Chapter XXIV: One Way to Stop an Auto

Nick’s cry for help and his reference to the river were intended for the ears of Chick and Patsy.

If they failed him, Nick felt that his case was hopeless.

The stream into which he was thrown was narrow and winding, and, at that point, flowed with great force.

The swiftness of the current bore the detective up and kept him from sinking.

The men in the Red Spider watched until he was carried around a bend in the stream, and then continued on, confident that they had been completely successful in their murderous designs.

The torrent was full of drift, and Nick, half strangled and dizzy, felt that his chief danger lay in being struck by some of the logs that were spinning along with him on the surface of the water.

But this fact, so far from being a danger, proved his salvation.

An uprooted tree came sweeping toward him, and he was caught in the spreading branches.

Tangled among the limbs, as he ultimately became, it was impossible for him to sink, and for a short distance he rode along with his head out of the torrent.

Presently the tree lodged in a jam of driftwood, and Nick watched the whirling débris shoot against the jam and pass on, missing his head sometimes by no more than an inch.

“Help!” he called again, “This way, Chick! Patsy! Help!”

He did not call in vain, for Chick and Patsy suddenly appeared on the bank, the former with a coil of rope in his hands.

“We’ll have you in a minute, old man!” cried Chick, cheerily. “I’ll throw the rope and you can catch it.”

“No, I can’t,” answered Nick. “My hands are tied.”

“Here,” said Patsy, grabbing one end of the rope and tying it about his waist. “I can go out on that tree and fish Nick out of the branches. I’m a regular cat when it comes to walking a log.”

“All right, Patsy,” said Chick. “Mind your eye and be careful that the tree doesn’t turn with you.”

Patsy started, made his way into the branches, knelt down, and cut the rope from Nick’s hands.

Nick was then able to help, and his rescue was not long in being effected.

On reaching the bank, he dropped down for a moment, completely exhausted.

“Wouldn’t this give you a jolt?” muttered Patsy, as he cut the rope from Nick’s ankles. “They expected him to swim with his hands and feet tied.”

“They expected me to go to the bottom,” returned Nick, “and I’d have done it, too, if you and Chick hadn’t been handy by.”

He arose to his feet.

“We haven’t any time to waste here,” he went on, giving himself a shake and throwing as much water as he could out of his soaked clothing. “Where’s the auto?”

“On the turnpike, about a hundred yards away,” replied Chick.

“Then let’s get to it and keep on after that outfit. They’re making for the Canadian line, and we’ve got to stop them before they get across.”

“Then we’ll have to rush,” said Chick. “The border isn’t more than twenty miles away.”

They all realized the value of the minutes that were slipping past, and ran for the turnpike, sprang into the auto, and started on at top speed.

After they had crossed the bridge and got some distance beyond, they began to look and listen for some sign of the Spider.

They could hear nothing.

“Give her every ounce of power!” cried Nick, and Chick turned on the current full drive.

“We’ll overhaul ’em,” averred Chick, “providing something doesn’t give way.”

“And providing we’re on the right track,” added Nick; “they may have scented trouble and turned off the main road.”

“We’ll soon find out. Who are they?”

“They are the men who robbed the bank at Latimer, Monday night. One of them is short, thickset and has a mole on his right check----”

“Clancy!” cried Chick.

“If we get near enough,” put in Patsy, lifting a repeating rifle from the bottom of the auto, “we can stop them with this.”

“Where did you get that?” asked Nick.

“The proprietor of the barn, in Latimer, had it, and I borrowed it. There’s more range to this than there is to a six-shooter.”

Again they listened, and a worried look overspread Nick’s face when they failed to hear the pounding of the gasoline auto.

“There hasn’t been a road, so far, that they could turn off on,” said Chick, “so it’s a safe-money guess that we’re behind them.”

“At this rate we ought to come up with them before long,” returned Nick. “What did you find at 1145 Mechlin Street, Chick?”

“It was Mechlin Avenue.”

“That’s immaterial. You found the place?”

“Like a top.”

“What sort of a place is it?”

“A tough boarding house run by a hag who has a son called Five Points.”

“Well?”

“I went to the hang-out in a tough disguise, and had no difficulty in getting lodging. I thought I might have to stay a day or two, but a couple of hours was enough.”

“What did you learn?”

“Lots; and it was hot stuff, too.”

Again they listened and looked for the Red Spider, but in vain.

Nor had they yet passed any crossroad, so they felt sure their men must still be ahead of them.

“Go on, Chick,” said Nick.

“The hag that bossed the roost was having a confab with a brother of hers, in the sitting room of the place.

“The brother was as clear a case of grafter as I ever saw--he had all the marks from soles to headpiece.

“It seems that he was out for the stuff, and wanted to join a gang where there would be something doing.

“The old woman was putting him next to a touch of the warm variety, and, say! I heard enough to land them both in the Tombs.

“The hag was telling about her son, Five Points, and how he had connected with a Montana man who was working a graft that was as novel as it was successful.

“The old woman, you see, thought that her brother might be able to join the same gang, and he was dead anxious to make the attempt.

“From what the hag said, it appears that there were four in Clancy’s party--Clancy himself, Five Points, a man called Spark, and another known as Cricket.

“They came together at some place in Vermont, and captured an auto car belonging to some Chicago people who were doing the New England States.

“Clancy, it seems, had had his eye on this party for some time.

“He is a gambler and appears to have plenty of money, so that he could have bought his own machine if he had wanted to, but that wasn’t his object.

“He lays for the Red Spider, makes prisoners of the Chicago men, and tucks them away somewhere in the Vermont woods where they will be safe; then he and his outfit gets into the Chicago men’s clothes, and go piking around the circle as Leonard Martin, Leslie Hibbard, Morris Markham and Emil Z. Schiffel----”

“By Jupiter!” exclaimed Nick, as the whole graft dawned on him. “That was a clever game, for no one could ever suspect these rich Chicago men of looting a bank, or doing any other crooked work.”

“Clancy has a good head for that kind of business.”

“The old woman was well informed, it seems to me.”

“She got her information through Five Points, I suppose, who knows something about driving an automobile.”

“Why did you wire me to look out for Clancy?”

“The old woman described Clancy to her brother, so that he would know him at sight. She also mentioned that he was a pal of Ramsay’s, and had come East with a double purpose--to clear up as much good money as he could and, incidentally, to settle Nick Carter.”

“He’s tried it twice,” said Nick, “and----”

“Listen!” broke in Patsy. “That other auto is dead ahead. Can’t you hear it?”

They could hear it plainly, the chough, chough, chough coming to their ears with great distinctness.

“Now, then,” muttered Nick, “if this machine holds together, we’ll be up with them in a very few minutes. Let me have one of your revolvers, Patsy.”

“Take ’em both,” said Patsy, tendering the weapons; “I’ll use the rifle.”

“Better let me take the rifle,” returned Nick, a sudden idea coming to him.

“All right.”

Patsy handed over the gun.

The next instant the auto rounded a hill and the Red Spider came into sight.

It was some distance off and racing at a speed which caused it to lurch dangerously from side to side.

“A stern chase is usually a long one, but I don’t think this will be,” muttered Nick. “We’re gaining at every jump.”

“And they don’t know yet that we’re after them,” chuckled Patsy.

“They know now,” said Chick. “One of them, on the rear seat, is turning around. There! He’s trying a shot.”

The report of a revolver echoed out, but the range was too great for effective shooting with small arms.

“Give ’em the Winchester, Nick!” suggested Patsy.

“I will,” replied Nick, “and I’ll cripple the Spider so we can overhaul it in less time than ever.”

He threw the repeater to his shoulder and sighted it long and carefully.

It was a pretty shot that he intended making, for not only must he take into consideration the motion of his own auto, but of the Red Spider as well.

Suddenly he pulled the trigger.

A loud report volleyed out, and instantly the Spider began to wobble.

The speed of the gasoline machine was reduced at least one-half.

“By thunder!” exulted Patsy; “he’s punctured one of the rear tires!”