you——”

The Hawk straightened, his arm streaked outward from his side, his
pistol butt crashed on the Butcher's skull, and he was upon the other
like a flash, his free hand at the Butcher's throat.

From the room opposite came startled cries; across the corridor came the
rush of feet—then the doorhandle was tried, the door shaken violently.

The Butcher was struggling but feebly, making only a pitiful effort to
loosen the Hawk's clutch upon his throat, hanging almost limply in the
Hawk's arms, half dazed by the blow upon his head. White to the lips
with passion, the Hawk whipped his hand into the other's pocket,
whipped out the other's revolver, and flung the man away from him.
And then, as the Butcher reeled and lurched backward to the window, and,
clawing frantically at the sill, attempted to work his way out, the Hawk
ran silently back, picked up the pay bag, and, jumping to the window
again, caught the Butcher roughly by the collar of the coat.

The Butcher, white, haggard-faced with fear, moaned.

“For God's sake!” he pleaded piteously. “Let me go! Let me go!
For God's sake, let me go—they'll get me!”

There was a terrific crash upon the door, as of some heavy body hurled
against it. The Hawk laughed mirthlessly.

“If I let you go, you'd break your neck!”—the Hawk's words
were coming through clenched teeth. “Don't worry, Butcher! They'll
not get you. I don't want them to get you. I want to get you myself
for this. Some day, Butcher, some day I'll do the getting!” He
pushed the Butcher's feet over the sill. “Feel with your toes for
the window casing beneath! Quick!” He leaned out, gripping at the
Butcher's collar, lowering the man—his lips were close against the
Butcher's ear. “Some day—for this—you yellow cur—you and me,
Butcher—remember—some day!”

A crash again upon the door! The Butcher's feet were on the lower
sill; but here the man lost his hold, and toppled to the ground. The
Hawk glanced backward into the room. The door was yielding now. He
looked out of the window again. The Butcher had regained his feet, and
was swaying against the wall, holding to it, making his way slowly,
weakly toward the corner.

The Hawk threw one leg over the sill. With a rip and tear, the door
smashed inward, sagging from its lower hinge. Came a hoarse yell.
MacVightie was plunging through the doorway.

Instantly the Hawk, hugging the pay bag, drew back his leg, and dove
into the clerk's room through the door which he had left ajar. There
would have been no use in letting the Butcher go at all if he led the
chase through the window—the man was barely crawling away. Across the
room, light enough now from the open doorway behind him to point the
way, raced the Hawk. He reached the corridor door, as MacVightie lunged
through the connecting door in pursuit.

MacVightie's voice rose in a bellow of warning:

“Look out there, Lanson! The next door—quick!”

But the Hawk was the quicker. He tore the door open, and dashed through,
just eluding the superintendent and another man—the dispatcher
probably, attracted by the row—as they sprang forward from the
paymaster's door.

Running like a deer, the Hawk made for the stairway. It was lighter now
in the hall. The dispatcher's door along at the farther end was open.
At the head of the stairs, a call boy, wide-eyed, gaped, openmouthed.
The Hawk brushed the boy aside incontinently, and, taking the stairs
three and four at a time, leaped downward, MacVightie's bull-like
roar echoing behind him, the top stairs creaking under the detective's
rush.

The street door opened outward, and as the Hawk reached it, and,
wrenching at the knob, pushed it open, there was a flash, the report of
a revolver shot—and, with a venomous spat, the bullet buried itself in
the door jamb, not an inch from his head, it seemed, for the wind of the
bullet was on his cheek.

Cries sounded now from the railroad yard; but the street in front of
him, deserted, was still undisturbed. He was across it in a twinkling,
and, passing the saloon that was now closed, darted into the lane.

He flung a glance over his shoulder—and his lips set hard. MacVightie,
big man though he was, was no mean antagonist in a race. The detective,
quicker in initiative, quicker on his feet, had outdistanced both Lanson
and the dispatcher, and was already halfway across the street.

Again MacVightie fired.

On the Hawk ran. If he could reach the next corner—providing there was
no one about the street—there was a way, a risky way, but still a
way, his best chance of escape. The cheap combination lodging house and
saloon, that was just around the corner, was where he had a room.
Yes, it was his one chance! He must get to cover somewhere without an
instant's delay. With MacVightie firing now, emptying his revolver up
the lane, with the yells and shouts growing constantly in volume from
farther back toward the station, it was only a question of minutes
before the whole neighbourhood would be aroused.

Again he glanced behind him. It was very dark in the lane. He was
grimly conscious that it was the blackness, and not MacVightie's poor
marksmanship, that had saved him so far. That flash of the other's
revolver was perhaps fifty yards away. He had gained a little, then! If
there was any one around the corner, the plan of reaching his room would
not serve him, and he would still have to run for it. Well, he would see
in an instant—it was only two yards more—a yard—now!

Without slackening his pace, at top speed he swung from the lane—and,
with a gasp of relief at sight of an empty street, slipped into a
doorway just beyond the now dark entrance to a saloon that occupied most
of the ground floor of a dirty and squalid three-story building.

The door gave on a narrow flight of stairs, and up these the Hawk sprang
swiftly and with scarcely a sound. And now, as he ran, he pulled his
mask from his face and thrust it into the pay bag; a pocket-book from
his inside coat pocket followed the mask, and, with the pocketbook, the
flashlight, and the two pistols, his own and the Butcher's. He opened
a door at the head of the landing, and stepped into a room, leaving the
door partly open.

He was not safe yet—far from it! He did not under-estimate MacVightie.
It would be obvious to MacVightie that he was not far enough ahead to
have disappeared in any but one way—into some building within a very
few yards of the lane! And the presumption, at least, would be that this
was the one.

The Hawk worked now with almost incredible speed. He switched on the
light, ran to the window that opened on the rear of the building, felt
with one hand along the sill outside, lifted the pay bag out of the
window, let go of it, and turned instantly back into the room. He
hung up his hat on a wall peg, and tearing off his jacket, flung it
haphazardly upon the bed. There was a small table against the wall near
the foot of the bed. The Hawk opened a drawer, snatched up a pack of
cards, and sat down at the table.

The street door opened and closed. A quick, heavy tread sounded on the
stairs.

In his shirt sleeves, his back to the door, the Hawk was coolly playing
solitaire.

“I guess I'd better be smoking,” murmured the Hawk. “Maybe I'm
breathing a little hard.”

He picked up a pipe from the table, lighted a match—and, half the deck
of cards in one hand, the lighted match in the other, swung around in
his chair with a startled jerk.

The door slammed back against the wall. MacVightie had unceremoniously
kicked it wide open. MacVightie was standing on the threshold.

The Hawk, in a sort of surprised gasp, sucked the flame of the match
down into the bowl of his pipe, and stared at MacVightie through a
curtain of tobacco smoke. The detective's eyes travelled sharply from
the Hawk around the room, came back to the Hawk, narrowed, and, stepping
into the room, he shut the door with equal lack of ceremony behind him.

“Say, you got a gall!” ejaculated the Hawk.

“You bet your life I have!” flung out MacVightie. “Now then, my
bucko, what are you doing, here?”

“Say,” said the Hawk, as though obsessed with but a single idea,
“say, you got a gall! You got a gall, busting into a fellow's room
and asking him what he's doing there! Say, maybe you might answer the
same question yourself—eh? What are you doing here?”

“Your room, is it?” snapped MacVightie.

“Sure it's my room!” replied the Hawk, a little tartly.

“How long you been here?”

“'Bout a week”—the Hawk was growing ungracious.

“Boarding here?”

“Yes.”

“Where'd you come from?” MacVightie was clipping off his words.
“What do you do for a living?”

“Say,” said the Hawk politely, “you go to hell!”

MacVightie stepped forward toward the Hawk, with an ominous scowl; and,
throwing back the lapel of his coat, tapped grimly with his forefinger
on a shield that decorated his vest.

The Hawk whistled low.

“O-ho!” said the Hawk, with sudden cordiality. “Well, why didn't
you say so before?”

“I'm saying it now!” snarled MacVightie. “Well, where do you
come from?”

“Chicago,” said the Hawk.

“What's your business?”—MacVightie's eyes were roving sharply
again around the room.

“Barkeep—when I can get a job,” answered the Hawk; and then,
insinuatingly: “And, say, I'm looking for one now, and if you can
put me on to anything I'd——”

“I guess you've got to show me!” growled Mac-Vightie,
uncompromisingly.

“Look here,” ventured the Hawk, “what's up?”

“I'm waiting!” prompted MacVightie significantly.

“Oh, all right!” The Hawk flared up a little. “If you love your
grouch, keep on hugging it tight!” He jerked his hand toward the coat
that was lying on the bed. “I must have lost the letter the pastor of
my church gave me, but there's a couple there from the guys back in
Chicago that I worked for, and there's my union card with them. Help
yourself!”

MacVightie picked up the coat brusquely, shoved his hand into the inside
pocket, brought out several letters, and began to read them.

The Hawk shuffled the half deck of cards in his hand monotonously.

There was a puzzled frown on MacVightie's face, as he finally tossed
the letters down on the bed.

“Satisfied?” inquired the Hawk pleasantly.

MacVightie's frown deepened.

“Yes, as far as that goes,” he said tersely; and then, evenly, his
eyes boring into the Hawk: “About five minutes ago a man ran into this
house from the street. What's become of him?”

The Hawk started in amazement—and slowly shook his head.

“I guess you've got the wrong dope, ain't you?” he suggested
earnestly.

“Don't try that game!” cautioned MacVightie grimly. “And don't
lie! He had to come up these stairs, your door was partly open, and he
couldn't have passed without you knowing it.”

“That's what I'm saying,” agreed the Hawk, even more earnestly.
“That's why I'm saying you must have got the wrong dope. Of
course, he couldn't have got by without me hearing him! That's a
cinch! And, I'm telling you straight, he didn't.”

“Didn't he?” MacVightie's smile was thin. “Then he came in
here—into this room.”

“In here?” echoed the Hawk weakly. His gaze wandered helplessly
around the room. “Well, all you've got to do is look.”

“I'm going to!” announced MacVightie curtly—and with a sudden
jerk he yanked the single bed out from the wall. He peered behind and
beneath it; then, stepping over to a cretonne curtain in the corner that
served as wardrobe, he pulled it roughly aside.

There were no other places of possible concealment. MacVightie chewed at
his under lip, and eyed the Hawk speculatively.

The Hawk's eyes were still travelling bewilderedly about the room, as
though he still expected to find something.

“Are you dead sure he came into this house,” he inquired heavily, as
though the problem were entirely beyond him.

MacVightie hesitated.

“Well—no,” he acknowledged, after a moment. “I guess you're
straight all right, and I'll admit I didn't see him come in; but
I'd have pretty near taken an oath on it.”

“Then I guess he must have ducked somewhere else,” submitted the
Hawk sapiently. “There wasn't no one went by that door—I'm
giving it to you on the level.”

MacVightie's reluctant smile was a wry grimace.

“Yes, I reckon it's my mistake.” His voice lost its snarl, and his
fingers groped down into his vest pocket. “Here, have a cigar,” he
invited placatingly.

“Why, say—thanks”—the Hawk beamed radiantly. “Say, I——”

“All right, young fellow”—with a wave of his hand, MacVightie
moved to the door. “All right, young fellow. No harm done, eh?
Good-night!”

The door closed. The footsteps without grew fainter, and died away.

The Hawk, staring at the door, apostrophised the doorknob.

“Well, say, what do you know about that!” he said numbly. “I
wonder what's up?”

He rose from his chair after a moment as though moved by a sort of
subconscious impulse, mechanically pushed his bed back against the wall,
and returned to his chair.

He dug out his pipe abstractedly, filled it, and lighted it. He gathered
up the cards, shuffled them, and began to lay them out again on the
table—and paused, and drummed with his fingers on the table top.

“They're after some guy that's ducked his nut somewhere around
here,” he decided aloud. “I wonder what's up?”

The Hawk spread out his remaining cards—and swept them away from him
into an indiscriminate heap.

“Aw, to blazes with cards!” he ejaculated impatiently.

He put his feet up on the table, and sucked steadily at his pipe.

“It's a cinch he never went by that door,” the Hawk assured the
toe of his boot. “I guess he handed that 'bull' one, all right,
all right.”

The minutes passed. The Hawk, engrossed, continued to suck on his pipe.
Then from far down the stairs there came a faint creak, and an instant
later the outer door closed softly.

The Hawk's feet came down from the table, and the Hawk
smiled—grimly.

“Tut, tut!” chided the Hawk. “That treadmill diminuendo on the top
step and the keyhole stunt is pretty raw, Mr. MacVightie—pretty raw!
You forgot the front door, Mr. MacVightie—I don't seem to remember
having heard it open or close until just now!”

The back of the Hawk's chair, as he pushed it well away from the
table and stood up, curiously enough now intercepted itself between
the keyhole and the interior of the room. He stepped to the door, and
slipped the bolt quietly into place; then, going to the window, he
reached out, and, from where it hung upon a nail driven into the sill,
picked up the pay bag.

“That's a pretty old gag, too,” observed the Hawk almost
apologetically. “I was lucky to get by with it.”

The Hawk's attention was now directed to his trunk, that was between
the table and the foot of the bed. He lifted the lid back against the
wall, and removed an ingeniously fashioned false top, in the shape of
a tray, that fitted innocently into the curvature of the lid. The Hawk
stared at a magnificent diamond necklace that glittered and gleamed on
the bottom of the tray, as its thousand facets caught the light—and
grinned.

“If you'd only known, eh—Mr. MacVightie!” he murmured.

From the pay bag the Hawk took out the packages of banknotes, the
flashlight, the mask, the two pistols, and packed them neatly away in
the tray. The only article left in the bag was his pocketbook. He opened
this, disclosing a number of crisp, new ten-dollar bills. He held one of
them up to the light for a moment, studying it admiringly.

“I guess these won't be much more good around here, according to
that little conversation between MacVightie and the superintendent,”
he muttered—and, with a shrug of his shoulders, tossed the entire
number into the tray.

He fitted the false top back into the lid, and closed the trunk. There
remained the empty pay bag. He frowned at it for an instant; then,
picking it up, he tucked it under the mattress of his bed.

“I'll get rid of that in the morning”—he nodded his head, as he
turned down the bed covers.

The Hawk began to undress, and at intervals voiced snatches of his
thoughts aloud.

“Pretty close shave,” said the Hawk, “pretty close.... Ten
thousand dollars is some haul.... All right as long as they don't find
out I've got the key to their cipher.... And so Butcher Rose is one
of the gang, eh?... Number One—Butcher Rose.... Guess he got away
all right—from MacVightie.... He nearly did me.... Pretty close
shave....”

The Hawk turned out the light, and got into bed.

“I guess I played in luck to-night,” said the Hawk softly, and for
the second time that night. “Yes, I guess I did.”




IV—AT BALD CREEK STATION

IT was twenty-four hours later. A half mile away, along a road that
showed like a grey thread in the night, twinkled a few lights from the
little cluster of houses that made the town of Bald Creek. At the rear
of the station itself, in the shadow of the walls, it was inky black.

There was stillness! Then the chattering of a telegraph
instrument—and, coincident with this, low, scarcely audible, a sound
like the gnawing of a rat.

The chattering of the instrument ceased; and, coincident again, the low,
gnawing sound ceased—and, crouched against a rear window, the Hawk
chuckled a little grimly to himself. Within, and diagonally across from
the window, an otherwise dark interior was traversed by a dull ray
of light that filtered in through the open connecting door of the
operator's room beyond. Inside there were Lan-son, the division
superintendent, and Martin, the trusted Bald Creek operator; while at
any minute now, MacVightie would be up on No. 12. They were preparing
to spring their trap for the Wire Devils to-night! The Hawk was quite
well-informed on this point, for the very simple reason that the Hawk
himself had not been entirely idle during those twenty-four hours that
were just past!

Again the sounder broke into a splutter; but this time the gnawing sound
was not resumed—the window fastenings were loosened now.

Came then the distant rumble of an approaching train; the rumble
deepening into a roar; the roar disintegrating itself into its component
sounds, the wheel trucks beating at the rail joints, the bark of the
exhaust; then the scream of the brakeshoes biting at the wheel tires;
the hiss of steam—and in the mimic pandemonium, the Hawk raised the
window, and crawled in over the sill.

And again the Hawk chuckled to himself. Up and down the line to-night,
at all stations where there were no night operators, the road's
detectives, stood guard over the telegraph instruments. It had been
MacVightie's plan, originated the night before. It was very clever of
MacVightie—if somewhat abortive! Also, quite irrelevant of course, and
quite apart from that little matter of ten thousand dollars which he,
the Hawk, had taken from the paymaster's safe last night, MacVightie
to-night was likely to be in no very pleasant mood!

The engine without, blowing from a full head of steam, drowned out all
other sounds. The Hawk picked his way across the room to a position near
the connecting door, and composedly seated himself upon the floor behind
a number of piled-up boxes and parcels. With a grin of acknowledgment to
the escaping steam, he coolly moved two of the parcels a few inches to
right and left, thus providing himself with an excellent view into
the operator's room. From one pocket he took an exceedingly small
flashlight, and from another a notebook, and from his hip pocket his
automatic pistol. This latter he transferred to his right-hand coat
pocket. Bunching the bottom of his coat over his hand, he flashed on the
tiny ray, found a convenient ledge formed by one of the boxes, and upon
this laid down his notebook. The first page, as he opened the book,
contained a neatly drawn sketch of the interior of Bald Creek station.
He turned this over, leaving the book open at a blank page, and switched
off his light.

The door from the platform opened and closed, as the train pulled out
again, a man stepped into the operator's room—and in the darkness
the Hawk smiled appreciatively. It was MacVightie, and Mac-Vightie's
thin lips were drawn tighter than usual, and the brim of the slouch hat,
though pulled far forward, did not hide the scowl upon MacVightie's
countenance.

“Well, you're here all right, Lanson, eh?” he flung out brusquely.
“Nothing yet, by any chance, of course?”

Lanson, from a chair at the operator's elbow, nodded a greeting.

“Not yet,” he said.

MacVightie was glancing sharply around him.

“Martin,” he ordered abruptly, “close those two ticket wickets!”

The operator rose obediently, and pulled down the little windows that
opened, one on each side of the office, on the men's and women's
waiting rooms.

“What's that door there?” demanded MacVightie, pointing toward the
rear room.

“Just a place I had partitioned off for stores and small express
stuff,” Martin answered. “There's no back entrance.”

“All right, then,” said MacVightie. He pulled up a chair for himself
on the other side of the operator, as Martin returned to his seat.
“You know what you're here for, Martin—what you've to do? Mr.
Lanson has told you?”

“Yes,” Martin replied. “I'm to test out for east or west, if
there's any of that monkeying on the wire to-night.”

“Show me how it's done,” directed MacVightie tersely. .

The operator reached over to the switchboard and picked up a key-plug.

“I've only got to plug this in—here—or here. Those are my ground
wires east and west. The main batteries are west of us at Selkirk, you
know. If I ground out everything east, for instance, and he's working
to the east of us the sounder'll stop because I've cut him off from
the main batteries, and we'll hear nothing unless I adjust the relay
down to get the weak circuit from the local batteries. If he's working
west of us the sounder will be much stronger because the main batteries
at Selkirk, with the eastern half of the division cut out, will be
working on a shorter circuit.”

“'T see.” MacVightie frowned. “And he'd know it—so Mr.
Lanson told me last night.”

“Yes; he'd know it,” said Martin. “The same as we would.”

“Well, you can do it pretty quick, can't you?” suggested
MacVightie. “Sort of accidentally like! We don't want to throw a
scare into him. You'd know almost instantly whether he was east or
west, wouldn't you? That's all that's necessary—to-night! Then
let him go ahead again. We'll have found out what we want to know.”
He turned to Lanson, his voice rasping suddenly. “Did you see the
Journal on the 'Crime Wave' this afternoon?”

Lanson's alert, grey eyes took on an angry glint. “No; I didn't
see it, but I suppose it's the old story. I wish they'd cut it out!
It hurts the road, and it doesn't get them anywhere.”

“Perhaps not,” said MacVightie, with a thin smile; “but it
gets me! Yes, it's about the same—all except the last of it. Big
headlines: 'Ten thousand dollars stolen from paymaster's safe last
night—What is being done to stop this reign of assassination, theft,
outrage, crime?—Has the clue afforded by the Hawk's release from
Sing Sing been thoroughly investigated?' And then a list of the crimes
committed in the last ten days—two murders, one in the compartment
of that sleeping car; the theft of the diamond necklace; the express
robbery; and so on through the list, ending up with last night. Then a
nasty shot at the local police; and, finally, prefacing the remark with
the statement that the crimes were all connected with the railroad,
a thinly veiled hint that I am either a boy on a man's job, or
else asleep, in either of which cases I ought to be—well, you
understand?” MacVightie's fist came down with a crash on the
operator's table.

Lanson, with a worried look, nodded his head.

“Damn it!” said MacVightie. “I——” He stopped abruptly, and
laid his hand on the operator's sleeve. “Look here, Martin,” he
said evenly, “you're the one man that Mr. Lanson has picked out of
the division, you're the one man outside of Mr. Lanson and myself who
has any inkling that these secret messages coming over our wires have
anything to do with these crimes—you understand that, don't you?
This is pretty serious business. The newspaper didn't exaggerate any.
We're up against a gang of crooks, cleverly organised, who will
stop at nothing. Murder appears to be a pastime with them! Do you get
me—Martin?”

For a long second the two men looked each other steadily in the eyes.

“Yes,” said Martin simply.

“All right!” said MacVightie. “I just want you to realise the
necessity of keeping anything you may hear, or anything that may happen
here to-night, under your hat.” He turned to Lanson again, the scowl
heavy upon his face once more. “I was going to say that I know who the
man is that slipped through my fingers last night.”

“You—what!” Lanson leaned sharply forward in his chair. “But he
got away! You said he——”

“It was the Hawk”—MacVightie bit off the words.

“The Hawk?”

“The Hawk!”

“But how do you know?” demanded Lanson incredulously. “You said
yourself that he had left no clue to his identity. How do you know?”
MacVightie reached into his pocket, took out his pocketbook, and from
the pocketbook passed a new, crisp ten-dollar banknote to Lanson.

“What's this?” inquired Lanson. “The counterfeit ten-dollar bill
you showed me last night?”

“No—another one,” MacVightie answered curtly. “Look on the other
side.”

Lanson turned the banknote over, stared at it, and whistled suddenly
under his breath.

“'With the compliments of the Hawk!'.rdquo; he read aloud. He
stared now at MacVightie. “Perhaps it's a fake, inspired by that
newspaper article yesterday evening,” he suggested.

“It's no fake,” declared MacVightie grimly. “The Hawk wrote that
there all right—it was inside the pay bag in which the ten thousand
was carried away from the paymaster's office last night.”

“You mean—you recovered the bag?” cried Lanson eagerly. “Where?
When?”

The Hawk, watching MacVightie's face, grinned wickedly. MacVightie's
jaws were clamped belligerently, and upon MacVightie's cheeks was an
angry flush.

“Oh, yes, I 'recovered' it!” MacVightie snapped. “He's
got his nerve with him! The bag was found reposing in full view on the
baggage counter at Selkirk this afternoon—addressed to me. Nobody
knows how it got there. But”—MacVightie's fist came down again
upon the operator's table—“this time he's overplayed his hand.
We knew he had been released from Sing Sing, and that he had come West,
but it was only surmise that he was actually around here—now we know.
In the second place, it's pretty good evidence that he's in with
the gang that's flooded the country with those counterfeit tens, and
you'll remember I told you last night I had a hunch it was the same
gang that was operating out here—well, two and two make four!”

“You think he's——?” Lanson swept his hand suggestively toward
the telegraph instruments.

“Yes—and the leader of 'em, now he's out here on the ground!”
returned MacVightie gruffly.

The Hawk had taken a pencil from his pocket, and was scribbling
aimlessly at the top of the page in his notebook.

“Sure!” confided the Hawk to himself. “I thought maybe you'd
dope it out like that.”

There was silence for a moment in the office, save for the intermittent
clicking of the sounder, to which the Hawk now gave his attention. His
pencil still made aimless markings on the top of the page—it was only
routine business going over the wire. Then Lanson moved uncomfortably in
his chair, and the chair legs squeaked on the bare floor.

MacVightie spoke again:

“Well,” he said bluntly, “you've got all of my end of it, except
that I've placed men in hiding at every station on the line where
there are no night operators. What about you? Started your outside line
inspection?”

“Yes,” Lanson answered. “I've had three men out with section
crews working from different points. But it's slow business making
an inspection that's careful enough to be of any use, and even then
it's a pretty tall order to call the turn on anything when there's
already so many legitimate splices and repairs on the wires.”

“Well—any results?” asked MacVightie.

Lanson shook his head.

“We found what we thought was a new splice in one place, but it turned
out to have been made by one of our own men two weeks ago, only he had
forgotten to report it.”

MacVightie's eyes narrowed.

“One of our own men—eh?” he repeated curtly. “Who was it?”

“Nothing doing there!” Lanson shook his head again, emphatically
this time. “It was Calhoun.”

“Calhoun—eh?” observed MacVightie softly.

Lanson bridled slightly.

“What's the matter with Calhoun?” he inquired testily. “Got
anything against him?”

“Never heard of him before,” said MacVightie, with a short laugh.
“But I'll take pains to make his acquaintance.”

“Then you might as well spare yourself the trouble,” advised Lanson.
“I can tell you before-hand that he carries a good record on this
division, and that he's one of the best linemen we've got.”

“I daresay,” admitted MacVightie coolly. “But amongst other things
we're looking for good linemen to-night—who forget to make reports.
You needn't get touchy, Lanson, because one of your men's names
comes up. You can make up your mind to it there's an inside end to
this, and——”

The tiny ray of the Hawk's flashlight shot suddenly upon the
notebook's open page, as the sounder broke into a sharp tattoo.

“;wtaz'—stroke at four,” he muttered, as he began to
write. “Three—one—two. They've changed the code
to-night—'qxpetlk——'”

There was a sharp exclamation from the other room.

“Listen! There he is now!” Martin cried. Chairs were pushed
back—the three men were on their feet.

“What's he sending?” questioned MacVightie instantly.

The Hawk scowled at the disturbance, as, over their voices, he
concentrated his attention upon the sounder. He wrote steadily on:

“... huwkmuh hdtlqgvh...

“Same as usual,” Martin replied. “Just a jumble of letters.”

“Well then, get ready to throw that ground, or whatever you call it,
into him!” ordered MacVightie tensely.

“I'm ready,” said Martin.

“All right then—now!”

The Hawk nodded to himself, as his pencil unflaggingly noted down letter
after letter. The sounder was very perceptibly stronger.

“West!” Martin cried out. “You noticed the difference in
strength, didn't you? He's somewhere between here and Selkirk.
That's——”

The sounder had suddenly ceased.

“But he's stopped,” said MacVightie; “and you said if he
stopped——”

“That's nothing to do with it!” Martin interposed hurriedly.
“The wire isn't grounded now.”

“He's taken to cover, I guess,” said Lanson. “I was afraid he
would scare, no matter how——” He broke off abruptly. “Wait!
What's that!”

The sounder was clicking again; but the sharp, quick tattoo was gone,
and in its place, as though indeed it drawled, the sending came in
leisurely, deliberate fashion.

The Hawk's pencil resumed its labours—and then, with a queer smile,
the Hawk scratched out what he had just written. It was no longer
code—it was in exceedingly plain English.

Martin was reading directly from the sounder:


“'Try—that—game—just—once—more—and—the—division—goes—up—
in—the—air—and—a—train—or—two—maybe—to—a—
place—that—Mister—MacVightie—will—some—day—honour—with—
his—presence. That's—quite—plain—isn't—it?
If—you—think—this—is—a—bluff—call—it.
Now—keep—off—the—wire—or—have—it—cut.
Suit—yourselves.'.rdquo;

“Well, of all the infernal nerve!” exploded MacVightie furiously.

“And the worst of it,” said Lanson shortly, “is that he's got us
where he wants us!”

Once more the sounder broke into the old quick tattoo. The Hawk was
writing steadily again. There was silence now between the three in the
office.

A minute, two, three went by—the sounder ceased—the Hawk closed his
notebook. Then in its leisurely drawl the sounder broke again; and again
Martin read aloud:

“'Pleasant—evening—isn't—it?
Ask—MacVightie—if—he—has—seen—anything—of—the—Hawk.
Good-night.'.rdquo;

But this time there was only a menacing smile on MacVightie's lips.

“He's west of here, you say?” he shot at Martin. “Yes,” said
Martin briefly.

“And that splice of Calhoun's, Lanson? Where was that?”

Lanson, drumming with his fingers on the edge of the operator's table,
looked up with a frown.

“Nothing but coincidence,” he said tersely. “Yes, it was west of
here—pretty near Selkirk.” He moved toward the door. “There's
nothing more we can do here to-night. I'm going back on No. 17.
Let's get out on the platform until she shows up.”

The Hawk very carefully replaced his notebook, his flashlight and his
pencil in his pockets, and, as MacVightie and the superintendent went
out of the door, he retreated softly back to the rear window. The window
being up, he quite as noiselessly slipped out over the sill. He debated
a moment about the window, and decided that if any significance were
attached to the fact that it was found open, MacVightie, for instance,
was fully entitled to make the most of the significance! Then, the
rattle of a wagon sounding from the direction of the road, the Hawk
moved along to the end of the station, and waited.

The wagon, in the light of its own smoky oil lamps, proved to be the
town hotel bus. There were evidently other passengers for Selkirk
besides himself and the two officials, as several people alighted from
the bus. In view of this fact the Hawk calmly lighted a cigarette,
though the glow of the match exposed his face only to the blank wall of
the station, and walked around to the front platform.

He located MacVightie and Lanson; and, thereafter, at a safe distance,
did not lose sight of them. MacVightie's memory for faces would hardly
be over-rated if credited with being able to bridge a matter of some
twenty-four hours, particularly as MacVightie had evidenced unusual
interest in the occupant of the room on the first landing over a
certain ill-favoured saloon the night before! The Hawk, therefore, was
unostentatiously attentive to MacVightie's movements; so much so that,
when No. 17 pulled in and MacVightie and Lanson boarded the chair car at
the rear of the train, the Hawk, when No. 17 pulled out, quite logically
boarded the smoking car at the forward end.

The Hawk chose the most uncomfortable seat in the car—the rear
seat with stiff, upright, unyielding back, that was built against
the wash-room—and, settling himself down, produced his notebook and
pencil. The water-cooler could be quite confidentially trusted not to
peer over his shoulder!

On the second page of the notebook—the first having been devoted to
the sketch of Bald Creek Station—-the Hawk, as he had taken it from
the sounder, had written this:

“wtaz qxpetlkhu wkmuh hdtlq gvhmmpy hqltvd df rmnluvpo nfkhomovfdh
gvkerkmmawrq fljkwte dvsoedtdqqh mgfdoifk rxqkuvwruh gsruwmtdoo
ommtlqhvksol foghvklst rvrzqmqxpe mkhurqjkh hvdbfvkdzc mnvohrtpqg
hutzklwkj hkdqm mo g v pdlqlfxoq uhgpifthglxg pkhlmfj kwhttwb hv d p q
g kdrllu eomosdfnhta shqkjvlyhtg mwdlomruhgegf orwmpqk hvwtzrwk mmrxvddg
iqggrqo odusnvrx wmfkriu hkvhuymt hixqljtg wrqpxpeh houwkdmd gwsxws
vdexmuooh wtjqlqklmp”

The Hawk tore out a page from the back of the notebook, and set down the
letters of the alphabet in a column. Opposite these he painstakingly set
down another column of letters. After that the Hawk worked slowly. It
was not quite so simple as it looked—not merely the substitution of
letters in a different order of rotation. Nor, apparently, from the
Hawk's observations as he muttered to himself, were all messages to
be deciphered alike—the code appeared to possess within itself an
elasticity for variation.

“At four... key letter changed... stroke!” muttered the Hawk.
“N-u-m-b... pass three... e-r-t-h... stroke one....”

The Hawk's notebook, closed, was reposing idly on the window ledge and
the Hawk was lighting another cigarette, as the conductor came down the
aisle. The Hawk presented the return stub of a ticket to Selkirk.
The conductor punched it, and passed on—and the Hawk picked up his
notebook again.

Again he was interrupted—and again. The water-cooler, after all, was
not proving an unmixed blessing. It seemed as though every man in the
car were possessed of an inordinate thirst. They were well on toward
Selkirk when the Hawk finally completed the deciphering of the message.

It now ran:



0074

He arranged the scattered letters into words, and the words into
sentences:

“Number Three and Seven Isaac Kir-schell('.s cash box to-night as
planned. Calhoun to report all line splices his own. Number One says
Hawk slender white hands, manicured, medium height, eyes and hair black,
expensive tailored clothes. Two thousand dollars out of reserve fund to
Number that puts a bullet in him.”

The Hawk inspected his hands, and smiled whimsically. Number One was
the Butcher. He had not given the Butcher credit for being so observant!
Presently he stared out of the window.

“Wonder how much of a haul I can make tonight?” he murmured.
“Regular El Dorado—having 'em work it all up and handing it to you
on a gold platter. Pretty soft! Hope they won't get discouraged and
quit picking the chestnuts out of the fire for me—while there's any
chestnuts left!”

And then the Hawk frowned suddenly. The chestnuts appeared to be only
partially picked for him to-night. What was the game—as planned?
There must have been a previous message that had got by him. His frown
deepened. There was no way of remedying that. To hope to intercept them
all was to expect too much. There was no way whereby he could spend
twenty-four hours out of twenty-four in touch with a sounder. He
shrugged his shoulders philosophically after a moment. Perhaps it was
just as well. They credited him with playing a lone hand, believing
that his and their depredations were clashing with one another simply
by virtue of the fact that their mutual pursuits were of a competitive
criminal nature, that was all. If it happened with too much regularity,
they might begin to suspect that he had the key to their cipher, and
then—the Hawk did not care to contemplate that eventuality. There
would be no more chestnuts!

The Hawk read the first part of the message over again. Who was Isaac
Kirschell? The name seemed to be familiar. The Hawk studied the toe of a
neatly-fitting and carefully polished shoe thoughtfully. When he looked
up again, he nodded. He remembered now. He had lunched the day before
in a restaurant that occupied a portion of the ground floor of an office
building, the corridor of which ran through from street to street. In
going out, he had passed along the corridor and had seen the name on the
door panels of two of the offices.

He resumed the study of his boot toe. It was not a very vital matter.
A moment spent in consulting the city directory would have supplied the
information in any case. He nodded again. MacVightie was unquestionably
right. Some one on the inside, some railroader, and probably more than
one, was in on the game with the Wire Devils—and it was perhaps as
well for this Calhoun that MacVightie, already suspicious, was not
likewise possessed of the key to the cipher! Also, Lanson had been
right. It was no easy task to locate a new splice on a wire that was
already scarred with countless repairs. Still, if Lanson's men went at
it systematically and narrowed down the radius of operations, it was
not impossible that they might stumble upon a clue—if Calhoun did not
placidly inform them that it was but another of his own making! But even
then, granted that the wire was found to have been tapped in a certain
place one night, that was no reason why it should not, as Mr. MacVightie
had already suggested, be tapped fifty miles away the next! The Hawk
grinned. Mr. Lanson and his associates, backed even by Mr. MacVightie,
were confronted with a problem of considerable difficulty!

“I wonder,” communed the Hawk with himself, “who's the spider
that spun the web; and I wonder how many little spiders he's got
running around on it?”

He perused the message once more; but this time he appeared to be
concerned mainly with the latter portion. He read it over several times:
“Two thousand dollars to the Number that puts a bullet in him.”

“Nobody seems to like me,” complained the Hawk softly.
“MacVightie. doesn't; and the Butcher's crowd seem peeved. Two
thousand dollars for my hide! I guess if I stick around here long enough
maybe it'll get exciting—for somebody!”

The Hawk tore up the message, the sheet on which he had deciphered it,
the sketch of Bald Creek station, tore all three into small fragments,
opened the window a little, and let the pieces flutter out into
the night. He closed the window, returned the notebook, innocent of
everything now but its blank pages, to his pocket—and, pulling his
slouch hat down over his eyes, appeared to doze.




V—IN WHICH A CASH BOX DISAPPEARS

TWENTY minutes later, as No. 17 pulled into Selkirk, the Hawk, his
erstwhile drowsiness little in evidence, dropped to the platform while
the train was still in motion, and before MacVightie and Lanson in
the rear car, it might be fairly assumed, had thought of leaving their
seats. The Hawk was interested in MacVightie for the balance of the
night only to the extent of keeping out of MacVightie's sight—his
attention was centered now on the office of one Isaac Kirschell, and the
possibilities that lay in the said Isaac Kirschell's cash box.

He glanced at the illuminated dial of the tower clock. It was eighteen
minutes after ten.

“That's the worst of getting the dope a long way down the line,”
he muttered, as he hurried through the station and out to the street.
“But I had to get a look at MacVightie's cards to-night.” He
struck off toward the downtown business section of the city at a brisk
pace. “It ought to be all right though tonight—more than enough time
to get in ahead of them—they're not likely to pull any break in that
locality until well after midnight. Wonder what Kirschell's got in his
cash box that's so valuable? I suppose they know, or they wouldn't
be after it! They don't hunt small game, but”—the Hawk sighed
lugubriously—“there's no chance of any such luck as last night
again. Ten thousand dollars in cash! Some haul! Yes, I guess maybe
they're peeved!”

The Hawk, arrived at his destination, surveyed the office building from
the opposite side of the street. The restaurant on the ground floor was
dark, but a lighted window here and there on the floors above indicated
that some of the tenants were working late. It was therefore fairly safe
to presume that the entrance door, though closed, was unlocked. The Hawk
crossed the street unconcernedly, and tried the door. It opened under
his hand—' but noiselessly, and to the extent only of a bare inch,
in view of the possibility of a janitor being somewhere about. Detecting
no sound from within, however, the Hawk pushed the door a little further
open, and was confronted with a dimly lighted vestibule, and a long,
still more dimly lighted corridor beyond. There was no one in sight.
He slipped inside—and, quick and silent now in his movements, darted
across the vestibule and into the corridor.

Halfway along the corridor, he halted before a door, on whose glass
panel he could just make out the words “Isaac Kirschell,” and,
beneath the name, in smaller letters, the intimation that the entrance
was next door. The Hawk's decision was taken in the time it required
to produce from his pocket a key-ring equipped with an extensive
assortment of skeleton keys. If by any chance he should be disturbed and
had entered by the designated office door, his escape would be cut
off; if, on the other hand, he entered by this unused door, and left it
unlocked behind him, he would still be quite comfortably the master of
the situation in almost any emergency.

The door seemed to offer unusual difficulties. Even when unlocked, it
stuck. The Hawk worked at it by the sense of touch alone, his eyes busy
with sharp glances up and down the corridor. Finally, succeeding
in opening it a little way, it was only to find it blocked by some
obstruction within. He scowled. A desk, probably, close against it! The
door was certainly never used. He would have to enter by the other
one, after all, and—no! He had reached his arm inside. It was only a
coat-stand, or something of the sort He lifted it aside, stepped in, and
closed the door behind him.

The Hawk's flashlight—not the diminutive little affair that
had served him for his notebook—began to circle his surroundings
inquisitively. He was in a small, plainly furnished private office.
There was a desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. Also there were two
doors. The Hawk opened the one at his left, and peered out. It gave
on what was presumably the general office; and at the upper end was a
partition with the name, “Mr. Kirschell,” upon the door. He looked
at the panel of the door he had just opened. It bore no name.

