shortened his period of convalescence, he was perhaps justified, and not
wholly without excuse! He stood now in the black shadows, hugged close
to the wall of the roundhouse. And now he moved stealthily forward,
until, from a crouched position, he straightened up against the wall
at the side of one of the few windows which were lighted. Lanson had
strolled aimlessly across the tracks from the station some ten minutes
before, and, five minutes later, MacVightie had followed Lanson—to
their chosen spot for secret conferences, this little “cubbyhole” of
a turner's office in the roundhouse, as the Hawk, from more than one
experience in the past, had very good reason to know. They were in there
now, and, as the Hawk was likewise exceedingly well aware, the events
of the next few hours, and incidentally his own particular movements,
depended very pertinently upon the movements of MacVightie and Lanson.
Lanson's voice in quietly modulated tones reached the Hawk:
“Yes, both trains are on time to the minute; I've taken care of
that. And so far there doesn't seem to be a hitch anywhere, and with
your men boarding the trains west of here at different stations along
the line, and mixing quietly with the passengers, I don't see how any
one could be the wiser on that score. Yes, it looks as though everything
were all right—eh, MacVightie?”
“I don't know; I hope so,” MacVightie's deep growl came in
reply. “Anyhow, we've carried out instructions from Washington, and
it's up to the Secret Service crowd as to how it pans out.”
“No, it isn't!” declared Lanson, still quietly. “It isn't up
to a soul on earth except those of us who have got the responsibility
of this division on our shoulders! I believe the plan is a good one, but
because it came from Washington doesn't let us out—not for a minute!
What about Birks; has he shown up yet?”
“Not yet,” MacVightie answered—and swore suddenly under his
breath. “And I don't mind admitting that the crowd down there in
Washington make me tired! It's over two weeks ago that I put it up to
them. They said they would take the matter under consideration, and in
any case would send one of their men, this Birks, out here to make an
investigation. But nothing doing! Then, as you know, I wrote them again
a week ago, when we knew this Alaskan gold shipment was coming through,
and you know their reply; they outlined a plan for us, and stated
definitely that Birks would be on deck to-night. Maybe he will—in time
to tell us what we should have done!”
“The Secret Service isn't a police force,” said Lanson tersely.
“The only excuse they would have for acting at all would be if your
pet theory were correct—that the Hawk and his gang, apart from their
systematised murders and robberies, were also the ones who have been
flooding the country with those counterfeit ten-dollar notes. You had no
actual proof to offer, and Washington evidently hasn't felt quite so
sure about it as you have. However, there's no use discussing that
to-night. If Birks shows up, all right; if he doesn't—well, I
don't see that he could make any difference one way or the other
now.”
There was silence for a moment, then Lanson spoke again.
“What worries me as much as anything,” he said slowly, “is the
express company making a shipment of money at the same time—forty
thousand dollars in the car's safe. Of course, it's logical enough
with a half million to guard anyway, but it's an added incentive to
those, devils, that's all. A half million In raw gold isn't any
easy thing to pick up and walk off with, and there's more than an even
chance that the Wire Devils might pass it up on that account; but with
banknotes alone in so large an amount——”
“If they know about it!” interrupted MacVightie brusquely. “And
it's not likely they do! You can't send a heavily guarded express
car on from the coast and keep it mum that gold is going through,
especially when the papers print pictures of the cases being swung
out of the steamer's hold on arrival from Alaska—but the other's
different. I'm not banking on them passing up the gold on any account,
though they may, at that; but in any case they'll be welcome to open
the safe now, won't they?”
Again there was an instant's silence; and the Hawk now, as though
fearful of losing a word that might be spoken, strained forward closer
still to the side of the window.
“Yes, that's right!” Lanson laughed now in a grimly humorous way.
