just eluding the superintendent and another man—the dispatcher
probably, attracted by the row—as they sprang forward from the
paymaster's door.
Running like a deer, the Hawk made for the stairway. It was lighter now
in the hall. The dispatcher's door along at the farther end was open.
At the head of the stairs, a call boy, wide-eyed, gaped, openmouthed.
The Hawk brushed the boy aside incontinently, and, taking the stairs
three and four at a time, leaped downward, MacVightie's bull-like
roar echoing behind him, the top stairs creaking under the detective's
rush.
The street door opened outward, and as the Hawk reached it, and,
wrenching at the knob, pushed it open, there was a flash, the report of
a revolver shot—and, with a venomous spat, the bullet buried itself in
the door jamb, not an inch from his head, it seemed, for the wind of the
bullet was on his cheek.
Cries sounded now from the railroad yard; but the street in front of
him, deserted, was still undisturbed. He was across it in a twinkling,
and, passing the saloon that was now closed, darted into the lane.
He flung a glance over his shoulder—and his lips set hard. MacVightie,
big man though he was, was no mean antagonist in a race. The detective,
quicker in initiative, quicker on his feet, had outdistanced both Lanson
and the dispatcher, and was already halfway across the street.
Again MacVightie fired.
On the Hawk ran. If he could reach the next corner—providing there was
no one about the street—there was a way, a risky way, but still a
way, his best chance of escape. The cheap combination lodging house and
saloon, that was just around the corner, was where he had a room.
Yes, it was his one chance! He must get to cover somewhere without an
instant's delay. With MacVightie firing now, emptying his revolver up
the lane, with the yells and shouts growing constantly in volume from
farther back toward the station, it was only a question of minutes
before the whole neighbourhood would be aroused.
Again he glanced behind him. It was very dark in the lane. He was
grimly conscious that it was the blackness, and not MacVightie's poor
marksmanship, that had saved him so far. That flash of the other's
revolver was perhaps fifty yards away. He had gained a little, then! If
there was any one around the corner, the plan of reaching his room would
not serve him, and he would still have to run for it. Well, he would see
in an instant—it was only two yards more—a yard—now!
Without slackening his pace, at top speed he swung from the lane—and,
with a gasp of relief at sight of an empty street, slipped into a
doorway just beyond the now dark entrance to a saloon that occupied most
of the ground floor of a dirty and squalid three-story building.
The door gave on a narrow flight of stairs, and up these the Hawk sprang
swiftly and with scarcely a sound. And now, as he ran, he pulled his
mask from his face and thrust it into the pay bag; a pocket-book from
his inside coat pocket followed the mask, and, with the pocketbook, the
flashlight, and the two pistols, his own and the Butcher's. He opened
a door at the head of the landing, and stepped into a room, leaving the
door partly open.
He was not safe yet—far from it! He did not under-estimate MacVightie.
It would be obvious to MacVightie that he was not far enough ahead to
have disappeared in any but one way—into some building within a very
few yards of the lane! And the presumption, at least, would be that this
was the one.
The Hawk worked now with almost incredible speed. He switched on the
light, ran to the window that opened on the rear of the building, felt
with one hand along the sill outside, lifted the pay bag out of the
window, let go of it, and turned instantly back into the room. He
hung up his hat on a wall peg, and tearing off his jacket, flung it
haphazardly upon the bed. There was a small table against the wall near
the foot of the bed. The Hawk opened a drawer, snatched up a pack of
cards, and sat down at the table.
The street door opened and closed. A quick, heavy tread sounded on the
stairs.
In his shirt sleeves, his back to the door, the Hawk was coolly playing
solitaire.
“I guess I'd better be smoking,” murmured the Hawk. “Maybe I'm
breathing a little hard.”
He picked up a pipe from the table, lighted a match—and, half the deck
of cards in one hand, the lighted match in the other, swung around in
his chair with a startled jerk.
The door slammed back against the wall. MacVightie had unceremoniously
kicked it wide open. MacVightie was standing on the threshold.
The Hawk, in a sort of surprised gasp, sucked the flame of the match
down into the bowl of his pipe, and stared at MacVightie through a
curtain of tobacco smoke. The detective's eyes travelled sharply from
the Hawk around the room, came back to the Hawk, narrowed, and, stepping
into the room, he shut the door with equal lack of ceremony behind him.
“Say, you got a gall!” ejaculated the Hawk.
“You bet your life I have!” flung out MacVightie. “Now then, my
bucko, what are you doing, here?”
