increasing. The Hawk clutched at the handrail, and lowered himself to
the iron foot-rung which, on the express car, served in lieu of steps.
Here, having chosen the opposite side to that of the Butcher at the
throttle in the cab, he ran no risk of being observed. This “five-mile
crossing,” wherever it was, promised to concern him a great deal more
than he had anticipated! He leaned out, and clung there, staring ahead.
The big ten-wheeler was swaying and staggering like a drunken thing; the
rush of the wind whipped at his face; a deafening roar sang in his
ears. The Fast Mail usually ran fast; but the Butcher was running like a
dare-devil, and the bark of the exhaust had quickened now into a single
full-toned note deep as thunder.
With a sort of grim placidity, the Hawk clung to the lurching rail. Far
ahead along the right of way, a shaft of light riven through walls of
blackness, played the headlight. Shadowy objects, trees that loomed up
for an instant and were gone, showed on the edge of the wavering ray.
They tore through a rock cut, and, in the confined space and in the
fraction of a second it took to traverse it, the roar was metamorphosed
into an explosion. And then suddenly, as though by magic, the headlight
shot off at a tangent, and the glistening lines of steel, that were
always converging but never meeting, were gone, and the ray fell full
upon a densely wooded tract where leaves and foliage became a soft and
wonderful shade of green under the artificial light. The Hawk braced
himself—and just in time. The ten-wheeler, unchecked, swung the curve
with a mighty lurch, off drivers fairly lifted from the rails. She
seemed to hang there hesitantly for a breathless instant, then with a
crunch, staggering, settled back and struck into her stride again.
The thunder of the exhaust ceased abruptly, and the speed began to
slacken. The Butcher had slammed the throttle shut. At the end of the
headlight's ray, that was straight along the track again, a red light
flashed up suddenly three times and vanished. The Hawk leaned farther
out, tense now, straining his eyes ahead. It was evidently Number Four
and Number Seven signalling from “five-mile crossing.”
The Butcher began to check with the “air.” And now, in the
headlight's glare, the distance shortened, the Hawk could discern a
large wagon, drawn by two horses, that appeared to be backed up close to
the right-hand side of the track. Two forms seemed to be tugging at the
horses, which equally seemed to be plunging restively—and then, being
on the wrong side of the car, the angle of vision narrowed and he could
see no more.
The Hawk turned now—his eyes on the door of the car. There was a
possibility, a little more than a possibility, that the men inside,
knowing that they had reached their destination, would come out this
way. No—he had only to keep hidden from the men out there with the
wagon until the car stopped—the men within were sliding back the side
door. He swung himself still farther out on the foot-rung; then, curving
back with the aid of the handrail, flattened himself against the side of
the car.
They were close up to the wagon now, and he could hear voices cursing
furiously at the horses, as the frightened animals stamped and pawed.
And then the car bumped and jerked to a standstill, and the Butcher was
bawling from the cab:
“Take the horses out, you blamed fools, and tie 'em back there on
the road a bit till we're gone! We'd have a sweet time loading the
wagon with them doing the tango every second! Take 'em out! We'll
back the wagon up against the car.”
The Hawk lowered himself silently to the ground—to find that the car
had come to a stop directly over a road crossing. The men in the car had
joined their voices with the Butcher's, and in the confusion now the
Hawk slipped quickly along the side of the car, stole around the rear
end, and from that point of vantage stood watching the Butcher and his
men at work.
He could see quite plainly, thanks to the light from the car's
wide-open side door that flooded the scene. The horses had been
unharnessed, and were being led away along the road. One of the men in
the car jumped to the ground, as the Butcher called out, and together
they backed the wagon close up against the car doorway; and then,
presently, the men who had accompanied the horses, one carrying a
lantern, came running back. The Hawk's eyes, from a general and
comprehensive survey of the scene, fixed on the man who until now had
not left the car, but who had now sprung down into the wagon and
was running a short plank, to be used as a skid evidently, up to the
threshold of the car door, which was a little above the level of the
wagon. The light shone full in the man's face.
“Number Six—Crusty Kline!” confided the Hawk softly to himself.
“I'm glad to know that. The last time I chummed with Crusty was back
in little old Sing Sing. Guess he got out for good behaviour—thought
he was elected for five spaces yet!”
Crusty spoke now, as he jumped back into the car.