“This belongs to Kirschell's secretary probably,” he decided.
“The other door from here opens, of course, into Kirschell's private
office. Wonder what Mr. Isaac Kirschell's business is?”

He closed the door leading into the outer office, and moved across
the room to the second door that already stood wide open, and almost
directly faced what he had taken for granted was the secretary's desk.
He stepped over the threshold. Mr. Kirschell's sanctum was somewhat
more elaborately furnished. Apart from a rather expensive flat-topped
desk in the centre of the room, there was a massive safe, new and of
modern design, a heavy rug upon the floor, and several very comfortable
leather-up holstered chairs. A washstand, the metal taps highly
polished, and a mahogany towel rack occupied the far corner. The Hawk
inspected the safe with the eye of a connoisseur, scowled unhappily by
way of expressing his opinion of it, and turned to the desk. He opened
a drawer, and picked up a sheet of business stationery. The letterhead
read: ISAAC KIRSCHELL LOANS, MORTGAGES & GENERAL EXCHANGE

“Ho, ho!” observed the Hawk. “Sort of a glorified pawnbroker, eh?
I——”

The sheet of paper was shot back into the drawer, the flashlight was
out—and on the instant the Hawk was back in the other office, and
crouched on the floor behind the desk. Some one had halted outside in
the corridor before the main office door, and now a key was turned in
the lock. The door was opened and closed, footsteps crossed the general
office, paused for a moment outside Mr. Kirschell's door, then the
lights in Mr. Kirschell's room went on, a man entered, tossed his hat
on a chair, and sat down at the desk. It was obviously Mr. Kirschell
himself.

Through the wide opening between the ends of the desk that sheltered
him, the Hawk, flat on the floor, took stock of the other. The man was
rather small in stature, with a thin, palish face, sharp, restless, very
small black eyes, and he was extremely well dressed—the Hawk noted the
dainty little boutonnière in the lapel of the man's coat, and smiled
queerly. From Mr. Kirschell's face he glanced at the face of Mr.
Kirschell's safe, then back at Mr. Kirschell again—and fingered his
automatic in the pocket of his coat.

The Hawk, however, made no further movement—Mr. Kirschell's actions
suggested that it would be unwise. The man, though apparently occupied
with some mail which he had taken from his pocket, kept glancing
impatiently at his watch. It was quite evident that he was expecting
some one every moment. The Hawk frowned perplexedly. The message that
night, even when deciphered, left much, too much, to the imagination! It
was quite possible that Mr. Kirschell was to be relieved of his cash box
with more address and finesse than by the bald expedient of ruining Mr.
Kirschell's safe! This appointment, for instance, might—and then the
Hawk smiled queerly again.

The corridor door had opened and closed for the second time. A heavy
step traversed the outer office, and a man, hat in hand, in cheap store
clothes, stood before Mr. Krischell's desk.

“Mentioned in dispatches!” said the Hawk very softly to himself.
“I guess that's Calhoun. So that's the game—eh?”

“You're late, Mr. Calhoun!” Kirschell greeted the other sharply.
“Five minutes late! I have put myself to considerable inconvenience to
give you this appointment.”

Calhoun's hair was tossed, there was a smudge across his cheek, and
his hands were grimy, as though he had just come from work. He was a big
man, powerfully shouldered. His grey eyes were not friendly as they met
Kirschell's.

“I couldn't help it,” he said shortly. “I've been up the line
all day. I told you I couldn't get here until about this time.”

“Well, all right, all right!” said Kirschell impatiently. “But,
now that you are here, are you prepared to settle?”

“I can give you a small payment on account, that's the best I can
do,” Calhoun answered.

Kirschell tilted back in his swivel chair, and frowned as he tapped the
edge of his desk with a paper cutter.

“How much?” he demanded coldly.

“Forty dollars”—Calhoun's hand went tentatively toward his
pocket.

“Forty dollars!” There was derision in Kirschell's voice, an
uninviting smile on Kirschell's lips. “That's hardly more than the
interest!”

“Yes,” said Calhoun, snarling suddenly, “at the thieving rates
you, and the bloodsuckers like you, charge.”

Kirschell's uninviting smile deepened.

“Considering the security, the rate is very moderate,” he said
evenly. “Now, see here, Calhoun, I told you plainly enough this
thing had to be settled to-day. You don't want to run away with the
impression that I'm a second Marakof, to be staved off all the time.
I bought your note from the pawnbroker's estate because the executors
didn't like the look of it, and weren't any too sure they could
collect it. Well, I can! I'm new out here, but I'm not new at my
business. Excuses with me don't take the place of cash. I hold your
note for five hundred dollars, which is past due, to say nothing of six
months' interest besides—and you come here to-night and offer me
forty dollars!”

“I would have paid Marakof,” said Calhoun, in a low voice; “and
I'll pay you as fast as I can. You know what I'm up against—I
told you when you first got after me, as soon as you got that note. My
brother got into trouble back East. What would you have done? That
five hundred kept him out of the 'pen.' He's only a kid. Damn it,
don't play the shark! Marakof renewed the note—why can't you?”

“Because I don't do business that way,” said Kir-schell curtly.

Calhoun's voice grew hard.

“How much did you pay for that note, anyway?”

Kirschell shrugged his shoulders.

“I didn't say I wasn't taking any risk with you,” he replied
tersely. “That's the profit on my risk. And as far as you are
concerned—it's none of your business!”

Calhoun shrugged his shoulders in turn, and, taking a small roll of
bills from his pocket, smoothed them out between his fingers.

“I got a wife, and I got kids,” said Calhoun slowly. “And I'm
doing the best I can. Do you want this forty, or not?”

“It depends,” said Kirschell, tapping again with his paper cutter.
“How about the rest?”

“I'll pay you what I can every month,” Calhoun answered.

“How much?”—bluntly.

“What I can!” returned Calhoun defiantly.

The two men eyed each other for a moment—and then Kirschell tossed the
paper cutter down on the desk.

“Well, all right!” he decided ungraciously. “I'll take a chance
for a month—and see how you live up to it. Hand it over, and I'll
give you a receipt.”

Calhoun shook his head.

“I don't trust the man who don't trust me,” he said gruffly.
“I don't want that kind of a receipt. You'll indorse the payment
on the back of the note, Mr. Kirschell, if you want this forty.”

“What?” inquired Kirschell, staring.

“You heard what I said,” said Calhoun coolly. “I'm in the hands
of a shark, and I know it. That's plain talk, isn't it?”

“But,” Kirschell flared up angrily, “I——”

Calhoun calmly returned the money to his pocket.

“Suit yourself!” he suggested indifferently. “I ain't asking for
anything more than I have a right to.”

“Very well, my man!” said Kirschell icily. “If our dealings are to
be on this basis, I hope you will remember that the basis is of your own
choosing.” He swung around in his chair, and, rising, walked over to
the safe.

And then, for the first time, the Hawk moved. He edged silently back
along the floor until far enough away from the doorway to be fully
protected by the darkness of the room, and stood up. Kirschell was
swinging the heavy door of the safe open. The cash box was to be
produced! Lying down, the Hawk could not hope to see its contents if it
were opened on the desk; standing up, he might be able to form a very
good idea of how tempting its contents would prove to be.

Kirschell took a black-enamelled steel box from the safe, and returned
to the desk. He opened this with a key, threw back the cover—and
the Hawk stuck his tongue in his cheek. A few papers lay on the
top—otherwise it was crammed to overflowing with banknotes. Kirschell
selected one of the papers, and picked up a pen in frigid silence.

But the Hawk was no longer watching the scene. His head was cocked to
one side, in a curious, bird-like, listening attitude. He could have
sworn he had heard the outer office door being stealthily opened. And
now Calhoun was speaking—rapidly, his voice raised noticeably in a
louder tone than any he had previously employed.

“I ain't looking for trouble, Mr. Kirschell,” he stated
Hurriedly, as though relenting, “and I don't want you to think I am,
but——”

There was a sharp cry from Kirschell. The room was in darkness. Came
a quick step running in from the outer office, no longer stealthy
now—the crash of a toppling chair—a gasping moan in Kirschell's
voice—the thud of a falling body—a tense whisper: “All right,
I've got it!”—then the steps running back across the outer
office—the closing of the corridor door—and silence.

The Hawk, grim-lipped, had backed up against the wall of the room.

Calhoun's voice rose hoarsely:

“Good God, what's happened! Where's the electric-light switch?”

Kirschell answered him faintly:

“At—at the side of the door—just—outside the partition.”

The lights went on again, and the Hawk leaned intently forward. Calhoun
was standing now in the doorway between the outer and the private
office, his eyes fixed on Kirschell. The swivel chair had been
overturned; and Kirschell, a great crimson stream running down his cheek
from above his temple, was struggling to his knees, clutching at the
edge of the desk for support. The cash box was gone.

Kirschell's eyes swept the top of the desk haggardly, as though hoping
against hope. He gained his feet, lurching unsteadily. A crimson drop
splashed to the desk.

“My chair!” he cried out weakly. “Help me!”

Calhoun stepped forward mechanically, and picked up the chair. Kirschell
dropped into it.

“You're hurt!” Calhoun said huskily. “You're badly hurt!”

“Yes,” Kirschell answered; “but it—can wait. The police
first—there was—three thousand dollars—in my cash box.” With
an effort he reached out across the desk for the telephone, pulled it
toward him—and, on the point of lifting the receiver from the hook,
slowly drew back his hand. A strange look settled on his face, a sort of
dawning, though puzzled comprehension; and then, swaying in his chair,
his lips thinned. He drew his hand still further back until it hovered
over the handle of the desk's middle drawer. His eyes, on Calhoun,
were narrowing.

“You devil!” he rasped out suddenly. “This is your work! I was a
fool that I did not see it at first!”

Calhoun's face went white.

“What do you mean?” he said thickly.

“What I say!” Kirschell's voice was ominously clear now, though he
sat none too steadily in his chair.

“Then you lie!” said Calhoun fiercely. “You lie—and if you
weren't hurt, I'd——”

“No, you wouldn't!”—Kirschell had whipped the drawer open,
and, snatching out a revolver, was covering Calhoun. He laughed a
little—bitterly. “I'm not so bad that I can't take care of
myself. It was pretty clever, I'll give you credit for that. You
almost fooled me.”

“Damn you!” snarled Calhoun. “Do you mean to say I've got your
cash box?”

“Oh, no,” said Kirschell. “I can see you haven't. I don't even
know which of you two struck me. But I do know that you and the man who
has my cash box worked up this plant together.”

Calhoun stepped forward threateningly—only to retreat again before the
lifted muzzle of the revolver.

“You're a fool!” he snarled. “You've nothing on me!”

“That's for the police to decide,” returned Kirschell evenly.
“It would have been a pleasant way of disposing of that note,
wouldn't it—if you hadn't under-rated me! And your pal for his
share, I daresay, was to take his chance on whatever there might be in
the cash box! Why did you say you couldn't come until night, when I
gave you until to-day as the last day in which to settle? Why did you
insist on my indorsing the payment on the note, which necessitated my
opening the safe and taking out the cash box in which you knew the note
was kept, for you saw me put it there a week ago, when you first came
here? And just after I was knocked down I heard your accomplice whisper:
'All right, I've got it.”

“It's possible the police might form the same opinion I have as to
whom those words were addressed!” Calhoun's face had grown whiter.

“It's a lie!” he said scarcely above a whisper. “It's a lie! I
had nothing to do with it!”

“I want my three thousand dollars!” Kirschell's lips were set. He
held a red-stained handkerchief to his cheek. “If I call the police
now they'll get you—but it's your accomplice that's got my
money. And it's my money that I want! I'll give you half an hour to
go to him, and bring the money back here—and leave the police out of
it. If you're not here in that time, I put it up to the police. Half
an hour is time enough for you to find your pal; and it's not time
enough for you to attempt to leave the city—and get very far!”
Kirschell laid his watch on the desk. “You'd better go—I mean half
an hour from now.”

Calhoun hung hesitant for a moment, staring at the muzzle of
Kirschell's revolver. He made as though to say something—and
instead, abruptly, with a short, jarring laugh, turned on his heel, and
passed out of the room.

The Hawk was already edging his way along the wall toward the corridor
door.

“Three thousand dollars!”—the Hawk rolled the words like so many
dainty morsels on his tongue, as he communed with himself. “I guess
it's my play to stick to Mr. Calhoun!”




VI—SOME OF THE LITTLE SPIDERS

THE Hawk reached the door, as Calhoun stepped into the corridor from
the general office and passed by outside, evidently making for the main
entrance of the building. He opened the door cautiously the width of
a crack—and held it in that position. A man's voice, low, guarded,
from the corridor, but from the opposite direction to that taken by
Calhoun, reached him.

“Here! Calhoun! Here!”

Calhoun halted. There was silence for an instant, then Calhoun retraced
his steps and passed by the door again. There were a few hurried words
in a whisper, which the Hawk could not catch; and then the footsteps of
both men retreated along the corridor.

The Hawk opened the door wider, and peered out. The two men were well
down the corridor now; and now, as they passed the single incandescent
that lighted that end of the hall, Calhoun's companion reached up and
turned it out.

“Why, say—-thanks!” murmured the Hawk, and stepped out into the
corridor himself.

It was now quite dark at that end, and the men had disappeared. The Hawk
moved silently and swiftly along, keeping close to the wall. Presently
he caught the sound of their voices again, and nodded to himself. He
remembered that in going out this way yesterday he had noticed that the
corridor, for some architectural reason, made a sharp, right-angled jut
just before it gave on the side-street entrance. He stepped now across
to the other side of the corridor, and stole forward to a position where
he could look diagonally past the projecting angle of the jut. The two
men, standing there, showed plainly in the light from a street arc that
shone into the entranceway through the large plate-glass square over the
door. The Hawk, quite secure from observation, nestled back against the
wall—and an ominous smile settled on the Hawk's lips. The face of
Calhoun's companion was covered with a mask.

“There's nothing to be leery about here,” the man was saying.
“There's no one goes out or comes in this way at night. Well, it's
a nice mess, eh? So the old Shylock called the turn on you, did he?”

There seemed to be a helpless note in Calhoun's voice. He passed his
hand heavily across his eyes.

“What's the meaning of this?” he cried out. “What do you know
about what happened in there?”

“Nothing much,” said the other coolly. “Except that I'm the guy
that pinched the swag, and hit Kirschell that welt on the head.”

“You!” Calhoun involuntarily stepped back. “Yes, sure—me!” The
man shrugged his shoulders. “Me and a pal who was outside. He's
away now putting the cash box where it won't come to any harm—savvy?
He'll be back pretty soon.”

The Hawk's lips moved.

“Number Three and Number Seven,” whispered the Hawk gently.

“I—I don't understand,” said Calhoun dazedly. “Then why are
you telling me this. And why are you staying here? And how did you know
that Kirschell accused me of being in it?”

“That's another one that's easy,” announced the man evenly.
“Because it was part of the game to make him think so.”

Calhoun seemed to stiffen up.

“What! You mean, you——”

“You're getting it!” said the other shortly. “But you'd better
wait until you get it all before you start spitting your teeth out!
Mabbe you've heard of a little interference with the telegraph wires,
and a few small jobs pulled off around here where some innocent parties
accidentally got croaked? Ah—you have, eh! Well, that's where you
come in, Calhoun. We want you—and when we want anything, we get it!
See? We knew about that note, and we've been expecting the railroad
crowd to wake up some time, and we had you picked out to place our bets
on against them. They woke up to-day and began to nose over the line.
It ain't likely to do them much good, but there's a chance—and we
ain't taking chances. We don't want much from you, Calhoun, just a
little thing, and it'll bring you more money than you ever saw in your
life before and without you running any risk. All you've got to do
is stand for anything in the shape of a splice or tap on the line that
they're suspicious of—you can say it's a repair job of your own,
see?”

An angry flush was tinging Calhoun's cheeks.

“Is that all?” he burst out passionately. “Well, I'll see you
damned first!”

“Will you?” returned the other calmly. “All right, my bucko!
It's your funeral. Take your choice. That—or twenty years in
the penitentiary. You're in cold on this. Think it over a bit. For
instance, how did you come to make the break of wanting Kirschell to
indorse the payment on the back of the note, which made him open his
safe?”

“How do you know I did?” Calhoun flashed back sharply.

“Mabbe I'm only guessing at it,” said the man nonchalantly; “and
mabbe I was back in the outside room when you did. But, say, you don't
happen to remember, do you, a little talk you had with a stranger up the
line to-day? And how the conversation got around to loan sharks, and how
he told about a trick they had of giving receipts that were phony, and
how he beat one of them to it by making the shark indorse on the paper
itself? Kind of sunk in, and you bit—eh, Calhoun? We don't do things
by halves. We happen to need you. And what do you think I made the break
of whispering so Kirschell would hear me for?”

The color was ebbing from Calhoun's face.

“It's not proof!” The defiant ring in his voice was forced.
“I——”

“It's enough to make Kirschell believe it, and that's all we
wanted for a starter. We'll take care of the rest!” stated the man
grimly. “What did he say to you?”

Calhoun answered mechanically:

“He said if I didn't return in half an hour with the cash box,
he'd notify the police.”

“Oh, ho!” The man's lips widened in a grin under the edge of his
mask. “So he's going to wait here, eh? Well, so much the better!
It'll save us a trip to his house. Now, see here, Calhoun, let this
sink in!” He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a slip of paper.
“Here's your note. It was on the desk where Kirschell was writing on
it, and I pinched it when I pinched the cash box. We didn't figure
we were going to make the haul we did to-night—we were after you. But
there's some money in that cash box, as you saw for yourself. Here's
the idea: Kirschell's read a thing or two about what's going on
around here—enough to make him know that there ain't much our
gang'll stop at. If you say you're with us, me and my pal 'll
go in there and throw the fear of God into him. Do you get it? He'll
think himself lucky to get off by keeping his mouth shut about to-night
when he finds out who he's up against. Also you get the note back, and
a share of the cash—and more to come later on.”

“No!” Calhoun cried out. “No! I'm no thief!”

“All right!” agreed the other indifferently.

“That's one side of it. Here's the other: Kirschell certainly
believes you took it. He's a shark all right, and he thinks more of
his money than he does of anything else, or he wouldn't have given you
the chance he did. But when you don't show back there with the coin,
he'll take the only other hope he's got of getting his money and
turn on the police tap—see? What are you going to do then? Make a
break for it, or let 'em get you? Well, it doesn't matter which.
This note and a chunk of the cash gets mailed to-night—and the police
get tipped off to watch your mail in the morning. Kind of reasonable,
isn't it? Your pal, not being able to find you, and not tumbling to
the fact that the police have got you until too late, comes across with
your share like an honest little man! I think you said something about
proof, Calhoun? And I think I told you before that we didn't do things
by halves. How about that on top of Kirschell's story—do you think
it would cinch a jury, or do you think they'd believe any little fairy
story you might tell them, say, about meeting me? Does it look any more
like twenty years than it did?”

There was a sudden agony in Calhoun's face.

“My God!” he whispered. “You—you wouldn't do that?”

The man made no answer. He still held the note-in his hand—but in the
other now he carelessly dangled a revolver.

“You wouldn't! You wouldn't!” Calhoun's voice was broken now.
“I've a wife and children, and—my God, what am I to do!”

“That half-hour Kirschell gave you is slipping along,” suggested the
other uncompromisingly. “Here's the note, and there's easy money
waiting for you.”

Calhoun turned on the other like a man demented.

“Do you think I'd touch that cash! Or touch that note—I owe it! I
may not have been able to pay it—but I owe it!”

“Oh, well, suit yourself as to that, too!” said the man cynically.
“It's the other thing we want. What's the wife and the kids
you're talking about going to do if you go up for twenty years?”

Calhoun, with a miserable cry, buried his face in his hands.

There was silence—a minute dragged by.

“Well?” prompted the man curtly.

Calhoun dropped his hands, met the other's eyes for an instant—and
turned his head away.

“Ah, I thought you would!” said the man calmly. “My pal ought to
be back by now, and as soon as he comes we'll go in there and hand
Kirschell his little jolt, and——” He stopped. There was a light
rapping on the entrance door. “Here he is now! We'll——”

The Hawk was retreating back along the corridor. Again he opened the
door of what he had designated to himself as the secretary's office,
and for the second time that night stepped silently into the room,
closing the door behind him. The sound of running water came from
Kirschell's private office, but there was no other sound—the Hawk
made none as he once more gained his place of vantage behind the desk.
Kirschell was bending over the washbowl, his back turned, bathing his
temple and face, and now, straightening up, he bound a towel tightly
around his head.

The Hawk watched the proceedings impassively, his head, in that
bird-like, listening attitude, cocked on one shoulder toward the outer
door. Steps were coming along the corridor. But this time Kirschell,
too, heard them—for he turned, and, as the corridor door opened,
started toward his desk. He reached it and sat down, as Calhoun entered
the room.

“Ah, ha!” snapped Kirschell triumphantly. “So you've thought
better of it, have you? I imagined you would! Well, where's
the——” The words seemed to freeze on his lips; there was a sudden
terror in his face. “What—what does this mean?” he faltered.

Two masked men, the one who had been with Calhoun in the corridor, and a
taller, more heavily built man, had stepped in behind Calhoun, and were
advancing toward the desk.

The short man pointed a revolver at Kirschell's head.

“Calhoun says he keeps a gun in the middle drawer of the desk,” he
grunted to his companion. “Get it!”

The other, leaning over, pulled the drawer open, and, appropriating
Kirschell's revolver, stuck it in his pocket.

Kirschell's tongue circled his lips. He looked wildly from one to the
other.

“We just dropped in to make a confession, Mr. Kirschell,” said the
short man, with an ugly jeer. “We don't like to see an innocent man
suffer—understand? I'm the one that lifted your cash box, you measly
shark—me and my pal there. I heard you trying to stick it on Calhoun.
We ain't asking any favours for ourselves, and when we get through
with you, you can tell the police it was us, and that we're part
of the crowd that's been making things lively around these
parts—you've been reading the papers, ain't you?—but you open
your mouth about Calhoun, you put him in bad when he had nothing to do
with it, and inside of twenty-four hours you'll be found in a dark
alley somewhere with a bullet through you! Get me? You know who you're
up against now, and you've got fair warning!”

Kirschell was huddled in his chair. His little black eyes were no longer
restless—they were fixed in a sort of terrified fascination on the
speaker.

“Yes.” He licked his lips again. “Yes, I—I understand,” he
mumbled.

From his pocket the Hawk took a mask, which he slipped over his face;
and from his pocket he took his automatic.

“I don't think he believes you,” sneered the second masked man,
with a wicked grin. “Perhaps mabbe we'd better twist his windpipe
a little, just to show him in a friendly way that there ain't any
mistake about it—eh?”

“No, no!” Kirschel's voice was full of fear. “No, no! I
believe—I——” His words ended in a choked scream.

The man's hands had shot swiftly out, and closed on Kirschell's
throat. He was shaking, twisting, and turning Kirschell's head from
side to side. His companion laughed brutally. Came a series of guttural
moans from Kirschell—and Kirschel's body began to slip limply down
in his chair.

Calhoun had gone white to the lips.

“Stop it! My God, stop it!” he burst out frantically. “You
promised me you wouldn't do him any harm.”

“You mind your own business!” snarled the man with the revolver.
“We know how to handle his breed. Give him enough to hold him for a
while Jim! We——”

“Drop that revolver! Drop it!” The Hawk was standing in the doorway.

There was a startled oath from the leader of the two men as he whirled
around, a gasp as he faced the Hawk's automatic—and his weapon
clattered to the floor. The other, in a stunned way, still hung over
Kirschell, but his hands had relaxed their hold on Kirschel's throat.

“Thank you!” drawled the Hawk. “I must say I agree with Mr.
Calhoun. It's not a pleasant sight to watch a man being throttled.”
His voice rang suddenly cold. “You, there!” His automatic indicated
the man beside Kirschell. “Stand back at the end of the desk, and put
up your hands!”

Calhoun had not moved. He was staring numbly at the Hawk. Kirschell,
making guttural sounds, was clawing at his throat.

“Mr. Calhoun,” requested the Hawk coolly, “as I happen to know
that you have little reason to love either of these two gentlemen,
will you be good enough to pick up that revolver and hand it to me?”
Calhoun stooped mechanically, and extended it to the Hawk.

“And now our friend over there with his hands up, Mr. Calhoun,”
purred the Hawk. “You will find two in his pockets—his own, and
Mr. Kirschell's. Mr. Kirschell, I am sure, is already fairly well
convinced that you are in no way connected with the robbery of his cash
box, and I am equally sure that in no way could you better dispel any
lingering doubts he might still entertain than by helping to draw these
gentlemen's teeth.”

Calhoun laughed a little grimly now.

“I don't know who you are,” he said, his lips set, as he started
toward the man; “but I guess you're right. I'd like to see them
get what's coming to them.”

“Quite so!” said the Hawk pleasantly. He accepted the two remaining
revolvers from Calhoun; and from his pocket produced his skeleton keys.
He handed them to Calhoun, designating one of the keys on the ring.
“One more request, Mr. Calhoun,” he said. “I entered by the door
that opens on the corridor from this other office here. Will you please
lock it; and, on your way back, also lock this connecting door through
which I have just come in—the key of the latter, I noticed, is in the
lock.”

Calhoun nodded, took the keys, and stepped quickly from the room.
Kirschell, evidently not seriously hurt from the handling he had
received, though still choking a little and clearing his throat with
short coughs, was regarding the Hawk with a questioning stare. The eyes
of the other two men were on the Hawk's revolver. The shorter of the
two suddenly raised a clenched fist.

“The Hawk!” he flashed out furiously. “You cursed snitch! You'll
wish you were dead before we're through with you!”

“So the Butcher told me last night.” The Hawk smiled plaintively.
“Move a little closer together, you two—yes, like that, at the far
end of the desk beside each other. Thank you! You are much easier to
cover that way.”

Calhoun returned, locking the connecting door behind him, and handed the
door key, together with the key-ring, back to the Hawk.

The Hawk moved forward to the desk. He was alert, quick, ominous now.
The drawl, the pleasantry was gone.

“Out there in the hall,” he said coldly, “I heard Mr. Calhoun
refuse to take back his note—from a thief. You”—his revolver
muzzle jerked toward the short man—“hand it out!”

The man reached viciously into his pocket, and tossed the note on the
desk.

The Hawk pushed it toward Kirschell.

“Mr. Kirschell,” he said quietly, “you no doubt had good reasons
for it, but you have none the less falsely accused Mr. Calhoun.
Furthermore, Mr. Calhoun has been instrumental in laying these two who
have confessed by the heels. Under the circumstances, if you are the man
I think you are, you will tear that up.”

Kirschell lingered the note for an instant. He looked from Calhoun to
the Hawk, and back at Calhoun again.

“Yes,” he said abruptly—and tore it into several pieces. “I
suppose I could hardly do less. You are quite right! And, Mr. Calhoun,
I—I apologise to you.”

A flush spread over Calhoun's face. He swallowed hard, and his lips
quivered slightly.

“Mr. Kirschell,” he stammered, “I—I——”

“That's all right!” interposed the Hawk whimsically. “Don't
start any mutual admiration society. I dislike embarrassing situations;
and besides, Mr. Calhoun”—his eyes travelled from one to the other
of the two masked men—“I think you had better go now.”

“Go?” repeated Calhoun, somewhat bewilderedly.

“Yes,” supplemented the Hawk. “As far as you are concerned,
you are clear and out of this now. Stay out of it, and say
nothing—that's the best thing you can do.”

“Well, that suits me,” said Calhoun with a wry smile, “if Mr.
Kirschell——”

“Exactly! I see!” approved the Hawk. “It does you credit. But Mr.
Kirschell and I are quite capable of settling with these two; and you
can thank Mr. Kirschell further to-morrow if you like—when I'm not
here! Now—if you please!”

Calhoun turned, and walked to the door. His footsteps echoed back from
the general office. Then the corridor door closed behind him.

The Hawk addressed the two masked men.

“Last night,” remarked the Hawk gently, “it was the Butcher, and
to-night it is—pardon me”—he was close in front of the two now,
and, with a jerk, snatched the masks from their faces—“Whitie Jim,
and the Bantam! Well, I might have known from the Butcher! You're all
out of the same kind of cocoons! The poor old simp at the head of your
gang is sure stuck with a moth-eaten lot! He's sure collected a bunch
of left-overs! Why, say, back there in New York, where a real crook
couldn't keep the grin off his face every time he met you, even the
police had you passed up as harmless cripples!”

“You go to blazes!” growled the Bantam, with an oath. “You'll
sing through the other side of your mouth for this yet!”

“You are not nice to me, Bantam,” said the Hawk, in a pained voice.
“You don't appreciate what I'm doing for you. It was a piker game
you tried to hand Calhoun; but, even at that, I wouldn't have queered
it if it would have helped you work out a few more little deals, so that
I could skim the cream off them. But it wouldn't! I don't see what
you gain by interfering with the telegraph lines, but I'll let you
in on something. I've been keeping an eye on MacVightie because
MacVightie's been keeping an eye on me, and I overheard him talking to
the superintendent to-night. MacVightie's got an idea that Calhoun's
fooling with the wires now. See where you would have been? If Calhoun
had ever got started on the real thing, some of you would have been
nipped—and, say, there's nothing like that going to happen if I can
help it! You and your crowd are too valuable to me to take any chances
of your getting in wrong anywhere. I'm not wringing the neck of the
goose that lays my golden eggs! Tell that to the guy that's supposed
to have the brains of your outfit, will you? And you might add that I
don't want any thanks. I'm getting well paid.”

“You'll get paid, curse you!” The Bantam's voice was hoarse with
fury. “You butted in once too often last night. The Butcher warned
you. There ain't any more warnings. You've got the drop on us here
to-night, but——”

“It's getting late,” said the Hawk wearily. “And I'm sure
Mr. Kirschell agrees with me that it is about time to produce that cash
box—do you not, Mr. Kirschell?”

Kirschell made no reply.

The Hawk smiled—unhappily.

“I don't think you put it back in the safe—I see that the door is
still wide open. A drawer in the desk, then, perhaps? Ah—would you!”
There was a sudden deadly coldness in the Hawk's voice. The Bantam had
edged around the corner of the desk. “If any of you move another inch,
I'll drop you as quick as I'd drop a mad dog! Now then—if
the Cricket will oblige? I'll give him until I count three.
One—two——”

“Damn you!—Kirschell's face was livid and contorted. He wrenched a
lower drawer open, and flung the cash box on the desk.

“The Butcher, Whitie Jim, the Bantam, and the Cricket,” murmured the
Hawk. “It's good to see old New York faces out here, even if you
do size up like bush-leaguers trying to bust into high society. You
can take that towel off, if you like, Cricket, it doesn't become you
particularly—and, as you've washed off the heart-rending effect of
that little bag of liquid stain you smashed over your temple, I'm
sure you'll look less like a comic opera star! No? Well, please
yourself!” The Hawk was coolly transferring the contents of the cash
box to his pockets with his left hand. “These papers,” mused the
Hawk deliberately aloud, “appear to be some securities you lifted
on that Pullman car raid. Rather neat idea, this, establishing
this office—sort of a clearing house, I take it, for the gang's
drag-net—'loans, mortgages and general exchange!' I take back part
of what I said—this shows a first faint glimmer of brains. Well, keep
the office going, your interests are mine! You'll notice that I was
considerate enough to get Calhoun out of the way before the show-down.
You were very generous, magnanimous even, Cricket—I admire you!
Calhoun'll swear Mr. Kirschell is the squarest man on earth—and
don't forget that's another little debt of gratitude you owe the
Hawk. Three thousand dollars!” The Hawk's pockets were bulging.
“Must have been what you separated some one from when I wasn't
looking! Glad you weren't stingy with your bait for Calhoun! I heard
to-day that Mr. Kirschell kept a good deal of cash in his safe, but I
had no idea that Mr. Kirschell was the Cricket—not till I came here
this evening to take a look at Mr. Kirschell's safe. I must say it has
been a surprise—a very pleasant surprise.”

The cash box was empty. The Hawk backed away from the desk.

None of the three men spoke—they were eying him like caged and
infuriated beasts.

The Hawk reached the doorway.

“You will observe,” smiled the Hawk engagingly, “that this is now
the only exit, and that as I walk backward across the outer office any
one who steps into this doorway will be directly in the line of fire.”
He bowed facetiously, backed through the doorway and across the general
office, and, still facing the inner room, opened the corridor door and
stepped out.

And then the Hawk spoke again.

“I bid you good evening, gentlemen!” said the Hawk softly. “You
will pardon me if I put you to the inconvenience of locking this
door—on the outside.”




VII—WANTED—THE HAWK—DEAD OR ALIVE

MACVIGHTIE had become troublesome. For two days MacVightie had very
seriously annoyed the Hawk. It was for that reason that the Hawk now
crept stealthily up the dark, narrow stairs, and, on the landing,
listened in strained attention before the door of his own room.

Reassured finally, he opened the door inch by inch, noiselessly. The
bolt, in grooves that were carefully oiled, made no sound in slipping
into place, as the Hawk entered and closed the door behind him. So far,
so good! He was quick, alert, but still silent, as, in the darkness,
he crossed swiftly to the window, and crouched down against the wall.
A minute, two, went by. The fire-escape, passing at an angle a short
distance below the window sill, and at first nebulous in the blackness,
gradually took on distinct and tangible shape. Still the Hawk held there
motionless, searching it with his eyes—and then, abruptly, satisfied
that it sheltered no lurking shadow, he straightened up, thrust his
automatic back into his pocket, pulled down the shade, and, turning back
into the room, switched on the light.

MacVightie, it appeared, still had lingering suspicions of this room
over the somewhat disreputable saloon below, and still had lingering
suspicions of its occupant. All that afternoon the Hawk was quite well
aware that he had been shadowed—but the result had been rather in his
favour than in Mac-Vightie's. From the moment he had discovered that
he was being followed, he had devoted his time to making applications
for a job—for MacVightie's benefit—that being the reason he had
given MacVightie for his presence in Selkirk. Later on, when it had
grown dark, having business of his own, he had left MacVightie's
satellite standing on a street corner somewhat puzzled just which way to
turn! That, however, had no bearing on the watch that had been, or might
be at the present moment, set upon this room.

The Hawk, in apparent abstraction, was flipping a coin up in the air
and catching it. There was a slight frown on the Hawk's face.
MacVightie's suspicions were still lingering for the simple reason
that MacVightie, utterly at sea, was clutching at the only straw in
sight, unless—the coin slipped through the Hawk's fingers and fell
beside his trunk. He stooped to pick it up—yes, not only had the room
been searched, but the trunk had been opened! The single strand of hair,
almost indiscernible against the brass and quite innocently caught in
the lock, was broken. Well, he had not finished that mental sentence.
Unless—what?

He tucked the coin into his pocket, and, standing up, yawned and
stretched himself. With the toe of his boot he lazily pushed a chair
out from the wall. The chair fell over. The Hawk picked it up, and quite
casually set it down—near the door. He took off his coat, and flung it
over the back of the chair.

The Hawk's face was greyer now, as it set in rigid lines, but there
was no tremor in the hand that inserted the key in the lock of the
trunk. He flung back the lid—and his eyes, for an instant, searched
the room again sharply. The window shade was securely drawn; the coat
over the back of the chair completely screened the keyhole of the door.
He laughed a little then—mirthlessly. Well, the trunk had been opened!
Had MacVightie found all—or nothing?

His fingers were working swiftly, deftly now around the inside edges of
the lid. He was either caught here, cornered, at bay—or MacVightie,
once for all, would be satisfied, and, as far as MacVightie was
concerned, the coast would hereafter be clear. The Hawk's dark eyes
narrowed, the square under jaw crept out and set doggedly. It had been a
close call, perilously close, that other night when he had taken the
ten thousand dollars from the paymaster's safe, and MacVightie
had followed him here to this room. He had pulled the wool over
MacVightie's eyes for the moment—but MacVightie had returned to the
old trail again. Well, the cards were on the table now, and it was a
gamble that was grim enough! Either he was quit of MacVightie, could
even count on MacVightie as a sort of sponsor for his innocence;
or—“Ah!” The ingeniously fashioned false tray in the curvature of
the lid had come away in the Hawk's hands. He was safe! MacVightie
had missed it! In the tray, untouched, where he had left them, lay the
packages of banknotes from the paymaster's safe; in the tray still
glittered the magnificent diamond necklace, whose theft from the wife of
His Excellency the Governor of the State had already furnished more than
one of the big dailies back in the East with attractive copy for their
Sunday editions; and there, undisturbed, were the contents of Isaac
Kirschell's cash box, a trifling matter of some three thousand
dollars; and there too, snugly tucked away in one corner, was the
bundle of crisp, new, counterfeit ten-dollar bills. The Hawk grinned
maliciously, as his eyes rested on the counterfeit notes. The one he
had sent, inscribed with his compliments, to MacVightie, when he had
returned the otherwise empty paymaster's bag to the detective, had not
pleased MacVightie!

Quite at his ease now, the Hawk fitted the false top back into the lid,
closed the trunk, locked it, drew a chair up to the table, and sat down.
With MacVightie removed as a possible factor of interruption, there was
another, and very pressing little matter to which he was now at liberty
to give his attention. He produced a folded sheet of paper from his
inside vest pocket, spread it out on the table before him, and inspected
it with a sort of cynical curiosity. In each corner were tack holes. He
had removed it less than half an hour ago—not through any misguided
dislike to publicity, but simply because he had urgently required a
piece of paper—from a conspicuous position on the wall of the railroad
station. It was a police circular. The Hawk had not before had an
opportunity to absorb more than the large type captions—he filled
his pipe calmly now, as he read it in its entirety: $5,000 REWARD—FOR
EX-SING SING CONVICT

Five Thousand Dollars Reward Will Be Paid For Information Leading to the
Arrest and Conviction of THE HAWK, Alias HARRY MAUL.

Here followed a description tallying with the one given by MacVightie
to Lanson, the division superintendent, and which Lanson had caustically
remarked would not fit more than twenty-five thousand men in Selkirk
City; followed after that a résumé of the crimes recently committed
on the railroad, amongst them the theft of the diamond necklace and the
robbery of the paymaster's safe; and, at the end, in bold-faced type
again: $2,000 REWARD

Two Thousand Dollars Reward Will Also be Paid For Information Leading
to the Arrest and Conviction of Each and Every One of THE HAWK'S
Confederates.

The Hawk smiled broadly, as he held the flame of a match to his pipe
bowl. The last paragraph was exquisitely ironical. Those whom MacVightie
so blithely called the “Hawk's confederates” were vying with each
other at that exact moment, and for the exact amount of two thousand
dollars offered by the Master Spider of the gang, for the privilege of
putting an even more conclusive end—in the shape of a knife thrust, a
bullet, or a blackjack—to the Hawk!

“And,” said the Hawk softly, as he turned the circular over,
“I guess they'd make it a whole lot more if they knew that I
had—this!”

