Chapter XXXII: The Outlaw Nabbed

Although Mayor Henkle had declared his intention of removing Chief of Police Hodgins from office as a result of the _Bulletin’s_ revelation of the police conditions which prevailed in Oldham, he had not done so.

There were several reasons why his honor had changed his mind about taking this step. In the first place, Hodgins was the mayor’s wife’s cousin, and his honor feared that Mrs. Henkle would have something to say if he fired her relative. Tyrant thought he was at the city hall, the Honorable Martin Henkle stood in considerable awe of his little wife.

A second reason was that if he had removed Hodgins on account of those snapshots, the mayor, in order to be consistent, would have had to dismiss from the department the delinquent policemen whose pictures had appeared in the _Bulletin_. Some of these men had a strong political pull, and Mayor Henkle was disinclined to take such action against them.

Besides, the _Chronicle_, at the mayor’s suggestion, had published a long editorial denouncing those police snapshots as atrocious fakes, and denying that the members of the force were really guilty of the misconduct of which the _Bulletin’s_ pictures had seemed to convict them. Consequently, the mayor could not have punished his chief of police without going back on the administration organ.

So Chief Hodgins still held on to his job. But he was not happy. The fact that Hawley had come back to Oldham, and was once more at work with his camera, was one of the things which prevented him from being so.

Goaded by the jeers and snarls of the mayor and by his own frantic desire for vengeance, he sought desperately to capture the Camera Chap; but, try as he would, he could not succeed in laying hands on that elusive man.

Hawley had become a veritable will-o’-the-wisp. Although every member of the force was as anxious as the chief to catch him, and kept a sharp lookout for him day and night, he seemed as immune from capture as a mosquito buzzing around the head of an armless man.

Hodgins stationed detectives outside the _Bulletin_ office, in the hope of being able to apprehend him when he came to deliver the pictures; but, greatly to his chagrin, these sleuths reported that the Camera Chap did not come to the _Bulletin_ office. Evidently anticipating this ambush, he had made secret arrangements with Carroll to get the films to the _Bulletin_ without bringing them in person; but what this method was the police were unable to find out.

Hodgins also sent detectives, armed with a warrant, up to the mountain retreat of Hawley’s host; but the latter informed the policemen that he had not seen the Camera Chap for several days. Evidently Hawley, anticipating this move, too, had seen fit to change his boarding house; and the police were unable to find his present residence.

Through the medium of the _Chronicle_, the chief of police appealed to all good citizens to aid in the capture of the “notorious camera bandit.” Had this appeal met with a general response, the chances are that Hawley would soon have been caught; but, fortunately for him, the sympathies of the citizens of Oldham were largely on his side. The new anticamera law was not proving at all popular. People thought it a shame that the _Bulletin_ should be discriminated against, and the public in general was rather pleased than otherwise by Hawley’s success in dodging the police.

But at last Hawley’s phenomenal luck deserted him. Chief Hodgins, strolling along Main Street one afternoon, saw a sight which astonished him so much that for a moment he was inclined to believe himself a victim of hallucinations.

There, only a few yards ahead of him, stood a man with a camera in his hand, photographing an ornamental fountain in which several urchins were paddling and splashing--a thing forbidden by law, but ignored by the indolent police.

It was the Camera Chap! His profile was turned toward the chief, and the latter recognized him at first glance.

With a gasp of joy, Hodgins bounded forward. Hawley was so intent upon getting a focus that he did not perceive his danger until a heavy hand clutched him roughly by the coat collar and a hoarse voice exclaimed:

“Got you at last! Try to get away, and I’ll let daylight into you!”

Hodgins had drawn his revolver as he rushed toward the Camera Chap, and he pressed the barrel of the weapon against his prisoner’s ribs. It was not usual for him to indulge in such spectacular gun play when making an arrest for a misdemeanor, but he had the legal right to shoot if his prisoner attempted to escape, and so bitter was he against Hawley that he would not have hesitated to avail himself of that right if the latter had made it necessary.

But the Camera Chap proved to be a most submissive prisoner. Although he knew that he was booked now for a six months’ stay in the county jail, he accepted the situation with a rueful smile. The prospect was decidedly unpleasant, but there was nothing to be gained by “going up in the air.”

Hodgins slipped handcuffs on his wrists, and marched him to police headquarters. Thrusting him into a cell and bidding the turnkey keep a vigilant watch over him, the chief hurried to the city hall to tell the mayor the good news.

Half an hour later, as the Camera Chap sat in his cell, pondering on how he was going to get out of this predicament, there came to his ears the sound of a violent detonation, as though somebody had exploded a dynamite bomb in the vicinity of the headquarters building.

Hawley wondered greatly as to the meaning of this. As the hours went by, he wondered, too, why he was not taken before a magistrate, instead of being kept at police headquarters. He put both of these questions to the turnkey, but could get no answer from that taciturn official.

At length, however, his curiosity was satisfied in a most startling manner. The door of his cell was suddenly opened, and a powerfully built man, struggling desperately in the grip of two burly policemen, was dragged into the cage.

As the iron gate closed with a clang, Hawley turned to this new captive in great astonishment.

“Ye gods, Fred!” he exclaimed. “Have they got you, too? What on earth for?”

Carroll, bleeding from a deep gash on his left temple, and badly bruised about the face, laughed bitterly.

“There’s been a tragedy,” he said. “The Chronicle Building has been blown up by dynamite, and old man Gale killed--or, at least, fatally injured. And that fathead, Hodgins, accuses me of being responsible for the outrage.”