“Look here, Butcher, I'm telling you again, this guy in here's in
pretty bad shape.”
“Never mind about that!” replied the Butcher roughly. “Get the
safe out! All hands now! We've got no time to monkey with him. He'll
come around all right, I guess—anyway, it's none of our lookout!”
The men were bunched together now, three in the doorway of the car and
two in the wagon, the safe between them. The Hawk was studying one of
the two who stood in the wagon. One was Whitie Jim, as he already knew,
but the other had had his back half turned, and the Hawk had not been
able to see his face. The safe slid down the plank, and was levered and
pushed forward into the middle of the wagon.
“French Pete!” said the Hawk suddenly and as softly as before, as
the man he had been watching straightened up and turned around. “Say,
I guess Sing Sing's gone out of business—or else somebody left the
door open!”
But if the Hawk's words were indicative of a facetious mood, his
actions were not. There was a sort of dawning inspiration in the dark,
narrowed eyes; and the strong jaw, as it was outthrust, drew his lips
into a grim, hard smile. They were spreading a huge tarpaulin over the
wagon and safe—and abruptly the Hawk drew back, dropped to his hands
and knees, crawled along the trackside on the opposite side of the car
again until almost opposite the wagon, and there lay flat and motionless
at the side of the road. There was a chance yet, still a chance, a very
good chance—for that twenty thousand dollars' worth of unset stones.
“All right, now!” It was the Butcher's voice. “Pull her away a
few feet into the clear!” The wagon creaked and rattled. “That's
enough! Now get a move on—everybody!”
Steps crunched along the trackside—the Butcher and his two companions
obviously making for the cab—and a moment later came the cough of the
engine's exhaust, and the express car began to glide past the spot
where the Hawk lay.
The Hawk raised himself cautiously on his elbows. Two dark forms and a
bobbing lantern were already speeding toward where the horses had been
left. The Hawk crawled forward, crossed the track—and paused. The
engine and express car were fast disappearing in the distance; the
lantern glimmered amongst the trees at the side of the road a good
hundred yards away.
There was no shadow to fall across the back of the wagon.
“I said it was a nice night, and that it was strange how some people
preferred a moon!” observed the Hawk cheerfully—and, lifting the
end of the tarpaulin, he swung noiselessly under it into the wagon, and
stretched himself out beside the safe.
X—THE THIRD PARTY
The Hawk felt upward with his hand over the safe. It was faced, he
found, toward the rear of the wagon. This necessitated a change in his
own position. He listened tensely. They were coming back with the horses
now, but they were still quite a little way off. He shifted quickly
around until his head and shoulders were in front of the safe.
“It was the last turn of the combination that I fell down on, though I
don't see how it happened!” muttered the Hawk.
He felt above his head again, this time rubbing his fingers critically
over the tarpaulin—and then the diminutive little flashlight winked,
winked again as it played around him, and finally held steadily on the
nickel dial. There were no inadvertent openings, and, particularly, no
holes in the tarpaulin, and the texture of the tarpaulin was a guarantee
that the tiny rays of light would not show through.
They were harnessing the horses into the wagon now. The Hawk, in a
somewhat cramped position, due to the wagon's narrow width, his legs
twisted at right angles to his body as he lay on his back, reached up
and began to twirl the dial knob slowly and with painstaking care.
“Left, twenty-eight, one quarter,” murmured the Hawk; and, a moment
later: “Two right, four——”
The Hawk swore earnestly under his breath. The jolt of the wagon, coming
unexpectedly as it started forward, had caused him to spin the knob too
far around.
It was hot, stifling hot, under the heavy tarpaulin, that, slanting
downward from the little safe, lay almost against his face. A bead of
sweat had gathered on his forehead. He brushed it away, and began
again to work at the dial. It was more difficult now—the wagon bumped
infernally. And as he worked, he could hear the muffled clatter of the
horses' hoofs, and occasionally the voices of the two men on the seat.
And then suddenly the Hawk's fingers travelled from the dial knob
to the handle. Had he got it this time, or—yes! The handle swung
easily—there was a low metallic thud—the bolt had slipped back to
the end of its grooves. The safe was unlocked!