The back of the circular was covered with line after line of what,
seemingly, was but a meaningless jumble of scribbled letters—nor, in
this case, were the letters any too well formed. The Hawk had
laboured under difficulties when the telegraph sounder had “broke”
unexpectedly with the message. He had been listening—as he was always
listening when within sound of a telegraph instrument—but he had never
known a message from the Wire Devils to come through at so early an hour
in the evening before. He had shaken MacVightie's man off the trail
and had gone down to the depot, intending to go up the line to the first
small station, where, with little chance of being discovered, he could
spend the night within earshot of the operator's instrument—in the
hope that his vigil would not, as it sometimes did, prove futile. He had
been standing under the dispatcher's open window waiting for a train,
when the police circular tacked on the station wall had caught his eye.
The large type was readily decipherable, but the platform lights were
poor, and he had stepped closer to read the remainder—and instead,
glancing quickly about him to see that he was not observed, he had
snatched the circular from the wall, and, whipping a pencil from his
pocket, had scrawled on the reverse side, as best he could, the message
that was rattling in over the dispatcher's sounder from the room
above. He had taken chances—but he had played in luck. No one had
noticed him, and—well, he was here now with the message; and, since it
must sooner or later have been put to the proof in any case, he was back
here, too, to find that he was quit of MacVightie.

“Yes,” confided the Hawk to himself, as he reached for a blank sheet
of paper in the drawer of the table, “I guess I played in luck—both
ways. Wonder if there's another ripe little melon here going to be
shoved my way on a gold platter by the Butcher and his crowd?”

The Hawk studied the cipher for a moment.

“lqrtvy... key letter... stroke at six...two-three-one,” he
murmured.

He drew the fresh sheet of paper toward him, and began to work busily.
Occasionally he paused, staring dubiously at a letter—he had taken the
message under far from ideal conditions, and a mistake here and there,
if not fatal, was annoying and confusing. Finally, however, the Hawk
leaned back in his chair, and whistled low under his breath. The
message, deciphered and arranged into words and sentences, ran:

Final orders. Number One, Three, and Six hold up Fast Mail three miles
east of Burke's Siding to-night. Cut wires on approach. Express
car next to engine. Uncouple and proceed. Diamond shipment in safe.
Messenger drugged. No interference with remainder of train. Deliver safe
five-mile crossing to Number Four and Seven. Number One, Three, and
Six take engine and car further along the line. Return separately to
Selkirk.

Again the Hawk whistled low under his breath—and for the second time
reached into his inside vest pocket. He took out a letter that was
addressed, care of general delivery, to Mr. J. P. Carrister. The Hawk
puffed pleasantly at his pipe as he read it:

“Dear Friend: The folks are all well, and hope you are the same. I
haven't had time to write much lately. I like my new job fine. Say, I
felt like a Fifth Avenue dook for about umpty seconds to-day. One of the
fellows in the office let me hold a package of diamonds in my hand just
to see what it felt like. Gee! Say, you could almost shove it in your
vest pocket, and it was invoiced through customs at twenty thousand
plunks. They were unset stones, and came in from Amsterdam. It made me
feel queer.

“I wouldn't like to be the fellow that has to keep his eye on it any
of the way from here to San Francisco, where it's going to-morrow by
express. If you see any bright lights flashing around your burg that
you can't account for about 11:15 next Wednesday night, you'll know
it's the diamonds going through in the express-car safe. I'm getting
to be some joker, eh? We all went down to Coney last Sunday. It's been
fierce and hot here. Say, don't be a clam, write us a line. Well, I
guess there ain't any more news. Yours truly, Bud.”

The Hawk, instead of folding up the letter and returning it to his
pocket, began meditatively to tear it into minute shreds, and with it
the police circular and the sheet of paper on which he had worked out
the cipher message. The Fast Mail scheduled Selkirk at 11:15—and this
was Wednesday night!

“Twenty thousand dollars,” said the Hawk gently under his breath.
“Thanks, Bud, old boy! You were there with the goods all right, but
it wasn't a one-man job, and I didn't think there was going to be
anything doing.” The Hawk grinned at the ceiling. “And just as I was
about passing up the last check, here they go and fix it for me to scoop
the whole pot! Three miles east of Burke's Siding, eh?”

The Hawk relapsed into silence for a moment; then he spoke again.

“Yes,” said the Hawk, “I guess that ought to work. She won't
make the three miles from the siding under five or six minutes. She's
due at Burke's at ten-ten. I can make it on the local out of here at
eight-thirty. Twenty thousand dollars—in unset stones! Just as good as
cash—and a lot easier to carry!”

The Hawk looked at his watch. It was five minutes of eight. He rose
leisurely from his chair, stooped for a precautionary inspection of the
trunk lock, put on his coat, and, moving toward the door, switched off
the light.

“If I get away with this,” observed the Hawk, as he went down
the stairs and let himself out through the street door, “it'll be
good-night for keeps if any of the gang ever pick up my trail—and
they won't quit until they do! And then there's MacVightie and the
police. I guess there'll be some little side-stepping to do—what?
Oh, well”—he shrugged his shoulders—“I guess I'll get a bite
of supper, anyway—there's no telling when I'll have a chance to
eat again!”




VIII—THREADS IN THE WEB

IT was not far to the station—down through the lane from the Palace
Saloon—and close to the station, he remembered, there was a little
short-order house that was generally patronised by the railroad men. Old
Mother Barrett's short-order house, they called it. She was the wife
of an engineer who had been killed, he had heard, and she had a boy
working somewhere on the railroad. Not that he was interested in these
details; in fact, as he walked along, the Hawk was not interested in
old Mother Barrett in a personal sense at all—but, as he reached the
short-order house and entered, his eyes, as though magnetically drawn
in that direction, fixed instantly on the little old woman behind the
counter.

The Hawk was suddenly very much interested in old Mother Barrett. It was
not that she made a somewhat pathetic figure, that she drooped a little
at the shoulders, that her face under her grey hair looked tired,
or that, though scrupulously neat, her clothes were a little
threadbare—it was none of these things—it was old Mother Barrett's
hands that for the moment concerned the Hawk. She was in the act of
adjusting her spectacles and picking up a very new and crisp ten-dollar
bill, that a customer from the stool in front of her had evidently
tendered in payment for his meal. The Hawk shot a quick glance up and
down the room. There were several other customers at the long counter,
but the stool beside the owner of the ten-dollar bill was vacant—and
the Hawk unostentatiously straddled it.

He glanced casually at the man at his elbow; allowed his eyes to stray
to the kindly, motherly old face with its grey Irish eyes, that was
puckered now in a sort of hesitant indecision—and glanced a little
more than casually at the banknote she kept turning over and over in her
hands. No, he had not been mistaken. It was one of those counterfeits
which, according to MacVightie, had flooded the East and were now making
their appearance in Selkirk, and it was a duplicate of those in the
false tray of his trunk. His eyes perhaps were sharper than old Mother
Barrett's—in any case, his identification was the quicker, for his
gaze had wandered to the coffee urn, and he was drumming idly on the
counter with his finger tips before the little old woman finally spoke.

“I—I'm afraid I can't take this,” she said slowly, handing the
banknote back across the counter.

“What's the matter with it?” demanded the man gruffly.

“Why—it's—it's counterfeit,” she said a little anxiously, as
though she were fearful of giving offence.

The Hawk's eyes, with mild and quite impersonal interest, were on the
man's face now. The man had picked up the bill, and was pretending to
examine it critically.

“Counterfeit!” echoed the man shortly. “Say, what are you
giving us! It's as good as wheat! Give me my change, and let me get
out—I'm in a hurry!” He pushed the bill toward her again.

She did not pick it up from the counter this time.

“I'm sorry.” She seemed genuinely disturbed, and the sweet old
face was full of sympathy. “I'm sure you did not know that it was
not good, and ten dollars is a great deal to lose, isn't it? It's
too bad. Do you remember where you got it?”

“Look here, you're dippy!” snapped the man. “I tell you it's
not counterfeit. Anyway, it's all I've got. If you want your pay,
take it!”

“You owe me thirty-five cents, but I can't take it out of this.”
She shook her head in a troubled way. “This is a counterfeit.”

“You seem to be pretty well posted—on counterfeits!” sneered the
man offensively. “How do you know it's a counterfeit—eh?”

“Because I've seen one like this before,” she said simply. “My
son showed me one the last time he was in from his run, and he warned me
to be careful about taking any.”

“Oh, your son—eh?” sneered the man again. “Some son! Wised you
up, did he? Carries it around with him—eh? And who does he shove it
off on?”

There was a queer little sound from the old lady—like a quick, hurt
catch of her breath. The Hawk's eyes travelled swiftly to her face.
She had turned a little pale, and her lips were trembling—but she was
drawn up very proudly, and the thin shoulders were squared back.

“I love my boy,” she said in a low voice, and tears came suddenly
into her eyes, “I love him with all my heart, but I should a thousand
times rather see him dead than know him for a thief. And a man who
attempts to pass these things knowingly is a—thief. I have been very
respectful to you, sir, and I do not deserve what you have said. I
assumed that you had been swindled yourself, and that you were perfectly
honest in offering the bill to me, but now from your——”

“What's the trouble, Mother Barrett?”—a big railroader farther
up the counter had laid down his knife and fork, and swung round on his
stool.

With a hurried glance in that direction, the man hastily thrust the
counterfeit note into his pocket, laid down thirty-five cents on the
counter—and, with a dive across the room, disappeared through the
door.

The Hawk stared thoughtfully after him.

“I couldn't butt in on that, and hand him one,” said the Hawk to
himself almost apologetically. “Not with twenty thousand in sight! I
couldn't afford to get into a row, and maybe miss the local, and spill
the beans, could I?”

He looked around again to find the little old woman wiping her
spectacles, and smiling at him a little wistfully.

“I'm sorry that you had to listen to any unpleasantness,” she
said. “My little place isn't very pretentious, but I would not like
to have you, a stranger, think that sort of thing was customary here.
What can I get you, sir?”

It was no wonder that the railroaders evidently swore by old Mother
Barrett, and that one of them had been quick to shift her trouble to his
own shoulders!

“I guess he was a bad one, all right!” growled the Hawk.

She shook her head regretfully. There was no resentment left—it was as
though, indeed, the man was a charge upon her own conscience.

“He meant to be dishonest, I am afraid,” she admitted reluctantly;
“but I am sure he cannot be thoroughly bad, for he wasn't very
old—just a young man.”

She was a very simple, trusting little old lady—as well as a sweet
little old lady. Why should her illusions be dispelled? The Hawk nodded
gravely.

“Perhaps,” suggested the Hawk, “perhaps he hasn't had any one to
keep him straight. Perhaps he hasn't got what keeps a good many chaps
straight—a good mother.”

The mist was quick in her eyes again. He had not meant to bring
that—he had meant only to show her a genuine admiration and respect.

“Perhaps not,” she answered slowly. “But if he has, I hope she
will never know.” She shook her head again; and then: “But you have
not told me yet what you would like, sir?”

The Hawk gave his order. He ate mechanically. Back in his mind he was
reviewing a rather extensive acquaintanceship with certain gentry whose
morals were not wholly above reproach. Failing, however, to identify the
individual with the counterfeit note as one of this select number, he
finally dismissed the man somewhat contemptuously from his mind.

“Just a piker crook, I guess,” decided the Hawk. “I'd like to
have found out though how many more of those he's got, and who the
fool was that let an amateur skate like that loose with any of the
goods!”

He finished his meal, paid his bill, smiled a goodnight to old Mother
Barrett, walked out of the short-order house, and made his way over to
the station. Five minutes later, having purchased a magazine, the Hawk,
with a ticket in his pocket for a station a number of miles beyond
Burke's Siding, curled himself up with his pipe on a seat in the
smoker of the local.

The train started, and the Hawk apparently became immersed in his
magazine. The Hawk, however, though he turned a page from time to time,
was concerned with matters very far removed from the printed words
before him. The game to-night was more hazardous, more difficult, and
for a vastly greater stake than any in which he had before pitted his
wits or played his lone hand against the combined brains of the Butcher,
his fellows, and their unknown leader, who collectively were referred to
by the papers as—the Wire Devils.

The Hawk tamped down the ash in the bowl of his pipe with a wary
forefinger. He, the Hawk, according to MacVightie, was the leader
of this ingenious criminal league! It was very complimentary of
MacVightie—very! Between MacVightie and the Wire Devils themselves, he
was a personage much sought after! MacVightie, however, was not without
grounds for his assertion and belief—the Hawk grinned pleasantly—he,
the Hawk, had certainly, and for some time back, helped himself to the
leader's share of the spoils, and helped himself very generously!

The grin died away. He had beaten them so far, appropriated from under
their very noses the loot they had so carefully planned to obtain, and
he had mocked and taunted them contemptuously in the doing of it; but
the cold fact remained that luck sometimes was known to turn, and
that the pitcher that went too often to the well ran the risk of
getting—smashed! If they ever caught him, his life would not be worth
an instant's purchase. He knew some of them, and he knew them well for
what they were, and he laboured under no delusions on that score! The
Butcher, for example, who was the Number One of the message, had already
nearly done for him once; and the Butcher had nothing on Number Three,
who was the Bantam, or on Number Seven, who was Whitie Jim—or, it
was safe to presume, on any of the others that he had not yet
identified—this Number Four and Number Six, for instance, who were
mentioned in the cipher message to-night. And how many more were there?
He did not know—except that there was the Master Spider of them all.

The Hawk had ceased now even to turn cursorily the pages of the
magazine. He was staring out of the window.

“I wonder,” muttered the Hawk grimly, “when I'll run up against
him? And who he is? And where the head office is?”

He nodded his head after a moment. MacVightie had called the turn. The
Wire Devils formed as powerful and dangerous a criminal organisation as
had probably ever existed anywhere. And not for very long would they put
all their resources at work to pull off some coup, only to find that he,
the Hawk, had made use of their preparations to snatch the prize away
from them; they were much more likely to put all their resources at
work—with the Hawk as their sole objective!

The Hawk's lips tightened. He might under-estimate, but he could not
exaggerate, his danger! The man in the seat behind him might be one of
them for all he knew. Somewhere, hidden away in his web, at the end of
a telegraph wire, was the Master Spider directing the operations; and
there must be very many of them—the little spiders—spread all over
the division. Where there was a telegraph sounder that sounder carried
the messages, the plans, the secret orders of the brain behind the
organisation; and the very audaciousness with which they made themselves
free of the railroad's telegraph system to communicate with each
other was in itself a guarantee of success. If one of their messages was
interfered with, they threatened to cut the wires; and that meant, if
luckily it meant no more, that train operating was at an end until
the break could be located and repaired. Were they tapping the wire
somewhere? What chance was there to find out where? There were hundreds
of old splices on the wires. Or, if found, what would prevent them
tapping the wire on the next occasion many miles away? Also the sources
of information that they tapped must be far-flung. How, for instance,
unless they too had a “Bud” back there in New York, did they know of
this diamond shipment coming through to-night?

The Hawk's lips grew still a little tighter. His safety so far had
depended on the fact that he possessed the key to their cipher messages,
which not only enabled him to reap where they had sown, but warned
him of any move they might make against him. But it was becoming
increasingly difficult to intercept those messages. He had MacVightie
to thank for that. Where before he had only to crawl into some little
way-station where there was no night operator, MacVightie now had every
one of those stations securely guarded. Yes, it had become exceedingly
more difficult! If only he could find out where those messages emanated
from, or the system in force for receiving them!

The Hawk slid further down in his seat, tossed the magazine to one
side, pulled his hat over his eyes, and appeared to sleep. All that was
neither here nor there—to-night. He had the message to-night—but he
had not yet got that twenty thousand dollars in unset stones! He would
perhaps do well, now that he had the leisure, to give the details of
that matter a little more critical attention than they had received
when he had made up his mind that his best chance lay in the three miles
between Burke's Siding and the point where the Butcher and his men
planned to hold up the train. According to the message, the implication
was that there would be nobody in the express car at that time except
a drugged messenger. And now, somehow, he did not quite like the
appearance of that. It seemed a little queer. What was the object of
drugging the man if they did not take immediate advantage of it? He
pondered the problem for a long time. No, after all, it was logical
enough—since they meant to remove the safe bodily. There evidently was
not a specialised cracksman amongst them who had lifted his profession
to the plane of art, no “knob-twirler” such as—well, such as
himself! The Hawk opened his eyes sleepily to inspect the tips of his
carefully manicured fingers. Otherwise, with no one to interfere but
a drugged messenger, they could have opened the safe, looted it, and,
since the Fast Mail carried only through express matter, have slipped
away from the car at the first stop, with no one being the wiser until,
somewhere up the line, the messenger returned to life and gave the
alarm.

Yes, it was very craftily worked out. The Master Spider was far from a
fool! They would have to “soup” the safe, and blow it open. If they
attempted that while the train was en route they ran the risk of being
heard, and trapped like rats in the car; and if they were heard, even
if they managed to stop the train and make their escape, they invited
instant and definite pursuit on the spot. The reason for drugging the
express messenger became quite evident now. If the man were already
helpless when they held up the train, they, at one and the same time,
assured their access to an otherwise guarded car without danger to
themselves, and without danger of being balked at the last moment of
their reward—which the messenger, with a small package like that,
might easily have been able to accomplish if he were a game man. He
could have opened the safe, say, the instant the first alarm came as
they tried to force the car door, taken out the package, and secreted
it somewhere. It needed only the nerve after that to defy them, and they
had evidently given him credit for it whether he possessed it or not.

Yes, decidedly, the Master Spider was no fool in the spinning of his
web! As it was, the safe, which would only be a small affair anyhow,
would disappear bodily; and between the point where the train was held
up and the point where they finally left the engine and express car
there would be a distance of at least ten miles, even allowing that they
approached no nearer than within two miles of Bradley, the first station
west of Burke's Siding. With the wires cut and the coaches of the Fast
Mail stalled three miles out of Burke's, considerable time must elapse
before any one could make a move against them; and even when the pursuit
finally started, MacVightie, for instance, would be confronted with
that somewhat illusive stretch of ten miles in which to decide where
the pursuit should begin. Ten miles was some little distance! MacVightie
would be quite at liberty to make his guess, and there was the chance,
with the trifling odds of some few odd thousand to one against it, that
he might guess right—unless he guessed that the safe had been removed
at the point where the engine and car were finally left, in which case
MacVightie would guess wrong.

If the Hawk was asleep, he was perhaps dreaming—for the Hawk
smiled. The chances were just about those few odd thousand to one
that MacVightie would guess exactly that way—wrong. Yes, it was an
exceedingly neat little web that the Master Spider had spun. If he, the
Hawk, were permitted to make a guess, he would guess that the safe would
never be found!

His mind reverted to the cipher message. The safe was to be delivered at
“five-mile crossing.” Where that was the Hawk did not know—except
that it must necessarily be somewhere between the point where the train
was held up and Bradley. However, that was a detail with which he need
hardly concern himself. Long before this “five-mile crossing”
was reached, his vest pocket, if he played in luck, would be very
comfortably lined! He would enter the express car as the Fast Mail
pulled out of Burke's Siding, trust to certain long and intimate
experience to open the safe—and get off the train as it slowed down
at the Butcher's very thoughtful request! For the rest, the
details—circumstances must govern there. In the main, that would be
his plan.

The Hawk “slept” on. Station after station was passed. His mind now
dealt in little snatches of thought. There was MacVightie and the police
circular; and the search of his room that day; and speculation as to
how they had managed to drug the express messenger; and the man with the
counterfeit ten-dollar bill in old Mother Barrett's short-order house;
and the little old woman herself, with her shabby clothes and her tired,
gentle face—and finally the Hawk stirred, glanced at his watch, and,
as the train whistled, picked up his magazine and sauntered down the car
aisle to the door.

They were approaching Burke's Siding. The Hawk opened the door, went
out on the platform, and descended to the lowest step. The train slowed.
A water-tank loomed up, receded—and the Hawk dropped to the ground.
A minute later, as the tail-lights winked by and came to a stop at the
station a short distance down the track, he had made his way back, to
the water-tank, crossed to the opposite side of the track, and stretched
himself out on the grass in the hollow at the foot of the embankment.
The Fast Mail's sole excuse for a stop at Burke's Siding was the
water-tank—which would bring the express car to a halt directly in
front of the spot where he now lay.

The local pulled out, and racketed away into the night. The tail-lights
vanished. Silence fell. There was only the chirping of the insects
now, and the strange, queer, indefinable medley of little night-sounds.
Burke's Siding was a lonely place. There was a faint yellow gleam from
the station windows, and there was the twinkle of the switch lights—no
other sign of life. It was pitch black—so black that the Hawk could
just barely distinguish the outline of the water-tank across the track.

“It's a nice night,” observed the Hawk pleasantly to himself. “A
very nice night! It's strange how some people prefer a moon!”




IX—THE LOOTING OF THE FAST MAIL

THE minutes went by, ten, fifteen, twenty of them—a half hour—and
then, from far down the track, hoarse through the night, came the
scream of a whistle. From his pocket the Hawk took out his diminutive
flashlight, thin as a pencil. It might have been the winking of a
firefly, as he played it on the dial of his watch.

“On the dot!” murmured the Hawk. “Some train—the Fast Mail! I
guess, though, she'll be a little late, at that, to-night—when
she pulls into Selkirk!” A roar and rumble was in the night again,
increasing steadily in volume. Down the right of way, in the distance, a
flash of light stabbed through the black. It grew brighter and brighter.
The Hawk, wary of the spread of the powerful electric headlight, edged
further away from the trackside. And now the rails gleamed like polished
silver—and the water-tank stood up out of the darkness, a thing of
monstrous size. There was the hiss of steam, the rasp and grind of the
setting brakes, the glinting rays from the windows of a long string
of coaches that trailed back to the station platform, and a big
ten-wheeler, like some human thirsty thing, was panting beside the
water-tank.

The engineer, with his torch, swung from the gangway for an oil around.
There was the creak of the descending spout, the rush of water, and,
silhouetted against the water-tank, the Hawk could make out the
fireman standing on the back of the tender. And now, poking with his
long-spouted oil can, weirdly swallowed up in the darkness at intervals
as he thrust the torch far in under the big machine, the engineer moved
slowly along the side of the engine, and finally disappeared around the
end of the pilot.

The Hawk stole forward closer to the track again, his eyes on the
fireman, who, now that the engineers torch was on the other side, was
more sharply outlined than before. Came then the swish and gush of water
as it overflowed, the spout banged back against the water-tank, and the
fireman scrambled back over the tender into the cab. It was the
moment the Hawk had been waiting for. Swiftly, but still crawling as a
safeguard against being seen by any of the train crew in the rear, he
moved up the embankment, and in an instant had swung himself up between
the tender and the forward door of the express car. There was no
platform here, of course, but the end beam of the car, making a sort of
wide threshold, gave him ample room on which to stand.

The roar of escaping steam drowned out all other sounds; the back of the
tender hid him from any chance of observation from the cab. He tried the
door cautiously. It was locked, of course—there were twenty thousand
dollars' worth of stones in the safe inside! The Hawk felt carefully
over the lock with his fingers, classifying it in the darkness, as it
were, by the sense of touch, and produced from his packet his bunch of
skeleton keys. He inserted one of the keys, worked with it for a
moment, then shook his head, and selected another. This time he felt
the lock-bolt slide back. The train was jerking into motion now. He
exchanged his keys for his automatic, turned the knob softly, opened the
door an inch, and listened. Even the Wire Devils were not infallible,
and if by any chance the messenger—

The Hawk whistled low and contentedly under his breath. He had caught a
glimpse of the interior of the car—and now he slipped quickly through
the door, closing the door behind him.

A quarter length down the car, in the aisle made by the express packages
which were piled high on either side, the messenger, a young man of
perhaps twenty-two, was huddled, apparently unconscious, in his chair.
In a flash the Hawk was down the car, and bending sharply over the
other. The man sat in a helpless, sagging attitude; he was breathing
heavily, and his head, hanging forward and a little to one side, swayed
limply with the motion of the car. There was no question as to the
messenger's condition—he was drugged, and well drugged. From the
man, the Hawk's eyes travelled to a sort of desk, or ledge, built out
from the side of the car, and topped by a pigeonholed rack stuffed with
express forms and official-looking manila envelopes. On the desk was a
small leather satchel containing some lunch, and a bottle of what was
evidently cold tea, now but barely a quarter full; and, as though to
supply further evidence that the man had succumbed in the midst of his
meal, a little to one side lay a meat sandwich, half eaten.

The Hawk nodded quietly to himself, as again his eyes shifted—this
time to a small safe, about three feet square, that stood beneath the
desk. It was quite easy to understand now. The Wire Devils had only to
ascertain the fact that it was the messenger's habit to eat his lunch
at a certain time, choose the point of attack on the line to correspond
therewith, and see that a sufficient quantity of knockout drops was
introduced into the cold tea—not a very weighty undertaking for the
Wire Devils!

Well, it was a bit rough on the boy—the Hawk was kneeling now in front
of the safe—but he, the Hawk, was greatly indebted to the Wire Devils!
Twenty thousand dollars was a snug little sum—quite a snug little sum!

The figure in the chair, with swaying head, breathed stertorously; there
was the pound, quick in its tempo, of the trucks beating at the rail
joints; the give-and-take of the car in protesting little creaks; and,
over all, a muffled roar as the Fast Mail tore through the night—but
the Hawk heard none of this. His ear was pressed close against the face
of the safe listening for the tumblers' fall, as his fingers twirled
the dial knob.

After a little while the Hawk spoke aloud.

“Left, twenty-eight, one quarter... two right, fourteen... two left,
eighteen, one-half,” he said.

He straightened up, swung the handle of the safe—and a dismayed,
anxious look flashed across his face. There was not much time, very
little time—-and he had missed it! How far along those three miles
from Burke's Siding to where the Butcher was waiting had the train
already come?

He tried again, coolly, methodically—and again he missed.

“I guess I'm out of practice to fall down on a tin box like
this!” he muttered grimly. “But the first two are right, that's
sure—it's the last turn that's wrong somewhere. Give me another
minute or two”—he was twirling the dial knob with deft, quick
fingers once more—“that's all I ask, and——”

A sudden jolt flung him forward against the safe. Came the scream of the
whistle, the screech of the tight-set brakes, the bump, and jerk, and
pound, and grind of the flying train coming to an emergency stop. The
limp form of the messenger, sliding down, was almost doubled over the
arm of the chair.

In an instant the Hawk had recovered his balance, and, his face set like
iron, his jaws clamped hard, he snatched at the knob, and with desperate
haste now made another attempt. There were a few seconds left, a few
seconds before the train would come finally to a standstill and—no,
they were gone now, those seconds—and he had missed again!

His automatic was in his hand as he stood up. It was no longer a
question of twenty thousand dollars' worth of unset diamonds—it was
a question of his life. There was a bitter smile on his lips, as he ran
for the forward door. It looked as though the pitcher had at last gone
once too often to the well! The train had stopped now. He reached the
door, and opened it guardedly a little way. A great red flare from
somewhere ahead lighted up the night. He heard and recognised the
Butcher's voice, menacing, raucous, punctuated with vicious oaths:

“Get out of that cab, and get out damned quick! Down you come—jump
now! Now, boys, run 'em back, and keep firing down the length of the
train as you go; and if these guys don't run faster than you do, let
'em have it in the back! Beat it now—beat it like hell! I'll pull
out the minute you're uncoupled. You two grab the rear end as she
moves, there's room enough for you, and you can bust in the door,
and——”

A fusilade of shots rang out. Flashes cut the black. The Butcher's two
companions, evidently driving the engineer and fireman before them, were
coming on the run along the trackside from the cab. The Hawk retreated
back a step, and closed the car door. He heard the men rush past
outside. The fusilade seemed to redouble in intensity; and now, added to
it, were shouts and yells from the rear of the train itself, and—if he
were not mistaken—answering shots.

His hand on the doorknob, he stood waiting tensely. With the Butcher on
guard out there in front, it would have been equivalent to suicide
to have opened the door again until he knew the other was back in the
cab—against the background of the lighted interior he would have made
a most excellent mark for the Butcher!

His eyes swept past the huddled form of the young messenger in the
chair, and fixed speculatively on the safe. He nodded suddenly, grimly.
Twenty thousand dollars! Well, he wasn't beaten yet—not till he
threw down his own hand of his own accord—not till he lost sight of
the safe for keeps!

Over the shouts and revolver shots came the sharp, vicious hiss of the
air-hose, as it was uncoupled; and then, with a violent jerk, the car
started forward, as the Butcher evidently whipped the throttle open.
And, coincidently, there was a smash upon the rear door—and the Hawk
opened the forward door and slipped out again.

A din infernal was in his ears. Like a maddened thing under the
Butcher's unscientific spur, the big ten-wheeler was coughing the
sparks heavenward in a volleying stream, while the huge drivers raced
like pinwheels in another shower of sparks as the tires sought to bite
and hold. And now the rear door of the car crashed inward; the shots
came fast as a gatling, and shouts, screams and yells added their quota
to the uproar.

The Hawk, crouched by the door, moved suddenly to one side, as he caught
the dull, ominous spat of a bullet against one of the panels. The train
crew and those of the passengers who were armed were, very obviously,
keeping up a running fight from the stalled section of the train, and
pumping their bul-lets through the broken rear door and up the aisle of
the express car as long as they could hold the range; and, from within,
he could distinguish the duller, muffled reports of the Butcher's
confederates firing in return, preventing any attempt being made to rush
the rear of the car.

And then the sounds began to recede and die away. The men inside the car
ceased firing, and he could hear them now moving the safe out from the
side of the car. It seemed as though a very long interval of time had
been consumed in the hold-up; but in reality he knew it had been little
more than a matter of seconds—the time it had taken the two men to run
the length of the car, uncouple it, and leap on the rear end. The fight
afterwards could hardly count, for once the express car began to pull
away the thing was done.

They were moving fast now, and with every instant the speed was
increasing. The Hawk clutched at the handrail, and lowered himself to
the iron foot-rung which, on the express car, served in lieu of steps.
Here, having chosen the opposite side to that of the Butcher at the
throttle in the cab, he ran no risk of being observed. This “five-mile
crossing,” wherever it was, promised to concern him a great deal more
than he had anticipated! He leaned out, and clung there, staring ahead.

The big ten-wheeler was swaying and staggering like a drunken thing; the
rush of the wind whipped at his face; a deafening roar sang in his
ears. The Fast Mail usually ran fast; but the Butcher was running like a
dare-devil, and the bark of the exhaust had quickened now into a single
full-toned note deep as thunder.

With a sort of grim placidity, the Hawk clung to the lurching rail. Far
ahead along the right of way, a shaft of light riven through walls of
blackness, played the headlight. Shadowy objects, trees that loomed up
for an instant and were gone, showed on the edge of the wavering ray.
They tore through a rock cut, and, in the confined space and in the
fraction of a second it took to traverse it, the roar was metamorphosed
into an explosion. And then suddenly, as though by magic, the headlight
shot off at a tangent, and the glistening lines of steel, that were
always converging but never meeting, were gone, and the ray fell full
upon a densely wooded tract where leaves and foliage became a soft and
wonderful shade of green under the artificial light. The Hawk braced
himself—and just in time. The ten-wheeler, unchecked, swung the curve
with a mighty lurch, off drivers fairly lifted from the rails. She
seemed to hang there hesitantly for a breathless instant, then with a
crunch, staggering, settled back and struck into her stride again.

The thunder of the exhaust ceased abruptly, and the speed began to
slacken. The Butcher had slammed the throttle shut. At the end of the
headlight's ray, that was straight along the track again, a red light
flashed up suddenly three times and vanished. The Hawk leaned farther
out, tense now, straining his eyes ahead. It was evidently Number Four
and Number Seven signalling from “five-mile crossing.”

The Butcher began to check with the “air.” And now, in the
headlight's glare, the distance shortened, the Hawk could discern a
large wagon, drawn by two horses, that appeared to be backed up close to
the right-hand side of the track. Two forms seemed to be tugging at the
horses, which equally seemed to be plunging restively—and then, being
on the wrong side of the car, the angle of vision narrowed and he could
see no more.

The Hawk turned now—his eyes on the door of the car. There was a
possibility, a little more than a possibility, that the men inside,
knowing that they had reached their destination, would come out this
way. No—he had only to keep hidden from the men out there with the
wagon until the car stopped—the men within were sliding back the side
door. He swung himself still farther out on the foot-rung; then, curving
back with the aid of the handrail, flattened himself against the side of
the car.

They were close up to the wagon now, and he could hear voices cursing
furiously at the horses, as the frightened animals stamped and pawed.
And then the car bumped and jerked to a standstill, and the Butcher was
bawling from the cab:

“Take the horses out, you blamed fools, and tie 'em back there on
the road a bit till we're gone! We'd have a sweet time loading the
wagon with them doing the tango every second! Take 'em out! We'll
back the wagon up against the car.”

The Hawk lowered himself silently to the ground—to find that the car
had come to a stop directly over a road crossing. The men in the car had
joined their voices with the Butcher's, and in the confusion now the
Hawk slipped quickly along the side of the car, stole around the rear
end, and from that point of vantage stood watching the Butcher and his
men at work.

He could see quite plainly, thanks to the light from the car's
wide-open side door that flooded the scene. The horses had been
unharnessed, and were being led away along the road. One of the men in
the car jumped to the ground, as the Butcher called out, and together
they backed the wagon close up against the car doorway; and then,
presently, the men who had accompanied the horses, one carrying a
lantern, came running back. The Hawk's eyes, from a general and
comprehensive survey of the scene, fixed on the man who until now had
not left the car, but who had now sprung down into the wagon and
was running a short plank, to be used as a skid evidently, up to the
threshold of the car door, which was a little above the level of the
wagon. The light shone full in the man's face.

“Number Six—Crusty Kline!” confided the Hawk softly to himself.
“I'm glad to know that. The last time I chummed with Crusty was back
in little old Sing Sing. Guess he got out for good behaviour—thought
he was elected for five spaces yet!”

Crusty spoke now, as he jumped back into the car.

“Look here, Butcher, I'm telling you again, this guy in here's in
pretty bad shape.”

“Never mind about that!” replied the Butcher roughly. “Get the
safe out! All hands now! We've got no time to monkey with him. He'll
come around all right, I guess—anyway, it's none of our lookout!”

The men were bunched together now, three in the doorway of the car and
two in the wagon, the safe between them. The Hawk was studying one of
the two who stood in the wagon. One was Whitie Jim, as he already knew,
but the other had had his back half turned, and the Hawk had not been
able to see his face. The safe slid down the plank, and was levered and
pushed forward into the middle of the wagon.

“French Pete!” said the Hawk suddenly and as softly as before, as
the man he had been watching straightened up and turned around. “Say,
I guess Sing Sing's gone out of business—or else somebody left the
door open!”

But if the Hawk's words were indicative of a facetious mood, his
actions were not. There was a sort of dawning inspiration in the dark,
narrowed eyes; and the strong jaw, as it was outthrust, drew his lips
into a grim, hard smile. They were spreading a huge tarpaulin over the
wagon and safe—and abruptly the Hawk drew back, dropped to his hands
and knees, crawled along the trackside on the opposite side of the car
again until almost opposite the wagon, and there lay flat and motionless
at the side of the road. There was a chance yet, still a chance, a very
good chance—for that twenty thousand dollars' worth of unset stones.

“All right, now!” It was the Butcher's voice. “Pull her away a
few feet into the clear!” The wagon creaked and rattled. “That's
enough! Now get a move on—everybody!”

Steps crunched along the trackside—the Butcher and his two companions
obviously making for the cab—and a moment later came the cough of the
engine's exhaust, and the express car began to glide past the spot
where the Hawk lay.

The Hawk raised himself cautiously on his elbows. Two dark forms and a
bobbing lantern were already speeding toward where the horses had been
left. The Hawk crawled forward, crossed the track—and paused. The
engine and express car were fast disappearing in the distance; the
lantern glimmered amongst the trees at the side of the road a good
hundred yards away.

There was no shadow to fall across the back of the wagon.

“I said it was a nice night, and that it was strange how some people
preferred a moon!” observed the Hawk cheerfully—and, lifting the
end of the tarpaulin, he swung noiselessly under it into the wagon, and
stretched himself out beside the safe.




X—THE THIRD PARTY

The Hawk felt upward with his hand over the safe. It was faced, he
found, toward the rear of the wagon. This necessitated a change in his
own position. He listened tensely. They were coming back with the horses
now, but they were still quite a little way off. He shifted quickly
around until his head and shoulders were in front of the safe.

“It was the last turn of the combination that I fell down on, though I
don't see how it happened!” muttered the Hawk.

He felt above his head again, this time rubbing his fingers critically
over the tarpaulin—and then the diminutive little flashlight winked,
winked again as it played around him, and finally held steadily on the
nickel dial. There were no inadvertent openings, and, particularly, no
holes in the tarpaulin, and the texture of the tarpaulin was a guarantee
that the tiny rays of light would not show through.

They were harnessing the horses into the wagon now. The Hawk, in a
somewhat cramped position, due to the wagon's narrow width, his legs
twisted at right angles to his body as he lay on his back, reached up
and began to twirl the dial knob slowly and with painstaking care.

“Left, twenty-eight, one quarter,” murmured the Hawk; and, a moment
later: “Two right, four——”

The Hawk swore earnestly under his breath. The jolt of the wagon, coming
unexpectedly as it started forward, had caused him to spin the knob too
far around.

It was hot, stifling hot, under the heavy tarpaulin, that, slanting
downward from the little safe, lay almost against his face. A bead of
sweat had gathered on his forehead. He brushed it away, and began
again to work at the dial. It was more difficult now—the wagon bumped
infernally. And as he worked, he could hear the muffled clatter of the
horses' hoofs, and occasionally the voices of the two men on the seat.

And then suddenly the Hawk's fingers travelled from the dial knob
to the handle. Had he got it this time, or—yes! The handle swung
easily—there was a low metallic thud—the bolt had slipped back to
the end of its grooves. The safe was unlocked!

“Twenty thousand dollars!” said the Hawk very softly—and, without
the slightest sound, he edged his body backwards to afford space for the
swing of the opening door. “Twenty thousand doll——”

The word died, half uttered, on the Hawk's lips. The flashlight was
illuminating the interior of the safe. On the bottom lay a single,
crisp, ten-dollar counterfeit note, over the face of which was scrawled
in ink—“With the Hawk's compliments!” Otherwise the safe was
empty.

For a moment, like a man dazed, he stared at the counterfeit note. He
could not seem to believe his eyes, Empty—the safe was empty! The
diamonds were gone—gone! Gone—and these poor fools were driving an
empty safe to the Master Spider—and another poor fool, with dropped
jaw, was staring, gaping like an imbecile, into one! And then, a grip
upon himself again, he laughed low, grimly, unpleasantly. “With the
Hawk's compliments!” He had sent a bill like that once to MacVightie
inscribed—“With the Hawk's compliments!” This was very neat,
very clever of—somebody. Of somebody—who must have known what the
Wire Devils were up to to-night! There would be no doubt in the minds
of the Wire Devils, who would have heard of that little episode with
MacVightie, but that the Hawk had again forestalled them, and left
them a ten-dollar counterfeit bill in exchange for—twenty thousand
dollars' worth of unset diamonds! Only it was this somebody, and not
he, the Hawk, who was twenty thousand dollars the richer for it!

He reached in, picked up the bill to put it in his, pocket—and
suddenly laid it back again, and closed and locked the safe. Why deprive
the Master Spider of a little joy; and, besides, it would carry a
message not perhaps so erroneous after all—for, in a flash, logically,
indisputably, apparently impossible though it appeared to be on the
surface, he knew who that somebody was. The shelving of the theft to the
Hawk's shoulders would have defeated its own object unless the
theft were committed and discovered on this particular division of
the railroad where the Hawk and, incidentally, his supposed gang of
desperadoes were known to be operating. The messenger certainly had not
been in a drugged condition when he went on duty, and, since it was only
reasonable to assume that he would have satisfied himself everything was
all right at that time, it was evident, as he had given no alarm, that
the contents of the safe had been intact when he took charge—whether
as a “through” man in New York, or at the eastern terminus of the
road, or at the last divisional point—it did not matter which. The
robbery, then, had been committed while the messenger was present in the
car—and it had been committed on this division. The safe had not
been forced, it showed not the slightest sign of violence—it had been
opened on the combination. Some one then, an expert safe-worker, in the
first stages of the messenger's drugged condition, had happened into
the car just ahead of him, the Hawk, and had done exactly what he, the
Hawk, had intended to do?

