Chapter XXVII: The Last of the Swindlers

Clancy had fought every step of the way through the woods to the blacksmith shop.

Every convenient tree trunk, every rise of ground, and every rock which he encountered in the course of his retreat was taken advantage of and used as a temporary breastwork.

The fact that no serious injuries resulted from the shooting proves how wary the men were.

Nick emptied his repeater at about the identical time Clancy emptied his revolvers.

Clancy saw this, and gave vent to a mocking laugh.

“It’s anybody’s fight yet!” he yelled.

No longer fearing to show himself, he turned and made straight through the timber, coming out on the road in the vicinity of the blacksmith shop.

Coming upon this blacksmith shop was an entirely unexpected event, but it was one of which Clancy did not fail to take instant advantage.

There was only one man in the shop at the time Clancy made his advent on the scene--one man and the red-headed boy before mentioned.

The boy was having the horse shod, and just before he went to work on the horse the smith had been heating a crowbar for the purpose of repointing it.

The crowbar was still in the fire, one end cool, but the other sizzling hot.

The blacksmith looked up as Clancy burst in.

With a quick blow, Clancy knocked him out of the way, and looked around for a weapon.

The crowbar was prominently in his view, and he caught it out of the fire.

Nick was in the door as Clancy possessed himself of the bar.

“I’ll have you!” roared the Montana man. “My second try at you won’t end like the first.”

“This is your third attempt on my life, Clancy,” returned Nick, springing forward and watching the Westerner warily.

“The third time?” repeated Clancy, resting the red-hot end of the bar for an instant on the anvil.

“My name’s Nick Carter, and----”

A torrent of invectives burst from the robber’s lips.

“I’ll have you now,” he yelled. “I’ll strike a blow for Ramsay as well as for myself!”

He jumped through the door of the shop, whirling the bar about his head in a livid circle.

Straight toward Nick he rushed, shouting his imprecations and vowing that he’d have the detective’s life.

Nick waited coolly, the rifle in his hand.

The robber struck at him, and Nick parried the blow with the gun, leaping in with the quickness of a cat and gripping Clancy about the waist.

From that moment the fight was lost to Clancy.

The Little Giant’s phenomenal strength quickly made itself felt.

He contracted his arms, the awful, viselike pressure slowly but surely driving the breath from the robber’s lungs.

Clancy began to gasp, his eyes distended, and the bar fell from his nerveless hand.

“Stop!” he whispered; “you’re killing me!”

Nick bore him into the blacksmith shop and hurled him to the ground.

Clancy struggled to avoid the handcuffs, and Nick, forcing his arms around the anvil, made the wrists fast.

“Now,” said the detective, “you can struggle all you please.”

The blacksmith was bathing his eye in a tub of water.

“Are you hurt much?” asked Nick.

“Thought for a spell I had been kicked by a mule,” answered the smith, wiping his eye on the dingy handkerchief that was tied around his neck. “Sorry I didn’t come through in time tew help ye.”

“Gee whiz!” cried the red-headed boy, “he didn’t need no help. He downed the big feller easier’n anythin’ I ever see. Gosh, mister, but you’re great!”

The youngster looked at Nick with admiring eyes, and the latter brought out a half-dollar, which he had in his pocket, and which had somehow escaped Clancy’s search and the consequent bath in the river.

“Do you want to earn this, my lad?” Nick asked.

“Can a duck swim?” the boy chirped.

“Then get on that horse and ride up the road. You won’t have to go far before you find a couple of automobiles----”

“What’s them?”

“You’ll know when you see them--you won’t make any mistake. If there is any one with the machines say that I want them brought here. Understand?”

“Like a house afire!”

“Then catch!”

Nick flipped the coin toward the boy, who grabbed it out of the air and stowed it away in his pocket.

A minute later he was galloping up the road.

Several men, hearing the commotion at the blacksmith shop, had come in from the neighboring fields, and they were standing around, looking from Clancy to Nick, and trying to get the true inwardness of the affair from the blacksmith.

“Come outside,” said Nick, amiably, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”

And that’s what he was doing when Chick and Patsy bore down on him--smoking and enlightening the natives.

A few hurried words of explanation were exchanged by the detectives.

“Are all the grips belonging to the prisoners still in the Red Spider?” asked Nick.

“There are three here,” said Chick; “they’re big ones, and heavy as lead.”

“It was the heft that kept the grafters from lugging the grips along when they made their break for the timber,” put in Patsy.

“Open one of the satchels, Chick,” said Nick, “and see what’s inside. I’m a little anxious to know.”

Chick complied.

“Whew!” he exclaimed, his amazed eyes fixed on the contents of the satchel he had opened.

“Gold, silver and bank notes?” queried Nick.

“I should say so!”

“It’s the bank money. I’ll travel in the Red Spider with you, Chick, and Clancy and the man with the broken leg will ride with us. Patsy, you and your man can hum along in the other machine.”

It was necessary to rope Clancy’s legs before he could be put into the automobile; but he was finally stowed away and all was made ready for the return journey.

Nick, before climbing into the Spider beside Clancy, turned to the blacksmith, who was standing near.

“How far is it to the Canadian line from here?” he asked.

“See that pile o’ rocks?” the smith returned, indicating a heap of stones about a hundred feet to the rear of the shop.

“Yes.”

“Well, Canady lays on t’other side o’ that monniment.”

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Patsy; “you wasn’t very much to the good, Nick, after all.”

“It was close, mighty close,” added Chick.

“A miss is as good as a mile,” said Nick, jumping into the auto. “Let her go, Chick.”

* * * * *

That evening, at about nine o’clock, the two automobiles drew up in front of police headquarters, in the city of Latimer.

The chief was not in evidence, but he was quickly summoned from home by telephone.

“By Jupiter!” he cried; “you’ve done it, Carter--done it, and with ground to spare.”

“A hundred feet of ground,” grinned Patsy.

“Are you sure they’re the right men?” asked the chief.

“That’s the only kind we capture,” said Chick.

“I believe you,” returned the chief, and shook hands heartily with the New York men and tendered his congratulations.

Cricket and Clancy were taken to their cells, and Spark was conveyed to the Memorial Hospital.

Nick went to the place to which he had taken Clancy in the automobile the night before the start north, and found that, as he surmised, Five Points was there.

Spark and Cricket had also stayed at this boarding house after the robbery, and when they left a nurse had been hired by Clancy to look after their wounded pal.

Five Points’ wound, which was at first not believed to be serious, took a turn for the worse and ultimately caused his death.

Before he died he made a statement, telling how he and Spark and Cricket had joined Clancy, had captured the automobile and made prisoners of the Chicago men, and had confined them in a house occupied by Cricket’s father--a worse criminal than Cricket ever dared to be.

Nick was on the point of proceeding to the place where the Chicago men were imprisoned and releasing them, when they saved him the trouble by releasing themselves and coming on to Latimer--the newspapers having informed them that the Red Spider was at that point.

Aside from their jarred feelings, the Chicago party was none the worse for its little experience.

The bank’s funds were found intact in the satchels, including the twenty thousand dollars paid over to Clancy on his certificate of deposit.

The ownership of that twenty thousand is still being debated in the courts.

Clancy, Spark and Cricket were sent to the penitentiary for life, not on a robbery, but on a murder charge.

By the capture of “the Montana man,” Nick Carter closed his experience with a gang of Western crooks, all of whom had proved desperate to a degree, and as courageous and clever as they were desperate.

THE END.

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