“Say,” said the Hawk, as though obsessed with but a single idea,
“say, you got a gall! You got a gall, busting into a fellow's room
and asking him what he's doing there! Say, maybe you might answer the
same question yourself—eh? What are you doing here?”
“Your room, is it?” snapped MacVightie.
“Sure it's my room!” replied the Hawk, a little tartly.
“How long you been here?”
“'Bout a week”—the Hawk was growing ungracious.
“Boarding here?”
“Yes.”
“Where'd you come from?” MacVightie was clipping off his words.
“What do you do for a living?”
“Say,” said the Hawk politely, “you go to hell!”
MacVightie stepped forward toward the Hawk, with an ominous scowl; and,
throwing back the lapel of his coat, tapped grimly with his forefinger
on a shield that decorated his vest.
The Hawk whistled low.
“O-ho!” said the Hawk, with sudden cordiality. “Well, why didn't
you say so before?”
“I'm saying it now!” snarled MacVightie. “Well, where do you
come from?”
“Chicago,” said the Hawk.
“What's your business?”—MacVightie's eyes were roving sharply
again around the room.
“Barkeep—when I can get a job,” answered the Hawk; and then,
insinuatingly: “And, say, I'm looking for one now, and if you can
put me on to anything I'd——”
“I guess you've got to show me!” growled Mac-Vightie,
uncompromisingly.
“Look here,” ventured the Hawk, “what's up?”
“I'm waiting!” prompted MacVightie significantly.
“Oh, all right!” The Hawk flared up a little. “If you love your
grouch, keep on hugging it tight!” He jerked his hand toward the coat
that was lying on the bed. “I must have lost the letter the pastor of
my church gave me, but there's a couple there from the guys back in
Chicago that I worked for, and there's my union card with them. Help
yourself!”
MacVightie picked up the coat brusquely, shoved his hand into the inside
pocket, brought out several letters, and began to read them.
The Hawk shuffled the half deck of cards in his hand monotonously.
There was a puzzled frown on MacVightie's face, as he finally tossed
the letters down on the bed.
“Satisfied?” inquired the Hawk pleasantly.
MacVightie's frown deepened.
“Yes, as far as that goes,” he said tersely; and then, evenly, his
eyes boring into the Hawk: “About five minutes ago a man ran into this
house from the street. What's become of him?”
The Hawk started in amazement—and slowly shook his head.
“I guess you've got the wrong dope, ain't you?” he suggested
earnestly.
“Don't try that game!” cautioned MacVightie grimly. “And don't
lie! He had to come up these stairs, your door was partly open, and he
couldn't have passed without you knowing it.”
“That's what I'm saying,” agreed the Hawk, even more earnestly.
“That's why I'm saying you must have got the wrong dope. Of
course, he couldn't have got by without me hearing him! That's a
cinch! And, I'm telling you straight, he didn't.”
“Didn't he?” MacVightie's smile was thin. “Then he came in
here—into this room.”
“In here?” echoed the Hawk weakly. His gaze wandered helplessly
around the room. “Well, all you've got to do is look.”
“I'm going to!” announced MacVightie curtly—and with a sudden
jerk he yanked the single bed out from the wall. He peered behind and
beneath it; then, stepping over to a cretonne curtain in the corner that
served as wardrobe, he pulled it roughly aside.
There were no other places of possible concealment. MacVightie chewed at
his under lip, and eyed the Hawk speculatively.
The Hawk's eyes were still travelling bewilderedly about the room, as
though he still expected to find something.
“Are you dead sure he came into this house,” he inquired heavily, as
though the problem were entirely beyond him.
MacVightie hesitated.
“Well—no,” he acknowledged, after a moment. “I guess you're
straight all right, and I'll admit I didn't see him come in; but
I'd have pretty near taken an oath on it.”
“Then I guess he must have ducked somewhere else,” submitted the
Hawk sapiently. “There wasn't no one went by that door—I'm
giving it to you on the level.”
MacVightie's reluctant smile was a wry grimace.
“Yes, I reckon it's my mistake.” His voice lost its snarl, and his
fingers groped down into his vest pocket. “Here, have a cigar,” he
invited placatingly.
“Why, say—thanks”—the Hawk beamed radiantly. “Say, I——”
“All right, young fellow”—with a wave of his hand, MacVightie
moved to the door. “All right, young fellow. No harm done, eh?
Good-night!”
The door closed. The footsteps without grew fainter, and died away.
The Hawk, staring at the door, apostrophised the doorknob.