“No,” said the Hawk. “No, I guess not.” He was wriggling
noiselessly backward, and his feet were hanging out now over the end
of the wagon. “No—coincidences like that don't happen—not
very often!” The Hawk's head and shoulders were still under the
tarpaulin, but his feet now could just feel the ground beneath them.
“I guess,” said the Hawk, as he suddenly withdrew his head, and,
crouching low, ran a few steps with the wagon, then dropped full length
in the road, “I guess it's—the third party.”

The wagon disappeared in the darkness. The Hawk rose, and, turning,
broke into a run back along the road.

He had been longer in the wagon than he had thought—it took him ten
minutes to regain the railroad tracks.

Here, without pause, still running, he kept on along the right of
way—but there was a hard twist to his lips, and the clenching of
his fists was not wholly due to runner's “form.” How far had the
Butcher taken the car before deserting it? A mile? Two miles—three?
He could not run three miles under half an hour, and that would be fast
over railroad ties! How long would it be before the train crew of the
stalled Mail got back to Burke's Siding and managed somehow, in spite
of the cut wires, to give the alarm—or how long before the dispatcher
at Selkirk, with the Fast Mail reported “out” at Burke's Siding
and no “O. S.” from Bradley, would smell a rat? It would take time
after that, of course, before anything could be done; but, at best, the
margin left for him was desperately narrow.

He ran on and on; his eyes, grown accustomed to the darkness, enabling
him to pick out the ties with a fair degree of accuracy. There was not
a sound save that of his own footsteps. He stopped for breath again and
again; and again and again ran on at top speed. It seemed as though he
had run not three miles, but six, when finally, far ahead, he caught a
glow of light. The Butcher and his confederates had evidently not taken
the trouble to close the side door of the car!

Instinctively, the Hawk, in caution, slowed his pace—and the next
instant, smiling pityingly at himself for the act, ran on the faster.
The Butcher and the other two would long since have made their getaway!
There was only the messenger—and the messenger was drugged. That was
all that need concern him now—the messenger—to find some way to
rouse the man so that he could talk.

The Hawk reached the car, ran along the side to the open door—and
stood suddenly still. And then, with a low, startled cry, he swung
himself up and through the doorway, and running forward, knelt beside
a huddled form on the floor. It was the messenger, sprawled on his face
now, motionless, and it was no longer a case of being drugged—the man
had been shot! There was a dark, ugly pool on the flooring, and a thin
red stream had trickled away in a zigzag course along one of the planks.
The Hawk's lips were tight. The Butcher's work! But why? Why? Yes!
Yes, he understood! The Butcher, too, in some way had discovered that
the messenger was—the third party!

The boy—he was even more of a boy now in appearance, it seemed to the
Hawk, with his ashen face and colourless lips—the boy moaned a little,
and, as the Hawk lifted him up, opened his eyes.

The Hawk produced a flask, and forced a few drops between the other's
lips.

“Listen!” he said distinctly. “Try and understand what I am
saying. Did they get the diamonds from you after they shot you?”

The boy's eyes widened with a quick, sudden fear. Perhaps the drug had
begun to wear off—perhaps it was the wound and the loss of blood that
had cleared his brain.

“The diamonds?” he faltered.

“Yes,” said the Hawk grimly. “The diamonds! You took them. Did you
tell those men where they were?”

“It's—it's a lie!” The boy seemed to shiver convulsively.
Then, his voice scarcely audible: “No, it's—it's true. I—I
did. I—I guess I'm going out—ain't I? It's—it's true. But
I—I didn't tell. There weren't any men—I——” He had fainted
in the Hawk's arms.

“My God!” whispered the Hawk solemnly. “It's true—the kid's
dying.”

He held the flask to the other's lips again. It wasn't the Butcher,
then, who had shot the boy; and, besides, he saw now that the wound was
in a strangely curious place—in the back, below the shoulder blade;
the boy had been sitting in his shirt sleeves, and the back of his vest
was soaked with blood. And the Hawk remembered the fusillade of bullets
that had swept up the interior of the car, and the spat upon the forward
door panel as he had crouched there outside—and he understood. The
boy, sitting in a stupor in his chair facing the forward door, had been
directly in the line of fire, and a stray bullet had found its mark.

“I—I don't know how you knew”—the boy had roused, and was
speaking again—“but—but I'm going out—and—and it's
true. Two days ago, a man gave me a hundred dollars to stand for—for
knockout drops on the run to-night. I—I couldn't get caught—I—I
was safe—whatever happened. I'd be found drugged—and—and no
blame coming to me—and——” He motioned weakly toward the flask in
the Hawk's hand. “Give me—give me some more of that!”

He did not speak for a moment.

“And, instead,” prompted the Hawk quietly, “you double-crossed the
game.”

“I—I had a counterfeit ten-dollar bill,” the boy went on with an
effort. “I'd heard about the Hawk—and—and MacVightie. I knew
from what:—the fellow said—that the Hawk—wasn't one of them.
I—I got to thinking. All I had to do was empty the safe—and—and
write just what the Hawk did on the bill—and—and shove it in the
safe—and—and take the diamonds—and—and then drink the tea that
had the drops in it. I—I would be drugged, and they—they'd
think the Hawk did it while I was drugged before they—they got
here—and—and that's what I did.”

The boy was silent again. It was still outside, very still—only the
chirpings of the insects and the night-sounds the Hawk had listened
to while he had lain below the embankment waiting for the train at
Burke's Siding. There was a set, strained look on the Hawk's face.
The kid was paying the long price—for twenty thousand dollars' worth
of unset diamonds!

“To make it look like—like the real thing”—the boy's lips were
moving again—“I—I cleaned out everything in the safe—but—but
of course there mustn't any of that be found—and—and I tied the
stuff up—and—and weighted it, and dropped it—into—the—river
as we came over the bridge at Moosehead. And then I had to—to hide
the diamonds so they wouldn't be found on me, and yet so's
they—they'd come along with me—and—and not be left in the car.
I was afraid that when some of the train crew found me
drugged—they—they'd undress me—and—and put me to
bed—and—and so I didn't dare hide the diamonds in my clothes.
They're—they're—in——” He raised himself up suddenly,
clutched frantically at the Hawk's shoulders and his voice rang wildly
through the car. “Hold me tight—hold me tight—don't let me go
out yet—I—I got something more to say! Don't tell her! Don't
tell her! I'll tell you where the stones are, they're in the lining
of my lunch satchel—but don't—oh, for God's sake, don't tell
her—don't let her know that—that I'm a—thief! You don't have
to, do you? Say you don't! I'm—I'm going out—I—I've got
what's coming to me, and that's—enough—isn't it—without
her knowing too? It—it would kill her. She was a good mother—do you
hear!”

He was stiffening back in the Hawk's arms. “And this ain't coming
to her. She was a good mother—do you hear—everybody called
her mother, but she's my mother—you know—old
Mother Barrett—short-order house—you
know—old—Mother—Barrett—good——”

The boy never spoke again.

The Hawk laid the still form gently back on the floor of the car, and
stood up. And there was a mist in the Hawk's eyes that blotted out his
immediate surroundings, and in the mist he seemed to see another scene,
and it was the picture of a gentle, kindly-faced old woman, who had
silver hair, and who wore clothes that were a little threadbare, and
whose grey Irish eyes behind the spectacles were filled with tears, and
he seemed to see the thin shoulders square proudly back, and he seemed
to hear her speak again: “I love my boy, I love him with all my heart,
but I should a thousand times rather see him dead than know him for a
thief.”

Mechanically the Hawk moved over to the desk where the lunch satchel
still lay, and emptied out the remainder of the food.

“No,” said the Hawk, “I guess she'll never know; and I guess
I'd have to take the stuff now, anyway, whether I wanted to or
not—if she's not to know.” He was examining the inside of the
satchel. It was an old and well-worn affair, and a torn piece of the
lining, stuck down with paste at the edges, would ordinarily have
attracted no attention. The Hawk loosened this, and felt inside. At the
bottom, carefully packed away, were strips of cotton wadding. He took
one out. Embedded in this were a number of diamonds, which, as he drew
the wadding apart, flashed brilliantly in the light of the oil lamps
above his head. He wrapped the stones up again, and put them in his
pocket—took out the remainder from the satchel, put these also in
his pocket, and replaced in the satchel the portion of the lunch he had
removed. It mattered little about the torn lining now!

“He kind of put it up to me,” said the Hawk slowly. “Yes, and she
did too—without knowing it—old Mother Barrett. It's kind of queer
she should have said that—kind of queer.” The Hawk pulled the drawer
of the desk open, and nodded as he found and took out the messenger's
revolver. “Thought he'd have one, and that it would most likely be
here,” he muttered.

He crossed the car, and listened intently at the open side door. There
was no sound—nothing, for instance, coming from Bradley yet. He closed
the door, and stood for an instant looking down at the boy's form on
the floor.

“I guess I can fix it for you, kid—maybe,” he said simply. “I
guess I can.”

In rapid succession he fired five of the seven shots from the revolver;
then, stooping, laid the weapon, as though it had dropped at last
from nerveless fingers, just beside the boy's outstretched hand. He
straightened up, stepped to the side door, and slid it open again.

“It'll let the smoke out before anybody gets here,” said the Hawk.
“The Butcher isn't coming forward with any testimony, and with all
those shots fired at the time of the hold-up who's to know the boy
didn't fight till he went down and out? And now I guess I'll make
my own getaway!” He dropped to the trackside, and started forward at a
brisk pace. “I'll keep on a bit until I hear something coming,”
he decided. “Then I'll lay low while they're cleaning up the line,
and wait till I can hop a freight, east or west, that will get me out of
this particular locality. After that, there's nothing to it!”

A hundred yards farther on the Hawk spoke again, and there was a twisted
smile on the Hawk's lips.

“It'll break her heart anyway, I guess,” he said; “but it'll
help some maybe to be proud of him. Yes, I guess they'll tell her
that, all right—that he died a game kid.”




XI—THE LEAD CAPSULE

THE Hawk yawned. He had been almost forty-eight hours without sleep. He
had slept all day after he had regained his room, following the night at
“Five-Mile Crossing,” but after that——

He frowned in a perturbed and puzzled way. Ensconced now in a wicker
lounging chair in the observation car of the Coast Limited, he was
apparently engrossed in the financial page of his newspaper, and
apparently quite oblivious of his fellow travellers, some four or five
of whom lounged and smoked in their own respective wicker chairs around
him. On a little pad of paper, which he held in his left hand, he might
even, without serious tax upon the imagination, have appeared to be
calculating the effect of the market's fluctuations upon personal,
and perhaps narrowly held, margins—for again he scowled unhappily. The
Hawk, however, at the moment, was engrossed solely with a few curiously
assorted letters of the alphabet, which were scrawled across the top of
the pad. They ran:

pzudl kmlqpb.

Beneath this his pencil had already been at work, and he had transformed
the line as follows:

He was staring at this result now in a bewildered way. Then his pencil
picked out the remaining five unscored letters, and mechanically set
them down as a third line:

“Rainy”—there was one word, just one word—“rainy.” What did
it mean? What was the significance of the word? No message in the Wire
Devils' cipher, once the message was decoded, but had been at once
clear and unmistakable in its meaning before. Had they resorted now to
code words as well, to a cipher within a cipher? Into the grimness of
the Hawk's smile there crept a hint of weariness, as he slipped the
pad into his pocket, allowed the newspaper to drop to his knees, and,
edging his chair around, gazed out of the window.

For once his knowledge of their cipher was obviously useless to
him—and useless when a foreknowledge of their plans at that moment
meant scarcely less than a matter of life and death to him in a very
unpleasantly real and literal sense. Not a word had come from them; not
a message had gone over the wires on either of the two preceding nights;
not a sign of existence had they given since three nights ago when, with
an empty safe as the sole reward for their elaborately laid plans, he,
the Hawk, had enriched himself with the twenty thousand dollars' worth
of diamonds it had once contained. There had been something sinister,
something ominous in their silence, as compared with the almost insane
ravings of MacVightie, the police, and the press—yes, and the railroad
men as well, who were particularly incensed over the “murder” of
the young messenger found dead at his post in the express car with his
revolver partially emptied on the floor beside him.

The Hawk drummed abstractedly with his finger tips upon the window pane.
MacVightie, the police, and the press made no doubt but that he, the
Hawk, was the leader of the desperadoes who were terrorising that
particular section of the country; on the other hand, the gang itself
had already had occasions enough and in plenty to be painfully aware
that he, the Hawk, played always a lone hand—and won! A smile, grim
and ironical, parted the firm, set lips. The police and the Wire Devils
had a common interest—the Hawk. He was the storm centre.

The smile faded, the strong jaws clamped, and the dark eyes narrowed on
the flying landscape. It was not the police who concerned him, it was
not the impotent frothings of the press—it was the silence that the
Wire Devils had not broken since that night until they had broken it
this morning with the single word that, now that he had deciphered
it, still meant nothing to him. A dozen times, stealing their cipher
messages, he had turned all their carefully prepared plans to his own
account, and snatched away the prize, even as they were in the act
of reaching for it. But he was not a fool to close his eyes to the
inevitable result. He was pitted against the cleverest brains in the
criminal world; all the cunning that they knew would be ruthlessly
turned against him; and, already out to “get” him, a price already
guaranteed to the lucky member of the band out of the common funds,
the empty safe of three nights before, with its jeering ten-dollar
counterfeit bill flung in their faces, crowned, he feared, their
injuries at his hands, and marked the turning point where they would
leave no stone unturned to wreak their vengeance upon him.

And he did not like this silence of theirs since that night. Were they
suspicious at last that he had the key to their cipher? He did not think
so, and yet he did not know—it was always a possibility. But in any
case, wary of any move they might make, he had, as far as it was humanly
possible, remained within sound of a telegraph instrument ever since.
Last night, for example, taking advantage of some repairs that were
being made on the station at Elk Head, fifty miles east of Selkirk, he
had lain hidden behind a mass of building material in the dismantled
waiting room within earshot of the telegraph sounder—and there had
been nothing. Forced to retire from there by the advent of the workmen,
he had eaten a very leisurely breakfast at the lunch counter—still
within earshot of the sounder. He had lingered around the station as
long as he had dared without running the risk of exciting suspicion, and
then he had taken the local east for Bald Creek—and taken the chance,
because he had no choice, that nothing would “break” over the wires
during the three-quarters of an hour that he was on the train. The
Limited scheduled Bald Creek, and that would give him an excuse for
remaining there, an innocent and prospective patron of the road, until
the Limited's arrival some two hours later. After that, if nothing
happened, he had intended to go back on the Limited to Selkirk—and get
some sleep.

The Hawk yawned heavily again. Yes, after an almost uninterrupted vigil
of forty-eight hours one needed sleep. Well, he was on his way back to
Selkirk now—on the Limited. Only something had happened. Almost at the
moment that the Limited had pulled into Bald Creek, the Wire Devils had
broken their silence, and a cipher message had flashed over the wires.
He had waited for it, fought for it, schemed for it, gone without
sleep for two days and nights for it—and he had been rewarded. He had
intercepted the message, deciphered it, he had got it at last—he
had it now! It was the one word—“rainy.” And the word to him
meant—nothing!

The Hawk's fingers ceased their drumming on the window pane, his head
inclined slightly to one side, and he listened. His fellow travellers
had evidently scraped up acquaintanceship. The conversation had become
general—and suddenly interesting.

“... Yes, unquestionably! The amount I have with me is worth quite
easily a half million francs—a hundred thousand dollars. It is not
my personal property, I regret to say. Quantities sufficient to be of
material service are for the most part institutionally held.”

The Hawk swung around in his chair, and with frank interest surveyed
the little group. He had scanned them once already, critically,
comprehensively—at the moment he had first entered the car. The man
who sat nearest to him was a doctor from Selkirk; and, it being the
ingrained policy of the Hawk to know a reporter as he would know a
plain-clothes man, he had recognised one of the others as a young
reporter on the staff of the Selkirk Evening Journal. The others again,
of whom there were three, were strangers to him. His eyes rested—with
frank interest—on the man who had just spoken. There had been just a
trace of accent in the other's perfect English, and it bore out the
man's appearance. The man was perhaps forty-five years of age, rather
swarthy in complexion, and, though slight in build, commanding in
presence. The black Vandyke beard, as well as the mustache, was
carefully trimmed; and his face had an air of the student about it, an
air that was enhanced by the extraordinarily heavy-lensed spectacles
which he wore. The excellent clothes were unmistakably of foreign cut.

“Great Scott!” ejaculated the reporter. “Is that straight?” He
twisted his cigar excitedly from one corner of his mouth to the other.
“I say, I don't suppose there's a chance of getting a squint at
it, eh?”

“A—squint?” The foreigner's face was politely puzzled.

“I mean a chance to see it—to see what it looks like,” interpreted
the reporter, with a laugh.

“Oh, yes, of course—a squint. I will remember that!” The foreigner
joined in the laugh. “One learns, monsieur, always, eh—if one keeps
one's ears open!” He reached down and picked up a small black bag
from the floor beside his chair. “No, I am afraid I cannot actually
show it to you, monsieur, owing to the nature of the container; but
perhaps even the manner in which it is carried may be of interest, and,
if so, I shall be delighted.”

The others, the Hawk among them, leaned spontaneously forward in their
chairs. From the bag the man produced a lead box, some four inches
square. He opened this, and, from where it was nested in wadding, took
out what looked like a cylindrical-shaped piece of lead of the thickness
and length of one's little finger. He held it out in the palm of his
hand for their inspection.

“Inside this sealed lead covering,” he explained, “is a glass
tube hermetically sealed. The lead, of course, absorbs the rays, which
otherwise would render the radium extremely dangerous to handle. You
perhaps remember the story—if not, it may possibly be of interest.
Radium, you know, was discovered in 1898 by Monsieur and Madame Curie;
but the action of radium on human tissues was unknown until 1901, when
Professor Becquerel of Paris, having incautiously carried a tube in his
waistcoat pocket, there appeared on the skin within two weeks the severe
inflammation which has become known as the famous 'Becquerel burn.'
Since that time, I may add, active investigation into the action of
radium has been carried on, resulting in the establishment in Paris in
1906 of the Laboratoire Biologique du Radium.”

The doctor from Selkirk reached out, and, obtaining a smiling
permission, picked up the lead cylinder from the other's hand. The
reporter sucked noisily on the butt of his cigar.

“And d'ye mean to say that's worth one hundred thousand
dollars?” he demanded helplessly.

“Fully!” replied the foreigner gravely. “I should consider myself
very fortunate if I had the means and the opportunity of purchasing it
at that price. There are only a few grains there, it is true, and yet
even that is a very appreciable percentage of the world's entire
output for a single year. The Austrian Government, when it bought the
radium-producing pitchblende mines at Joachimsthal, you know, acquired
what is practically a world's monopoly of radium. And since the annual
production of ore from those mines is but about twenty-two thousand
pounds, and that from those twenty-two thousand pounds only something
like forty-six grains of radium are obtained, it is not difficult to
understand the enormous price which it commands.”

The little lead cylinder passed from hand to hand. It came last to the
Hawk. He examined it with no more and no less interest than had been
displayed by the others, and returned it to its owner, who replaced it
in the black handbag.

“Look here,” said the reporter impulsively, “I don't want to
nose into personal affairs; but, if it's a fair question, what are you
going to do with the stuff?”

It was the doctor from Selkirk who spoke before the foreigner had time
to reply.

“I was being tempted to ask the same question myself,” he said
quickly. “I am a physician—Doctor Moreling is my name—and from
what you have said I imagine that possibly you are a medical man
yourself?”

“And you are quite right,” the other answered cordially. “I am
Doctor Meunier, and I come from Paris.”

“What!” exclaimed the Selkirk physician excitedly. “Not Doctor
Meunier, the famous cancer specialist and surgeon of the Salpêtrière
Hospital!”

The other shrugged his shoulders protestingly.

“Well,” he smiled, a little embarrassed, “my name is certainly
Meunier, and it is true that I have the honour to be connected with the
institution you have mentioned.”

The reporter had a notebook in his hand.

“Gee!” he observed softly. “You don't mind, do you,
Doctor Meunier? This looks like luck to me. I'm on the Evening
Journal—Selkirk.”

“Ah—a reporter!” The dark eyes seemed to twinkle humorously from
behind the heavy lenses. “I have met some—when I landed in New York.
They were very nice. I liked them very much. Certainly, young man, why
should you not say anything I have told you? You have my permission.”

“Fine!” cried the reporter enthusiastically. “And now, Doctor
Meunier, if you'll just round out the story by telling us why the
celebrated Paris surgeon is travelling in America with a hundred
thousand dollars' worth of radium, I'll be glad I got panned on the
story I went after this morning and so had to take this train back.”

“Panned?” inquired the other gravely.

“Yes.” The reporter nodded. “It blew up, you know.”

“Blew up! Ah!” The foreigner's face was at once concerned. “So!
You were in an accident, then?”

“No, no,” laughed the reporter. “There wasn't anything in the
story. It didn't have any foundation.”

“Again I learn,” observed the foreigner, with an amused drawl.
He studied the reporter for an instant quizzically. “And so I am to
supply the place of the panned story that blew up—is that it? Well,
very well! Why not? I see no reason against it, if it will be of service
to you. Very well, then. I have been summoned to Japan to attend a
case of cancer—radium treatment—and I am on my way there now.” He
smiled again. “I have noticed that American reporters are observant,
and it may occur to you that I might have reached my destination quicker
by way of Russia. As a matter of fact, however, I was in New York
attending a convention when I received the summons. I cabled for the
radium, and—well, young man, that pretty well completes the story.”

“Yes—thanks!” said the reporter. He wrote rapidly. “Operation on
a Japanese?”

“Why, yes, of course—on a Japanese.”

“'Summoned,' you said. That listens as though it might be for one
of the Emperor's family,” prodded the reporter shrewdly.

“I did not say so,” smiled the other imperturbably.

“And even if it were so——” He shrugged his shoulders
significantly.

“I get you!” grinned the reporter. “Well, there's no harm in
saying a 'High Personage' then, is there? That sounds good, and it
would have to be some one on the top of the heap to bring a man like you
all this way.”

“Let us be discreet, young man, and say—well, let us say, a member
of prominent family,” suggested the other, still smiling.

“All right,” agreed the reporter. “I won't put anything over
on you, I promise you. And now, doctor, tell us something more about
radium, how it acts and all that, and how an operation is performed with
it, and——”

The Hawk had apparently lost interest. He settled back in his chair, and
picked up his previously discarded newspaper—yet occasionally his eyes
strayed over the top of his newspaper, and rested meditatively on the
little black handbag on the car floor beside the Frenchman's chair.
The doctor from Selkirk, the reporter, and the French specialist talked
on. The Limited reached the last stop before Selkirk. As the train
pulled out again, the Hawk, as it were, summed up his thoughts.

“A hundred thousand dollars,” confided the Hawk softly to himself.
“Maybe it wouldn't be easy to sell, but it would make a very nice
haul—a very nice haul. It would tempt—almost anybody. Yes, bad stuff
to handle; the fences would be leery probably, because I guess every
last grain on this little old globe is catalogued as to ownership, and
they'd be afraid it would be an open-and-shut game that what they
were trying to shove would be spotted as the stolen stuff—not that it
couldn't be done though, at that! There's always somebody to take a
chance—on a hundred thousand dollars! And what about the institution
that owns it coming across big and no questions asked to get it back
again? Yes, I guess it would make a nice haul—a very nice haul. I
wonder——”

The conductor had entered the car, had said something that the Hawk had
not caught—and now the French specialist was on his feet.

“How long did you say?” he demanded excitedly.

“I didn't say,” replied the conductor; “I only guessed—twelve
hours anyway, and if we're through under twenty-four it'll be
because some one has performed a miracle.”

“Twelve hours—twenty-four!” echoed the Frenchman wildly. “But,
mon Dieu, I have not that to spare to catch my steamer for Japan in San
Francisco!”

“But what's wrong, conductor?” asked the Selkirk doctor. “You
haven't told us that.”

“The Rainy River bridge is out,” the conductor answered.

The Rainy River bridge! The Hawk reached into his pocket, withdrew his
cigarette case, and made a critical choice of one of the six identical
cigarettes the case contained.

“Out! How?” the doctor from Selkirk persisted.

“No details,” said the conductor; “except that it was blown up
a little while ago and that they think it's the work of the Hawk's
gang. They just got word over the wire at the last stop.”

“Jumping whiskers!” yelled the reporter. “Is that right,
conductor?”

“Yes, I guess it's right, fast enough,” said the conductor
grimly. He turned to the Frenchman. “It's tough luck, sir, to miss
transpacific connections; but I guess that's the man you've got to
thank for it—the Hawk.”

“The Hawk? What is that? Who is the Hawk?” The Frenchman had lost
his poise; he was gesticulating violently now.

“I'll tell you,” said the reporter briskly. “He's the man
that's got your original reign of terror skinned a mile—believe me!
He's an ex-Sing Sing convict, and he's the head, brains and front
of a gang of criminals operating out here compared with whom, for pure,
first-water deviltry, any one of Satan's picked cohorts would look as
shy and retiring as a maiden lady of sixty who suddenly found herself
in a one-piece bathing suit—in public. That's the Hawk! Yes,
sir—believe me!”

Doctor Meunier waved his hands, as though to ward off a swarm of buzzing
bees.

“I do not understand!” he spluttered angrily. “I do not care to
understand! You do not speak English! I understand only of the delay!”
He caught at the conductor's sleeve. “You, monsieur—is there not
something that can be done?”

“I don't know, sir,” said the conductor. “We'll be in Selkirk
now in a few minutes, and the best thing you can do is to see Mr.
Lanson, the superintendent.”

The conductor retired.

The Frenchman sat down in his chair, mopped his face with a
handkerchief, and stared from one to another of his fellow passengers.

“Messieurs, it is necessary, it is imperative, that I catch the
steamer!” he cried frantically. “What am I to do?”

“Lanson's a good head; he'll fix you up some way,” said the
reporter soothingly. “Don't you worry. I'm mighty sorry for you,
Doctor Meunier, upon my soul—but, say, this is some story—whale of a
climax!”

The Frenchman glared for an instant; then, leaning forward, suddenly
shook his fist under the other's nose.

“Young man, damn your story!” he snarled distractedly.

The Hawk retired once more behind his newspaper. The reporter was
pacifying the excited Frenchman. The Hawk was not interested in that.
The message, that single word which had puzzled him, was transparently
clear now—and had been from the moment the conductor had spoken. The
surmise of the railroad officials, even if it were no more than surmise
on their part, was indubitably correct—barring the slight detail of
his own participation in the affair! The Wire Devils had blown up the
Rainy River bridge. This, as a detached fact, did not interest him
either—they were quite capable of blowing up a bridge, or anything
else. That was a detail. But they were quite incapable of doing it
without a very good and sufficient reason, and one that promised returns
of a very material nature to themselves. What was the game? Why the
Rainy River bridge? Why this morning? Why at this time? The Rainy River
bridge was but a few miles west of Selkirk, and—the Hawk's
eyes strayed over his newspaper again, and rested mildly upon the
Frenchman's little black handbag, that was quite slim, and not
over long, that was of such a size, in fact, that it might readily be
concealed under one's coat, for instance, without attracting undue
attention—and with the bridge out a passenger, say on the Coast
Limited this noon would experience an annoying, somewhat lengthened,
but unavoidable interruption in his journey. The passenger might even
be forced to spend the night in Selkirk, and very much might happen in
a night—in Selkirk! It was a little elaborate, it seemed as though it
might perhaps have been accomplished with a little less fuss—though
lack of finesse and exceeding cunning was, in his experience, an
unmerited reproach where that unknown brain that planned and plotted
the Wire Devils' acts was concerned; but, however that might be, the
reason that the Rainy River bridge was out now appeared quite obviously
attributable—to a very excited foreigner, and a little black handbag
whose contents were valued at the modest sum of one hundred thousand
dollars.

“And I wonder,” said the Hawk almost plaintively to himself, “I
wonder which of us will cash in on that!”

The Hawk rose leisurely from his chair, as the train reached Selkirk.
He permitted the Frenchman, the Selkirk physician and the reporter to
descend to the platform in advance of him; but, as they hurried
through the station and around to the entrance leading upstairs to the
divisional offices, obviously with the superintendent's office as
their objective, the Hawk, in the privileged character of an interested
fellow traveller, fell into step with the reporter.

The four entered the superintendent's office, and from an unobtrusive
position just inside the door the Hawk listened to the conversation. He
heard Lan-son, the superintendent, confirm the conductor's story, and
express genuine regret at the Frenchman's plight, as he admitted it to
be a practical certainty that the other would miss his connection in
San Francisco. The Frenchman but grew the more excited. He suggested a
special train from the western side of the bridge—they could get him
across in a boat, he said. The superintendent explained that traffic
in the mountains beyond was already demoralised. The Frenchman raved,
begged, pleaded, implored—and suddenly the Hawk sucked in his breath
softly. The Frenchman was backing his appeal for a special with the
offer to pay any sum demanded, and had taken a well-filled pocketbook
from his pocket. The Hawk's eyes aimlessly sought the toes of his
boots. He had caught a glimpse of a fat wad of bills, a very fat wad,
whose denominations were of a large and extremely interesting nature.
The official shook his head. It was not a question of money; nor was the
other's ability to pay in question. Later on, he, Lanson, would
know better what the situation was; meanwhile he suggested that Doctor
Meunier should go to the hotel and wait—that there was nothing else to
do for the moment. The Selkirk physician here intervened, and, agreeing
with the superintendent, offered to escort the Frenchman to the Corona
Hotel.

The Hawk, as one whose curiosity was satiated, but satiated at the
expense of time he could ill afford, nodded briefly to the reporter who
stood nearest to him, and quietly left the room.




XII—BLINDMAN'S-BUFF

FIVE minutes later, standing in another room—his own—the Hawk
rapidly changed the light-grey suit he had been wearing for one of a
darker material. From the pockets of the discarded suit he transferred
to the pockets of the suit he had just put on, amongst other things, his
automatic and his bunch of skeleton keys. He opened his trunk, removed
the false tray, and smiled with a sort of grim complacency as his glance
inventoried its unhallowed contents; and particularly he smiled, as,
opening a little box, he allowed a stream of gleaming stones to trickle
out into the palm of his hand—the twenty thousand dollars' worth of
diamonds robbed from the Fast Mail three nights ago.

“Some haul!” observed the Hawk softly. “And, with any luck,
there'll be something else there worth the whole outfit put together
before to-night is over.” He replaced the diamonds in the box, the box
in the tray, and spoke again, but now his smile was hard and twisted;
not an article there but he had scooped from under the noses of the
gang. “Yes, I guess I'd go out like you'd snuff a candle if they
ever get me, and I guess they're getting—querulous!”

The Hawk, however, had not opened the trunk purely for the opportunity
it afforded of inspecting these few mementos, interesting as they might
be. It was an excellent safeguard to change his clothes, but it would
avail him very little if—well, any one, say—were still permitted to
recognise—his face! From the top of the tray, where it lay upon the
packages of banknotes that had once reposed in the paymaster's safe,
the Hawk picked up a mask and slipped it into his pocket. He fitted the
false tray back into the lid of the trunk, closed the trunk, locked it,
put on a wide-brimmed, soft felt hat, locked the door of his room behind
him, descended the narrow staircase, and stepped out on the street.

His destination was the Corona Hotel, but there was no particular hurry.
Undoubtedly from the moment the Frenchman had left the train some,
or one, of the gang had fastened on the man's trail; but the
companionship of the Selkirk physician guaranteed the Frenchman's
immediate safety. His own plan, as far as it was matured, was very
simple. He meant to “spot” if he could, should that particular
member, or members, of the gang be unknown to him personally, the man,
or men, selected by the Wire Devils to shadow the Frenchman—and then
watch the gang! The Hawk had no intention whatever of making an attempt
on the Frenchman's property with the gang watching him—that would
have been little less than the act of a fool who was bent on suicide!
Since, therefore, he had no choice in the matter, he was quite content
to have the gang take the initiatory risk in relieving the Frenchman of
the handbag! After that—the Hawk's old twisted smile was back on his
lips as he walked along—after that it became his business to see that
the bag did not get very far out of his sight!

He reached and crossed the city park upon which the Corona Hotel
fronted, entered the hotel, and, sauntering leisurely through the
lobby, approached the desk. He glanced casually over the register; then,
lighting a cigar, he selected a chair near the front windows where he
could command a general view of the lobby, and sat down.

Doctor Meunier's room was Number 106.

Once the Hawk's eyes lazily surveyed the lobby; thereafter they
appeared to be intent on what was passing in the street. He was in luck!
The first trick, at least, had gone to him. Lolling in a chair near the
elevator doors, and apparently drowsy from a heavy luncheon, was—the
Bantam. The Hawk smoked on. Half an hour went by. The Bantam appeared to
awaken with a start, smiled sheepishly about him, went over to the news
stand, bought a paper—and returned to his seat. The Hawk finished his
cigar, rose, strolled to the main entrance, and went out. The Bantam
could be safely trusted to see that Doctor Meunier did not vanish into
thin air! He would do the like for the Bantam! He crossed over into the
park.

The Hawk chose a bench—strategically. Sheltered by a row of trees, he
had the corner upon which the hotel was built diagonally before him,
and could see both the side entrance on the cross street and the front
entrance on the main thoroughfare.

The Hawk's vigil, however, was not immediately rewarded. An hour
passed—and yet another—and the greater portion of the afternoon.
Five o'clock came. A newsboy passed, crying the Evening Journal. The
Hawk bought one. A headline in heavy type on the front page instantly
caught his eye: ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS IN A LEAD CAPSULE

And beneath this, still in assertive type:

Famous French Surgeon en route to Japan with Fortune in Radium Misses
Connections Through Destruction of Railroad Bridge.

Offers Company Large Sum of Money for Special Train to the Coast.

“Yes,” observed the Hawk caustically, “and even if I hadn't
known anything about it before, I'd have had a look-in thanks to this!
Sting you, wouldn't it! The papers hand you a come-on—and then they
wonder at crime!”

The “story” itself ran a column and a half. The Hawk began to
read—or, rather, to divide his attention between the story and the
hotel entrances. The reporter had certainly set out with the intention
of overlooking no detail that could be turned to account. His meeting
and conversation with the Frenchman in the car were breezily set forth;
the member of a “prominent family” in Japan artfully disguised, or,
perhaps better, disclosed no less august a personage than the Emperor
himself; the value of radium, both intrinsically and scientifically, was
interestingly dealt with; and the surgeon's black handbag, with its
priceless contents, was minutely described and featured.

The Hawk had reached this point, when suddenly the newspaper and the
reporter's version of the story lost interest for him. Doctor Meunier,
gripping his little black handbag tenaciously, had stepped out through
the main entrance of the hotel, and was walking briskly down the street.
A moment later, the Bantam sauntered through the doorway and started in
the same direction, a hundred yards behind the Frenchman. The Hawk, with
a grim smile, folded his paper, stuffed it into his pocket, rose from
the bench, crossed the street, and fell into the procession—a hundred
yards behind the Bantam.

It was still light, though it was beginning to grow dusk—too light
for any highway thuggery, and yet—the Hawk gradually closed the gap
between himself and the Bantam to half the original distance.

The chase led on for a half dozen blocks, then turned into one of the
crowded streets of the shopping district, and proceeded in a downtown
direction. And then, abruptly, the Hawk dropped further behind the
Bantam again, and crossed to the opposite sidewalk. It was perhaps
only fancy, but intuitively he felt that he, too, in turn, was being
followed. His hat brim, hiding his face, was pulled a little farther
forward over his eyes, as he hurried now until he was abreast of the
Frenchman. Intuition or not, it was quite possible and even likely that
one of the gang might “cover” the Bantam.

The Hawk scowled. He could not be sure; and he dared not put it to more
than a casual test, for he could not afford to lose sight of the Bantam.
He paused, took a slip of paper from his pocket, and, as though having
consulted it for an address, appeared to scan the signs and numbers on
the stores in his immediate vicinity. The Frenchman had passed by; the
Bantam was directly opposite to him now across the street. The Hawk's
keen eyes searched the stream of pedestrians behind the Bantam. And
then suddenly he shrugged his shoulders, and returned the paper to his
pocket—a man, in a light suit and brown derby hat, had stepped out
of the crowd, and was leisurely lighting a cigarette in a doorway just
across from where he, the Hawk, stood.

The Hawk went on, but keeping in the rear of the Bantam now on the
opposite side of the street. He was still not sure; but, in any case,
neither could the man in the brown derby be sure that he, the Hawk, was
following the Bantam. So far then, granted that he was being followed,
it was an even break!

At the next crossing the Frenchman accosted a policeman, and, as though
he had received directions, at once turned down the cross street. The
Hawk, as he followed, smiled grimly. The cross street automatically
verified the suspicions of the man in the brown derby—if the man in
the brown derby had any suspicions to verify; but, at one and the same
time, it also answered the Hawk's own question.

The Hawk, in turn, made use of a doorway. He could afford to allow the
Bantam, temporarily, the lead of an extra half block now, for there were
fewer people on the cross street and he would still be able to keep the
other in sight. A minute, two, elapsed—and then the Hawk picked up the
Bantam's trail again. The man in the brown derby hat had passed by the
corner and continued on along the main street.

And yet still the Hawk was not satisfied. And it was not until after
he had repeated the same manouvre some four or five times, as the
Frenchman, leading, turned into different streets, that he was finally
convinced that neither the man in the brown derby hat, nor any one else,
was interested in his movements.

The chase, since leaving the main street, had wound its way through the
less populous wholesale district—it ended at the railway station.
The Frenchman passed along the front of the building, and disappeared
through the doorway leading upstairs to the divisional offices, his
object being, it now appeared obvious, to obtain another interview with
the superintendent; the Bantam disappeared inside the main entranceway
of the station, evidently to await the Frenchman's reappearance; and
the Hawk, on the far side of the street, slipped into the lane that had
served him many times as a thoroughfare between the station and his room
over the saloon two blocks away.

It was growing dark now. A half hour went by. Still the Hawk crouched
in the shadow of the building that bordered the lane. The street lights
went on. The six o'clock whistle blew from the shops over across the
tracks. Either the Frenchman was a visitor not easy to get rid of, or
Lanson was out and the other was awaiting the superintendent's return.
But the Hawk's patience was infinite.

Another fifteen minutes dragged away; then the office door opened, the
Frenchman emerged, and started back uptown. The Bantam appeared from
the main entranceway, and started after him. The chase was on again. The
Hawk followed.

The Frenchman, seemingly sticking to rule of thumb and following the
directions he had received on the way down, took exactly the same
route on the way back. But now the neighborhood presented an entirely
different aspect. The wholesale houses were closed; the streets
deserted, dark, and poorly lighted.

The Hawk hugged the shadows of the buildings craftily on the opposite
side of the street. Was it coming now? Certainly the gang would go
far before finding a more ideal opportunity, and the Bantam, if he had
realised that fact, could easily have sent, or telephoned, a message
from the station. He, the Hawk, had not cared to take the risk of
following the Bantam inside—the Bantam might remember having seen him
in the hotel lobby.

