FAST WORK
In the meantime, in the far-away Northland, there was great commotion
within one small cottage. Tillie had received Florence’s message. She had
read it over twice before showing it to her father and to Turkey Trot.
At last she read it aloud: “Bring the trunk at once. Your expenses will
be paid.”
“What trunk does she mean?” her father asked in surprise.
“It’s a trunk we foolishly took from the lady cop’s cottage last summer,”
Tillie replied, and groaned.
“But oh, father!” she cried a moment later, “I must go!”
Without a word her father disappeared through a door. He reappeared a
moment later holding a well-worn leather bag. In it were their summer’s
savings. He counted out some soiled bills. “She said she’d pay it back,”
was his quiet comment. “Such folks don’t often go back on their word.
Here’s the money.”
“Turkey,” he addressed himself next to his son, “you hitch old Billy to
the stone-boat and go after the trunk. We’ll get Mike Donovan to drive
Tillie over to the station. If we hurry, there’ll be just about time.”
So it happened that an excited girl stepped from the train in
mid-afternoon of the next day in the great city of Chicago. This was
Tillie. She had wired ahead to Florence, who was there to meet her. They
clasped each other tightly.
“Have you got it?” Florence asked breathlessly.
“The trunk? I have. Here’s the check.”
“Good! It’s fearfully important and too mysterious for words. Let’s go
after it at once.”
They were some little time in finding the baggage room in the large
depot. When they did there was a crowd waiting and they were obliged to
stand in line. To such a pair of eager spirits these waits seemed
endless. But at last their time came. With trembling fingers Florence
handed over the check. The agent disappeared with it. After some little
delay he returned. The check was in his hand.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Not here yet.”
“Not in,” Florence voiced her disappointment. “It was on the Copper
Express.”
“The Copper Express!” The man seemed puzzled. “What sort of a trunk? That
baggage—”
Just then a strange thing happened. Gripping Florence’s arm hard, Tillie
exclaimed in a shrill whisper, “Look! There goes the trunk! That young
man has it!”
Florence could not believe her ears. She did not doubt the testimony of
her eyes. The mystery trunk was fast disappearing down a passageway that
led to the street. It was on a strange young man’s back.
“Come on!” she cried. “He is stealing it! We must not let him.”
After that things happened so rapidly that there was no time to call for
aid. They dashed away after the thief. They found him dumping the trunk
into the back of a low-built, high power automobile. Another young man
was seated at the wheel. With a sudden leap of the heart, Florence
recognized this young man. He was the one Tillie had pitched so
unceremoniously into the water.
“Here, you,” she cried, seizing the trunk stealer by the shoulder and
whirling him about, “that’s our trunk.”
Taken completely by surprise, the man did not act at once. It was well,
for when he did come to his senses, he flashed an automatic. A second too
late. He saw his gun whirl into space as Florence launched her full one
hundred and sixty pounds against his chest. He went down in a heap.
His companion, attempting to come to his aid, found himself expertly
tripped by the versatile Tillie. The next instant, like some jaguar, she
was at his throat and he heard her hiss: “Now we got you. You gamblin’,
robbin’ kidnapper.”
It was fortunate for the girls that they were not obliged to hold their
poses long. Half a dozen coppers arrived in time to give them aid, and
assured them that matters would be adjusted in court at the proper time.
An investigation revealed the astonishing fact that the slick crooks had
learned in some way, perhaps through Florence’s telegram, that the trunk
was on the way. They had boarded the train at an up-state station, forged
a check for the trunk and claimed it.
“They nearly got it that time,” Florence sighed as two red-caps tumbled
the trunk into a waiting taxi and she and Tillie whirled away. “We’ll
take it to Petite Jeanne’s apartment. It will be safe enough there. The
gypsy told us where we could find the lady cop. We have located her. She
and the ‘poor little rich girl’ will be with us at Petite Jeanne’s show
to-night. After that we will go to the apartment and have the formal
opening of the trunk. Won’t that give us a thrill?”
“Won’t it, though?” Tillie bobbed up and down in her excitement.
“Those young men we just caught,” Florence said after a time, “were the
last of the band.”
“What band?”
“A band of gamblers and thieves the law has been after for a long time.
Through information provided by our gypsy friend, the others were taken
to-day. They will not be bothering the kindly people of your settlement
for some time to come. There is enough chalked up against them to last
half a lifetime.”
“I suppose,” replied Tillie thoughtfully, “that I should feel sorry for
them. But I just can’t. They went too far.”
“About two miles too far,” agreed Florence, recalling their
heart-breaking swim in the cold night waters of Lake Huron.