NICK CARTER ROBS A BANK.
The instant the strange machine was brought to a stop--and it was done
wonderfully soon, considering the speed at which they had been
traveling--the three men leaped to the ground beside the track, and Nick
was ordered to follow them.
He did so, and then he was told to bear a hand; and, following
directions that were given him, he seized hold of the boxlike tonneau.
Almost in a twinkling of time after that the machine was lifted from the
track in sections, and finally, still in sections, was carried to a
highway near at hand, where it was put together again, minus the iron
wheels. But there were other wheels concealed in that commodious body,
and these were quickly taken out and adjusted.
Within twenty minutes of the time when they came to a stop on the track,
after rounding the curve, the machine was fitted with regular automobile
wheels, and was ready to proceed along the highway.
Nick saw in this arrangement much that had puzzled other men who had
been on the job. He had no doubt from what he knew of automobiles that
this machine was capable of sixty miles an hour, or even more than
that, on the highway; and, if that was true, it, of course, could make a
half greater speed than that on rails.
But he made no comment. That was not expected of him, and would have
been resented had he attempted to do so; but he climbed to his place
when he was told, and again they sped away toward some destination, the
nature of which he did not know.
Once he ventured to ask the man nearest him what time it was, and
received a curt "Shut up!" by way of reply; so he remained silent after
that.
And after a while--less than half an hour--they drove into a village,
and presently ran the machine around behind a church, where it was
placed in one of the stalls of a shed.
And still his three companions worked in utter silence. Beyond now and
then a curt word uttered by Handsome, who seemed to be in command of the
expedition, nothing at all was said.
Nevertheless, each man there seemed to know exactly what to do; as if
every move they made had been nicely planned out for them--and such Nick
believed to be the case.
When the machine was stored away, the men fell into line, Nick being
shoved into position directly behind Handsome, and then, in Indian file,
they moved silently forward toward a high fence that was near at hand.
They went over this one by one, Handsome waiting with patience until the
last one was over, and then the march was taken up again.
They passed now through the rear of a large yard, and before them loomed
a brick building, which Nick figured must be a courthouse; and after a
moment they made a half circuit around, and came to a stop between two
buildings of brick, one of them being that one already mentioned.
The night was dark now, for the moon had gone down, and there were no
street lamps in that village evidently; or, if there were, they were not
burned on nights when there was supposed to be a moon.
But there was light enough for Nick to discover that they were close to
the main street of the village; he could see the store windows on the
opposite side; and it suddenly came to him that the building that was
next to them--the second one--was a bank, and that they were about to
rob it.
He knew now what was expected of him; and again he determined to see the
thing through to the end.
It was not to prevent one robbery that he was engaged; but to prevent
many. It was not to apprehend the participants in a minor job like this
one promised to be, but to capture the head that directed many such
robberies, and so stop them altogether.
And still no word--not even a whisper--was spoken between the men. They
worked on in utter silence, as if their plans had been thoroughly
conned until they were learned absolutely by heart.
Nor did they pause in the yard next to the bank. There was scarcely a
halt there; but they passed to the rear of the building, and followed
one another over the high fence that was there, to the rear of the bank
building.
Keeping themselves well in the shadows, they crept forward silently to a
rear door of the building, and here Handsome paused for a moment, and
put down a canvas bag that he had been carrying all the way; and now he
whispered in Nick's ear:
"There are the tools, Dago. Let's see what kind of a cracksman you are."
Nick did not need a second bidding. Having determined upon his course,
he did not hesitate, but he seized the bag, pulled open the mouth of it,
and, having selected such tools as he wanted, he applied himself to the
task that had been set for him.
A professional burglar of long experience could not have gotten that
huge oak door open more quickly and silently than Nick Carter did, and
Handsome gave him an approving pat on the shoulder.
He was the first to enter the bank, Nick following, and the others
coming behind them; and presently, after forcing another door, they
stood crouching inside the bank itself.
A dim light burned in a gas jet in the centre of the large room, which
was divided only by the wire screen which separated the customers' side
of the rail from the clerks; and almost beneath the light, exactly where
it could shine full upon the steel doors, was the huge safe of the
institution.
A person might not stand in front of that safe for a moment without
being in full view from the street should any one happen to pass there.
Nick saw that at a glance; but nevertheless Handsome silently placed a
drill and a bottle of liquid in his hand, and motioned that he was to
begin the dangerous part of the work.
"Didn't you bring a screen with you, you chump?" demanded Nick, in a
whisper. "If you had told me what the lay was, I'd have made one."