And then the Hawk's lips thinned. Yes—it was the old, old game! They
were on the cross street, a little less than a block distant from the
main street ahead. The Bantam began to close up on the Frenchman.
The Hawk now, crouching low, slipped almost literally from doorway to
doorway. Two men, apparently drunk and quarrelling, were coming down the
block toward the Frenchman. The Bantam closed to within a few yards of
his quarry. The brawl attained its height as the two men reached the
Frenchman. One man struck the other. They clenched, and, smashing into
the Frenchman knocked him down. His hat flew in one direction, the
handbag in another. The brawlers curiously did not resume their quarrel,
but lounged a few paces away—within call of the Bantam. The Hawk,
squeezed in his doorway directly opposite the scene, kept his eyes on
the Bantam. If the play had lacked originality before, it did not lack
it now! The Bantam stooped, picked up the handbag, and, as he stooped
again for the hat, slipped the handbag under his coat, and slipped
another bag—evidently a carefully prepared duplicate—out from under
his coat and into his hand. The Frenchman was rising dazedly to his
feet. The Bantam stepped hurriedly forward, holding out hat and bag.

“I hope you're not hurt, sir,” the Hawk heard him say—and then
the two moved on together toward the corner.

The Hawk shook his shoulders in a queer, almost self-apologetic sort of
way, as he followed again. And then he smiled as queerly. The Bantam had
the bag now, and, if he, the Hawk, were permitted to hazard an opinion,
the Wire Devils had very kindly picked the fruit again for him to eat!

At the corner, the Bantam shook hands with the Frenchman, and, stepping
out into the street, signalled an approaching car. Quick, alert on the
instant, the Hawk, safe in the protection of the crowded sidewalk,
moved swiftly along in the direction that the car would take, his eyes
searching the street on both sides for a taxicab. The street car passed
him, but stopped at the next corner, and he caught up with it again. And
then, over his shoulder, he saw a taxi coming up behind him. He stepped
from the curb, and stopped it.

“Sorry, sir,” said the chauffeur. “I'm going after a fare.”

“You've got one now—and a good one,” said the Hawk quietly. He
had opened the door—a ten-dollar bill lay in the chauffeur's hand.

“Yes, but look here, sir,” said the chauffeur, a little dubiously,
“I'll get into trouble for this, and——”

The Hawk had stepped inside, and lowered the window between himself and
the chauffeur.

“Follow that car,” said the Hawk pleasantly. “And while we're on
the crowded streets don't get so far behind it that you can't close
up near enough to see who gets off every time it stops. And don't
worry about your trouble—there's another ten coming on top of the
regular fare. That's good enough, isn't it?”

“I guess I'm not kicking!” admitted the chauffeur. The taxi
started forward. He looked back over his shoulder at the Hawk.
“What's the lay? Fly-cop?”

“Maybe!” said the Hawk. “Mind yourself! It's stopping again.
Keep where I can see both sides of the car.”

“I get you!” said the chauffeur. “Leave it to me!”

Block after block was passed, the street car stopping frequently. The
Hawk, in the body of the taxi, knelt behind the chauffeur's back, his
eyes held steadily on the street car ahead. The Bantam did not alight.
The street car began to run out into the suburbs. The taxicab, with
lights out now, risking the city ordinance, dropped back to a more
respectful distance in the rear. The district became less settled, the
houses farther apart; the street lights were single incandescents now,
and these few and far between. There was one passenger left in the
car—the Bantam.

The chauffeur spoke abruptly.

“We're pretty near the end of the line,” he said.

“All right,” the Hawk answered. “Stop when the car stops—keep
about this distance, we're not likely to be noticed.” A moment later
he stepped from the taxi. “Wait for me here!” he directed.

The Bantam, leaving the street car, had started off at a sharp pace past
the end of the car line. It was little more than a country road now;
only a house here and there. The Bantam, just discernible in the
darkness, had a lead of perhaps a hundred yards, and the Hawk, moving
stealthily, began to creep nearer, and still nearer, until the hundred
yards were fifty—and then suddenly, with a low muttered exclamation,
he threw himself flat on the ground. The Bantam, abreast of a house from
which there showed a light in the side window, had turned in abruptly
from the road. A glow of light spread out as the front door opened. The
Hawk lay motionless. Then the Bantam entered, and the door was closed
again. A little later, a form appeared at the side window, a hand
reached up, and the shade was drawn.

“Nice respectable neighborhood, too!” observed the Hawk tersely.
“Wonder if it's the lair, and if the Master Spider's in there
now?”

He was creeping forward now across a small lawn. He neared the side
window; it was open, and the shade lacked a tiny, though inviting, space
of reaching to the sill. A murmur of voices came from within. There was
not a sound from the Hawk. And then, from beneath the window, which was
low and not more than four feet from the ground, he raised himself up
cautiously, and suddenly his dark eyes narrowed. It was not the Master
Spider—it was the Butcher, whose treachery had nearly done for him
that night in the paymaster's office, the man whom he had promised
should one day remember!

He could hear now, and he could see. It was a sitting room such as
one might find anywhere in a house whose occupants were in comfortable
circumstances. It was cosily and tastefully furnished. It bore no sign
of criminal affiliation; it was, as it were, a sort of alibi in itself.
A telephone stood on the table beside a pile of magazines, the latter
flanked by an ornamental reading lamp; deep leather lounging chairs
added to the inviting and homelike appearance of the room—the
incongruity was in the Butcher's thin, hatchet-like face, and in the
coarse, vicious features of the short, stocky Bantam, as they faced each
other across the table.

“Where's the others, d'ye say?” demanded the Bantam.

“Out,” said the Butcher. “The chief called 'em an hour ago. I
don't know what's up. I guess you and I keep house here to-night;
he said you were to stay. Mouser and Jack were to report to Kirschell,
weren't they?”

“Yes, that's what they said.”

“Well, all right!” The Butcher shrugged his shoulders. “That's
none of our hunt. I suppose you got it, didn't you—or you wouldn't
be here?”

“Sure, I got it!” answered the Bantam. “What d'ye think?”

“Let's have a look,” said the Butcher eagerly. “The chief says
we can cash in on it for fifty thousand.”

“Fifty thousand!” The Bantam growled, as he unbuttoned his coat,
and, taking out the bag, laid it on the table. “I thought it was worth
a hundred thousand!”

“So it is.” The Butcher was opening the bag. “But it's no cinch
to turn it into money without a big split—savvy?”

The Butcher opened the lead box, took out the lead cylinder, and
balanced it speculatively in the palm of his hand.

The Bantam regarded it distrustfully.

“It don't look like fifty cents to me!” he commented finally.

“I know,” said the Butcher facetiously; “but your eyesight's
bum, Bantam! Have any trouble?”

The Bantam grinned.

“Not what you'd notice! After the Mouser and Jack smashed into him,
the poor old boob didn't know what had happened till I was handing him
his hat and the other bag. I guess he bumped his bean kind of hard on
the sidewalk.”

The Butcher nodded approvingly. He was still twisting the lead cylinder
around and around in his hand.

“Say,” suggested the Bantam impatiently, after a moment, “when
you've done chucking it under the chin, put it to bed somewhere, and
if there's any grub in the house lead me to it. I'm hungry!”

“All right!” agreed the Butcher. He replaced the lead cylinder
in its box, and the box in the bag, crossed the room, opened a little
cupboard in the wall opposite the window, laid the bag inside, and
closed the cupboard door again. “Come on!” he said.




XIII—THE MAN WITH THE SCAR

THE two men left the room. The Hawk did not move. He was fingering in
a curiously absent-minded sort of way the edges of the newspaper that
still protruded from his pocket. It was very simple, very easy. The
window was open, the cupboard was not locked, the room was empty, there
were only the Bantam and the Butcher to look out for, and they were in
another part of the house; he had only to lift aside the window
shade, step in, steal across the room, and steal out again—with a
hundred-thou-sand-dollar prize. It was very inviting. It seemed suddenly
as though it were a pressing invitation to enter that room—and never
leave it alive!

Flashing quick through the Hawk's brain now was a résumé of the
afternoon, of each separate and individual occurrence since he had left
the train. Had he, after all, been followed? If so—how? Had the Bantam
been warned? He shook his head, as though impatient with himself. Even
apart from that, what he had begun to suspect now would be thoroughly
logical on the part of the gang. The newspaper supplied the key. He
would unquestionably have seen the newspaper that afternoon, and he
would, apart from being spared several aimless hours in the park, have
done exactly as he had done, and just as unquestionably be where he was
now at this precise moment even if he had not been with the Frenchman on
the train. The newspaper placed him in possession of the same facts
that the Wire Devils possessed. They must know that. They were therefore
justified in assuming that he, quite as rabidly as themselves, would
make an attempt to steal the bag. They knew, in that case, that he would
have discovered that they were already at work; and they knew that, on
a dozen occasions before, that had not prevented him from snatching the
prize they had already counted within their grasp. Were they on their
guard now—or a little more than on their guard! Were they offering
him, on the chance or with the knowledge that he was here now, the
opportunity to snatch another prize—and seeing to it that it was for
the last time!

The Hawk edged back from the window; and, silent as a shadow now,
began to circuit the house. And then suddenly his suspicion became a
certainty. It was only a little thing—a slip—but it was enough. The
Butcher had made a misplay! There was no light in any other window—and
a man did not usually eat in the dark! It was fairly, even painfully,
evident now that the Bantam and the Butcher were in, say, the adjoining
room, waiting for him to enter through that window into their trap.

But there was still the little black bag—and one hundred thousand
dollars! The Hawk's smile was more ominous than pleasant. There were
other ways apart from a window—and even two men, especially if
they were caught napping, had been known to be quite amenable to the
influence of the muzzle of an automatic!

The Hawk found the back door entrance, found it locked—and used a
skeleton key. He was perhaps five minutes in opening the door; but in
those five minutes there was no click of lock as the handle turned by
infinitesimal fractions of an inch, no creak of hinge as the door little
by little swung back and was closed again.

The silence was almost uncanny. It was utter blackness. By feeling out
with his hand he discovered he was in a passageway. He moved along,
guiding himself by the sense of touch against the wall, his weight
balanced and full upon one foot before he lifted the other for the next
step.

It seemed a passage of interminable length, that led on and on through
blackness and silence. In reality he had come possibly thirty feet,
and had passed one door. And then he began to catch the sound of voices
whispering. The whisperings grew more distinct and became low, guarded
tones, as he moved forward—and now he could distinguish words. He
flattened back against the side of the passage. Opposite to him was an
open door; and within the room, instead of blackness now, was a sort of
murky gloom which was created by a ray of light that seeped in through
a partially open door at the far side of the room. The Hawk's fingers
slipped into his pocket—and slipped his mask over his face. He had his
bearings now. The room from which the light came was the baited trap;
the room immediately in front of him was the room from which the trap
was to be sprung! His hand went to his pocket again, and came out
with his automatic. It was their move now. If, when they finally grew
impatient, they went back into the lighted room, or turned on the light
in the room where they were now waiting, they sprang the trap upon
themselves.

Came the Bantam's low growl—and the twitching of the Hawk's jaw
muscles.

“I don't like it, I tell you! Where is he? What's he waiting for?
I know he followed me. You saw him yourself from the front room creeping
across the lawn out there. 'Twouldn't take him all this time to get
in through that window.”

“Aw, shut up!” snarled the Butcher. “You'd give any one the
creeps!”

“That's all right,” whispered the Bantam hoarsely; “but I said
from the start it was a fool game not to cover him close on the way
back, and——”

“Yes—and scare him off!” sneered the Butcher. “There ain't
but one guy that'd pick up that trail—and that's the Hawk. He's
butted in enough, but he's butted in for the last time to-night! The
two of us are aplenty, aren't we? Sure—cover him close on the way
back—and scare him off! D'ye think he's a fool!”

“No, I don't, curse him!” retorted the Bantam. “And if I'd had
my way, I'd have croaked him in broad daylight with a bullet through
his bean, and finished him for keeps the minute Jack spotted him
following me! Instead of that, Jack never even gets a look at his
mug.”

“You're some bright guy!” grunted the Butcher. “We'd have
had a hot chance making a dead man tell us where he'd planted those
diamonds off the Fast Mail, not to speak of a few other little trifles
the swine did us out of!”

“And you think——”

“You bet, I do!” the Butcher cut in viciously. “He'll talk
to-night to save his life—and then I'll toss you, Bantam, if you
like, to see who bumps him off!”

The Hawk's fingers played in a curious, caressing motion over the
stock of the automatic in his hand; the twist on his lips grew a little
harder, a little more merciless.

There was movement in the room now. One of the two, the Bantam
undoubtedly, in growing uneasiness, was moving softly, erratically, up
and down the room. It proved to be the Bantam.

“Well then, where the blazes is he!” he burst out nervously.

“Aw, shut up!” snarled the Butcher savagely for the second time.

The Bantam's shadow, as the man paced up and down, passed the doorway,
repassed, and passed again.

“I tell you, I don't like it!” he flung out suddenly.
“Something's wrong! If he's outside the house, he can't see,
anyway. I'm going to take a chance, and——”

There was a click, the light in the passageway went on—then a yell
from the Bantam in the doorway—a lightning spring from the Hawk, as
the other jerked a weapon upward—and the Bantam went down in a heap,
as the Hawk's clubbed weapon caught him on the head. It was quick,
like the winking of an eye. From back in the room, the Butcher sprang
forward for the doorway—and fired—and missed—and the Hawk's
left hand, as they came upon each other, darting out, closed with the
strength of a steel vise on the Butcher's right wrist, and with a
terrific wrench twisted the other's arm halfway around. It was
lighter now in the room—light enough to see. The two forms swayed
strangely—a little apart—the Butcher's body bent over, as though
queerly deformed. Slowly, remorselessly, the Hawk turned the other's
arm in its socket. Sweat sprang to the Butcher's forehead, his face
writhed with pain—and, with a scream of agony, his revolver clattered
to the floor.

“You're breaking it—for God's sake, let go!” he moaned.

The Hawk kicked the revolver to the other side of the room.

“Take the Bantam by the shoulders and drag him into that lighted
room!” The Hawk's tones were flat, unpleasant. “I don't think I
hit him hard enough to take the chance of leaving him there alone!”

The Butcher obeyed—with the muzzle of the Hawk's automatic pressed
persuasively against the small of his back. He left the Bantam in the
middle of the sitting room floor, and himself accepted a chair—at the
Hawk's invitation.

“You again—eh, Butcher?” The Hawk's voice had become a drawl.
With his automatic covering the Butcher, he had backed to the cupboard,
opened it, and was feeling inside with his left hand. “My grateful
thanks, and you'll convey my compliments—the Hawk's, you know—to
our friend—the chief.” He had slipped the little black bag under his
arm, and now his hand was back in the cupboard again; he had felt a ball
of heavy cord there. “Sorry I haven't a phony ten-spot with me—my
card, you know—unpardonable breach of etiquette—really!” He smiled
suddenly. The ball of cord was in his hand, as he advanced toward the
Butcher's chair. He set the little black bag down on the table.

The Butcher seemed to have lost all his characteristic ferocity; the
sharp little ferret eyes rested anywhere but on the Hawk, and on his
face was a sickly grin.

“Stand up!” commanded the Hawk curtly—he was knotting the end
of the cord into a noose. “Now—your hands behind your back—and
together! Thank you!” He slipped the noose over the Butcher's hands,
and began to wind the cord around the other's wrists.

The Butcher winced.

“I'm sorry,” said the Hawk apologetically; “but it's all
I have. The cord is rather thin, and I'm afraid it may cut into
you—not strong enough to allow you any play, you know. And, by the
way, Butcher, I heard the Bantam say that I was spotted on the way
down—I presume he meant on the way down to the station. I'll
be honest and admit I'm disappointed in myself. Would you mind
explaining, Butcher—I was quite convinced there was no one behind
me.”

“There wasn't!” The Butcher risked a sneer. “Mabbe the French
guy was heard telephoning to the station, and the Bantam passed on the
word. Nobody had to follow behind. All there was to do, knowing where
the Frenchy was going, was to dodge around the blocks ahead, and keep
hidden down the different intersecting streets, and see if the same guy
kept going by the corners after the Bantam.”

“Thank you, Butcher,” murmured the Hawk gratefully. “That lets me
out a little, doesn't it?” He wound the cord again and again around
the Butcher's wrists, knotted it, shoved the other unceremoniously
back into the chair, and tied the Butcher's legs.

The Hawk then gave his attention to the Bantam. The Bantam was just
beginning to regain consciousness. The Hawk knelt down, rolled the
man over on his side, and secured him in the same manner as he had the
Butcher. But with the Bantam he went a little farther. He transferred
the Bantam's handkerchief from the Bantam's pocket to the Bantam's
mouth—and tied it there.

He turned once more to the Butcher.

“I must apologise again,” he said softly. “I hate to
do this”—he felt for, and obtained, the Butcher's
handkerchief—“but the house is unfortunately close to the road,
and you might inadvertently make yourself heard before I got decently
away.”

The Butcher's reply was a shrug of the shoulders.

The Hawk, about to cram the handkerchief into the other's mouth,
paused.

“Butcher,” said the Hawk, almost plaintively, “if you'll
permit me to deal in mixed metaphors, you appear to have shed your
spots—you're too awfully docile!”

“You got the goods,” muttered the Butcher sullenly. “What more do
you——”

He stopped suddenly. His eyes met the Hawk's. The telephone on the
table was ringing.

The Hawk hesitated. Into the Butcher's eyes, narrowed now, there
seemed to have come a mocking gleam. The telephone rang again. And then
the Hawk reached out abruptly, and took the receiver from the hook.

“Hello!” he said gruffly.

“Four X. Who's that?” responded a voice.

There was something familiar about the voice, but he could not on the
instant place it. The Hawk's mind, even as he answered, was swiftly
cataloguing every member of the gang known to him in an effort to
identify it.

“The Bantam,” he said.

“All right,” replied the voice. “Give me the Butcher.”

“Hold the line,” answered the Hawk.

He placed his hand over the transmitter. The voice was still eluding
him. He turned, and eyed the Butcher.

“Four X wants you, Butcher.” All the drawl, all the insouciance was
gone now; his voice was hard with menace, cold as death. “And you're
going to speak to him—but you're going to say what I tell you to
say. But before you begin, I want you to remember the little account
between us that's been hanging over since that night in the
paymaster's office. If you make a break, if you try to frame
me—I'll settle that account here to-night, while you sit in that
chair. If you hesitate on a word, I'll fire—and not through my
pocket, you yellow cur! Understand? Don't kid yourself on this,
Butcher! If I nod my head, say 'yes'—and no more. Now!”

The Butcher had sunk back in his chair. There was fear in his face; it
was white, and he circled his lips with his tongue.

Beneath the mask, the Hawk's lips were a straight line. He laid down
his automatic on the table, placed the receiver to his own ear, and held
the transmitter to the Butcher's lips.

“Go ahead!” ordered the Hawk. “Ask him what he wants.” His
fingers, cupped and pressed over the transmitter, lifted.

“Hello!” said the Butcher. “What is it?”

“That you, Butcher? Everything all right?” inquired the voice.

The Hawk nodded.

“Yes,” said the Butcher.

“Well, open up a bit!” complained the voice. “Did you get him,
and——”

The voice was speaking on. The Hawk's lips had set a little tighter.
He had recognised the voice now. His fingers were pressed over the
transmitter again.

“Tell him you laid me out cold,” instructed the Hawk; “and that
I haven't regained consciousness, yet. Now!” The voice had ceased
speaking; the Hawk's fingers lifted again.

“We beaned him,” said the Butcher morosely.. “He's still
asleep.”

“Good!” chuckled the voice. “I'll be up there by and by,
and——”

“Tell him to stay where he is, that it will be—safer.” The Hawk
clipped off his words.

The Butcher delivered the message, the snarl in his voice entirely to
the Hawk's liking.

“What?” questioned the voice. “I didn't get you.”

“Repeat!” whispered the Hawk.

The Butcher repeated.

“O. K.,” came back the answer. “Yes, I guess you're right. So
long, Butcher.”

“Say 'good-night,'.rdquo; prompted the Hawk.

“'Night!” growled the Butcher.

The Hawk replaced the receiver on the hook, and the instrument on the
table.

The Butcher's lips were livid.

The Hawk picked up his automatic and leaned forward, his eyes on a level
with the Butcher's.

“What's that fellow's moniker, Butcher?”

The Butcher hesitated.

The automatic crept forward an inch.

“Parson Joe.” The Butcher's voice choked with mingled rage and
fear.

“Parson Joe, eh?” repeated the Hawk ruminatingly. “Was he the chap
who pulled that con game on the Riverdale Bank back in New York State
about six years ago, and afterwards got cornered by the police in Ike
Morrissey's gambling hell, and was caught because he nearly bled to
death, with his wrist half off, trying to get through a broken window
pane? He got four spaces. That him?”

“If you say so, it must have been!” There was a leer in the
Butcher's voice.

“Was it?” The automatic touched the Butcher's breast.

“Yes,” said the Butcher.

“Thank you!” smiled the Hawk. “Now——!”

He gagged the Butcher with the handkerchief, tied it securely into
place, stood up, picked up the little black bag, switched off the
electric reading lamp, moved to the window, and drew aside the shade.
“We'll let that account stand open for a little while
longer, Butcher,” he said softly. “Just a little while
longer—good-night!”

He swung out of the window, dropped to the ground, ran across the lawn,
and gained the road. His mask and automatic were back in his pockets.
His fingers felt and patted the little black bag under his coat.

“Always play your luck,” whispered the Hawk confidentially to
himself. “It seems to me I saw a little loose change in Doctor
Meunier's pocket-book, and I don't think he's opened the duplicate
bag yet and stirred up a fuss. It isn't much compared with a hundred
thousand, or even fifty, to quote the Butcher, but 'every little bit
added to what you've got——'” He fell to whistling the tune
pleasantly under his breath, as he hurried along the road.

A minute later he had regained the taxicab.

“Drop me a block this side of the Corona—and give her all she's
got!” he directed crisply.

“D'ye get him?” demanded the chauffeur eagerly.

“My friend,” replied the Hawk gently, as he stepped into the taxi,
“if you'll think it over, you'll come to the conclusion that you
really don't want to know. Take it from me that the less you're wise
about to-night the wiser you will be to-morrow. Now, cut her loose!”

It had taken a good thirty minutes on the trip up; it took less than
half of that, by a more direct route, for the return journey. At
the corner, a block from the hotel, the Hawk crumpled two generous
bank-notes into the chauffeur's hand, and bade the man good-night.
He traversed the block, entered the hotel lobby, and, ignoring the
elevators, leisurely and nonchalantly ascended the staircase to the
first floor. From the landing he noted the room numbers opposite to
him, and with these as a guide passed on along the corridor to where it
turned at right angles at the corner of the building, and halted before
room No. 106. A light showing above the transom indicated that the
Frenchman was within. He had passed one or two people. No one had paid
any attention to him. Why should they! He glanced up and down. The
corridor, for the moment, was empty. He tried the door gently—it was
locked. His right hand, in his side pocket, closed over his automatic.
He pressed close to the door, knocked gently with his left hand—and
with his left hand reached quickly into his pocket for his mask.

“Who's there?” the Frenchman called out.

“Message for you, sir,” the Hawk answered.

Footsteps crossed the room, the key turned in the lock—and, in a
flash, the Hawk, slipping on his mask, had pushed the door open, closed
it behind him, and the Frenchman was staring into the muzzle of the
automatic.

“Mon Dieu!” gasped the Frenchman faintly.

“That's right!” said the Hawk coolly, “Don't speak any louder
than that, or——” He shrugged his shoulders significantly, as he
locked the door.

The Frenchman, white-faced, was evidently fighting for his nerve.

“What—what is it?” he stammered. “What is it that you want?”

It was almost a reassuring smile that flickered on the Hawk's lips,
and his voice did not belie it—it was purely conversational in its
tones.

“I was reading in the paper this afternoon about the famous Doctor
Meunier. I'm a bit of a scientist myself, in an amateur way, and
I'm particularly interested in radium when there's enough of it
to——”

“Ah! My radium! That is what you want!” cried out the Frenchman
wildly. The duplicate bag lay on the bed. He ran for it, and snatched
it up. “No! That you shall not have! You come to steal my radium,
you——”

“You jump at conclusions, doctor,” said the Hawk patiently. “Since
it is already stolen, I——”

“Stolen!” The Frenchman stared—and then with feverish fingers
opened the bag. He looked inside. The bag dropped to the floor,
his hands went up in the air. “It is empty—empty!” he cried
distractedly. “It is gone—gone! Mon Dieu, my radium is gone!
What shall I do!” His hands were rumpling through his hair like one
demented. “What shall I do—it is gone!”

“Well,” suggested the Hawk suavely, “I thought perhaps you might
like to buy it back again.”

“Buy it back! Are you crazy? Am I crazy?” The man appeared to be
beside himself; he flung out his arms in mad gesticulation. “With what
would I buy it back? It is worth a hundred thousands dollars—a half
million francs!”

“You are excited, Doctor Meunier,” said the Hawk calmly. From where
it bulged under his coat he drew out the black bag. “I said nothing
about a hundred thousand dollars.”

The Frenchman reached out a shaking hand, pointing at the bag.

“It is you then, after all, who stole it—eh? The bags—they
are identical! Mon Dieu, what does this mean? I am mad! I do not
understand!”

There was a chair on each side of the small table near the bed.

“Sit down!” invited the Hawk, indicating one with the muzzle of his
automatic. The Frenchman sat down with a helpless and abandoned gesture
of despair. The Hawk took the other chair. He opened the bag, opened
the lead box, and laid the lead capsule on the table. “Do you identify
this?” he inquired pleasantly.

The Frenchman reached for it eagerly.

The Hawk drew it back.

“One moment, please, Doctor Meunier!” he murmured. “You recognise
it? You are satisfied that it is your tube of radium?”

“Yes, yes—mon Dieu! But, yes!”

“And it is worth, you say, a hundred thousand dollars?”

“But, yes, I tell you!” cried the Frenchman. “A hundred
thousand—certainly, it is worth that!”

“Quite so!” said the Hawk placidly. “Therefore, Doctor Meunier,
a comparatively small sum—eh?—you would be willing to pay that—a
sum, I might add, that would be quite within your means.”

“Quite within my means?” repeated the Frenchman a little dazedly.

“Yes,” said the Hawk sweetly. “And to be specific, let us
say—whatever is in your pocketbook.” The Frenchman drew back in his
chair. His face blanched.

“You—you mean to rob me!” he exclaimed hoarsely.

“I do not see it quite in that light.” The Hawk's voice was
pained. “But we will not discuss the ethics involved—we probably
should not agree. I did not steal your precious capsule from you, and I
am returning it, not, I might say, without having incurred considerable
personal risk in so doing. Perhaps we might better agree if we called
it—a reward.”

“No!” said the Frenchman desperately.

The Hawk's automatic tapped the table top with a hint of petulance.

“And—and what guarantee have I,” the Frenchman burst out, “that
you will give me the tube after you have taken my money?”

“My word,” said the Hawk evenly. “And—I am waiting, Doctor
Meunier!”

The Frenchman hesitated, then, with an oath, flung his pocketbook upon
the table. The Hawk opened it, extracted the wad of bills that he had
seen exhibited in the superintendent's office, smiled as he fingered
them, and put them in his pocket. He pushed the lead capsule across the
table—and suddenly, as the other reached for it, the Hawk was on his
feet, his automatic flung forward, his left hand grasping the other's
sleeve.

They held that way for an instant, eying each other—the Hawk's left
hand slowly pushing back the other's right-hand sleeve. And then
the Hawk's eyes shifted—to a long, jagged, white scar on the bare
forearm just above the wrist.

“Shall I introduce myself—Parson Joe?” purred the Hawk.

The other's face was a mottled red—it deepened to purple.

“No, blast you!” he said between his teeth. “I know you—but
I didn't think you knew me. So you called the turn when the Bantam
followed me—eh?”

The Hawk shook his head.

“I never saw you in my life before to-day,” he said grimly;
“and, if it will do you any good to know it, I fell for that radium
plant—until you telephoned the Butcher half an hour ago.”

“And how did you know me, then?” The other flung the question
fiercely.

Again the Hawk shook his head. He had no desire that Parson Joe should
know he had been on the Limited that morning—Parson Joe might possess
an inconveniently retentive memory for faces, and he, the Hawk, did not
always wear a mask.

“Maybe I guessed it, Parson!” he said insolently. “I must
have—it was the only thing that wasn't in the paper! What
encyclopedia did you get that 'Becquerel burn' dope out of? And was
the reporter lying, or how did you work it to get him on the train?”

Parson Joe was leaning forward over the table, fingering the lead
capsule. He suddenly crushed it with a blow of his fist, twisted it in
two, and hurled the pieces across the floor.

“We got him up the line on a fake that didn't come off!” he
snarled.

There was an instant's silence, then the Hawk spoke.

“Nice, amiable crowd, you are, Parson!” The Hawk's voice was
silken. “I'm just beginning to appreciate you. Let's see! You had
to pull a story that any newspaper would jump at and feature, didn't
you? And you had to have a big enough bait to make sure I'd rise to
it. And you had to account for the celebrated Doctor Meunier's layover
in Selkirk; and, not expecting I'd pick up the trail quite so quickly,
say, not until after the paper had been out a little longer and you
had made another baiting trip or two to Lanson's office, you had to
account for the famous gentleman's enforced stay through the night if
necessary; and it gave a big swing to the story, and let you work your
stunt for the special train that you knew you couldn't get; and
you figured I'd be even more sure to see it in the paper if it was
connected with some pleasant little episode of yours—and so, on
several counts, you blew up the bridge.”

The man's teeth were clamped together.

“Yes!” he choked. “And we'd blow a dozen more to get you!”

“You flatter me!” said the Hawk dryly. “I'm afraid I've put
you to quite a little trouble—for nothing!”

Sullen, red, furious, Parson Joe's face twitched.

“You win to-night”—the heavy-lensed spectacles were off, and the
black eyes, the pupils gone, burned on the Hawk—“but you're going
out! As sure as God gave you breath, we'll get you yet, and——”

“The Butcher told me that, and so did the Cricket—some time
ago,” said the Hawk wearily. “I'm—keep your hands above the
table—I'm sure you mean well!” He was backing toward the door.
“I won't bother to relieve you of your revolver; and I don't think
you'll telephone down to the office. It might be awkward explaining to
the police how Doctor Meunier lost his pocketbook—and got his medical
degree! I shall, however, lock the door on the outside, as I shall
require a minute or two to reach the street, and I cannot very well go
through the hotel corridor with—this”—he jerked his hand toward
his mask.

The other's hands were above the table, obediently in plain view—but
they were clenching and unclenching now, the knuckles white.

The Hawk reached behind him, took the key from the lock, listened,
opened the door slightly, and, still facing into the room, still
covering the other with his automatic, reached around the door and
fitted the key into the outside of the lock.

“When you get out,” said the Hawk, as though it were an
afterthought, “I'm sure the Butcher will be glad to see you—I am
afraid he is not as comfortable as he might be!”

The black eyes, with a devil's fury in them, had never left the
Hawk's. And now the other lifted one of his clenched hands above his
head.

“I'd give five years—five years of my life—for a look at your
face!” he whispered hoarsely.

The Hawk was backing through the door.

“It's not enough, Parson,” he said softly. “Make it
another—pocketbook.”




XIV—THE CLUE

TWO days had passed—two days, and a night. The Hawk's fingers
drummed abstractedly without sound on the table top; his eyes, in a
curiously introspective stare, were fixed on the closely drawn
window shade across the room. From the ill-favoured saloon below his
unpretentious lodgings, there came, muffled, a chorus of voices in
inebriated and discordant song—an over-early evening celebration, for
it was barely seven o'clock.

The finger tips drummed on. At times, the strong, square chin was
doggedly outthrust; at times, a frown gathered in heavy furrows on
the Hawk's forehead. The net at last was beginning to tighten
ominously—every sign pointed to it. He would be a blind fool indeed
who could not read the warning, and a fool of fools who would not heed
it!

His eyes strayed from the window, and rested upon the trunk that stood
between the table and the foot of the bed; and his fingers abruptly
ceased their restless movements. Within that trunk, concealed in its
false lid, was the loot, totalling many thousands of dollars, obtained
through his knowledge of the Wire Devils' secret code, which had
enabled him to-turn their elaborately prepared plans on more occasions
than one to his own account. But it was no longer a question of
outwitting them in order to add to that purloined store; it was a
question of outwitting them in order that—in very plain English—he,
the Hawk, might live!

Nor was it the Wire Devils alone who threatened disaster. There were
other factors; and, even if these factors were less imminent, as it
were, less in a measure to be feared, they were by no means to be
ignored. The police were showing increasing activity. The police
circular, which he had once torn down from the station wall, was now
replaced by another, only with this difference that, where the reward
for the Hawk's capture had then stood at five thousand dollars, it now
stood at ten. Also, last night—quite inadvertently!—while crouched
under the window of the turner's “cubbyhole” at the rear of
the roundhouse, the chosen spot for Lanson's and MacVightie's
confidential conferences, he had overheard a conversation between the
division superintendent and the head of the railroad's detective force
that was certainly not intended for his ears. According to MacVightie,
a man by the name of Birks, the sharpest man in the United States Secret
Service, had been detailed by the Washington authorities to the case.
MacVightie had even taken a generous share of the credit for this move
to himself. Thefts there might be until the country rang with them,
murders might add their quota to the reign of terror, yet all this was
outside the province of the Secret Service. It was, so MacVightie had
said, through MacVightie's insistence that the systematised thefts and
murders were inseparable with the counterfeit notes then flooding the
country that had induced Washington to act. The Hawk and his gang,
according to MacVightie again, were at the bottom of both one and the
other—and counterfeiting was, very pertinently, within the province of
the Secret Service!

The Hawk permitted a twisted smile to flicker across his lips.
MacVightie, the police in general, and Birks of the Secret Service in
particular, might be classed as complications, even decidedly awkward
complications, but his immediate peril lay, not in that direction, but
from those whose leadership MacVightie so blandly credited to—the
Hawk!

The smile twisted deeper—into one of grim irony. While MacVightie
placarded the country with circulars offering rewards for the capture
of the Hawk and his gang, the “gang” was moving heaven and earth to
capture the Hawk for its own exclusive purposes—which purposes, in a
word, were an intense desire to recover the proceeds of the robberies
that he, the Hawk, had filched from under the gang's nose, and
thereafter, with such finality as might be afforded by a blackjack, a
knife thrust, or a revolver bullet, to expedite the Hawk's departure
from this vale of tears!

The Hawk's hand curled suddenly into a clenched fist, and his face
grew set. He was facetious—and he had little enough warrant for
facetiousness! They had already shown their teeth. They had shown the
grim, ugly deadliness of their challenge in the thrust with which they
had opened their attack upon him. He had parried the thrust, it was
true—but there would be another—and another. There was something of
remorseless promise, that would stop at nothing, in the extravagantly
laid plans with which they had just attempted to lure him into the
open and trap him. They had failed, it was true, and he had even scored
against them again—but their cunning, their power, their resources,
their malignity remained unimpaired. They would try again. It was
like two adversaries in a dark room, each conscious of the other's
presence, each striving to place the other, each conscious that the
death of one was life for the other. That was the pith of the situation.

The Hawk's teeth clamped together. It was quite certain that they
would run him to earth—unless he were first at the same game! An
organisation as widespread as the one against which he had elected to
pit his wits and play a lone hand, an organisation clever enough to have
seized and put to its own use the entire divisional telegraph system of
a railroad, an organisation callous enough to have counted a score of
murders but incidents in its schemes, and, above all, an organisation
guided by an unknown brain that was a master of cunning and unhampered
by scruples, was an antagonist as sinister as it was powerful. For days
now, in the great majority of cases, he, the Hawk, had turned their
plans to his own account, skimmed, as it were, the cream from their
milk—and there could be but one answer. And they had answered—and
in the opening attack they had just launched against him it was obvious
enough that every resource at their command was to be thrown into the
balance to settle scores with him. They might, and did, laugh at
the police, but to have their prizes pocketed and carried off by a
competitor admitted of but one solution—the annihilation of the
competitor!

The Hawk rose abruptly from his seat, stepped over to the trunk, opened
it, and in an instant had removed the secret tray from the curvature of
the lid. He laid the tray down upon the table; and his fingers, brushing
aside a certain magnificent diamond necklace whose thousand facets
glittered in the light, delved swiftly in amongst pile after pile of
banknotes, and secured a package of papers.

He pushed the tray to one side, sat down again at the table, removed the
elastic band from the package, and began to examine the papers. It was
not the first time he had done this—he did it again now in a sort
of desperation, and simply because it presented the one possibility at
which he might grasp in the hope of obtaining a clue. There were many
papers here, loose sheets, documents in envelopes, and, careful as
he had been before, there was a chance that he had missed the one
thing—in a sentence, in perhaps only a word, or a pencilled note-on
the back of an envelope—that would save him from disaster now.

It was the night before last that Parson Joe, with his fake tube of
radium, had headed the gang in the attempt upon his, the Hawk's, life.
The twisted smile returned to the Hawk's lips, as he turned first one
paper and then another over in his hands. He had been fool enough to
imagine that, besides failure, they had left a well-marked and clearly
defined trail behind them—in the shape of that very comfortably, very
cosily furnished house just on the outskirts of the city, where the
Butcher had proposed to play the rôle of spider to his, the Hawk's,
rôle of fly! It had even seemed a childishly simple matter to pick up
such a thread and follow it. A house was neither rented nor furnished
out of thin air. But the next morning the house was closed and deserted.
It had been sublet—furnished. The subtenant, whose name was of no
consequence, since it was of course assumed, had vanished—that was
all. As far as the gang was concerned the house had lost its usefulness,
and, having lost its usefulness, had simply been evacuated, and,
together with the furniture, left to its own resources!

And it had been the same, on a previous occasion, with Isaac
Kirschell's office. The morning after he, the Hawk, had appropriated
the contents of Kirschell's cash box and had recognised Kirschell
as one of the gang, the suite of rooms in the office building had been
vacant.

The Hawk withdrew the last paper in the pile from its envelope, and
read it with a sort of miserable realisation that its perusal, like
the others, was foredoomed to futility. It was an alleged mortgage,
spurious, of course, for these were Kirschell's papers that had
been in the cash box, and, in the very nature of things, Kirschell's
business had been only a blind to cover a sort of branch headquarters
for the gang. He read it through, however, doggedly—and for his pains
the printed words in their precise legal phraseology seemed to mock at
him and chuckle with devilishly perverted humour.

He tossed the document upon the table, and, his face strained, pushed
back his chair, got up, and began to pace the length of the room with
a tread that, in its quick, nervous litheness and its silence, was like
the pacing of a panther in its cage.

Nothing! And yet there must be something—somewhere! It was his move
now, and there was little time to spare. It had become simply a
question of which of the two, he or the gang, would win this game of
blindman's-buff. It no longer sufficed that he should intercept those
secret code messages in the former haphazard way, for, consistently as
he had haunted the telegraph sounders, he was well enough aware that he
must of necessity have missed many of the messages. He could afford
to miss none of them now. Formerly, a message missed meant but a lost
opportunity to thwart their plans, to add a little more to the contents
of the trunk's false lid; now, since they had shown that they would
stop at nothing to trap him, his life was dependent on having, with
certainty, foreknowledge of their every plan. His defense lay in attack.
He must trace those messages to their source, and trace them quickly
before the Wire Devils should strike again, or leave the field to the
Wire Devils—in other words, quit and run for it!