“Well, say, what do you know about that!” he said numbly. “I
wonder what's up?”
He rose from his chair after a moment as though moved by a sort of
subconscious impulse, mechanically pushed his bed back against the wall,
and returned to his chair.
He dug out his pipe abstractedly, filled it, and lighted it. He gathered
up the cards, shuffled them, and began to lay them out again on the
table—and paused, and drummed with his fingers on the table top.
“They're after some guy that's ducked his nut somewhere around
here,” he decided aloud. “I wonder what's up?”
The Hawk spread out his remaining cards—and swept them away from him
into an indiscriminate heap.
“Aw, to blazes with cards!” he ejaculated impatiently.
He put his feet up on the table, and sucked steadily at his pipe.
“It's a cinch he never went by that door,” the Hawk assured the
toe of his boot. “I guess he handed that 'bull' one, all right,
all right.”
The minutes passed. The Hawk, engrossed, continued to suck on his pipe.
Then from far down the stairs there came a faint creak, and an instant
later the outer door closed softly.
The Hawk's feet came down from the table, and the Hawk
smiled—grimly.
“Tut, tut!” chided the Hawk. “That treadmill diminuendo on the top
step and the keyhole stunt is pretty raw, Mr. MacVightie—pretty raw!
You forgot the front door, Mr. MacVightie—I don't seem to remember
having heard it open or close until just now!”
The back of the Hawk's chair, as he pushed it well away from the
table and stood up, curiously enough now intercepted itself between
the keyhole and the interior of the room. He stepped to the door, and
slipped the bolt quietly into place; then, going to the window, he
reached out, and, from where it hung upon a nail driven into the sill,
picked up the pay bag.
“That's a pretty old gag, too,” observed the Hawk almost
apologetically. “I was lucky to get by with it.”
The Hawk's attention was now directed to his trunk, that was between
the table and the foot of the bed. He lifted the lid back against the
wall, and removed an ingeniously fashioned false top, in the shape of
a tray, that fitted innocently into the curvature of the lid. The Hawk
stared at a magnificent diamond necklace that glittered and gleamed on
the bottom of the tray, as its thousand facets caught the light—and
grinned.
“If you'd only known, eh—Mr. MacVightie!” he murmured.
From the pay bag the Hawk took out the packages of banknotes, the
flashlight, the mask, the two pistols, and packed them neatly away in
the tray. The only article left in the bag was his pocketbook. He opened
this, disclosing a number of crisp, new ten-dollar bills. He held one of
them up to the light for a moment, studying it admiringly.
“I guess these won't be much more good around here, according to
that little conversation between MacVightie and the superintendent,”
he muttered—and, with a shrug of his shoulders, tossed the entire
number into the tray.
He fitted the false top back into the lid, and closed the trunk. There
remained the empty pay bag. He frowned at it for an instant; then,
picking it up, he tucked it under the mattress of his bed.
“I'll get rid of that in the morning”—he nodded his head, as he
turned down the bed covers.
The Hawk began to undress, and at intervals voiced snatches of his
thoughts aloud.
“Pretty close shave,” said the Hawk, “pretty close.... Ten
thousand dollars is some haul.... All right as long as they don't find
out I've got the key to their cipher.... And so Butcher Rose is one
of the gang, eh?... Number One—Butcher Rose.... Guess he got away
all right—from MacVightie.... He nearly did me.... Pretty close
shave....”
The Hawk turned out the light, and got into bed.
“I guess I played in luck to-night,” said the Hawk softly, and for
the second time that night. “Yes, I guess I did.”
IV—AT BALD CREEK STATION
IT was twenty-four hours later. A half mile away, along a road that
showed like a grey thread in the night, twinkled a few lights from the
little cluster of houses that made the town of Bald Creek. At the rear
of the station itself, in the shadow of the walls, it was inky black.
There was stillness! Then the chattering of a telegraph
instrument—and, coincident with this, low, scarcely audible, a sound
like the gnawing of a rat.
The chattering of the instrument ceased; and, coincident again, the low,
gnawing sound ceased—and, crouched against a rear window, the Hawk
chuckled a little grimly to himself. Within, and diagonally across from
the window, an otherwise dark interior was traversed by a dull ray
of light that filtered in through the open connecting door of the
operator's room beyond. Inside there were Lan-son, the division
superintendent, and Martin, the trusted Bald Creek operator; while at
any minute now, MacVightie would be up on No. 12. They were preparing
to spring their trap for the Wire Devils to-night! The Hawk was quite
well-informed on this point, for the very simple reason that the Hawk
himself had not been entirely idle during those twenty-four hours that
were just past!
