Chapter VIII: Part 8

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!”