Handsome nodded, evidently well pleased; and at the same time he
produced a roll from under his coat, and gave it to the detective. Nick
unrolled it, and found that it was merely a piece of burlap, rather more
than a yard long, and about two feet in width, and with a roll of cord
attached to each corner of it.
He knew what that was intended for readily enough, and, taking it in his
hands, he crept forward without another word, and quickly attached the
four strings to objects which he selected as being situated about right
for his purposes.
In two minutes the screen was in place, and it afforded a perfect
shelter from view from the street, and just the sort of one that would
never be noticed from the outside at all, unless a person stopped at
the window and deliberately peered inside--and that nobody was likely to
do, unless something else first attracted attention.
In fixing the screen in place so quickly and perfectly, Nick evidently
won over not only Handsome, but the others; and now there was no more
question of his doing the drilling alone. Each man took his own part of
the work in silence, as if Nick had always been one of them; and,
besides, now there was no time to be lost.
Drilling through the steel doors of a safe is not an easy task, and it
is not done quickly, although expert burglars carry tools these days
which will cut anything.
They took their turns at the drill, as they took them also with the
acids and oil; and the work went on merrily until the holes were ready
for the charges.
And here again it seemed that Handsome was determined to try Nick out to
the last, for he bent forward and whispered in his ear:
"Prove one thing more, Dago, and you're made."
"Want me to do the blowing?" asked Nick.
Handsome nodded.
"All right," said Nick. "Light out, then."
"But----"
"Get out, I say. If I do the blowing I'm boss for the time being. Git!"
They did; and again, with the implements and the explosives at hand,
Nick went to work; and, as before he worked rapidly and well--as if he
were an experienced hand at that sort of employment.
And then, when the charge was ready, Nick pulled up the heavy rope
matting from the floor, and after doubling it again and again until
there was a huge wad of it, he braced it with desks and chairs against
the front of the safe; and when all that was done to his satisfaction,
he lighted the fuse, and ran back to the rear hallway, where the others
were watching and waiting.
They had not long to wait after that. There was a lapse of perhaps a
minute and a half, and then a dull, booming roar shook the building, and
the burglars rushed forward.
Now was the time when they were compelled to work rapidly, if ever.
It was true that Nick had so muffled the sound of the explosion that it
was hardly possible that the noise of it had roused anybody at all; but
there was always a chance of somebody near at hand being wakeful or
watchful.
At any moment they might be interrupted--and no burglar likes to be
interrupted. It always means a fight, in which somebody is likely to get
killed, and burglars rarely do any killing unless they have to in order
to escape.
They rushed forward together; but now Nick purposely kept in the
background. He had no idea of being taken himself if they should be
interrupted; nor did he wish to give his companions an opportunity to
kill any person who might interrupt them. It was all right from his
standpoint to participate in the burglary, in order that he might
ultimately catch all the thieves; but he did not wish to be a party to
any fight that might come of it.
But he was made to hold one of the bags while Handsome filled it from
the inside of the safe.
They pried open the inner compartments, and threw them indiscriminately
upon the floor as soon as they were emptied; they jimmied open the steel
boxes as readily as if they had been made of softest pine--and in twenty
minutes after the explosion they were stealthily climbing the fence
again, into the courthouse yard.
And, so far as they could see, not a soul in the village had been
awakened or alarmed.
They returned to the shed, where they had left the automobile, by the
same route they had covered in approaching the bank; the machine was
backed out; they entered it, turned on the power, and sped away through
the silent streets as they had come, with nobody the wiser for what they
had done, the havoc they had wrought, and the wealth they had stolen.
Down beside the road where they had made the change before, from the
track of the railway to the highway, they paused long enough to secure
the iron wheels, and here the change was made back to a railway machine.
The car was lifted in sections to the tracks, and with everything
adjusted they were soon flying down the shining rails at a frightful
rate of speed, and in silence--for it seemed to be a rule among these
men that there should be no talking.
Mile after mile they covered in this way, and then the machine was
slowed down, and came to a stop at the point where it had picked up
Handsome and Nick at first, and here they got down, and, having taken
out the plunder, stood beside the track until the machine had
disappeared from view.
"Now, Dago, help me with the swag," said Handsome; and together they
picked it up, and once more started for the outlaws' retreat in the
middle of the impassable swamp.
When they were in the boat, and almost ready to land where Nick had
thrown the man into the water, Handsome turned to him, and whispered:
"You're all right, Dago. I'll tell Madge so, too!"