Again the sounder broke into a splutter; but this time the gnawing sound
was not resumed—the window fastenings were loosened now.
Came then the distant rumble of an approaching train; the rumble
deepening into a roar; the roar disintegrating itself into its component
sounds, the wheel trucks beating at the rail joints, the bark of the
exhaust; then the scream of the brakeshoes biting at the wheel tires;
the hiss of steam—and in the mimic pandemonium, the Hawk raised the
window, and crawled in over the sill.
And again the Hawk chuckled to himself. Up and down the line to-night,
at all stations where there were no night operators, the road's
detectives, stood guard over the telegraph instruments. It had been
MacVightie's plan, originated the night before. It was very clever of
MacVightie—if somewhat abortive! Also, quite irrelevant of course, and
quite apart from that little matter of ten thousand dollars which he,
the Hawk, had taken from the paymaster's safe last night, MacVightie
to-night was likely to be in no very pleasant mood!
The engine without, blowing from a full head of steam, drowned out all
other sounds. The Hawk picked his way across the room to a position near
the connecting door, and composedly seated himself upon the floor behind
a number of piled-up boxes and parcels. With a grin of acknowledgment to
the escaping steam, he coolly moved two of the parcels a few inches to
right and left, thus providing himself with an excellent view into
the operator's room. From one pocket he took an exceedingly small
flashlight, and from another a notebook, and from his hip pocket his
automatic pistol. This latter he transferred to his right-hand coat
pocket. Bunching the bottom of his coat over his hand, he flashed on the
tiny ray, found a convenient ledge formed by one of the boxes, and upon
this laid down his notebook. The first page, as he opened the book,
contained a neatly drawn sketch of the interior of Bald Creek station.
He turned this over, leaving the book open at a blank page, and switched
off his light.
The door from the platform opened and closed, as the train pulled out
again, a man stepped into the operator's room—and in the darkness
the Hawk smiled appreciatively. It was MacVightie, and Mac-Vightie's
thin lips were drawn tighter than usual, and the brim of the slouch hat,
though pulled far forward, did not hide the scowl upon MacVightie's
countenance.
“Well, you're here all right, Lanson, eh?” he flung out brusquely.
“Nothing yet, by any chance, of course?”
Lanson, from a chair at the operator's elbow, nodded a greeting.
“Not yet,” he said.
MacVightie was glancing sharply around him.
“Martin,” he ordered abruptly, “close those two ticket wickets!”
The operator rose obediently, and pulled down the little windows that
opened, one on each side of the office, on the men's and women's
waiting rooms.
“What's that door there?” demanded MacVightie, pointing toward the
rear room.
“Just a place I had partitioned off for stores and small express
stuff,” Martin answered. “There's no back entrance.”
“All right, then,” said MacVightie. He pulled up a chair for himself
on the other side of the operator, as Martin returned to his seat.
“You know what you're here for, Martin—what you've to do? Mr.
Lanson has told you?”
“Yes,” Martin replied. “I'm to test out for east or west, if
there's any of that monkeying on the wire to-night.”
“Show me how it's done,” directed MacVightie tersely. .
The operator reached over to the switchboard and picked up a key-plug.
“I've only got to plug this in—here—or here. Those are my ground
wires east and west. The main batteries are west of us at Selkirk, you
know. If I ground out everything east, for instance, and he's working
to the east of us the sounder'll stop because I've cut him off from
the main batteries, and we'll hear nothing unless I adjust the relay
down to get the weak circuit from the local batteries. If he's working
west of us the sounder will be much stronger because the main batteries
at Selkirk, with the eastern half of the division cut out, will be
working on a shorter circuit.”
“'T see.” MacVightie frowned. “And he'd know it—so Mr.
Lanson told me last night.”
“Yes; he'd know it,” said Martin. “The same as we would.”
“Well, you can do it pretty quick, can't you?” suggested
MacVightie. “Sort of accidentally like! We don't want to throw a
scare into him. You'd know almost instantly whether he was east or
west, wouldn't you? That's all that's necessary—to-night! Then
let him go ahead again. We'll have found out what we want to know.”
He turned to Lanson, his voice rasping suddenly. “Did you see the
Journal on the 'Crime Wave' this afternoon?”
Lanson's alert, grey eyes took on an angry glint. “No; I didn't
see it, but I suppose it's the old story. I wish they'd cut it out!