“Twenty thousand dollars!” said the Hawk very softly—and, without
the slightest sound, he edged his body backwards to afford space for the
swing of the opening door. “Twenty thousand doll——”
The word died, half uttered, on the Hawk's lips. The flashlight was
illuminating the interior of the safe. On the bottom lay a single,
crisp, ten-dollar counterfeit note, over the face of which was scrawled
in ink—“With the Hawk's compliments!” Otherwise the safe was
empty.
For a moment, like a man dazed, he stared at the counterfeit note. He
could not seem to believe his eyes, Empty—the safe was empty! The
diamonds were gone—gone! Gone—and these poor fools were driving an
empty safe to the Master Spider—and another poor fool, with dropped
jaw, was staring, gaping like an imbecile, into one! And then, a grip
upon himself again, he laughed low, grimly, unpleasantly. “With the
Hawk's compliments!” He had sent a bill like that once to MacVightie
inscribed—“With the Hawk's compliments!” This was very neat,
very clever of—somebody. Of somebody—who must have known what the
Wire Devils were up to to-night! There would be no doubt in the minds
of the Wire Devils, who would have heard of that little episode with
MacVightie, but that the Hawk had again forestalled them, and left
them a ten-dollar counterfeit bill in exchange for—twenty thousand
dollars' worth of unset diamonds! Only it was this somebody, and not
he, the Hawk, who was twenty thousand dollars the richer for it!
He reached in, picked up the bill to put it in his, pocket—and
suddenly laid it back again, and closed and locked the safe. Why deprive
the Master Spider of a little joy; and, besides, it would carry a
message not perhaps so erroneous after all—for, in a flash, logically,
indisputably, apparently impossible though it appeared to be on the
surface, he knew who that somebody was. The shelving of the theft to the
Hawk's shoulders would have defeated its own object unless the
theft were committed and discovered on this particular division of
the railroad where the Hawk and, incidentally, his supposed gang of
desperadoes were known to be operating. The messenger certainly had not
been in a drugged condition when he went on duty, and, since it was only
reasonable to assume that he would have satisfied himself everything was
all right at that time, it was evident, as he had given no alarm, that
the contents of the safe had been intact when he took charge—whether
as a “through” man in New York, or at the eastern terminus of the
road, or at the last divisional point—it did not matter which. The
robbery, then, had been committed while the messenger was present in the
car—and it had been committed on this division. The safe had not
been forced, it showed not the slightest sign of violence—it had been
opened on the combination. Some one then, an expert safe-worker, in the
first stages of the messenger's drugged condition, had happened into
the car just ahead of him, the Hawk, and had done exactly what he, the
Hawk, had intended to do?
“No,” said the Hawk. “No, I guess not.” He was wriggling
noiselessly backward, and his feet were hanging out now over the end
of the wagon. “No—coincidences like that don't happen—not
very often!” The Hawk's head and shoulders were still under the
tarpaulin, but his feet now could just feel the ground beneath them.
“I guess,” said the Hawk, as he suddenly withdrew his head, and,
crouching low, ran a few steps with the wagon, then dropped full length
in the road, “I guess it's—the third party.”
The wagon disappeared in the darkness. The Hawk rose, and, turning,
broke into a run back along the road.
He had been longer in the wagon than he had thought—it took him ten
minutes to regain the railroad tracks.
Here, without pause, still running, he kept on along the right of
way—but there was a hard twist to his lips, and the clenching of
his fists was not wholly due to runner's “form.” How far had the
Butcher taken the car before deserting it? A mile? Two miles—three?
He could not run three miles under half an hour, and that would be fast
over railroad ties! How long would it be before the train crew of the
stalled Mail got back to Burke's Siding and managed somehow, in spite
of the cut wires, to give the alarm—or how long before the dispatcher
at Selkirk, with the Fast Mail reported “out” at Burke's Siding
and no “O. S.” from Bradley, would smell a rat? It would take time
after that, of course, before anything could be done; but, at best, the
margin left for him was desperately narrow.
He ran on and on; his eyes, grown accustomed to the darkness, enabling
him to pick out the ties with a fair degree of accuracy. There was not
a sound save that of his own footsteps. He stopped for breath again and
again; and again and again ran on at top speed. It seemed as though he
had run not three miles, but six, when finally, far ahead, he caught a
glow of light. The Butcher and his confederates had evidently not taken
the trouble to close the side door of the car!
Instinctively, the Hawk, in caution, slowed his pace—and the next
instant, smiling pityingly at himself for the act, ran on the faster.
The Butcher and the other two would long since have made their getaway!
There was only the messenger—and the messenger was drugged. That was
all that need concern him now—the messenger—to find some way to
rouse the man so that he could talk.
The Hawk reached the car, ran along the side to the open door—and
stood suddenly still. And then, with a low, startled cry, he swung
himself up and through the doorway, and running forward, knelt beside
a huddled form on the floor. It was the messenger, sprawled on his face
now, motionless, and it was no longer a case of being drugged—the man
had been shot! There was a dark, ugly pool on the flooring, and a thin
red stream had trickled away in a zigzag course along one of the planks.
The Hawk's lips were tight. The Butcher's work! But why? Why? Yes!
Yes, he understood! The Butcher, too, in some way had discovered that
the messenger was—the third party!
The boy—he was even more of a boy now in appearance, it seemed to the
Hawk, with his ashen face and colourless lips—the boy moaned a little,
and, as the Hawk lifted him up, opened his eyes.
The Hawk produced a flask, and forced a few drops between the other's
lips.
“Listen!” he said distinctly. “Try and understand what I am
saying. Did they get the diamonds from you after they shot you?”
The boy's eyes widened with a quick, sudden fear. Perhaps the drug had
begun to wear off—perhaps it was the wound and the loss of blood that
had cleared his brain.
“The diamonds?” he faltered.
“Yes,” said the Hawk grimly. “The diamonds! You took them. Did you
tell those men where they were?”
“It's—it's a lie!” The boy seemed to shiver convulsively.
Then, his voice scarcely audible: “No, it's—it's true. I—I
did. I—I guess I'm going out—ain't I? It's—it's true. But
I—I didn't tell. There weren't any men—I——” He had fainted
in the Hawk's arms.
“My God!” whispered the Hawk solemnly. “It's true—the kid's
dying.”
He held the flask to the other's lips again. It wasn't the Butcher,
then, who had shot the boy; and, besides, he saw now that the wound was
in a strangely curious place—in the back, below the shoulder blade;
the boy had been sitting in his shirt sleeves, and the back of his vest
was soaked with blood. And the Hawk remembered the fusillade of bullets
that had swept up the interior of the car, and the spat upon the forward
door panel as he had crouched there outside—and he understood. The
boy, sitting in a stupor in his chair facing the forward door, had been
directly in the line of fire, and a stray bullet had found its mark.
“I—I don't know how you knew”—the boy had roused, and was
speaking again—“but—but I'm going out—and—and it's
true. Two days ago, a man gave me a hundred dollars to stand for—for
knockout drops on the run to-night. I—I couldn't get caught—I—I
was safe—whatever happened. I'd be found drugged—and—and no
blame coming to me—and——” He motioned weakly toward the flask in
the Hawk's hand. “Give me—give me some more of that!”
He did not speak for a moment.
“And, instead,” prompted the Hawk quietly, “you double-crossed the
game.”
“I—I had a counterfeit ten-dollar bill,” the boy went on with an
effort. “I'd heard about the Hawk—and—and MacVightie. I knew
from what:—the fellow said—that the Hawk—wasn't one of them.
I—I got to thinking. All I had to do was empty the safe—and—and
write just what the Hawk did on the bill—and—and shove it in the
safe—and—and take the diamonds—and—and then drink the tea that
had the drops in it. I—I would be drugged, and they—they'd
think the Hawk did it while I was drugged before they—they got
here—and—and that's what I did.”
The boy was silent again. It was still outside, very still—only the
chirpings of the insects and the night-sounds the Hawk had listened
to while he had lain below the embankment waiting for the train at
Burke's Siding. There was a set, strained look on the Hawk's face.
The kid was paying the long price—for twenty thousand dollars' worth
of unset diamonds!
“To make it look like—like the real thing”—the boy's lips were
moving again—“I—I cleaned out everything in the safe—but—but
of course there mustn't any of that be found—and—and I tied the
stuff up—and—and weighted it, and dropped it—into—the—river
as we came over the bridge at Moosehead. And then I had to—to hide
the diamonds so they wouldn't be found on me, and yet so's
they—they'd come along with me—and—and not be left in the car.
I was afraid that when some of the train crew found me
drugged—they—they'd undress me—and—and put me to
bed—and—and so I didn't dare hide the diamonds in my clothes.
They're—they're—in——” He raised himself up suddenly,
clutched frantically at the Hawk's shoulders and his voice rang wildly
through the car. “Hold me tight—hold me tight—don't let me go
out yet—I—I got something more to say! Don't tell her! Don't
tell her! I'll tell you where the stones are, they're in the lining
of my lunch satchel—but don't—oh, for God's sake, don't tell
her—don't let her know that—that I'm a—thief! You don't have
to, do you? Say you don't! I'm—I'm going out—I—I've got
what's coming to me, and that's—enough—isn't it—without
her knowing too? It—it would kill her. She was a good mother—do you
hear!”
He was stiffening back in the Hawk's arms. “And this ain't coming
to her. She was a good mother—do you hear—everybody called
her mother, but she's my mother—you know—old
Mother Barrett—short-order house—you
know—old—Mother—Barrett—good——”
The boy never spoke again.
The Hawk laid the still form gently back on the floor of the car, and
stood up. And there was a mist in the Hawk's eyes that blotted out his
immediate surroundings, and in the mist he seemed to see another scene,
and it was the picture of a gentle, kindly-faced old woman, who had
silver hair, and who wore clothes that were a little threadbare, and
whose grey Irish eyes behind the spectacles were filled with tears, and
he seemed to see the thin shoulders square proudly back, and he seemed
to hear her speak again: “I love my boy, I love him with all my heart,
but I should a thousand times rather see him dead than know him for a
thief.”
Mechanically the Hawk moved over to the desk where the lunch satchel
still lay, and emptied out the remainder of the food.
“No,” said the Hawk, “I guess she'll never know; and I guess
I'd have to take the stuff now, anyway, whether I wanted to or
not—if she's not to know.” He was examining the inside of the
satchel. It was an old and well-worn affair, and a torn piece of the
lining, stuck down with paste at the edges, would ordinarily have
attracted no attention. The Hawk loosened this, and felt inside. At the
bottom, carefully packed away, were strips of cotton wadding. He took
one out. Embedded in this were a number of diamonds, which, as he drew
the wadding apart, flashed brilliantly in the light of the oil lamps
above his head. He wrapped the stones up again, and put them in his
pocket—took out the remainder from the satchel, put these also in
his pocket, and replaced in the satchel the portion of the lunch he had
removed. It mattered little about the torn lining now!
“He kind of put it up to me,” said the Hawk slowly. “Yes, and she
did too—without knowing it—old Mother Barrett. It's kind of queer
she should have said that—kind of queer.” The Hawk pulled the drawer
of the desk open, and nodded as he found and took out the messenger's
revolver. “Thought he'd have one, and that it would most likely be
here,” he muttered.
He crossed the car, and listened intently at the open side door. There
was no sound—nothing, for instance, coming from Bradley yet. He closed
the door, and stood for an instant looking down at the boy's form on
the floor.
“I guess I can fix it for you, kid—maybe,” he said simply. “I
guess I can.”
In rapid succession he fired five of the seven shots from the revolver;
then, stooping, laid the weapon, as though it had dropped at last
from nerveless fingers, just beside the boy's outstretched hand. He
straightened up, stepped to the side door, and slid it open again.
“It'll let the smoke out before anybody gets here,” said the Hawk.
“The Butcher isn't coming forward with any testimony, and with all
those shots fired at the time of the hold-up who's to know the boy
didn't fight till he went down and out? And now I guess I'll make
my own getaway!” He dropped to the trackside, and started forward at a
brisk pace. “I'll keep on a bit until I hear something coming,”
he decided. “Then I'll lay low while they're cleaning up the line,
and wait till I can hop a freight, east or west, that will get me out of
this particular locality. After that, there's nothing to it!”
A hundred yards farther on the Hawk spoke again, and there was a twisted
smile on the Hawk's lips.
“It'll break her heart anyway, I guess,” he said; “but it'll
help some maybe to be proud of him. Yes, I guess they'll tell her
that, all right—that he died a game kid.”
XI—THE LEAD CAPSULE
THE Hawk yawned. He had been almost forty-eight hours without sleep. He
had slept all day after he had regained his room, following the night at
“Five-Mile Crossing,” but after that——