“Quit!” It was the first sound the Hawk had made, and it was only
a whisper—but the whisper was gritted out through set teeth. Quit!
He laughed a little, low, with menace, without mirth. It was not an
alternative—it was the sting of a curling whip-lash to spur him on.

Well? What was he to do then? It was his move—and there was no time to
spare. He approached the table again, and began to rearrange the papers
into a pile, preparatory to replacing them in the tray. It was veritably
a game of blindman's-buff! They knew him through personal contact, but
only as a man who had always been masked; he knew many of them, and knew
them personally—but only in the play-off of their schemes, when he
had, as it were, snatched the plunder from their hands as he made his
own escape, had he ever seen any of them. Well—the question came
again, more insistent, more imperative, more vital—well, his life was
in the balance, what was he to do? Go out again to-night and haunt a
telegraph sounder, trust to——

He turned suddenly, the spurious mortgage, and the long envelope that
had contained it, in his hand. The document, for some reason or other,
refused to fit into the envelope as neatly or as readily as it had
previously done. He held the envelope up to the light—and the next
instant, flinging the document down on the table, he had ripped the
envelope apart, and from under the inner flap, where it had undoubtedly
been forced by the document itself and afterwards, as he had handled the
envelope, had obviously worked its way partially out again, he extracted
a small, thin slip of yellow paper.

And then for a moment the Hawk stood motionless, but into the dark eyes
there leaped a triumphant flash. In his hand was the return portion of a
railroad ticket that read:

Conmore to Selkirk City.

He whipped the ticket over to scrutinise the date stamp on the back—it
was that of the day prior to his visit to Kirschell's office. And he
laughed a little again, but there was no bitterness in the laugh now.
The clue that he had sought, the clue that Lanson's men had in vain
patrolled and scoured the division's right of way to obtain, was in
his possession.

“It fits—like a glove!” muttered the Hawk, with grim complacence.
“Kirschell had the envelope in his pocket, of course, and in putting
his return ticket in his pocket it slipped into the envelope without
his knowing it, got crowded under the flap, and he thought he had lost
it!” The Hawk turned sharply to the table. “Conmore—eh?” He was
working with feverish haste now, replacing the papers in the tray, and
fitting the tray back into the curvature of the trunk lid. “Number
Thirty-Eight, if she's on time, is due at seven-thirty.” He pulled
out his watch. “Seven-twenty! Conmore—eh?” The light was out,
the door locked behind him. “That's twenty-miles east of here, and
between here and Bald Creek.” He was out of the house now, and running
along the lane that gave on the station street. “Yes,” said the Hawk
again, and there was suppressed elation in his voice, “it fits! It
fits—like a glove!”

The Hawk reached the station, and purchased a ticket; but, as usual, the
ticket did not indicate his destination—it read, not to Conmore, but
to several stations farther along the line. The local pulled in on time.
As it pulled out again, the Hawk, having appropriated the rear seat of
the smoker, lighted, though he inclined little toward that particular
form of tobacco, a cigar.

His slouch hat was jerked a little forward over his eyes. He settled
back in his seat. Like links in a chain, the keen, alert brain was
welding the events of the days gone by into a concrete whole. The
headquarters of the gang, the heart of the web from which the Wire
Devils operated was, logically, as he had known, as MacVightie had
known, outside the city, where the telegraph line could be tapped
without observation and at will. MacVightie's initial and only attempt
to “ground out” the “tap” had indicated that the wire was
being tampered with between Selkirk and Bald Creek. Conmore was between
Selkirk and Bald Creek. And what interest could Kirschell, a New York
crook, have in a place like Conmore, that was little more than a hamlet?
What, then, had prompted Kirschell's trip to Conmore and return? The
Hawk smiled whimsically.

It was not proof absolute, but in his own mind it was proof quite
sufficient. Kirschell's visit to Conmore had been a visit to the
headquarters of the gang. Also, material proof apart, he sensed
intuitively that he had struck the right trail. Those messages, keeping
the unknown brain that schemed and plotted each move in instant touch
with every unit of the widespread organisation, making it possible for
them to strike at a moment's warning at any point over a hundred miles
of country, emanated—from Conmore.

The train stopped at a station, and went on again. The Hawk nursed his
cigar sedulously, and stared out of the window. Twenty minutes went by.
And then the train stopped again—at Conmore.

The Hawk did not move, save that his eyes rested casually on a passenger
who was making a hurried and belated dash for the door. It was quite
possible that the man was not one of the gang, and equally possible that
the man was—he, the Hawk, did not recognise the other. But he would do
the Wire Devils less than justice to credit them with lack of interest
in passengers for Conmore—or in any occupant of any car who might
have left his seat and found the platform attractive, say, just before
Conmore was reached! If the man was a spy, then—well—the Hawk smiled
at his now burned-to-the-butt cigar—the man would have little to
report!

The train jerked forward into motion again. The station was on the same
side as the Hawk's seat—the Hawk did not look out of the window, but
he was far from being oblivious to the fact that no platform lights had
shown through the car windows on the opposite side of the aisle. The
speed increased a little, but still the Hawk did not stir. The train
rattled over the east-end siding switch of the Conmore yard. And then
the Hawk rose languidly, tossed his cigar butt into the cuspidor,
brushed a very noticeable quantity of cigar ash from his vest, paused
for a drink at the water-cooler, and, as though, his smoke finished, he
was seeking the clearer atmosphere of a rear car, opened the door, and
stepped out on the platform.

The Hawk dropped to the right of way from the side of the train opposite
to that of the station, landed as sure-footed as a cat, flung himself
instantly flat down at the edge of the embankment, and lay still.
The local racketed its way past—the red tail-lights winked, and
vanished—and there fell a silence, a drowsy night silence, broken
only by the chirp of insects and the far-distant mutter of the receding
train. The Hawk raised his head, and looked about him. A few hundred
yards away glinted the station semaphore and window lights; the siding
switch light, nearer, showed green like a huge glowing emerald in
the black; there was nothing else. There was no sign of
habitation—nothing—the little hamlet lay hidden in a hollow a mile
away on the station side of the track.




XV—THE LADYBIRD

THE Hawk rose, and began to move forward. Conmore was certainly an
idealistic spot—from the Wire Devils' standpoint! He frowned a
little. There was no doubt in his mind but that in a general way he had
solved the problem, that somewhere in this vicinity the right of
way held the wire tappers' secret; but, as he was well aware, his
difficulties were far from at an end, and that particular spot might
be anywhere within several miles of Conmore, and it might, with equal
reason, be east or west of the station. And then the Hawk shrugged his
shoulders. The night was early yet, early enough to enable him to cover
several miles of track on both sides of the station, if necessary,
before daylight came. If he had luck with him, he was on the right
side now; if not, then, by midnight, he would start in on the other. It
required the exercise of a little philosophical patience, nothing more.

It was black along the track—a black night, no moon, no stars. And it
was silent. A half hour passed. Like a shadow, and as silent as one, the
Hawk moved forward—from telegraph pole to telegraph pole. A pin point
of light showed far down the right of way, grew larger, brighter, more
luminous—and the Hawk-sought refuge, crouched beneath a culvert, as
a big ten-wheeler and its string of coaches, trucks beating at the
fishplates, quick like the tattoo of a snare drum, roared by over his
head.

Still another half hour passed. It was slow work. He was perhaps, at
most, a mile and a half from the Conmore station. And then, suddenly,
the Hawk dropped to his hands and knees and crawled down the embankment,
and lay flat and motionless in the grass—faint, almost inaudible, a
footstep had crunched on the gravel of the roadbed ahead of him. The
Hawk's only movement now was the tightening of his fingers around the
stock of his automatic, as, out of the blackness, a blacker shape loomed
up, and a man sauntered by along the track.

The Hawk's lips compressed into a grim smile. His caution had not been
exaggerated! The Wire Devils' guard! Luck, at least initial luck, was
with him, then! The “tap” was here east of the station, and at the
next pole probably. But it was more than likely that there was another
guard patrolling on the other side. They would certainly take no
chances, either of surprise, or of being unable to dismantle their
apparatus instantly at the first alarm—and it would almost necessarily
require more than one man for that. He crept forward again, and again
lay still. The man on the track returned—passed by—and, close to the
telegraph pole now, two blurred shapes showed; and then, low, there came
voices, and a laugh.

But now the Hawk was wriggling swiftly away from the track. There was
no longer any need to examine the telegraph poles—the sense of touch
guiding him, he was following an insulated wire, two wires, that lay
along the ground, and, following these wires, he reached the barbed-wire
fence that enclosed the right of way, worked his way through, and here
paused. The wires had apparently disappeared abruptly into the ground.

For perhaps a minute the Hawk lay still, save that his fingers worked
and dug at loose earth; and then, his coat extended on either side of
him, he raised himself an inch or two from the ground, and, beneath his
body, his tiny flashlight glowed for a brief instant, and was restored
to his pocket.

The Hawk began to crawl forward again. He was on the edge of a ploughed
field—a piece of farm land. It was all very simple, and it was very
clear now. In the loose earth there was embedded a small, rough, wooden
box. In this receptacle was a junction box, and from the junction box,
through holes bored in the outer wooden casing, the wires continued
on into a small, flexible conduit. The Hawk smiled grimly. Lanson, and
Lanson's section men might search a thousand years and never solve
the problem. The Wire Devils were not limited to any one single or
particular telegraph pole. They were limited only in the radius of their
operations by the length of the “tap” wires they used. They had only
to tap the line, run their “tap” back, brush the loose earth away
from the top of the wooden casing, open the latter, connect with
the junction box, and their “tap” became an integral part of the
railroad's telegraph system. It was very simple! When they were not
operating—they reversed the process. They disconnected from the main
line, coiled their “tap” wires up, hid them in the wooden casing,
restored the loose earth over the latter's surface, and, save for
one of those thousands of splices on the main line incident to years
of service and differing in no way from any of its fellows, no sign or
vestige of their work remained. It required, of course, a lineman's
outfit and the necessary appliances for work at the top of the telegraph
pole—but that the Wire Devils were adequately equipped in this respect
was so obvious as to make any consideration of that detail absurd. For
the rest, the little conduit laid in a ploughed furrow with the earth
spread back over it completed in perfection and simplicity the unholy
little scheme!

On the Hawk crawled across the field. All this premised a house, a farm
house probably, in the immediate vicinity. The ploughed field must,
of course, never be disturbed, therefore the tenancy of the land
axiomatically was for the moment vested in the Wire Devils, and——ah!
The Hawk, far enough from the railroad now to be secure from
observation, had risen from his hands and knees, and, in a crouched
position, was moving forward more rapidly. A small, wooded tract of
land was showing a little way in front of him; the house undoubtedly was
there.

He gained the trees, made his way through what appeared to be an open
grove of pines, and, on the other side, at the edge of the clearing,
halted, and listened intently. He could just make out a little group of
buildings—the house itself, a barn, and one or two smaller structures,
probably wagon and implement sheds. No light showed from anywhere,
nor was there any sound. Cautiously, silently, the Hawk crossed the
clearing, and began to circuit the house. It was a little strange! The
place seemed absolutely deserted. Had he made a mistake? Naturally, he
could not follow the direction of the buried conduit! Was there another
house in the neighbourhood? He shook his head. There might be another
house, many of them for that matter, but the ploughed field, from its
location, surely belonged to this one. And yet—he halted once more,
and, listening again intently, looked sharply about him.

He was around on the other side of the house now, and now his eyes were
fixed on one of the lower windows. It was not the window of a lighted
room, yet still a faint glow seemed to emanate most curiously from it.
He crept toward it, crouched beneath it, listened again, then partially
straightening up—the window sill was but breast high—peered in.
Of the room itself he could see nothing—only the dull glow of light,
extremely faint, that came, he now discovered, from an open door across
the room. He tried the window; and then, finding the catch unfastened,
with a deft pressure of his fingers upon the sash, he began to raise it
slowly, silently.

And now into the Hawk's dark eyes there leaped for the second time
that night a triumphant flash. Yes, beyond doubt, beyond question,
beyond cavil, here was the heart of the spider's web at last! Muffled,
low, indistinct, barely audible, but equally unmistakable, there came
the clicking of a telegraph instrument.

The Hawk drew his mask from his pocket, slipped it over his face, swung
noiselessly over the window sill, and began to creep across the room
toward the opened door and the glow of light. And, as the clicking of
the sounder grew more distinct and there mingled with it now a murmur of
voices, the Hawk's lips compressed into a thin, straight line. If he
were caught, if a single inadvertent sound betrayed his presence; it
needed no effort of the imagination to picture what would follow. Death,
if it were sudden, would be a very merciful ending—but it would not
be death, if the Wire Devils could prevent it, until they had exhausted
every means, torture ingenious and devilish, for instance, to extort
from him the whereabouts of the plunder taken from them, and which they
knew to be in his possession. He knew much now, he knew their lair at
last, and for a moment, as these thoughts flashed across his mind, he
was prompted to retreat again while he had the chance. An inner voice
called him a fool to persist; another bade him go on. But the latter
voice was right. He knew much—but he did not know enough.

If his life was in peril in the one sense, it was equally in peril in
the other. He did not know enough. Who, for instance, was the master
brain behind the organisation? Where and how, for instance, was the next
trap they would set for him to be laid?

Brief snatches of conversation now began to reach the Hawk, as he drew
nearer to the door:

“... Twenty-five thousand dollars... Traders' National Bank...
superintendent's car... dummy package... counterfeit seals... that's
all right, but MacVightie says the Secret Service is sending a man by
the name of Birks out here....”

And then a voice at which the Hawk involuntarily held his breath, and to
which, at the door now, he listened in a sort of stunned incredulity,
as though he were indeed the sport of his own ears. It was a very quiet
voice, very soft, a velvet voice, a voice whose tones were cultured
tones—and whose language was the language of a pirate of the Spanish
Main.

“Time enough to attend to this Birks personage—what I want is the
Hawk!” came in limpid tones. “And if I were not tied down here in
this damned and double-damned wheel chair, I would have twisted his
throat for him long ago. I furnish brains—and I am cursed with a
miserable, crawling mob of gnats upon whom they are wasted! That's
it—gnats! Gnats—insects—moths—anything that, if shown the light,
knows nothing but to singe its own wings!” The voice was not raised;
it was like a mother's, like a woman's voice, talking plaintively
to a spoiled child—but there was something absolutely deadly in its
inflection.

“The Ladybird!” The Hawk's lips framed the words without sound,
and in a sort of numbed hesitant way. “I—I thought he was dead.”

The telegraph sounder kept on spluttering at intervals, but it was only
stray stuff, routine railroad business, going over the wires. The Hawk,
flat on the floor and at one side of the jamb now, stared through the
doorway. It was the doorway leading to the cellar. The stairs, halfway
down, turned abruptly at right angles. The Hawk was rewarded with a view
of the stone foundation wall of the house, nothing more. But for the
moment the Hawk was lost to his immediate surroundings. The Hawk's
criminal acquaintanceship was wide, varied and intimate, and his mind
was still not entirely recovered from the startled amazement which the
recognition of that voice had brought him. He was quite fully conversant
with the Ladybird's record—only he had thought the Ladybird dead!

The Ladybird was not an ordinary criminal; instead of having spent
twenty years in Sing Sing, as was very justly his due, the police had
spent those twenty years in trying to put him there—and the Ladybird
was still to know the restrictions of a cage! Clever, fearless, cunning,
Napoleonic in the scope and breadth of his operations, the biggest
scoops on the blotters of the New York police, and, higher up, on
the Federal records, were laid to the Ladybird's door; but always,
somewhere, the thread of evidence broke—sometimes not till the door
itself was reached—but always it broke; the thread had never crossed
the threshold. The man himself was highly educated, a man now well on
toward fifty. In the underworld there were a thousand different stories
of his early life—that he had been a professor of science in a great
university; that he came of a rich family high up in the social scale;
that he had been, in fact, everything that the spice of imagination
could supply to enhance the glamour that surrounded him in the sordid
empire of Crimeland, where so many were his followers and worshippers.
But here, too, the thread was broken. None knew who he had been;
none knew where he had come from. They knew him only as one who was
invulnerable against the attacks and efforts of the police, as a peer
of their own unholy realm, as one whose name was a name to conjure
with—for in the name, the “moniker” they themselves had given the
Ladybird on account of his effeminate voice and manner, derision was
neither intended nor implied. There were limits and bounds to even the
underworld's temerity, and none knew better than the underworld the
sinister incongruity of those effeminate characteristics. Where another
might bellow and roar his rage, and threaten, the Ladybird lisped his
words—and struck.

But he, the Hawk, had thought the Ladybird dead! The man had been badly
hurt a year ago in a railroad accident somewhere in the East, and the
report had spread, and had been credited even in the inner circles of
the underworld, that he was dead. The Hawk's lips twisted grimly. The
Ladybird had seen to it evidently that the report was not denied! And
so, instead, the man was a cripple now, weaving his plots, and scheming
with that black, cunning brain of his from a wheel chair! Well, he——

The Hawk reached quickly into his pocket for pencil and paper—there
would be just light enough to enable him to see. The sounder was
rattling a brisk, tattoo, but it was no longer stray stuff. The message,
in quick, sure “sending,” was coming in the Wire Devils' secret
code. Letter by letter the Hawk jotted it down:

“pikxtfbmez byqetbqfsl kgqmbokufec srfijojeremb sthfgsbk bnfebvwq
jduuvsfpq xwfsnlipb ouflmnfsbg jeborr ettjupuj ohllsppn.”

The sounder ceased abruptly. There was silence. The Hawk replaced pencil
and paper in his pocket. The minutes passed—the message was evidently
being decoded. Then the Ladybird's voice:

“Very well! Code a message to Number One, and tell him Number Seven
has completed his work. Tell him again to take no chances by hurrying
things; that he is to wait until they are asleep. And warn him again
that under no circumstances is our hand to show in this to-night.”

A slight confusion followed from below—the scuf-, fling of feet, the
murmur of voices mingling with curious, indefinable metallic sounds. And
then suddenly the Ladybird's voice again:

“No—never mind that message! Damn my cursed, useless legs!” A
flow of unbridled oaths followed—the sacrilege the more horrible, the
menace the more ghastly for the languid, conversational tones in which
the blasphemy rolled so smoothly from the man's lips. “I'll trust
to no message tonight! Curse my legs! If I could only get there myself!
Failure! Failure! Failure! Gnats! But I will not have my plans ruined
to-night by any fool! Here, you, Dixer! Where's Dixer?”

“I'm here,” a voice answered.

“Listen, them!” murmured the Ladybird. “You haven't got any
more brains than any of the rest of them, but you're so cautious you
wouldn't take a chance on swapping a Mexican dollar for a gold eagle
unless you had a bottle of acid in your pocket—for fear the eagle was
bad! I want caution tonight, and I want orders obeyed to the letter, and
that's all I want. You take the runabout and go down there. You've
lots of time. Tell Number One you're in charge. I'll wire him to
that effect. And now pay attention to me so you won't have ignorance
for an excuse! It's time the police and the rags they call newspapers
around here had a little something to divert their attention—from us.
They're getting to be pests, and I want a lull in which to devote a
little more attention to—the Hawk. It's about time they understood
we are modest enough not to hog all the lime-light!” He laughed
a little, a low, modulated, dulcet laugh, that rippled like a
woman's—but in the ripple there was something that was akin to a
shudder. “Twice in the last month, the Traders' National has made
remittances to its banking correspondent at Elkhead for the mine country
pay rolls and on account of general business. They did it very neatly,
they fooled us completely—because the remittances were only piker
amounts, and because it was only a question of letting them get fed up
enough with their own cleverness to pull a good one! They're pulling
a good one to-night!” The Ladybird's laugh rippled out again.
“To outwit us, and paying us the compliment of not daring to trust to
ordinary means of shipment, they've had a little arrangement in force
with Lanson, the division superintendent. It was very simple. Lanson,
in his car, making a trip over the division, could never interest
us—certainly not! Why should it? Only they did not count on Number
Eleven inside the bank. Very well! They wrapped their banknotes up in
small packages, sealed them with the bank's seal, wrapped these small
packages up again into an innocent looking parcel without a seal, and
handed it over to a trusted young employé by the name of Meridan—Paul
Meridan. On both the former occasions, Meridan left the bank at the
usual closing hour, took the parcel with him, and went home; but,
later on, in the evening, he slipped down to the railroad yard, boarded
Lanson's private car, locked the parcel up in a small cupboard at the
bottom of the bookcase with which the main compartment of the car is
equipped, smoked a cigar with Lanson, turned in, the car was coupled to
the night express, and in the morning Meridan delivered his package in
Elkhead.

“That was the way it was done before, Dixer”—the Ladybird's
voice, if anything, grew softer—“and that's the way it is being
done this time—only there are more little sealed packages in the
parcel to-night. And to-night Meridan will sneak out of his home again,
and go down to the private car with the money as usual. Your way, yours
and the Butcher's, and that of the rest of you, would be to lay a
blackjack over Meridan's head on the way to the railroad yard, and
snatch the parcel. It's not my way. It's too hot, as it is, around
here now, and there's got to be a big enough noise made to attract
attention to the other side of the fence and give us a breathing spell.
Paul Meridan stands for this to-night. There's nothing new about one
of those ubiquitous 'trusted employés' going wrong, but everybody
sucks in their breaths just the same every time it happens, and the
splash is always just as big. Understand? Number One has got a dummy
package identical in appearance with Meridan's—each of the small
packages is sealed with the bank's seal in dark-green wax, and the
whole is wrapped up with the bank's special wrapping paper and tied
precisely as is the one Meridan has in his possession. Number Eleven
did his work well. There was, of course, no opportunity to effect the
exchange in the bank itself, and the dummy parcel had to be made up
outside, but there was no difficulty in carrying away enough wrapping
paper and wax for the purpose—and, as far as the seal was concerned,
it was you, Dixer, who engraved it a week ago, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” said Dixer. “You took me off the new twenty-spot plate for
that.”

“Exactly!” lisped the Ladybird. “Well, though this exchange could
not be effected in the bank, there was no great ingenuity required to
get Meridan to handle, perhaps only to lift, say, a pile of the bank's
wrapping paper from one position on a table or desk to another. If
the under sheet happened to be slightly smeared, and so left a not too
evident, but still well-defined finger print, it was, I am afraid, our
friend Meridan's great misfortune! That was one of the sheets Number
Eleven took away with him. Very good! Meridan delivers his package to
his bank's correspondent in Elkhead to-morrow morning. When the seals
are broken, the little packages are found to contain—piles of blotting
paper, neatly and carefully cut to the size of banknotes! There could
be no reason for suspecting Meridan, the trusted employé—no one
would think of such a thing. He had simply been the victim of a clever
substitution. He was entirely blameless. Naturally! That would be the
way Meridan would reason, and that would be the way they would figure he
had reasoned when they read the letter from 'a friend' that we are
sending to-night, and which they will receive in the morning. Meridan
did have an ample opportunity to effect the substitution himself. The
letter simply suggests a close inspection of the wrappers for finger
prints, and directs attention to Apartment B, on the ground floor of The
Linden—a rather fashionable abode for a young and newly married bank
clerk—where there might possibly be found certain articles such as,
say, a counterfeit of the bank's seal, a quantity of the bank's
special dark-green wax, and some superfluous sheets of the bank's
particular wrapping paper!”

There was utter silence from the cellar below for an instant, then there
came a callous guffaw.

“Some plant, all right!” applauded a voice hoarsely. “And it was
twenty-five thousand dollars, you said, wasn't it, chief?”

Again that rippling laugh, soft, low and silvery.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars is correct,” corroborated the
Ladybird. “And now, Dixer, if you fail, you'll talk to me—you've
seen all the cards. Number One has a duplicate key to the private car,
and a duplicate key to the bookcase cupboard. Don't enter the car
until you are sure Meridan, Lanson and the porter are asleep. I want
caution—and I will settle with the man until he will wish he had never
been born who lets our hand show in this tonight. The car won't be
moved from the siding until the Eastern Express is made up at midnight,
but don't touch the car while it is on the siding at all if it means
taking any chances; in that case you and Number One can get berths in
the Pullman, and, with the private car right behind you, you can then
make the exchange sometime during the night. You'll find Number One
and the rest of them in the old freight shed near the roundhouse, and,
with the private car right behind you, you can then make the exchange
sometime during the night. You'll find Number One and the rest of them
in the old freight shed near the roundhouse, and——”

The Hawk was wriggling silently back across the floor. There was no
scheme on foot to-night that was aimed at him; there was, instead,
twenty-five thousand dollars—in cash. He gained the window, and swung
to the sill. Footsteps, hurried, sounded from the direction of the
cellar stairs. The Hawk dropped to the ground, stole noiselessly around
the rear of the house, and reached the shelter of the grove of trees.
Here, he paused, slipped his mask into his pocket, and, for a moment,
a look of puzzled hesitation was in his face; then, running again,
but making a wide detour to avoid the guarded section of the track, he
headed for a point that would intercept the right of way quite close to
the Conmore station. And, as he ran, he jerked his watch and flashlight
from his pockets. It was a quarter past nine. It was early yet, very
early, and they certainly would not make any attempt on the car much
before midnight, but, for all that, the Hawk, who was intimately
conversant with the train schedules, shook his head impatiently, as he
sped along—there were twenty miles between himself and Selkirk, and
the quickest, as indeed the only way to get there, since, unlike Dixer,
he was not possessed of a runabout, was slow at best. There were no
westbound passenger trains scheduling Conmore for two hours or more,
and he would scarcely have dared to risk boarding one at the station if
there had been—there remained, then, not by choice, but by necessity,
the way freight. The way freight “made” Conmore at about ten
o'clock, and Selkirk at about eleven-thirty.

It would serve admirably, of course, if——He shook his head again,
and then laughed shortly. There were no “ifs”—he would be a
passenger on the way freight.




XVI—AN EVEN BREAK

IT took the Hawk some twenty-five minutes to reach the spot he had
selected as his objective, a spot some fifty yards east of the Conmore
siding switch, and here he lay down in the grass under the shelter of
the embankment. It was very quiet, very still, very dark; there was
nothing in sight save the winking station lights in the distance, and
the siding switch light nearer at hand.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars!” said the Hawk very softly to
himself. He rolled the words like some sweet morsel on his tongue.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars—in cash!”

The Hawk spread out one side of his coat, and under its protection, in
a diminutive but steady little glow of light, the tiny flashlight played
its ray upon the sheet of paper across which he had scrawled the Wire
Devils' code message.

“Key letter—x. One-two-three—stroke at four,” muttered the
Hawk—and in parallel columns set down the letters of the alphabet, one
column transposed.

It took the Hawk much longer to decode the message than it had taken
those in the house to perform the same task. The Hawk was working under
difficulties. A stone, none too flat, served to rest his paper upon, and
he had only two hands with which to manipulate pencil, flashlight and
coat. At the expiration of perhaps half an hour the result of his work
looked like this:



0242

And then the Hawk looked up—the throb and mutter of a distant train
was in the air. Pencil, paper and flashlight were restored to his
pockets, and he drew further back from the right of way. Far down the
track the way freight's headlight flashed into view. A minute passed,
another, and still another. And now, where the Hawk had lain, the ground
was ablaze with light—then black again; there was the roar of steam,
a grind and clash and shatter ricochetting down the string of cars, the
scream and shriek of brake-shoes, and then, a panting thing, as though
the big mogul were drawing in deep breaths after great exertion, the way
freight came to a standstill a few yards from the siding switch.

The Hawk crept forward, his eyes sweeping down the length of the train
in a keen, tense gaze. There was a flat car—it showed in a curious
open space, like a break in the black thread stretched along the
track—but it was too far away, and too perilously close to the
caboose. His eyes travelled back; and, being nearer to the train now
he discerned a boxcar, empty, its door open, almost in front of him. He
crawled forward until he was abreast of it, and until he lay close
up against the rails, looked cautiously up and down the length of the
train, sprang to his feet, and in an instant lay stretched out far back
in the interior of the car.

The train moved forward, stopped again at the station, and again moved
forward. The Hawk reverted to his pencil, paper and flashlight. The code
message now read:

seal waxp aper plan tedb ehin dlar gefr amed pict ureo verm ante lmer
idan ssit ting room

It was now simply a matter of grouping the letters properly, and the
Hawk wrote out the message at the bottom of the sheet:

Seal, wax (and) paper planted behind large framed picture over mantel
Meridan('.s sitting room.

The Hawk stared at it grimly.

“'Yea,” said the Hawk, “I guess that's right! I guess the job
is wished on the young fellow to a finish; he wouldn't have a hope,
and MacVightie would never look any further.” The Hawk was silent for
a moment. “Twenty-five thousand dollars—in cash!” murmured the
Hawk again.

The way freight ran slowly, very slowly—and it had already been from
ten to fifteen minutes late in reaching Conmore. At the next station
the train crew seemed possessed of a perversity infernal for shifting,
shunting and lifting cars. The Hawk, fuming with impatience, consulted
his watch, as they finally pulled out into the clear again. It was
twenty-five minutes of eleven.

The train rattled, bumped and jerked its way along—and at the
remaining intermediate stations there was more delay. And when,
approaching Selkirk at last, the Hawk consulted his watch again as the
train whistled, he was conscious that his impatience was tempered with
a sort of sullen, philosophical expectation of defeat. His luck had
been too abundant during the early part of the evening! It was now ten
minutes of twelve. He leaned out of the doorway, peering ahead. They
were just rolling into the Selkirk yard.

The Hawk swung himself out from the car, dropped to the ground, darted
quickly to one side over several spur tracks, and stood still. The way
freight, like a snail, dragged past him, opening, as it were, a panorama
of the scene in the yard: the low switch lights, red, green, purple and
white, like myriad and variegated fireflies hovering everywhere over
the ground; the bobbing lantern of a yardman here and there; the dancing
gleam of a headlight, as the little yard engine shot fussily away from a
string of lighted coaches—the Eastern Express—which it had evidently
just made up and backed down on the main line beside the station; while
to his right, up the yard, on one of the spurs, perhaps a hundred yards
away, its platform showing in the glow of the dome light, stood the
superintendent's car; and to his left, not quite so far up the yard,
and therefore nearer to him than the private car, the Hawk could make
out the black, irregular outline of the old freight shed.

The yard engine wheezed its way importantly up past the station,
stopped, a switch light winked, changed colour, and the shunter began to
puff its way back. The Hawk shrugged his shoulders resignedly. The game
was up and he was too late, unless Dixer had been forced to defer his
attempt until some time during the run that night, which was
hardly likely. The yard engine was backing down now to take the
superintendent's car up to the main line, preparatory to running
it back and coupling it to the string of coaches beside the station
platform. The Hawk smiled in the darkness without mirth, as he lost
sight of the little switcher on the other side of the private car. Well,
at least, he could gamble on the one chance that was left! There was
only one thing to do—go over to the station and get a Pullman berth.
If Dixer and the Butcher—the Butcher was “Number One”—were on
the Pullman, the money was still in the private car, and——

The Hawk's eyes narrowed suddenly. A man, crouched and running
swiftly, circled the end of the private car, and headed in the direction
of the freight shed—and like a flash the Hawk whirled and leaped
forward, running silently toward the same goal. The Hawk's brain,
stimulated, keen, alert, worked with lightning speed, and suddenly a
strange low laugh was on his lips. Their courses were convergent, his
and that black running shape's, and the other had not noticed him, and
there appeared to be something, a package, under the other's arm.
The Hawk, as he ran, slipped his mask over his face. Was it the dummy
package—or the twenty-five thousand in cash? Had the man succeeded,
or had the yard engine, backing down to couple on, disturbed him in his
attempt just at the psychological instant? Again that strange low laugh,
in a panting breath, was on the Hawk's lips. It did not matter! There
was a way now. He was not too late. If he got both of the packages
he could not lose—and there was a way to accomplish that, a wild,
dare-devil way, but a sure way!

It was black, pitch black, in near the shed, and the Hawk, with
the shorter distance to cover, reached the edge of the freight shed
platform, and crouched down on the track. Came the faint crash and bump
of the yard engine coupling to the private car; then the short, quick
gasps of a runner out of breath, and a flying form bounded across
the tracks, sprang to the platform, and dashed for the freight shed
door—and the Hawk, his muscles, rigid, taut as steel, released
suddenly, as a coiled spring is released, leaped and hurled himself upon
the other.

There was a yell of dismay, of surprise and fury, that seemed to echo
from one end of the yard to the other. The man went down in a heap
from the impact. The package, from under his arm, rolled off along the
platform—and the Hawk in a swoop was upon it. He snatched it up, and
running like a deer now, headed for the yard engine and the private car.

Came another yell from behind him. He heard the freight shed door flung
violently open; and then, in grim emphasis of a sudden chorus of wild,
infuriated shouts from Dixer's waiting companions, the vicious
tongue flame of a revolver split the black, and the roar of the report
reverberated through the yard like a cannon shot.

And now from the yard itself, the roundhouse and the station came
answering shouts. On the Hawk ran—he was alongside the private car
now, which was already in motion—and now he was opposite the cab of
the yard engine. The fireman, at the sudden pandemonium, head thrust
out, was hanging in the gangway. The Hawk's automatic swung to a line
with the other's head.

“Get out!” gritted the Hawk coldly. “Both of you—you and your
mate! Get out—on the other side!”

The man, with a dazed oath, retreated, and the Hawk sprang through the
gangway. The engineer, jumping from his seat, hesitated, and in the
yellow light of the cab lamp looked for the fraction of a second into
the muzzle of the Hawk's automatic, and into the hard, uncompromising
black eyes behind the mask—and followed the fireman in a hasty exit
through the opposite gangway.

The Hawk snatched at the throttle, pulled it wider—and, like a beast
stung to sudden madness under the spur, the yard engine quivered, and in
a storm of exhausts, coughing the red sparks skyward from the stack, the
drivers racing, spitting fire as they sought to bite and hold the
steel, plunged forward. Ahead the way was clear to the main line, but
behind——The Hawk dropped his package on the floor of the cab,
leaned suddenly far out through the gangway, and as suddenly fired, his
automatic cutting a lane of flame through the darkness. He had fired
at the ground, but his shot had been effective. The engineer or the
fireman, he could not distinguish which, leaping to board the private
car by the rear platform, leaped back instead, and with a series of wild
gesticulations, in which arms and fists waved furiously, vanished in the
darkness.

The yard engine, as though playing snap-the-whip with the private car
behind it, took the main line switch with a stagger and a lurch, and
straightened away into the clear. There was speed now, and the speed
was increasing with every second. The shouts, the yells, the cries, the
pandemonium from the yard was blotted out in the pound of the drivers
and the belch of the exhaust; and the station and switch lights
were lost to sight as engine and car flew on, heading west into the
foothills. The Hawk chuckled to himself. There would be wild confusion
in the dispatcher's office, and wild confusion all along the line west
of Selkirk, as regulars, extras and traffic of all sorts scurried for
safety to the sidings—but there would be no interference with him!
Where they would otherwise have ditched him, given him an open switch
at the first station and sent him to destruction without compunction, he
possessed, as it was, a most satisfactory hostage in the person of
the division superintendent, whom they would hesitate about sending to
eternity at the same time!

Possibly a minute and a half, two at the outside, had passed since he
had jumped through the gangway. He eased the throttle a little now,
reducing the speed to a rate more nearly commensurate with safety;
and, placing the package on the driver's seat, ripped off the outside
wrapper. There was a queer, hard smile on the Hawk's lips, as his
fingers tore at the covering of one of the small sealed packets within.
Was it the dummy parcel—or the twenty-five thousand in cash? Had Dixer
succeeded—or was the money still behind him there in the private car?

The cab lamp above the dancing gauge needles seemed to throw its
meagre yellow glow with strained inquisitiveness over the Hawk's
shoulder—and then the Hawk laughed softly, and laughed again. In his
hands were banknotes. He riffled the stack through his fingers. It was
here, in his possession—twenty-five thousand dollars in cash!

And he laughed again, and glanced around him—through the cab glass
at the white ribbons of steel glistening under the headlight's glare,
around the murky cab that in its sway and jolt seemed to endow a legion
of shadowy with movement, vitality and life, at the platform of the
private car, which he could see by looking along the edge of the tender,
and which, like its fellow at the rear, was bathed in the soft radiance
of a dome light. Well, he might have known from the fact that the
occupants of the car had not made any move as yet, at least from the
forward end, that they had been in bed and asleep when the disturbance
began; and he might, on that count, if he had stopped to think, have
known that Dixer had succeeded even before he, the Hawk, had put it to
the proof by opening the parcel.

A lurch of the cab sent him against the seat, and scattered the sealed
packages. He gathered them together again hurriedly. He had only to slow
down the engine a little more, jump to the ground, let the engine and
car go on, make his own way back through the fields, and he would be
safe unless—that strange, queer smile, half grim, half whimsical, was
flickering across his lips—unless he cared to risk his life for that
dummy package back there in the car behind, that contained nothing more
valuable than neatly trimmed pieces of blotting paper!

The smile lost its whimsicality, and the grimness gathered until his
lips drooped in sharp, hard lines at the corners of his mouth—and,
abruptly, lifting up the seat, he swept the packages of banknotes into
the engineer's box, leaped across the cab, and began to claw his way
up over the coal, making for the back of the tender.

“Twenty-five thousand in cash for me, and twenty years in the
'pen' for the kid, doesn't look like an even break,” muttered
the Hawk, as he clawed his way up. “Maybe I'm a fool—I guess maybe
I am—but it doesn't look like an even break. You see,” said the
Hawk, continuing to commune with himself, “they'll know, of course,
that some one who wasn't Meridan tried to get the package, but with
the package still there they'll think that the 'some one' made a
bull of it, and to-morrow morning when they open the package and spot
the finger prints, and get that bank seal in Meridan's home,
they'll hold him for it cold, because what's happened around here
to-night'll only look like somebody making a try for the goods without
knowing they were already gone. The kid wouldn't have a hope—the
Ladybird wasn't dealing any aces except to himself—the kid would
go up for having previously stolen the goods on his own account. Yes, I
guess he would—wax, seal and paper in his house to make dummy packages
with—yes, I guess the kid would stand a hot chance!”

The Hawk rose to his feet at the rear of the tender, preparing to
negotiate a leap down over the ornamental brass platform railing of the
private car—and instantly flung himself back flat on his face on the
coal. The car door was flung open, and Lanson, the superintendent, in
pajamas, a revolver in his hand, stepped out on the platform. He
was closely followed by a young man—Meridan, the bank clerk,
obviously—also in pajamas, but apparently unarmed; and, behind Meridan
again, came the negro porter.

Lanson's voice, raised excitedly, carried to the Hawk:

“Damn it, there's no one in the cab! What the devil sort of a game
is this!”

The Hawk edged up to the top of the coal again—and the next instant,
with catlike agility, he launched himself forward. Lanson, clambering
over the platform railing, with the very evident intention of making his
way via the tender to the throttle, gasped audibly over the racket of
the beating trucks, and in a sort of stunned surprise and irresolution
remained poised inertly on the railing, as the Hawk, clinging now with
one hand to the rear handrail of the switcher, his feet planted on the
buffer beam, thrust the muzzle of his automatic into Lanson's face.

“Drop that gun!” invited the Hawk in a monotone.

The weapon, from Lanson's hand, clattered down, struck the coupling,
and dropped to the track.