It hurts the road, and it doesn't get them anywhere.”
“Perhaps not,” said MacVightie, with a thin smile; “but it
gets me! Yes, it's about the same—all except the last of it. Big
headlines: 'Ten thousand dollars stolen from paymaster's safe last
night—What is being done to stop this reign of assassination, theft,
outrage, crime?—Has the clue afforded by the Hawk's release from
Sing Sing been thoroughly investigated?' And then a list of the crimes
committed in the last ten days—two murders, one in the compartment
of that sleeping car; the theft of the diamond necklace; the express
robbery; and so on through the list, ending up with last night. Then a
nasty shot at the local police; and, finally, prefacing the remark with
the statement that the crimes were all connected with the railroad,
a thinly veiled hint that I am either a boy on a man's job, or
else asleep, in either of which cases I ought to be—well, you
understand?” MacVightie's fist came down with a crash on the
operator's table.
Lanson, with a worried look, nodded his head.
“Damn it!” said MacVightie. “I——” He stopped abruptly, and
laid his hand on the operator's sleeve. “Look here, Martin,” he
said evenly, “you're the one man that Mr. Lanson has picked out of
the division, you're the one man outside of Mr. Lanson and myself who
has any inkling that these secret messages coming over our wires have
anything to do with these crimes—you understand that, don't you?
This is pretty serious business. The newspaper didn't exaggerate any.
We're up against a gang of crooks, cleverly organised, who will
stop at nothing. Murder appears to be a pastime with them! Do you get
me—Martin?”
For a long second the two men looked each other steadily in the eyes.
“Yes,” said Martin simply.
“All right!” said MacVightie. “I just want you to realise the
necessity of keeping anything you may hear, or anything that may happen
here to-night, under your hat.” He turned to Lanson again, the scowl
heavy upon his face once more. “I was going to say that I know who the
man is that slipped through my fingers last night.”
“You—what!” Lanson leaned sharply forward in his chair. “But he
got away! You said he——”
“It was the Hawk”—MacVightie bit off the words.
“The Hawk?”
“The Hawk!”
“But how do you know?” demanded Lanson incredulously. “You said
yourself that he had left no clue to his identity. How do you know?”
MacVightie reached into his pocket, took out his pocketbook, and from
the pocketbook passed a new, crisp ten-dollar banknote to Lanson.
“What's this?” inquired Lanson. “The counterfeit ten-dollar bill
you showed me last night?”
“No—another one,” MacVightie answered curtly. “Look on the other
side.”
Lanson turned the banknote over, stared at it, and whistled suddenly
under his breath.
“'With the compliments of the Hawk!'.rdquo; he read aloud. He
stared now at MacVightie. “Perhaps it's a fake, inspired by that
newspaper article yesterday evening,” he suggested.
“It's no fake,” declared MacVightie grimly. “The Hawk wrote that
there all right—it was inside the pay bag in which the ten thousand
was carried away from the paymaster's office last night.”
“You mean—you recovered the bag?” cried Lanson eagerly. “Where?
When?”
The Hawk, watching MacVightie's face, grinned wickedly. MacVightie's
jaws were clamped belligerently, and upon MacVightie's cheeks was an
angry flush.
“Oh, yes, I 'recovered' it!” MacVightie snapped. “He's
got his nerve with him! The bag was found reposing in full view on the
baggage counter at Selkirk this afternoon—addressed to me. Nobody
knows how it got there. But”—MacVightie's fist came down again
upon the operator's table—“this time he's overplayed his hand.
We knew he had been released from Sing Sing, and that he had come West,
but it was only surmise that he was actually around here—now we know.
In the second place, it's pretty good evidence that he's in with
the gang that's flooded the country with those counterfeit tens, and
you'll remember I told you last night I had a hunch it was the same
gang that was operating out here—well, two and two make four!”
“You think he's——?” Lanson swept his hand suggestively toward
the telegraph instruments.
“Yes—and the leader of 'em, now he's out here on the ground!”
returned MacVightie gruffly.
The Hawk had taken a pencil from his pocket, and was scribbling
aimlessly at the top of the page in his notebook.
“Sure!” confided the Hawk to himself. “I thought maybe you'd
dope it out like that.”
There was silence for a moment in the office, save for the intermittent
clicking of the sounder, to which the Hawk now gave his attention. His
pencil still made aimless markings on the top of the page—it was only
routine business going over the wire. Then Lanson moved uncomfortably in
his chair, and the chair legs squeaked on the bare floor.
MacVightie spoke again: