Chapter XXVI: How Chick Got His Man

Spark was not so good a runner as Cricket, and Chick would have made a capture much quicker than Patsy had done, had his man not doubled back to the road, and, fortunately for him, encountered a young woman in a gingham dress and sunbonnet, driving home from town.

“Stop!” cried Spark. “Take me in--I want to ride with you!”

“Not much you don’t!” returned the young woman, with a toss of her head. “I can pick my own comp’ny, thanks!”

“Will you stop?”

Spark displayed a revolver.

That was too much for the girl.

With a scream, she let go the lines and dropped over the wagon wheel to the opposite side of the road.

As she fell out, Spark jumped in.

“Go it, you whelps!” roared the robber, grabbing up the whip and lashing the horses right and left.

The lines were on the ground, but Spark did not care for that.

The faster the horses ran away, the better he would be suited.

Anything to get him out of the vicinity of Chick.

Chick, however, was not to be shaken off so easily.

He reached the road at the precise moment Spark began lashing the team, and, by some quick work, succeeded in grabbing the end gate of the wagon as it flew past.

In a twinkling Chick was jerked off his feet and flung in the air, but he did not release his hold.

His muscular arms alone dragged him into the wagon box.

The team was now tearing down the turnpike at a furious run, and Spark, balancing himself unsteadily, turned to see what had become of his pursuer.

Chick was in the box, and crawling toward him.

Jumping over the wagon seat, Spark hurled himself upon the detective, the latter rising to meet the attack.

That is the position they were in when the wagon dashed around the bend and past the two automobiles.

Chick was far and away a better man than Spark, but skill and muscle could not count in a predicament of that kind.

Finally the two men went down on the floor of the wagon.

The end gate had already been lost, so the combatants rolled over and over, and finally tumbled into the road.

This terminated the struggle.

Spark gave vent to a groan of pain, and relaxed his hold on the detective, and the latter got up, clasping his left wrist with his right hand.

Patsy, leading his prisoner by the irons, came to the scene as rapidly as he could.

“What’s the matter, Chick?” he asked.

“Sprained my left wrist, that’s all,” answered Chick. “It hurts like the deuce, but it’s nothing serious.”

While speaking, Chick was tying a handkerchief tightly around the injured forearm, using his right hand and his teeth.

“Your man seems to have got touched up pretty bad,” went on Patsy.

“He has only himself to blame, if he has. He thought he could get away from me by using that wagon, but I guess he thinks differently now.”

Chick stepped up to Spark, and bent over him.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked.

“My right leg,” groaned the robber; “it’s broken!”

“I don’t wonder at it. That was quite a jolt we had.”

The detective made a brief examination, and found the leg to be as the robber had stated.

“We can’t do anything for you for a while,” said Chick, helping himself to Spark’s weapons. “Just as soon as Nick comes in with the leader of your push, though, we’ll take the back track and get you under the doctor’s care as soon as possible.”

“Nick who?” asked Spark, faintly.

“Nick Carter.”

“What! That man we threw into the creek! Nick Carter?” Spark demanded, forgetting his pain for the moment.

“Who did you think it was?”

Spark voiced some lurid language, then added:

“If we had dreamed that fellow was the prize package himself, we’d have put a bullet into him before we gave him his bath.”

“Even then he would have beat you out,” put in Patsy. “The grafter doesn’t live that can do up Nick Carter.”

Between them, Chick and Patsy succeeded in getting Spark onto the rear seat of the Red Spider.

He was in great pain, and it was not thought necessary to put the irons on him.

When they had made Spark as comfortable as possible, the detectives became aware that the young woman was standing beside them, in the road.

“I want my wagon an’ team,” she said, aggressively, as she caught Chick’s eye.

“All right,” said Chick, cheerfully. “I think you’ll find the team at home when you get there.”

“Maybe I’ll find the team, but I’ll bet the wagon is strung all along the road,” the girl answered. “You’ll have to pay me damages.”

“This is the fellow who will have to stand the damage,” said Chick, indicating Spark.

“What’s his name, an’ where does he put up?”

“That’s too much for me.”

“Well,” said the girl, with a snap of her jaws, “they’ve lynched people in this country for doin’ less than he done.”

With that, she marched off and never turned a backward look.

Chick laughed a little, although he admitted to himself that it was pretty tough luck.

“Here, Patsy,” he said, “run after her and give her this twenty. That will soothe her feelings, I guess.”

Patsy chased after the girl and gave her the money.

“She was tickled to death,” he said, when he got back; “the old rattletrap wasn’t worth any more than the scrap iron that was in it; so it was bargain day for her, all right. I wonder what’s keeping Nick?”

“Clancy’ll kill him,” spoke up Cricket.

“Don’t you believe it,” returned Patsy.

“While we’re waiting,” said Chick, “we’ll get things in shape for the return trip.”

He was looking at the rear, right-hand tire, which hung to the wheel as flabby as a rag.

“Nick made a dead-center shot,” said Patsy.

“It’s a bad puncture, and I doubt if we can repair it.”

“You don’t have to repair it,” put in Spark, who was thinking of getting to a doctor in the shortest possible time. “There’s an emergency tire under the front seat. Use that.”

Chick brought out the tire, and also a force pump.

The machine was then “jacked up” with a couple of stout fence rails, the old tire taken off and the new one put on and inflated.

Hardly was this bit of work accomplished, when a boy came galloping up on horseback.

He was a red-headed boy, and was laboring under so much excitement that it was all he could do to talk.

“Big fight down to the blacksmith shop!” he finally managed to articulate.

“Who was doing the fighting?” asked Chick.

“Couple o’ fellers. Geewhilikins, but you never seen anything like it!”

“Was either of the men killed?”

“Naw; but one of ’em was purty nigh. I was told tew come here an’ have yeou come right down.”

“We’ll come,” said Chick. Turning to Patsy, he added: “You get in the electric machine with your man, and I’ll run this one.”

“You bet,” returned Patsy.

In less than a minute they were all aboard and ready for the start.

“How far away is the blacksmith shop, my lad?” asked Chick.

“‘Baout a mile. Say, I want to stand here an’ see yeou start them thingumbobs.”

“All right.”

When the gasoline engine began to pound and the machine to move, the horse thought it had about all it could stand.

With a snort, and a flirt of the head, the animal took down the road for home, the boy yelling “Whoa!” at every jump.

It was a quick run which the two autos made to the blacksmith shop, for both Chick and Patsy were not a little worried over the boy’s story.

But they had their worry for nothing, for when they came in sight of the crossroads and the dingy and solitary little shop which stood there, they saw Nick in front, sitting on a keg, smoking and talking with a number of bystanders.

“Where’s Clancy, Nick?” asked Chick, bringing the Red Spider to a halt.

“Inside, handcuffed to an anvil. It was hard to do anything with him without killing him--and I didn’t want to do that.”

“Did he make you much trouble?” asked Patsy.

“Some. He’s one of that Montana clique, and they never seem to know when they’re downed. Clancy is beginning to scent the situation, though, for he hasn’t made much noise during the last few minutes. He was a pal of Ramsay’s, and you know what a time we had bagging him.”