The Hawk spoke again—with unpleasant curtness:

“You—Sambo! Move back, and stand in the doorway! Yes—there! Now,
you, young man, you stand in front of Sambo—your back to him!” And
then, as Meridan too obeyed, though more slowly than the porter and with
a sort of defiant reluctance, the Hawk addressed the superintendent:
“Now, you—your name's Lanson, isn't it?” he snapped. “You,
Lanson, back up against the young fellow. Yes—that's it! Sambo, put
your hands on the young fellow's shoulders—and you, young fellow,
do the same on Lanson's!” The Hawk swung over to the' car
platform—and then the Hawk smiled uninvitingly. “It's the
lock-step backwards,” he explained insolently. “You get the idea,
don't you? If either of you two behind lift your hands, Lanson in
front here pays for it. Now—back with you!”

They shuffled backward into the observation compartment of the car,
through this, and through a narrow side corridor, and emerged into the
main compartment of the car. The Hawk, guiding their movements by the
simple expedient of prodding the muzzle of his automatic none too gently
into Lanson's body, here ranged the three along the side of the car;
and, backing over to the opposite side himself, halted in front of the
bookcase, and stood surveying his captives with his former insolent
stare. The porter was patently reduced to a state of nervous terror;
Meridan, young, clean-cut, was white to the lips, and his lips quivered,
but his eyes, a hard, bitter light in them, never left the Hawk's
face; Lanson, too, was white, but there was a stern composure in his
face that was absent from the younger man's.

It was Lanson who spoke.

“I presume,” he said evenly, “that you are the abandoned
scoundrel, known as the Hawk, whom one of these days we are going—to
hang.”

The Hawk shrugged his shoulders.

“I haven't a calling card with me, but we'll let it go at that,”
he answered flippantly.

The car swayed and lurched suddenly; the trucks beat a louder tattoo
as they clattered over a switch; lights, a row of them from without,
scintillated through the car windows—and were gone. They were not
running perilously fast, but fast enough to prohibit the possibility
of any one, even an acrobatic brakeman from a stalled train, swinging
aboard. The Hawk laughed low. Also, he had been quite right—they had
just passed a station, and, thanks to the superintendent's presence,
no attempt had been made to interfere with the train.

From one of the Hawk's pockets—with his left hand—the Hawk
produced a small steel jimmy. He knelt down, and, still covering the
three men, inserted the jimmy in between the cupboard doors. There was
a creak, the rip and split and tear of rending wood and lock, and the
doors flew apart. The Hawk reached in, laughed again, as, with the dummy
package under his arm, he stood up and began to back away toward the
corridor leading to the forward end of the car—and the laugh died
on his lips. In the winking of an eye Meridan had swung his hands from
Lanson's shoulders, and was springing forward.

“You'll never get it!” The boy's voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Not while I——”

“Keep away, you fool!” snarled the Hawk, and fired—at the floor.
His brain seemed instantly in a riot of ironical mockery. He could not
fire at the boy—it was the boy who had brought him here—and now the
other was upon him—like a wild cat—snatching at the automatic.

It was only another step backward to the opening of the corridor, and
the Hawk gained it; but still the boy clung on, fighting furiously. He
saw Lanson and the porter leap forward, but for the moment that mattered
little—no more than one at a time could get at him in the confined and
narrow space here. To hold the package rendered his left arm useless. He
dropped the package to the floor, and kicked it deftly back behind him,
as the boy, with both hands, wrenched and battled madly for possession
of the automatic.

They were swaying now, the two of them, bumping their shoulders and
their arms and elbows against first one side of the corridor and then
the other. There was the crash of splintering glass as they lunged into
a window—another crash, louder, more ominous, and with it a tongue of
flame, as the automatic went off in their hands—and something like a
red-hot iron seared the Hawk's side, and a blur came before his eyes.

He reeled, recovered himself, and, massing all his strength for the
effort, as, with a cry of triumph, Meridan closed again, he tore himself
free from the other's grasp. There was one way—he was still in
possession of the automatic—only one way now.

With a lightning swing he whipped the hutt of the weapon to the
other's head, backed rapidly away as the boy slid a limp thing to the
floor, and, picking up the package as he moved backward, holding the
narrow corridor with his automatic, though Lanson was kneeling now at
Meridan's side, he reached the observation compartment, whirled, ran
for the door, opened it, and stepped out on the platform.

He stood panting here, a little dizzy, a sort of nauseating weakness
upon him, as he fumbled in his pocket. He was not as quick as usual
in his work, not as expert now in the use of his skeleton keys, but,
swiftly for all that, he locked the car door.

The car and the engine seemed to sway and lurch and pitch and toss
as they had never done before. Was the speed greater? What was it? He
stumbled and nearly fell as he climbed to the tender. He fell, unable to
maintain his footing in the shifting coal, as he reached the cab. There
was something hot and wet that seemed to be working its way down his
leg; his side was giving him intolerable pain.

He looked at the package in his hands, looked at it queerly for a
moment, and then his drawn lips parted in the old whimsical smile, as
he lurched forward and opened the fire-box door. The red glow filled the
cab and spread upward, tinging the sky with a rosy light—and the Hawk
thrust the package into the fire, and, swaying unsteadily, watched it
burst into flame.

He glanced at the gauge now. The steam was dropping rapidly. He swept
his hand across his eyes. He had two things to do, and it seemed as
though his brain clogged in its decision as to which he should do
first—he had to get more coal on the fire, or else the engine would
run down, and he did not want it to run down, for it must keep on going
a long way, a very long way if possible, after he left it; and he must
stop the flow of blood from his wound somehow, or else——

He put coal into the fire-box. It was painful, dizzy work, and he
spilled a great deal of it, and the lumps rolled over the floor of the
cab, and he stumbled over the lumps.

The Hawk's teeth were biting into his bloodless lips, as he finally
shut the fire-box door, and, staggering to the side of the cab, lifted
up the engineer's seat again. Here, under the packages of banknotes,
he found a bunch of waste and some cord; and then, reeling with the
lurch of the cab, reeling with his own weakness that only an iron nerve
held back from mastering him, he examined his wound, found it, though
painful and bleeding profusely, to be only a bad flesh wound, and,
making a thick pad of the waste, he laid it against his side, and bound
it there by passing the cord tightly several times around his body.
It was a crude bandage, but it should, at least, check the flow of
blood—afterwards, if he had luck, there would be opportunity for a
better one!

His mind reverted, seemingly without volition of his, to the fight in
the car, and he spoke aloud.

“I guess,” said the Hawk, “I didn't hit him as hard as twenty
years in the 'pen' would have hit him—I guess I didn't hit him
that hard.”

He rested for a moment, sitting on the floor of the cab; then from
the engineer's box he removed the sealed packages, the torn outside
wrapper, and likewise an evening newspaper which he found there. He
wrapped up the banknotes in the newspaper, tied the bundle securely with
the remainder of his cord, replaced the seat, and, crouched low enough
on the floor to be protected by the tender from, say, a shot fired
through the observation window of the private car, kept his eyes
fastened on the right of way ahead.

The next station must be close at hand, and there was but one way in
which he could get back to Selkirk—and he must get back. There was
that letter—the Ladybird's letter—that would be received in
Elkhead in the morning! His brain was clearer now. He must be on Extra
No. 92, the eastbound fast freight's, running time, and she must be
somewhere very near here, must have taken to the siding at the next
station probably to avoid him, and to give clearance to what was,
undoubtedly now, coming behind him—a detective's special, with
MacVightie, naturally, in command.

He straightened up painfully. Ahead, he had caught the glint of switch
and station lights. The siding was on the left-hand side. He moved to
the left-hand side of the cab, and lay on the cab floor by the gangway.
That letter! It seemed to obsess him now. If, when the letter was read,
the bank seal, the wax, and the wrapping paper were found hidden in the
boy's home, the fact that some one—he, the Hawk—had stolen the
package from the car in no way changed anything. The boy's apparent
prior guilt was as glaring as ever. On the other hand, with the package
gone, and if the seal and those other things were not found, the letter
became simply the expression of some practical joker's perverted sense
of humour, or the irresponsible work of some fool or crank. He frowned
in a sort of dazed irritation. He had known that all along, hadn't he?
He had known when he started after that dummy package in the first place
that he would have to go all the way—so why was his mind dwelling now
on useless repetitions!

The Hawk raised his head slightly—a deafening racket was in his ears.
The freight was here—on the siding. He was roaring past it now. He
could not hope for an open boxcar on the fast freight. His eyes were
searching eagerly for a flat car—a flat car loaded with anything that
would afford him shelter. Yes—there was one—two of them—loaded
with steel girders.

The roar subsided; he was past the station and into the clear
again—and now the Hawk was at the throttle, easing the speed craftily.
He did not dare to “shut off” entirely, for, behind there at the
station, they would know, if the sound of the exhaust ceased, that
he had stopped. He checked a little with the “air” now. And now,
calculating the speed reduced enough to risk a jump, he opened the
throttle to its former notch, took up his newspaper package, lowered
himself to the bottom gangway step, and swung off.

He rolled down the embankment. The switcher and private car went by,
and, gradually gaining speed again, racketed on up the right of way.
With a groan, the Hawk readjusted his displaced and makeshift bandage,
and began to make his way back toward the station. If he had slowed
enough to allow of a safe landing for himself, he had, of course, given
Lanson the same opportunity—but he had no fear of that. Lanson might
have jumped, but Meri-dan, whom he had left unconscious, couldn't, and
Lanson would stick to Meridan. As for the porter—the Hawk shrugged his
shoulders, as he looked about him—the porter had not jumped.

He stumbled on. If he were right, if they had started a posse on a
special in pursuit, he had plenty of time. The fast freight could
not pull out until the special had gone by. It seemed a long way, an
interminable way, an immeasurably greater distance than he had covered
coming up on the switcher. And then, at last, the tail-lights of the
stalled freight came into sight around a bend, and grew brighter. And
then, too, there came from the eastward the rumble of an approaching
train. He grew cautious now, and, creeping far out from the side of
the track, passed the caboose, crept in again toward the line of cars,
located the position of the flat cars, climbed aboard one of them, and
crawled in under the shored-up girders.

The Hawk lay very quiet. He was weak again, and his head swam, and
he was dizzy. An engine and car—MacVightie and his posse
presumably—passed by on the main line; and then, presently, the
freight, with a clatter and bang echoing from one to another down the
length of cars, drew out of the station.

When the Hawk moved again, it was as the train whistled and slowed for
the Selkirk yard. Perhaps twenty minutes had passed—the fast freight,
with no stops and already late, had made time. He put his mask in his
pocket, wormed his way out from under the girders, and peered ahead and
behind. They were just crawling into the upper end of the yard. He slid
to the ground, found himself a little more steady on his feet, slipped
across the spur tracks, dodged in between two buildings that flanked the
side of the yard, and came out on the street.

Under a street lamp the Hawk looked at his watch. It was one o'clock.
He swayed a little again, but his lips set hard. There was not very much
time. Somewhere up the line the switcher and the private car would come
to a stop, and they would bring Meridan home—and once that happened,
with its consequent stir in Meridan's apartment, it would be
impossible to get in there, and the game, as far as the boy was
concerned, would be up.

“Yes,” said the Hawk, as he forced himself along the street,
“I guess maybe that's right—I guess maybe I'm a fool—but it
wasn't an even break.”

A street car at the next corner took him across town; and fifteen
minutes more found him standing in the unlighted vestibule of the
Linden Apartments. The tiny flashlight swept the ground floor apartment
doors—and an instant later the door of Apartment B yielded noiselessly
to the deft manipulation of a skeleton key.

The Hawk closed the door, and stole forward. It was a rather fashionable
apartment, as the Ladybird had said, but it was also a very small one,
small enough to warrant the presumption that the young couple did not
keep a servant, and that there would probably be no one there except
Meridan's wife. A door at his right, as he felt out in the darkness,
he found to be open. He listened—for the sound of breathing. There was
nothing. The flashlight winked—and the Hawk stepped forward into the
room. It was the sitting room. The flashlight was sweeping about now in
an inquisitive little ray. A door, closed, leading to an inner room, was
on his right; facing him was a heavily portièred window, the portières
drawn; and a little to the left of the window was the mantel.

The flashlight's ray wavered suddenly, unsteadily—and the Hawk
caught at the nearest thing to him, the table in the centre of the room,
for support, a sense of disaster upon him, a realisation that, lashed
on as it might be by force of will, there was a limit to physical
endurance, and that the limit had well nigh been reached. His hand
brushed across his eyes, and brushed across them again to clear his
sight, as he tried to follow the flashlight's ray to where it played
jerkily on a massively framed picture over the mantel. He bit his lips
now, bit them until they bled—and moved forward—and laid his parcel
of banknotes on the floor that he might have the use of both hands—and
climbed upon a chair, and felt in behind the picture. Yes—it was
there! His fingers closed on a roll of paper, twitched and shook a
little as they pulled it out—and a small package from inside the roll
fell with a slight thud to the mantel, and from the mantel bounded off
to the floor.

The Hawk caught his breath, as he listened, and descended from the
chair.

“Clumsy fool!” he gritted fiercely, as he knelt on the floor.
“I—I guess I'm pretty near the count to do a thing like that.”

The flashlight came into play again, and disclosed a metal seal and
several pieces of dark-green wax peeping through the paper wrapper that
had been split apart in the fall. He picked them up, and put them in his
pocket; then, loosening his vest, he tucked the roll of wrapping paper
inside his shirt. Well, it was done now; he had only to get back to his
room, and there was surely strength enough left for that. Again his hand
swept across his eyes, and pressed hard against his temples—and then,
stooping swiftly, he clutched at his package of banknotes on the floor
beside him, and stood up, rigid and tense.

Out of the darkness, almost at his elbow, with a startling clamour that
clashed and shattered through the silence, and seemed to set a
thousand echoes reverberating through the room, came the ringing of the
telephone.

Some one in the inner room stirred. The Hawk drew back hurriedly into
the window recess behind the portières. The telephone rang again. There
came a step now, and now the room was flooded with light, and a woman,
a dressing gown flung hastily over her shoulders, crossed from the inner
doorway to the table, and picked up the instrument.

“Yes?... Hello!... What is it?” she asked, a little sleepily.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Meridan... What?... My husband!” Her voice rang
out in sudden terror. “What did you say?” she cried frantically.
“Yes, yes—the Hawk—my husband—unconscious... You are not telling
me all the truth—you are trying to keep the worst from me—for
God's sake tell me the truth!... Not dangerous?... You are sure—you
are sure?... Yes, yes, I understand!... At the station in half an
hour... I will be there.”

Mechanically she hung the receiver on the hook, and clung for a moment
to the table's edge, her face grey and bloodless; and then her lips
moved, and one hand clenched until the tight-drawn skin across the
knuckles was an ivory white.

“I pray God they get this Hawk!” she whispered. “I pray God they
do! And I pray God they kill him! The coward! The miserable, pitiful
coward!”

The Hawk's fingers were digging at the window sill, because somehow
his knees were refusing to support his weight. What was she saying? He
did not quite understand. Well, it did not matter, she was gone now into
that other room—only she had left the light on. It was very strange
the way his hand on the window sill seemed to keep pulling his body
around in circles!

Time had lost concrete significance to the Hawk. She appeared again,
fully dressed now, and, switching off the light, went out into the hall,
and the front door closed behind her.

The Hawk parted the portières, and staggered across the room—and, a
moment later, a dark form, a newspaper parcel clutched under its arm,
emerged stealthily from the vestibule, and, reeling like a drunken man,
disappeared in the darkness down the street.




XVII—A HOLE IN THE WALL

THE wound was healed—partially, at least. If the Hawk had unduly
shortened his period of convalescence, he was perhaps justified, and not
wholly without excuse! He stood now in the black shadows, hugged close
to the wall of the roundhouse. And now he moved stealthily forward,
until, from a crouched position, he straightened up against the wall
at the side of one of the few windows which were lighted. Lanson had
strolled aimlessly across the tracks from the station some ten minutes
before, and, five minutes later, MacVightie had followed Lanson—to
their chosen spot for secret conferences, this little “cubbyhole” of
a turner's office in the roundhouse, as the Hawk, from more than one
experience in the past, had very good reason to know. They were in there
now, and, as the Hawk was likewise exceedingly well aware, the events
of the next few hours, and incidentally his own particular movements,
depended very pertinently upon the movements of MacVightie and Lanson.

Lanson's voice in quietly modulated tones reached the Hawk:

“Yes, both trains are on time to the minute; I've taken care of
that. And so far there doesn't seem to be a hitch anywhere, and with
your men boarding the trains west of here at different stations along
the line, and mixing quietly with the passengers, I don't see how any
one could be the wiser on that score. Yes, it looks as though everything
were all right—eh, MacVightie?”

“I don't know; I hope so,” MacVightie's deep growl came in
reply. “Anyhow, we've carried out instructions from Washington, and
it's up to the Secret Service crowd as to how it pans out.”

“No, it isn't!” declared Lanson, still quietly. “It isn't up
to a soul on earth except those of us who have got the responsibility
of this division on our shoulders! I believe the plan is a good one, but
because it came from Washington doesn't let us out—not for a minute!
What about Birks; has he shown up yet?”

“Not yet,” MacVightie answered—and swore suddenly under his
breath. “And I don't mind admitting that the crowd down there in
Washington make me tired! It's over two weeks ago that I put it up to
them. They said they would take the matter under consideration, and in
any case would send one of their men, this Birks, out here to make an
investigation. But nothing doing! Then, as you know, I wrote them again
a week ago, when we knew this Alaskan gold shipment was coming through,
and you know their reply; they outlined a plan for us, and stated
definitely that Birks would be on deck to-night. Maybe he will—in time
to tell us what we should have done!”

“The Secret Service isn't a police force,” said Lanson tersely.
“The only excuse they would have for acting at all would be if your
pet theory were correct—that the Hawk and his gang, apart from their
systematised murders and robberies, were also the ones who have been
flooding the country with those counterfeit ten-dollar notes. You had no
actual proof to offer, and Washington evidently hasn't felt quite so
sure about it as you have. However, there's no use discussing that
to-night. If Birks shows up, all right; if he doesn't—well, I
don't see that he could make any difference one way or the other
now.”

There was silence for a moment, then Lanson spoke again.

“What worries me as much as anything,” he said slowly, “is the
express company making a shipment of money at the same time—forty
thousand dollars in the car's safe. Of course, it's logical enough
with a half million to guard anyway, but it's an added incentive to
those, devils, that's all. A half million In raw gold isn't any
easy thing to pick up and walk off with, and there's more than an even
chance that the Wire Devils might pass it up on that account; but with
banknotes alone in so large an amount——”

“If they know about it!” interrupted MacVightie brusquely. “And
it's not likely they do! You can't send a heavily guarded express
car on from the coast and keep it mum that gold is going through,
especially when the papers print pictures of the cases being swung
out of the steamer's hold on arrival from Alaska—but the other's
different. I'm not banking on them passing up the gold on any account,
though they may, at that; but in any case they'll be welcome to open
the safe now, won't they?”

Again there was an instant's silence; and the Hawk now, as though
fearful of losing a word that might be spoken, strained forward closer
still to the side of the window.

“Yes, that's right!” Lanson laughed now in a grimly humorous way.
“It's in the biggest case of all! Yes, I guess it's all right,
MacVightie; anyway, another hour or two will tell the story. The shift
should have been made at Mornleigh without any trouble, and the Limited
will come through here without a thing in the express car except the
guards! If they hold her up anywhere on the division, that's all
they'll find—the guards, and one of your posses. Yes, it ought
to work.” Lanson's voice took on a curiously monotonous drone,
as though he were checking over the details in his own mind, and
unconsciously doing so audibly. “The Limited takes water at Mornleigh,
and No. 18 always takes the siding there to let the Limited pass, so
there's nothing in that to arouse suspicion. In the darkness, with the
door of the Limited's express car only a foot or so away from the door
of No. 18'. baggage car, and a picked crew to transfer the gold, I
don't see how there could be any 'leak.' The Limited pulls in
here with its guarded express car—everything looks just as those Wire
Devils would expect it to look—and they know the gold left the coast
on that train, and in that car. Yes, I think we win to-night. If they
hold up the Limited they'll catch a Tartar, and without any risk on
our part as far as the gold is concerned. How many men in the posse
scattered through the cars on that train?”

“Twenty,” said MacVightie tersely.

“Good!” said Lanson approvingly. “That ought to be enough to round
them up—if they nibble at the bait at all. And if they don't, if
they let the Limited go through unmolested, it will be pretty nearly
safe to assume, as I said before, that they figure gold in the bulk is
too awkward a thing to handle, and too hard to get away with. But even
there we are not taking any chances; they might have discovered that it
had been transferred. How many men in the posse on No. 18?”

“The same number,” replied MacVightie—and then MacVightie's
fist crashed down into the palm of his hand. “I hope they start
something!” he exclaimed savagely. “I'd give a year's salary
to get to grips with them, and if I ever do I'll clean 'em out! And
I'll see that some of them, and particularly that damned Hawk, swing
for it! I haven't forgotten the murder of old Mother Barrett's boy
in the express car that night, or a dozen others, or——”

“That's your end of it, MacVightie,” said Lanson grimly.
“Mine's to see five hundred thousand dollars' worth of bullion and
forty thousand in cash over this division and safely on its way East. If
the plan——”

The Hawk, slipping silently out of the shadows, began to cross the
railroad yard, heading for the station.

“Forty thousand dollars,” said the Hawk softly to himself—and
chuckled suddenly. “Forty thousand dollars in a big packing case! The
biggest case of the lot, he said, wasn't it?” The chuckle died away,
and the Hawk's face grew hard. “I don't know!” muttered
the Hawk. “It's no cinch! I guess there'll be something doing
to-night!”

A glance at the illuminated dial of the clock on the station tower
showed it to be half past eight, as the Hawk stepped to the platform.
He hesitated an instant in indecision, then went on into the general
waiting room. There was ample time. The Limited was not due for another
hour; and No. 18—in which alone he had now any concern—did not
schedule Selkirk until forty minutes after the Limited. Nearly two
hours!

The Hawk, standing in the doorway of the waiting room, ostentatiously
consulted a time-table which he drew from his pocket, frowned, glanced
about him, and, finally, approaching the news-counter, which appeared
for the moment to be minus an attendant, helped himself to a newspaper,
tossed a copper on top of the pile, and appropriated the nearest seat.
The Hawk opened his paper in front of him—and over the top of the
paper inspected with some interest the view afforded by the open doorway
of the news-counter, which was directly facing him and but a few feet
away. The news-counter was a long, narrow affair, glass enclosed, with
big sliding windows, making one corner of the waiting room, and at its
further end boasted a little office of its own. The door of this private
domain was closed, but it, too, was glass panelled, and the apparent
absence of any attendant was explained. The Hawk permitted a curious
smile to flicker across his lips behind his newspaper. Inside the little
office a man, sprawled forward in a chair, his head resting on his arms,
which were outflung across the desk in front of him, appeared to be
sound asleep and magnificently oblivious to anything so grossly material
as business.

The Hawk shifted his glance, this time for a more critical survey of the
waiting room. He found himself, strangely enough, quite sheltered from
observation. True, it was “between trains,” and there were very few
people in the room—he had noted several women and an elderly man with
a little boy, as he had come in—but these were now screened from his
view by the large, boxed-in posts, or pillars, that, in the remodelling
and enlargement of the station some years before, had sought to combine,
evidently, ornamentation with stability.

The Hawk's eyes, under cover of his newspaper, reverted to the man at
the desk. The minutes passed—five, ten of them. The man's hours
were long undoubtedly, and usually there were two in charge of the
news-counter, which might perhaps account for the man's weariness,
and the profound slumber that was possible even in such an uncomfortable
position! The Hawk turned to the editorial page of his newspaper. There
were almost two hours before No. 18 was due, and, though he had a little
business of a purely personal and intimate nature to transact before
then, there was time in abundance and to spare, and it might possibly
be utilised as profitably here as anywhere else. In any case, there was
usually an editorial diatribe, interesting principally for the virulent
language in which it was couched, anent the Hawk and the Wire Devils,
with whose leadership he, the Hawk, was universally credited. The Hawk
smiled thinly. If leadership was vested in the lion's portion of the
spoils, then MacVightie, and Lanson, and the newspapers, and the public
generally were unquestionably right—but, since those spoils had
been snatched from under the noses of the Wire Devils, thanks to his
possession of their secret code, the Wire Devils and the Ladybird in
particular, that peer of the underworld who, as he had discovered a few
nights ago, was the moving spirit of the gang, held a very different and
even more decided opinion on the subject!

He folded the paper over, and sprawled himself out lazily on his
seat—but if the editorial in question was on the sheet before him, he
did not see it. The man at the desk raised his head, yawned, stretched
himself, and, as though wearily resuming his work, reached into a small
drawer that stood open in the upper section of the roll-top desk, took
out a pad of paper, and began to write.

Still another five minutes passed; and then the man tossed his pencil
away from him, and reached out for the telephone at his elbow. But now
he seemed to hesitate, then evidently changed his mind. He pushed
back his chair, stood up, tore the sheet of paper on which he had been
writing from the pad, replaced the pad in the drawer, closed the drawer,
and, turning quickly, opened the office door. He came down the narrow
space behind the news-counter itself, stepped out into the waiting
room, glanced hurriedly about him, and, breaking suddenly into a run,
disappeared through the waiting room door in the direction of the
platform.

The Hawks lassitude seemed suddenly to have vanished. In a flash he had
covered the few feet of space that separated his seat from the doorway
of the news-counter, and now, crouched low, hidden by the counter
itself, he darted silently for the little office, gained it, wrenched
open the drawer of the desk—and over the Hawk's set, tense features
there flickered again that curious smile. Faint, muffled, but none the
less distinctly, there came from the interior of the drawer, which,
as he reached in his hand, he found was open through to the wall, the
clicking of a telegraph sounder. But, while he listened, the Hawk was
working with breathless haste. His fingers closed on the pad of paper,
and tore off the topmost sheet. Without folding or crushing the paper,
he laid it carefully inside his vest, buttoned his vest over it again,
closed the drawer of the desk noiselessly—and in another instant was
lolling again in his seat in the waiting room, apparently immersed once
more in his newspaper.

It had taken the Hawk a matter of less than a minute to go and come,
but for all that his margin of safety had been small. The man returned
almost instantly, and again entered the office. The Hawk, finding that
for once the editorial which might have afforded him a genuine, if
passing, interest, was absent, turned another page of the paper, spent
a few minutes in the somewhat unprofitable perusal of what proved to
be massed columns of “Help Wanted” and “Situations Vacant”
advertisements, and, finally, throwing the paper down on the seat beside
him, got up leisurely, and strolled out through the main entrance of the
station to the street.

The Hawk crossed the road, and slipped into the lane that was almost
opposite the station. This being accustomed ground to the Hawk, he made
his way quickly along in the blackness, reached the first intersecting
street, dove through the doorway of the dirty and squalid three-story
building, the ground floor of which was occupied by a saloon, and,
mounting the narrow staircase, entered the room that was directly over
the saloon on the first landing. The Hawk locked the door behind him. If
his temporary abode in Selkirk City could be so designated, the Hawk was
at home.

He switched on the electric light, drew a chair up to the cheap and
somewhat dilapidated table that stood against the wall opposite the
door, and from under his vest took out the sheet of paper he had
purloined a few minutes before. He spread it out eagerly before him on
the table, scanned it closely, and into his dark eyes there came a half
mocking, half triumphant gleam.

“I thought so!” murmured the Hawk. “He didn't dare telephone it.
I thought the messages must be coming in pretty hot to-night—the other
fellow must have gone up to the East End to shoot some mighty important
reply back, or else he'd never have left his pal short-handed. It's
no wonder I never tumbled to that lay until the Ladybird opened the bag!
I didn't recognise those news-counter fellows, did I? Why should I?
They're new ones just breaking into the game, or they'd never have
pulled a fool stunt like this!”

The Hawk bent over the paper. In places the impression left by the
pencil was faint and, indeed, illegible, and had not come through from
the upper sheet at all; but the Hawk patiently and painstakingly settled
himself to his task. The first few lines were but a confused and, to all
outward appearances, meaningless jumble of letters run together—one
of the Wire Devils' code messages. And here, if this had been all, the
Hawk would have been hopelessly astray; but lower down on the sheet the
man had decoded the cipher, and here, where letters and words were too
faintly impressed on the paper or were missing altogether, the Hawk was
able to supply them by following the general sense of the message.
He began by tracing over the impressions carefully with a sharp lead
pencil, and at the expiration of a few minutes was staring, a grim smile
on his lips, at the following:

“Gold transferred to No. 18 at Momleigh. Keep away from Limited.
Probably big posse on No. 18. Every man will join Number One on Train
18 to-night. Those boarding No. 18 at Selkirk must on no account excite
suspicion. All other details to stand.”

The Hawk's remark, as he reached into his inside coat pocket and
brought out several small slips of paper, which he laid on the table in
front of him, was seemingly quite irrelevant.

“Yes,” said the Hawk. “I've been curious ever since yesterday to
get a look at that desk—yes, I guess the Ladybird's no fool!”

The Hawk arranged the slips of paper in what appeared to be a sort
of chronological order, and studied them for a moment. Prefacing
the message he had just obtained, these others, messages that he had
intercepted at intervals during the preceding few days, made a complete
and decidedly enlightening record. The first one, decoded, read:

“Reported movement of half million in gold to be made from coast.
Number Three will proceed to coast, verify, and secure details.”

The Hawk nodded shortly. Number Three was the Bantam. He passed on to
the next message:

“Gold coming through on Limited on Thursday night. Express car well
guarded. Numbers One, Seven, Eight, Six and Four will board Limited
at different stopping points west of Mornleigh; all others to hold
themselves in readiness at Selkirk.”

Again the Hawk nodded. This was Thursday night! Mornleigh was the
Limited's last stop west of Selkirk. Number One was the Butcher, and
the others were—he shrugged his shoulders. As he had once facetiously
remarked, somebody must have left the door of Sing Sing open!

There was still another message:

“Hold up train three miles East of Echo Rock. Detach express car, and
run to Willow Creek bridge. Load gold on wagon, and disperse.”

The Hawk consulted his watch. It was a quarter past nine. He took
out his pipe, lighted it, put his feet up on the table, and gathering
together the various slips of paper abstractedly began to tear them into
shreds.

Pieced together, the whole affair was quite simple. In a word, every
move that had been made by Larson and MacVightie at the instigation of
the Secret Service men, and, presumably, in particular by one Birks,
was known to the Ladybird and the Wire Devils. Lanson and MacVightie had
waited until the last moment before making the transfer at Mornleigh,
the final stop before Selkirk, but the Bantam was already accompanying
the gold east on the Limited, and, added to the Bantam by that: time,
there would have been those others who were detailed to board the
Limited at the various points still further west of Mornleigh.

It was very simple. The Bantam had not been asleep at Mornleigh, and it
was not the contents of the express car alone that had been transferred
there—the Bantam and his companions had likewise transferred
themselves to No. 18! Also, either because the Bantam had spotted some
of MacVightie's men, or because logical deductions in the Ladybird's
very shrewd brain had led to that conclusion, it was known that No. 18
harboured a posse. It was evident, however, that this in no way
dismayed the Ladybird; and it was equally evident that both Lan-son
and MacVightie were very far astray, in their estimate of the nerve and
resourcefulness of the brain behind the Wire Devils' organisation, to
have, even considered it as a possibility that the physical difficulty
in the way of handling a half million in raw gold would have caused the
Ladybird to hesitate an instant in an effort to get his hands upon it. A
half million—was a half million! That was the answer! The only change
the Ladybird had seen fit to make was to mobilise, as it were, the
entire, strength of the Wire Devils to offset MacVightie's posse.
Apart from that, according to the final message, the prearranged plan
was to stand.

It was not a plan that was markedly original, paralleling very closely,
as it did, the Wire Devils' removal of the safe from the express car
of the last Mail on a certain night not very long since, but this could
hardly be held up against the Ladybird—there were limitations to
originality, and originality was a secondary consideration as compared
with feasibility and success. Echo Rock station was two stations east
of Conmore, the Wire Devils' headquarters—just far enough distant
to preclude the immediate search from spreading to the neighbourhood of
Conmore, and yet not too far away to make the transport of the gold to
the isolated old farmhouse impractical before daylight. The details of
the holdup itself required little elucidation. In whatever manner they
might elect to bring the train to a stop, all that was necessary, once
that was accomplished, was to keep MacVightie's men from No. 18'.
baggage car while the car itself, into which the Wire Devils would
naturally retreat, moved off down the line to the Willow Creek bridge
some two or three miles further on.

The Hawk took his pipe from his lips, polished the bowl by rubbing it
along the side of his nose, and inspected the result critically. And
then the Hawk smiled pleasantly to himself. In none of the messages had
the Wire Devils given the slightest evidence of any knowledge of a fact
that was very near to his, the Hawk's, heart. It was quite possible,
even probable, that on one point, at least, Lanson and MacVightie were
right—that the Wire Devils were ignorant of the presence of that forty
thousand dollars in bills—but even supposing that they did know, they
would scarcely give him, the Hawk, credit for being in possession of the
knowledge as well. Therefore, bitter as was the feud between them, the
Ladybird would be almost certain to ignore his, the Hawk's existence
in so far as this night's work was concerned. The Hawk's smile
broadened. It was quite true, single-handed he would have no excuse on
earth for attempting the impossible feat of carrying away a half million
in gold—but forty thousand dollars in banknotes was not as prohibitory
in its weight! His problem, therefore, simplified itself into an
intimate investigation of No. 18'. baggage car before Echo Rock was
reached, and before either MacVightie's posse, or the Butcher and his
ungentle crowd in the cars behind, should have started anything on their
own account.

“Yes,” said the Hawk confidentially to the toe of his boot, “yes,
I guess I'll sit in for a hand in the game myself; yes, I guess it
looks pretty good—if the luck holds.”

The Hawk relapsed into silence, still studying the toe of his boot. His
last remark seemed suddenly to have obsessed him, and he frowned. If the
luck still held! It wasn't altogether luck—indeed, it was far from
luck. The Ladybird, and, for that matter, a half dozen others of the
Wire Devils whom he could name, were not to be lightly reckoned with. He
had no delusions on that score! Since the day he had begun to trespass
on the Wire Devils preserves, listening when and where he could, he had
intercepted enough of their cipher messages as they came over the wires
to enable him to pull from the fire and pocket for himself the chestnuts
they had been so carefully roasting for themselves, to turn in fact the
entire labour and effort of their organisation to his own account—and
in their turn they had sought by every means within their power to trap
him. And they had nearly caught him, very nearly caught him once, and
he had realised that the haphazard method in which, not knowing their
source, he had been able to obtain the cipher messages would no longer
do. It was through those messages alone that he could hope to get a hint
of, and thereby forestall, the next trap they might set for him. And
then the way had seemed to clear a little when he had at last discovered
that source in the old farmhouse near Conmore, and had discovered that
the Ladybird, thought dead and mourned by the underworld as one of its
greatest, from a wheel chair now, a maimed thing in all save brain,
moved and guided what MacVightie had been pleased to call the most
powerful and dangerous criminal organisation that had ever known
existence. Only on the night that he, the Hawk, had made those
discoveries he had been wounded! That was a week ago. For three days,
not daring to let it be known that a wounded man was in the house, he
had remained here in his room, nursing his hurt as best he could. It had
only been a flesh wound, and those three days were all he had allowed
himself to remain inactive; for in those three days, temporarily
blindfolded as to any move against him that the Ladybird might make,
he had lived like a hunted man, wary of every passing moment, of every
sound without his door, his automatic never for an instant out of reach.
After that, during the past four nights, he had resumed his vigil at the
farmhouse again.

The Hawk smiled grimly. No, he laboured under no delusions as to the
craft, the cunning, and the power of those against whom he had elected
to play a lone hand! The four nights just past had resulted in something
more than the mere accumulation of those code messages he had just read,
in something besides a more intimate acquaintanceship with the farmhouse
and its surroundings, even including the underground passage, for
instance, that led from the wagon shed to a trapdoor in the cellar—it
had resulted, last night, in a still further insight into the ingenuity
and the sort of remorseless mastery of detail through which the
organisation attained its ends. The method by which they tapped the
wires, commandeering the telegraph system of the railroad, the
primary purpose of which was undoubtedly to supply them with the vital
information that must of necessity pass over the wires and on which they
based their own plans, this gold shipment to-night, for example, or the
shipment of diamonds from New York of a few weeks back, was ingenious
enough; but still more ingenious, when using their secret code and
putting the wires to another purpose, that of enabling the Ladybird to
direct his operations and send his orders as he had done to-night, was
the method by which those messages were received. Every sounder on the
line carried them, of course, and when, in isolated cases, the gang was
working at smaller places along the line, they could readily enough, if
expecting a message, as he, the Hawk, had often done, keep within sound
of an instrument by the simple expedient of occupying a waiting room,
or of lounging on the platform outside the operator's window; but the
vast majority of the messages were for those of the gang who maintained
a sort of branch headquarters in Selkirk, and such a method was neither
practical nor possible, since the first essential in making the scheme
of value was that, without the chance of a single message being missed,
the messages should reach their destination at any hour of the day and
night.

Again the Hawk smiled grimly. It had puzzled him a good many times—but
it puzzled him no longer! Last night the Ladybird, quite unconscious
of a rapt audience, had, by a chance remark, disclosed the secret; and
to-night he, the Hawk, had seen the plan in operation! The news-counter!
It was simple enough; but it held a deadly significance in its proof of
the fact that there were no obstacles too great, no details too minute
to stand in the way between the Ladybird and the end he sought. The
news-counter was directly beneath the operator's room upstairs. In the
old days, before the station had been enlarged and modernised, it had
been a somewhat diminutive affair, and where the news-counter now stood
had been the superintendent's office. This had connected with the room
above by means of an old-fashioned speaking tube. When the alterations
had been made, the mouthpieces, both above and below, had been removed,
the room above had been papered over, and the waiting room had been
plastered; but, as the wall had been left intact, the speaking tube had
remained embedded—in the wall. Yes, it was very simple! Say, a dint in
the wall in the operator's room above, and a slight tear in the paper
that, if it attracted any attention at all in surroundings where the
call boys backed their chairs against the wall and kept their hair on
end with nickel thrillers, would at least never excite suspicion! And
below, with the desk in the little office of the news-counter backed up
against it, who was to know that a hole had been punched in the
wall, or, for that matter, in the back of the desk itself behind the
convenient little drawer, so that one could sit there and listen to the
sounder upstairs! Also, it was quite obvious now why, several months
ago, the old lessee of the news-counter had been bought out by some
newcomers!

The Hawk's lips tightened. The game to its full extent was wide open
now. The news-counter ran day and night, operated by four of the gang
in pairs, one always on duty at the desk; while, should there, by any
chance or at any time, be an unwelcome intruder in the office, the
drawer had only to be shut and the sound was thereby eliminated. When
a message “broke” over the wires above, the man on duty had only to
decipher it and telephone it to what the Ladybird had referred to as the
“boarding house”—the disguise, it appeared now, under which the
gang maintained its headquarters in the city. That was all there was to
it! To-night, it was true, the operation had been a little different;
but the reason for that, as the Hawk had already decided in his own
mind, was obvious enough. With MacVigh-tie, Lanson, and the authorities
generally, on the alert, due to the gold shipment coming through, the
man had not dared to take the risk of telephoning any such message as
he had received, but had taken it outside to where one of the gang,
undoubtedly, in view of the importance of the night's work, was on
additional duty and in readiness to receive and transmit it on the
instant, say, to the local headquarters. As for the absence of the
second man at the news-counter, who ordinarily preserved the pretence of
catering to the public, it was quite possible, and indeed likely, that
he had gone on a similar errand with a previous message; or, if one of
the rare occasions when it was necessary to telegraph a cipher message
from Selkirk had arisen, he might have gone—according to the Ladybird
again—to the little suburban station at the East End of the city,
which was closed at night, but to which an entry and the subsequent
use of the wire would present little difficulty, since MacVightie had
finally given up as impossible the task of guarding all the numerous
stations of that description on the division.

“Yes,” said the Hawk suddenly, under his breath, “I guess they'd
go a long way to get their hands on what I've got off their bat; and
I guess, after that, I'd go out—like a pricked bubble!” He sucked
meditatively at his brier for a moment; then a mirthless smile parted
his lips, and he spoke again. “Forty thousand dollars,” whispered
the Hawk. “Yes, I guess that's the play—and the last one! If I win
out to-night, and I guess I will, this is where the curtain drops, and
the Hawk makes his fade-away for parts unknown!”




XVIII—THE HAWK PACKS HIS VALISE

THE Hawk looked at his watch again, removed his feet from the table,
knocked the ashes from the bowl of his pipe, stood up, and crossed
leisurely to the window. The window gave on the fire escape. He lifted
aside the shade, and stood there for a moment staring out into the
darkness, then drew the shade very carefully back into place again. From
the window he crossed to the door, reassured himself that it was locked,
and, as an extra precaution, draped his handkerchief on the door handle,
completely screening the keyhole.

He returned now to the other side of the room, and from under the bed
pulled out a large, black valise. He laid this on the bed, and opened
it. It was quite empty.

Between the bed and the table stood his trunk. He unlocked the trunk,
and threw back the lid.

“It's quite possible,” muttered the Hawk, as his fingers worked
deftly and swiftly around the edges of the lid, “that I may not
return. I've forgotten just how I stand on my rent, though, I fancy
I've paid up for a week in advance! In any case, there's the trunk
for old Seidelberger downstairs, and likewise its contents, with the
exception, scarcely worth mentioning—of this!” There was a grim
chuckle on the Hawk's lips, as the false tray came away in his hands.
“Yes,” said the Hawk, as he laid the tray on the bed beside the
valise, “I hardly think that I'll be back! I guess they're pretty
peeved as it is, and after to-night I've a notion their sentiments
aren't going to improve any!”

He stood looking down at the tray, that bulged to repletion with the
proceeds of a dozen robberies that were almost country-wide in fame,
and which, more pertinent still as far as the Hawk was concerned,
represented the loot that the Wire Devils had already counted their
own—when he, the Hawk, instead, had helped himself to the prize at
their expense!

The Hawk began to transfer the contents of the tray to the valise.

“I don't know how big the lot would size up, but it looks like a
garden villa at Palm Beach—which is going some!” observed the
Hawk softly. “Yes, just one more little play to-night, and I guess I
retire!”

He held the magnificent diamond necklace up to the light, causing its
thousand facets to leap and gleam and scintillate in fiery flashes,
then laid it in a curiously caressing sort of way in the bottom of the
valise. The Hawk seemed peculiarly entranced with diamonds, as though
in their touch and in their responsive life and fire he found a pure and
unalloyed delight. From their little box he allowed the score or two of
unset stones to trickle into the palm of his hand, and again he brought
the light to flash and play upon them. And for a moment he held them
there—then a sudden hardness set his jaws and lips, and impulsively he
thrust the stones back into the box, and tossed the box into the valise.

“Damn it!” said the Hawk through compressed lips. “They make me
think of the kid—and old Mother Barrett.”

He laughed harshly, and shrugged his shoulders as though literally to
throw off the weight of an unpleasant memory—and reached again into
the tray. He worked more quickly now. Into the valise he packed away in
rapid succession a very large collection of valuables, amongst them
the ten thousand dollars in banknotes that he had taken from the
paymaster's safe, the contents of the cash box, amounting to some
three thousand dollars, of which he had once relieved one Isaac
Kirschell, and, still in its newspaper wrapper, the Trader's National
Bank's twenty-five thousand dollars, likewise in banknotes, which had
been his last venture, and which he had appropriated on the night he had
been wounded.

The tray was empty now, save for a black mask, a steel jimmy, and a
neat little package of crisp, new, ten-dollar counterfeit notes. The two
former articles the Hawk laid aside on the table; and the latter, after
an instant's hesitation, was added to the horde in the valise. He
closed and locked the valise. There remained now but the empty tray. He
stared at this ruefully.

“I hate to lose that trunk, upon my soul, I do!” he muttered. “But
I can't afford to take any chances of spilling the beans by trying to
get it out of here!”

He took out his knife, and slashed away the canvas bottom of the tray,
then broke the framework into a dozen pieces. The lid of the trunk
itself was innocent of fastenings, or of any evidence that it had ever
concealed a tray; and the tray itself, when the Hawk was through with
it, was an unrecognisable debris of splintered wood and ribbons of torn
canvas. He made a bundle of this, tying it together with a strip of the
canvas.

The Hawk now emptied his pockets, and proceeded to change his clothes.
If he were destined to sacrifice the greater part of his wardrobe, he at
least need not linger long in indecision over the choice of what should
be preserved! There was an exceedingly useful and ingeniously devised
pocket concealed in the back lining of a certain one of his coats. The
suit, of which this coat was an integral part, was a trifle worn and
threadbare, not in quite as good repair as any of the rest of his
clothing, and for that reason he had not worn it of late; but one could
not at all times afford to be fastidious! What he left behind would
be minutely searched and examined. The secret of that pocket, a little
invention of his own, was worth preserving from the vulgar eye, even at
the expense of sacrificing a better suit of clothes for the sake of it!
He resurrected the suit in question from the bottom of the trunk, and
put it on. And into the concealed pocket he tucked away his mask and his
bunch of skeleton keys. A side coat pocket, more instantly accessible,
served for his automatic—the other pockets for his various other
belongings, including the steel jimmy.

The Hawk made a final and comprehensive survey of the room, then closed
and locked the trunk, and again consulted his watch. It was five minutes
after ten, and No. 18 scheduled Selkirk at ten-twenty. The Hawk nodded.
It was time to go—just time. He took from his pocket his automatic,
tested and examined its mechanism critically, and restored it to his
pocket. He crossed the room, turned out the light, unlocked the door
without opening it, and took his handkerchief from the keyhole. Without
a sound now the Hawk moved back to the bed, picked up the valise, tucked
the bundle of what had once been the tray under his arm, returned to
the door, opened it silently, and stood peering out into the dark
hallway—and the next instant, the Hawk, stealing like a shadow down
the stairs, gained the street, and in another had swung around the
corner into the lane.

It was only the length of a block to the station, but here in the lane
the Hawk found means of disposing of the irksome bundle under his arm by
the simple expedient of dropping pieces of the wreckage in the various
refuse barrels as he went along. Nor had the Hawk, evidently, any
intention either of hampering his movements with the care of the valise,
or of risking the valise's contents in the night's work that lay
ahead of him. The Hawk was, perhaps, possessed of a certain ironical
sense of humour. Since his possession of the loot which the valise
contained was due in a more or less intimate degree to the railroad, it
seemed eminently fitting that it should be restored to the railroad
for safekeeping temporarily. The Hawk, as he entered the station,
nonchalantly exchanged his valise for a parcel-room check, paid down
the dime for the service to be rendered, and passed on into the general
waiting room.

He glanced at the news-counter on his way through to the platform. Its
full complement of two attendants were present now; but, contrary to all
precedent, it being an all-night stand, obvious preparations for closing
it for the night were in progress—the two men were engaged in removing
the magazines, newspapers, and various small wares from the outside
ledge of the counter, and in pulling down the large sliding windows
that enclosed the place. The Hawk's dark eyes flashed a gleam of grim
appreciation. It was then literally a mobilisation of the Wire Devils
to the last man to-night! A half million in gold—was a half million in
gold!

The Hawk bought a mileage book in lieu of a ticket to any specific
destination, both because his immediate destination was peculiarly his
own private concern, and because in the very near future he expected to
put a considerable quantity of mileage to excellent use. He strolled out
to the platform, and along to the east end of the station.

Here, quite unobtrusively, he awaited the arrival of No. 18. The
platform was fairly well crowded—but not unusually so, or rather,
perhaps, not noticeably so. A half dozen, or even a dozen, extra men
circulating amongst the ordinary press of traffic would hardly be
expected to make any appreciable difference. The Hawk, back under
the shadows of the building, surveyed the lighted stretch of platform
narrowly. They were there, the Wire Devils' reserve, he knew; but
he recognised none of them. He smiled a little whimsically. His
acquaintanceship with the gang so far had been with its more prominent
members, as it were, and these, as likewise Mac-Vightie's posse, had
already boarded the train far west of Selkirk—that each might not
excite the other's suspicion! Nor was MacVightie himself in evidence.
Not that this surprised the Hawk! He was interested, that was all. It
was simply a question of whether MacVightie had elected to stay with
the gold, or had gone on with the first posse on the Limited on the
assumption that the Limited was the more likely to be attacked. It made
little difference, of course, as far as he, the Hawk, was concerned,
whether it was MacVightie or some one else who was in command of the
posse—his own plans would in no way be affected on that account.

There was a stir along the platform. Up the yard, past the twinkling
switch lights on the spurs, the glare of a headlight flashed into sight
around the bend. Came the roar and rumble of a heavy train, and a
moment later No. 18, its big mogul panting like a thing of life from a
breathless run, its long string of coaches behind it, rolled into the
station.

The Hawk did not stir. By coincidence, perhaps, the baggage car had come
to a stop directly opposite the position he had chosen. The rearmost
sliding door of the car was slammed back, and the baggageman, a
powerfully built, muscular fellow of perhaps thirty, appeared in
the doorway. The Hawk, from his place of vantage, eyed the other
appraisingly, and then his glance travelled on into the interior of the
car—what he could see of it. What he saw was a mass of trunks, some
of which the man now unloaded on the waiting trucks, and in turn piled
others, as they were heaved up to him from the platform, into the
formers' places. The Hawk nodded his head shortly. True, the forward
door of the car had not been, opened, but MacVigh-tie had done his work
well. There was no hint of concealment, the baggage car of No. 18 was as
frankly innocent in appearance on its run tonight as it had ever been.

The train was starting into motion again when the Hawk finally moved.
He crossed the platform, and swung himself on the forward steps of the
smoker, that was immediately behind the baggage car. His slouch hat
pulled a little over his eyes, he opened the door, stepped into the car,
sauntered down the aisle, and out of the rear door to the vestibuled
platform of the first-class day coach behind. But here, the Hawk paused
a moment, and his face, impassive before, was stamped now with a twisted
smile. His reconnaissance of the train so far had proved fruitful. The
four men in the forward double seat of the smoker, a lap board across
their knees, and apparently engrossed in their card game, were the
Butcher, Whitie Jim, the Cricket and the Bantam! And further down
the aisle, unwittingly rubbing shoulders quite probably with some of
MacVightie's men, Parson Joe occupied a seat, and the keen, pale, thin
face of Kirschell peered out from another.

“Yes, they're all here,” decided the Hawk, his voice drowned
in the rattle of the train. “Counting those who got on at Selkirk,
they're all here to the last man—except the Ladybird and his wheel
chair!”

The Hawk moved forward, reached out for the handle of the day coach
door—and sucked in his breath, as he drew sharply back again. Through
the glass panel he had caught sight of two men he had not expected to
see. Sitting together on the right-hand side about a quarter of the
way down the aisle were MacVightie and Lanson. The Hawk frowned. He had
waited until the train was in motion, and he had not seen them get on;
and they, as witness that little conference in the roundhouse of a
while back, had not been amongst those who had boarded the train west of
Selkirk. And then the frown gave place to a sort of self-commiserating
expression. Where were his wits to-night! It was simple enough! They
had boarded the car from the yard side of the train, and not from the
platform, of course!

Well, that put an end to any further reconnaissance through the train!
In one sense it was not altogether true that it made no difference
whether MacVightie was aboard or not. He and MacVightie were not
altogether strangers. They had met once in his, the Hawk's, room,
and on that occasion, the night, to be precise, he had cleaned out the
paymaster's safe of that ten thousand dollars, MacVightie had been in
a decidedly suspicious frame of mind. MacVightie, it was quite certain,
had not forgotten that night; nor, it was quite equally safe to assume,
had MacVightie forgotten his, the Hawk's face—and at that exact
moment the Hawk had no desire that MacVightie should recognise him
again!

The Hawk turned, re-entered the smoker, found the always unpopular
crosswise seat behind the door vacant, and appropriated it. His eyes
straying forward over the car located two more acquaintances in the
person of Crusty Kline and French Pete, and came back to fix musingly on
the worn nickel faucet of the water-cooler. No. 18'. first stop was at
Barne's Junction, fifteen miles out from Selkirk, and some five miles
this side of Conmore; the next stop was Lorraine, and Lorraine was on
the other side—in fact a good many miles on the other side—of Echo
Rock and the Willow Creek bridge. The deduction was obvious; and the
Hawk's destination, in so far as his occupancy of a seat in the smoker
was concerned, was therefore quite plainly—the Junction.

“Three miles east of Echo Rock,” repeated the Hawk to himself.
“No, I don't think so! This is where the Ladybird has another guess!
Maybe I couldn't get away with a half million—but maybe I'm not
the only one! There's one or two guys in this car that haven't
got the high-sign to my lodge! It seems to me I promised the Butcher
something the night he tried to shoot me through his pocket, and it
seems as though I promised Parson Joe something too—yes, it seems to
me I did!”




XIX—BIRDS OF A FEATHER

IT took twenty minutes for the run to the Junction. And at the Junction,
as far as the Hawk could tell, since, yielding to what had become a sort
of habit with him, he descended to the ground on the opposite side from
the station, he was the only passenger for that stop. It was dark here;
strangely silent, and strangely lonely. Barne's Junction owed its
existence neither to a town site, nor to commercial importance—it
existed simply as a junction, and for purely railroad operating purposes
only. It was, in fact, the other extreme as compared to Selkirk with its
lighted and busy platform, its extensive yard, and its ubiquitous and,
perhaps, too inquisitive yardmen!

The Hawk dropped on all fours and began to creep along the side of the
smoker toward the forward end of the train, his eyes strained warily
through the darkness against the possibility of one or other of the
engine crew descending from the cab. He passed the smoker and kept on
along the length of the baggage car, still crawling, moving without
a sound. When he rose from his knees finally, he was crouched down in
between the tender and the forward end of the baggage car; and a
moment later, as the train jerked forward into motion, he was crouched
again—this time on the end beam of the baggage car which, in lieu of
platform, served as a sort of wide threshold for the door.

The train was beginning to gain momentum now, and against the jolt and
swing of the increasing speed the Hawk steadied himself by clinging with
one hand to the iron handrail at the side of the door—with the other
hand he tried the door cautiously, and found it locked.

From the pocket in the back lining of his coat he produced his mask,
fingered it speculatively for an instant, then slipped it over his face.
True, this was to be his last venture in the Wire Devils' preserves,
but he had always worn a mask, and—there came a twisted grin—they
perhaps would not recognise him without it. And it was quite necessary
that they should recognise the Hawk—if he was to keep that promise to
the Butcher! It might be a farewell, as far as he was concerned, but he
intended that it should be a memorable one, and that no doubt should
be permitted to linger in their minds as to the identity of the parting
guest they had so lavishly, if ungraciously, entertained!

From the same pocket came his skeleton keys. The Hawk now felt
tentatively with his finger over the keyhole, nodded his head briskly,
and from the bunch of keys, still by the sense of touch, selected one
without hesitation. The Hawk, however, for the moment, made no effort
to open the door. The rush of the wind was in his face now; like some
black, monstrous, uncanny wall confronting him, the tender clashed and
clattered, and swayed in dizzy lurches before his eyes; while heavenward
the sky was tinged with a deep red glow, and the cab was ablaze with
light from the wide-flung fire-box door, and the top of the baggage car
door, and the individual particles of coal on the top of the tender's
heap stood out in sharp relief against the background of the night.

And then the darkness fell again.

The Hawk's hand shot forward to the keyhole, lingered there an
instant, as he crouched again swaying with the lurch of the train, then
the skeleton keys were returned to the pocket in the back lining of his
coat—and the Hawk was in action. In a flash he had opened and closed
the door behind him, and, with his back against it, his automatic flung
significantly forward in his hand, he stood staring down the length of
the car.

There was a hoarse, startled yell, that was lost in the roar of the
flying train, and the baggageman, from his chair at one side of the car
and in front of a shelf-like desk topped with a rack of pigeonholes,
leaped to his feet.

“Sit down!” invited the Hawk coldly.

The man hesitated, but the next instant dropped back into his chair, as
the Hawk moved suddenly forward to his side.

“What do you want?” he demanded sullenly.

“This—to begin with!” The Hawk's voice was an insolent drawl
now, as his deft fingers, like a streak of lightning, were into the
other's pocket and out again with the man's revolver. “How long
since they've been arming the baggagemen on this road? You needn't
answer—I'm only talking to myself. Those are the cases up there
by the forward door, aren't they? And the big one's got the green
boys—eh?” He was backing away from the man now. “Don't move, my
bucko—understand? That chair you're sitting in is the only health
resort in this car!”

The man's hands clenched, as his eyes narrowed on the Hawk.

“You damned thief!” he rasped out. “I—I'd like to——”

“Quite so!” said the Hawk softly. “I know how you feel about it,
and if it helps any to get it off your chest, go to it! Nobody'll hear
you but me, and I'll try and make the best of it!”

Piled along the side of the car from the doorway were a number of
solidly made, heavy-looking cases that obviously contained the gold
shipment. In front of these, between them and where the baggageman sat,
and acting too perhaps as a screen when the rear sliding door was
open, as, for instance, it had been at Selkirk, was a large,
innocent-appearing, flimsily-constructed packing case. The Hawk, beside
this now, moved it slightly. It was very light, so light as to warrant
the presumption that it might even be empty.

The baggageman had relapsed into a scowling silence, his eyes still on
the Hawk. The Hawk took his steel jimmy from his pocket, shifted his
automatic to his left hand, and inserted the jimmy under the cover of
the case. There was a rip and tear of rending wood; the operation was
twice repeated—and the Hawk threw the shattered cover on the floor.
He glanced inside. At the bottom of the case lay a large paper package,
strongly tied, and heavily sealed with red wax.

Under his mask, the Hawk's lips parted in a smile, as, his eyes on
the baggageman again, he noted that the other was watching his every
movement now with a sort of intense expectancy. The Hawk, however, made
no effort to reach down into the four-foot depth of the packing case;
he canted the box over, and picked up the package from the floor of
the car. With the point of his jimmy he tore a rent in the paper
wrapper—and his smile broadened.

“I apologise,” said the Hawk, with an engaging nod to the sullen
figure in the chair. “They're not green boys—they're yellow
backs!”

“You damned thief!” said the man, in a choked voice.

The roar and sway of the train seemed suddenly to increase, as the
wheel trucks, jolting and beating at a siding switch, set up a sort
of infernal tattoo. They were passing the first station after the
Junction—Conmore.

The smile left the Hawk's face. A little further along, and they would
stop the train. There came a sort of dare-devil set to the Hawk's
clamped jaws.

He was taking chances, but he had already weighed those chances well.
The Wire Devils, the Butcher and his crowd, would be on the alert; but
equally so would be MacVightie—and the posse that must far outnumber
the gang. And there was that promise to the Butcher! With their
plans awry, and taken by surprise, instead of profiting by surprise
themselves, their chances, rather than of securing a half million in
gold, were most excellent of securing quite as generous a reward, though
of another nature—at the hands of MacVightie!

“I'm going to get off here,” said the Hawk coolly to the figure in
the chair. “And the only way to get off without cracking my bean is to
let that guy there in the engine know that he's infringing the speed
laws! You remember what I told you—the only healthy place in this car
for you is where you're sitting now. Something may crack loose around
here—keep out of the wet!”

The Hawk reached above his head for the bell cord, and pulled it
sharply. The engine crew, too, were evidently on the alert! The shrill
blast of the whistle answered the signal instantly. There was a sudden
jerk that almost threw the Hawk from his feet, the pound and slam
of buffer plates, and the vicious shriek of the “air.” The Hawk
recovered himself, and, cool and quick in every movement now, thrust his
jimmy into his pocket to free his hands, flung the package of banknotes
up the aisle made by trunks and boxes behind him, and began to retreat
toward the forward door, pulling the empty case along as a shield
between himself and the other end of the car.

The rear door of the car smashed inward. The Hawk caught a blurred
glimpse of faces and forms surging through the doorway, and streaming
across the platform from the smoker behind—and, in the lead, the
Butcher's crafty face, with its little black, restless, ferret eyes
fixed down the trunk-made aisle of the car on him!

“The Hawk!”—it came in a scream of abandoned fury from the
Butcher—then a headlong rush—a flash, the roar of the report, as the
Butcher fired—another, as the Hawk's automatic answered—and the
spat of a bullet splitting the panel of the forward door.

The Hawk, stooped low behind the packing case now, still edged backward
toward the door, still dragging the case after him. A smile that was
deadly grim and far removed from mirth curved his lips downward in hard,
merciless lines. He had, at least, attained his object! There was no
doubt concerning their recognition of him as the Hawk! Well, he had
weighed the chances. They would be on him now, but only one at a
time; there was not room for more, with the packing case blocking the
way—and it would be the Butcher first. After that—well, after that,
he counted on MacVightie creating a diversion from the rear, and——

The Butcher had flung himself against the packing case. It toppled to
one side, and the Hawk, like a crouched tiger, sprang and closed, making
of the Butcher's body, as a substitute for the packing case now,
a shield from the onrush behind. There was a furious oath from the
Butcher; a lurch, a stagger, as the train jerked and jerked again—and
both men, gripped and locked together, went to the floor.

For an instant they rolled over and over, the Butcher snarling like
a mad beast, wrenching and twisting for an opening at the Hawk's
throat—and then suddenly the car was in an inferno. A voice,
MacVightie's, rang out sternly from the rear door. It was echoed by
a yell from one of the Hawk's companions, then a shot, another, a
fusillade of them—and then a voice above the uproar:

“It's MacVightie, an' de bulls!”

There was a scurrying of feet, a stampede for cover behind trunks and
boxes by the Butcher's men—and the Butcher's grip was tense upon
the Hawk.

“Cut it out!” he whispered hoarsely. “My God, we're
trapped—the lot of us! Make a break for the door—get me?
Crawl—that's the only chance!” Blue eddies of smoke hung in queer,
wavering, hesitant suspension up and down the length of the car; the air
was full of the acrid smell of powder. The firing broke out again. The
Hawk released his hold.

“All right!” he panted. “I'm with you!”

The Butcher was right, it was the only chance—and a chance that was
theirs alone, for, as they lay on the floor, the packing case hid them,
and it was barely two yards to the door. The train was almost at a
standstill now. MacVightie's men had gained an entrance and a position
for themselves behind the trunks at the lower end, firing as they crept
forward, while back on the smoker's platform, through the baggage
car's open door, others commanded the sweep down the center of the
car.

The Hawk snatched at the package of banknotes, snuggled it under his
coat, and, with the Butcher beside him, began to wriggle toward the
door.

MacVightie's voice rang out again from the rear of the car:

“Marston, take ten men, and surround the car! And——” His voice
rose suddenly in a bull-like roar. “The forward door, there—two of
them! Watch which way they jump—not a man of them gets away to-night!
Quick!”

The Hawk had wrenched the door open, and, with the Butcher behind him,
flung himself out, and leaped to the ground. With the Hawk leading,
running like hares, the two men dashed down the embankment, and hurled
themselves over the barbed-wire fence that enclosed the right of way.
Shouts, the crackle of shots, echoed from behind them—the short,
vicious tongue-flames of the revolvers, a myriad of them, it seemed,
stabbed yellow through the blackness.

The Hawk glanced back over his shoulder. He could just make out perhaps
a half dozen dark forms in pursuit—and perhaps fifty yards away. The
darkness and the distance made the shooting at best uncertain. It was
only a chance shot that would get either the Butcher or himself, and
ahead, unless he was mistaken, for the train must have come to a stop at
just about that distance from Conmore, must be the wooded tract of
land that surrounded the old farmhouse. Yes—there it was! The
old dare-devil set clamped his jaws again. Yes, and so was the
Ladybird—there! Well, it was obvious enough that there was no other
cover! He glanced at the Butcher's face that he could just discern
in the darkness. The Butcher might decide against it, but the Butcher
evidently had not recognised his surroundings. The man's lips were
working, and he was cursing in abandon as he ran.

The Hawk spoke in short, gasping breaths: “There's some trees over
there—to the right—a little—make for them—cover!”

The Butcher swerved automatically in the direction indicated.

“Curse you!” he wheezed out. “This is all your infernal, nosey
work! What did you want to butt in for to-night—you fool—you
couldn't have got that gold, anyway!”

“You close your face!” snapped back the Hawk. “I'm running my
own show! There was a little cash—forty thousand bucks along with
that gold, that maybe you didn't know about. That's what I was
after—see? And that's what I got—see?”

“Yes”—the Butcher's voice broke in infuriated passion—“yes,
and you got them all pinched, every last one of them—blast you!
I——”

“You save your breath, and put it into running,” retorted the Hawk
savagely, “or else maybe you'll get pinched yourself! It's their
lookout! I don't owe any of you any candy, do I!”

MacVightie himself was evidently one of those in pursuit behind, for
again the Hawk recognised the other's voice:

“Spread out there to the right! And try and shoot a little
straighter—before they get into that belt of trees!”

A renewed outburst of firing came in response—and the Hawk measured
grimly the few yards that still separated him from the trees, as a
bullet, drumming the air venomously, seemed to miss his cheek by but
the fraction of an inch. MacVightie's presence was evidence that the
detective was so well satisfied that the gang penned up in the car could
not escape, that he obviously counted his temporary absence from the
scene well warranted if thereby the clean-up were made complete in the
capture of——-The Hawk's mental soliloquy came to an abrupt end.
There was a low cry from the Butcher, and the man, as they ran shoulder
to shoulder, lurched against him.

“What's wrong?” flung out the Hawk sharply.

“They got me!” gasped the Butcher—and lurched again. “They got
me—in the leg.”

The Hawk glanced backward again. They were still those fifty yards
behind, those dark, flitting, oncoming forms, those vicious yellow stabs
of flame in the blackness—it had been a dead heat so far, here to the
fringe of the trees.

The Butcher stumbled. The Hawk swung his free arm around the other's
waist, and plunged in amongst the trees. It was slower work now,
desperately slow. He clutched at the package of banknotes beneath his
coat, and with his other hand tightened his grip upon the Butcher. The
man was evidently badly hit, and was beginning to sag limply. Came the
thrashing and branches, and the rush of feet behind them. The fifty
yards was ten now—the Hawk, with his burden, struggled on—and then
there came a cry again from the Butcher—they had gained the edge
of the clearing, and the old farmhouse and its outbuildings loomed up
before them.

“It's—it's——” the Butcher's voice choked weakly.

“I—I know where we are—my God, quick! They'll search the house!
I got to warn him now—quick!” The man, as though under a stimulant,
with new strength, had sprung forward alone into the clear, making
for the farmhouse door. It was only a few yards, but halfway there he
stumbled again—and again the Hawk pulled him to his feet.

A yell went up behind them. MacVightie and his men, too, were now in the
clearing, and the ten yards' lead was cut to five, to three—and then
the door before them was flung suddenly open, and a voice challenged
hoarsely from within:

“Who's there? What's——”

The Butcher pitched across the threshold, dragging the Hawk down with
him in his fall.

“The door, Jim—quick—slam it!” screamed the Butcher. “We're
done—the cellar!”

The Hawk had leaped to his feet. The room was dark, unlighted, but from
across it came, as there had come that other night, the faint glow from
the open door of the cellarway. The Butcher had staggered up again, and
was making in that direction—and then the Hawk, too, was across the
room—but the next instant, turning to meet the rush from without, as
the front door, evidently before the man whom the Butcher had addressed
as Jim could fasten it, burst inward and crashed against the wall, he
was borne backward, and, losing his balance, half pitched, half rolled
down the cellar stairs.

The fall must have stunned him for a moment. He realised that as he
struggled to his feet—to find himself staring into the muzzle of
MacVightie's revolver, and to find that the bulging package of
banknotes was gone from under his coat, as, too, were his automatic, his
jimmy and the baggageman's revolver that had been in the side
pockets of his coat. He raised his hand dazedly toward his eyes—and
MacVightie, reaching out, knocked his hand away.

“I'll do that for you—we were just getting around to it!” said
MacVightie roughly—and jerked the Hawk's mask from his face. And
then MacVightie leaned sharply forward. “O-ho!” he exclaimed grimly.
“So it's you—is it? I guess you put it over me the night that ten
thousand was lifted at the station—but I've got you now!”

The Hawk made no answer. He was staring, still in an apparently dazed
way, about him. The cellar was a veritable maze of work benches and
elaborate equipment—for counterfeiting work. A printing press stood
over in one corner; on the benches, plates and engravers' tools of all
descriptions were scattered about; and, near the wall by the stairway,
he made out a telegraph set. But the Hawk's glance did not linger on
any of these things—it fastened on a bent and twisted form that craned
its neck forward from a rubber-tired wheel chair; on a livid face, out
of which the coal-black eyes, narrowed to slits, smouldered in deadly
menace, and from whose thin lips, that scarcely moved, there poured
forth now a torrent of hideous blasphemy in that soft, silken voice
that had earned the Ladybird his name; on the hand, crooked into a claw,
that, pushing away the man who stood guard over him, reached out toward
where the Butcher lay upon the floor.

“You ape, you gnat, you brainless pig! And you led them
here—here—here!”

“I didn't know where I was until I was right on the house,”
mumbled the Butcher miserably. “I——”

“Shut up—both of you!” ordered MacVightie gruffly. “What do you
say, Lanson? Is this the Hawk?”

The Hawk had not seen the superintendent, and he turned now quickly.
Lanson's steel-grey eyes were boring into him coldly.

“Yes,” said Lanson evenly, “I think I could swear he was the man
who held us up in the private car the other night—but it's easily
proved. If he is the Hawk, he has got a wound in his right side. I
saw him clap his hand there when the pistol went off in his fight with
Meridan.”

“Well, we'll soon see!” snapped MacVightie.

The Hawk licked his lips.

“You needn't look,” he said morosely. “It's there.”

“So you admit it, do you?” MacVightie's smile was unpleasant.
“Well, then, since you seem to be so thick with that pack of curs
back there in the train, perhaps you'll admit to a hand in this little
counterfeiting plant as well?”

“No; I won't!” said the Hawk shortly. “I never had anything to
do with this! I don't admit anything of the kind! Ask him!”—the
Hawk jerked his hand toward the Ladybird.

“Oh, all right!” MacVightie smiled unpleasantly again. “Let it
go at that for now, if you like it that way. It doesn't much matter.
You're birds of a feather, anyway, and there's enough on all of you
to go around!” He reached behind him, and picked up the package of
banknotes from where he had evidently laid it on the nearest bench.
“How did you know this was on the train, and how did you know where it
was in the car—and tell the truth about it!”

“I heard you and Mr. Lanson talking about it tonight,” said the
Hawk.

“Where?”

“In the roundhouse. I was outside the window. And”—the Hawk's
voice thinned in a sudden snarl—“you go to the devil with your
questions!”

The Ladybird was craned forward again in the wheel chair listening
intently, he sank back now and scowled murderously at the Hawk.
MacVightie shrugged his shoulders, handed the package to one of his
three men who were with him in the cellar, and drew a pair of handcuffs
from his pocket.

“Get that cash down to the train, and put it back with the gold where
it will be under guard, MacGregor!” he ordered brusquely. “And you
two carry this fellow”—he rattled his handcuffs in the Butcher's
direction—“down there, too. Tell Marston to let you have three or
four more men. The chap that Williams has got upstairs there will have
to be carried, too, I guess; and our friend here, in the invalid buggy,
with the thanksgiving expression on his face, will have to have somebody
to push him along over the ruts. Yes, and I'll want a couple to put in
the night here—tell Marston to make it four. And now, beat it! You run
ahead, MacGregor, and get back as soon as you can—we don't want to
tie up the traffic all night!”

The two men picked up the Butcher, and, preceded by their companion
with the package of banknotes, went up the stairs. MacVightie caught
the Hawk's arm roughly, snapped one link of the steel cuffs over the
Hawk's right wrist, and yanked the Hawk ungently over to a position
beside the wheel chair.

He snapped the other link over the Ladybird's left wrist, and smiled
menacingly.

“I guess there's dead weight enough there to anchor you for a few
minutes while I take a look around here!” he said curtly—and turned
to Lan-son.

The Hawk was licking at his lips again. Upstairs, the tramp of feet was
dying away: There would be no one there now but the other member of the
gang who, it seemed, had been hurt when the house was rushed, and the
one man who was guarding the prisoner. The Ladybird's cultured voice
at the Hawk's side poured out an uninterrupted stream of abandoned
oaths that were like a shudder in the nonchalant, conversational tones
in which they fell from the twitching lips. MacVightie and Lanson were
moving here and there about the place. Snatches of their conversation
reached the Hawk:

...Well, I reckon I called the turn, all right, when I said it was
the same crowd that was turning out the phony stuff, eh?... Yes, the
telegraph set.

... Can't trace the wires until daylight, of course.

... Sure, a clean-up....”

The Hawk's eyes travelled furtively around the cellar. They rested
hungrily on a spot in front of him, where, in the centre of the floor,
but partially hidden by one of the workbenches, was the bolted trapdoor
of the underground passage that led out to the wagon shed. He circled
his lips with his tongue again, and furtively again, his glance
travelled on—to the door at the head of the cellar stairs that had a
massive bolt, and that, evidently swinging back of its own accord after
the men had passed through, now hung just ajar—to a long, narrow
window, most tantalising of all because it was wide open, that was
shoulder high, just above the stonework of the cellar and evidently on a
level with the ground outside.

And then suddenly the Hawk's lids drooped—to hide a quick flash and
gleam that lighted the dark eyes. MacVightie had stooped, and throwing
back the bolt, had lifted up the trapdoor.

“Hello!” he ejaculated. “What's this? Here, Lanson! It looks
like a passage of some sort.” He was leaning down into the opening.
“Yes, so help me, that's what it is!” He lowered himself hurriedly
through the trapdoor, and his voice came back muffled into the cellar.
“Come down here a minute, Lanson; they certainly had things worked out
to a fine point!”

Lanson's back, as, following MacVightie, he lowered himself through
the opening, was turned to the Hawk—and in a flash the Hawk's free
hand had swept behind him under his coat to the concealed pocket in the
back lining, and his eyes were thrust within an inch of the Ladybird's
as he lowered his head.

“You understand?”—the Hawk's lips did not move, he was breathing
his words, while a skeleton key worked swiftly at the handcuff on his
wrist—“you understand? It's you or me! You make a sound to queer
me, and I'll get you—first!”

The livid face was contorted, working with impotent fury, but, perhaps
for the first time that it had ever been there, there was fear In the
Ladybird's burning eyes. The Hawk's hand was free now. Lanson's
shoulders were just disappearing through the opening, and with a
lightning spring the Hawk reached the trapdoor, swung it down, bolted
it, and, running without a sound, gained the head of the cellar stairs,
pulled the door gently shut, slid the bolt silently into place—and the
next moment the Hawk, returning, darted to the window, swung himself up
to the ledge, and vanished.




XX—“CONFIDENTIAL” CORRESPONDENCE

TWO days later MacVightie received a letter that had been posted the day
before from a city quite a number of miles nearer the East than
Selkirk was. In the left-hand, lower corner of the envelope, heavily
underscored, was the word: “Confidential.” What MacVightie read,
when he opened the letter, was this:

“Dear Mr. MacVightie:—

“I feel that you are entitled to an explanation—I will not call it
an apology, for I am sure you will recognise with me the unavoidable
nature of the circumstances existing at the time—of my somewhat
informal leave-taking of you two evenings ago; and I am afraid that my
actions on that occasion have not enhanced your opinion of—the Hawk. I
shall try and redeem myself. You have, I make no doubt, already
searched that room where I first had the pleasure of making your
acquaintance—and have found nothing. Let me begin, then, by saying
that the diamond necklace belonging to His Excellency the Governor's
wife, a certain well-known shipment of unset stones, and cash in varying
amounts derived from sources with which you are acquainted, are in
a black valise which you will find in the parcel room of the Selkirk
station—and for which I enclose herewith the parcel-room check.

“I imagine that you are sceptical. I wonder, then, if it would also
occasion you surprise to know that Birks of the Secret Service was,
after all, 'on deck' the night that the Wire Devils fell into your
hospitable hands? Yes, it is quite true—I am Birks. The newspaper
biographies of the Hawk, the apparent authenticity of his prison record
and release from Sing Sing was but 'inspired' fiction supplied from
'authoritative' sources. The East was being swamped with one of
the cleverest counterfeit notes that the Federal authorities, popularly
called the Secret Service, had ever had to deal with; and it was evident
at once that the gang at work possessed an organisation against which
ordinary methods would be of no avail. Facts in the possession of the
Federal authorities indicated that the headquarters of the gang was
in the West, and, indeed, as you later concluded yourself, that the
so-called Wire Devils, who were just beginning to operate over the wires
around Selkirk, were the men we wanted. That, because of my knowledge of
telegraphy, I was detailed to the case, and how, almost at the outset, I
was fortunate enough to secure the key to their cipher, need not be gone
into here. Knowing their code, then, it would have been a simple enough
matter to have run one or two of them to earth at almost any time, but
that was not enough; it was necessary that the entire organisation, and
especially its head, should be caught. The rôle of the Hawk furnished
the solution to the problem. It enabled me to frustrate their plans,
while at the same time I was working on the case, and it enabled me to
do this without arousing their suspicions that the Secret Service was on
the track of their counterfeiting plant. 'Birds of a feather,' you
called us, Mr. Mac-Vightie; and 'birds of a feather' I am going to
ask you to allow us, in the public's eyes, and particularly in the
eyes of those you now have behind the bars, to remain.

“I am sure you will readily acquiesce in this. You will instantly
see that my usefulness would be destroyed if the Hawk became known and
recognised as Birks of the Secret Service by every crook in the country,
as would result if he now figured in the case in his proper person. And
this leads to a word of explanation in reference to the final act in our
little drama of two nights ago. I had discovered the headquarters of the
gang, and I had found that cleverest of unhung crooks, the Ladybird,
to be in command. The plan outlined to you from Washington was at my
suggestion, and was simply a trap to collect them all into one net; a
trap, I might add, which they walked into, as they believed, with their
eyes wide open, for they were well aware of every move you had made. The
purpose of the money in banknotes accompanying the gold shipment was to
supply the Hawk with a reason for his appearance on the scene. It was
not altogether a question of coincidence that the train was stopped just
outside Con-more; nor that the chase led you to the farmhouse and the
Ladybird. The rest you know. It was necessary that I should be captured
and arrested in their presence, be caught in fact with the 'goods,'
and also that my escape should in their eyes appear equally genuine, if
I was to preserve the Hawk's identity. As for this last point, things
turned out a little differently than I had planned, for I had expected
to be taken to jail with the common herd, and there had intended to
arrange some sort of an escape to keep up appearances. As it turned out,
however, I am sure you will agree with me that there are worse things at
times than a trapdoor in a cellar floor!

“I think that is all—save for one little detail. I would suggest
that you account for the recovery of the 'swag' and the black valise
through the fact that, dissatisfied with your first search of that room
over our friend Seidel-berger's saloon, you searched it again more
minutely, found a parcel-room check ingeniously hidden, say, behind the
wall bracket of the electric-light fixture—and by so doing permit me
to remain,

“Ever and most sincerely yours,

“The Hawk.” THE END





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