“It's in the biggest case of all! Yes, I guess it's all right,
MacVightie; anyway, another hour or two will tell the story. The shift
should have been made at Mornleigh without any trouble, and the Limited
will come through here without a thing in the express car except the
guards! If they hold her up anywhere on the division, that's all
they'll find—the guards, and one of your posses. Yes, it ought
to work.” Lanson's voice took on a curiously monotonous drone,
as though he were checking over the details in his own mind, and
unconsciously doing so audibly. “The Limited takes water at Mornleigh,
and No. 18 always takes the siding there to let the Limited pass, so
there's nothing in that to arouse suspicion. In the darkness, with the
door of the Limited's express car only a foot or so away from the door
of No. 18'. baggage car, and a picked crew to transfer the gold, I
don't see how there could be any 'leak.' The Limited pulls in
here with its guarded express car—everything looks just as those Wire
Devils would expect it to look—and they know the gold left the coast
on that train, and in that car. Yes, I think we win to-night. If they
hold up the Limited they'll catch a Tartar, and without any risk on
our part as far as the gold is concerned. How many men in the posse
scattered through the cars on that train?”
“Twenty,” said MacVightie tersely.
“Good!” said Lanson approvingly. “That ought to be enough to round
them up—if they nibble at the bait at all. And if they don't, if
they let the Limited go through unmolested, it will be pretty nearly
safe to assume, as I said before, that they figure gold in the bulk is
too awkward a thing to handle, and too hard to get away with. But even
there we are not taking any chances; they might have discovered that it
had been transferred. How many men in the posse on No. 18?”
“The same number,” replied MacVightie—and then MacVightie's
fist crashed down into the palm of his hand. “I hope they start
something!” he exclaimed savagely. “I'd give a year's salary
to get to grips with them, and if I ever do I'll clean 'em out! And
I'll see that some of them, and particularly that damned Hawk, swing
for it! I haven't forgotten the murder of old Mother Barrett's boy
in the express car that night, or a dozen others, or——”
“That's your end of it, MacVightie,” said Lanson grimly.
“Mine's to see five hundred thousand dollars' worth of bullion and
forty thousand in cash over this division and safely on its way East. If
the plan——”
The Hawk, slipping silently out of the shadows, began to cross the
railroad yard, heading for the station.
“Forty thousand dollars,” said the Hawk softly to himself—and
chuckled suddenly. “Forty thousand dollars in a big packing case! The
biggest case of the lot, he said, wasn't it?” The chuckle died away,
and the Hawk's face grew hard. “I don't know!” muttered
the Hawk. “It's no cinch! I guess there'll be something doing
to-night!”
A glance at the illuminated dial of the clock on the station tower
showed it to be half past eight, as the Hawk stepped to the platform.
He hesitated an instant in indecision, then went on into the general
waiting room. There was ample time. The Limited was not due for another
hour; and No. 18—in which alone he had now any concern—did not
schedule Selkirk until forty minutes after the Limited. Nearly two
hours!
The Hawk, standing in the doorway of the waiting room, ostentatiously
consulted a time-table which he drew from his pocket, frowned, glanced
about him, and, finally, approaching the news-counter, which appeared
for the moment to be minus an attendant, helped himself to a newspaper,
tossed a copper on top of the pile, and appropriated the nearest seat.
The Hawk opened his paper in front of him—and over the top of the
paper inspected with some interest the view afforded by the open doorway
of the news-counter, which was directly facing him and but a few feet
away. The news-counter was a long, narrow affair, glass enclosed, with
big sliding windows, making one corner of the waiting room, and at its
further end boasted a little office of its own. The door of this private
domain was closed, but it, too, was glass panelled, and the apparent
absence of any attendant was explained. The Hawk permitted a curious
smile to flicker across his lips behind his newspaper. Inside the little
office a man, sprawled forward in a chair, his head resting on his arms,
which were outflung across the desk in front of him, appeared to be
sound asleep and magnificently oblivious to anything so grossly material
as business.
The Hawk shifted his glance, this time for a more critical survey of the
waiting room. He found himself, strangely enough, quite sheltered from
observation. True, it was “between trains,” and there were very few
people in the room—he had noted several women and an elderly man with
a little boy, as he had come in—but these were now screened from his
view by the large, boxed-in posts, or pillars, that, in the remodelling
and enlargement of the station some years before, had sought to combine,
evidently, ornamentation with stability.
The Hawk's eyes, under cover of his newspaper, reverted to the man at
the desk. The minutes passed—five, ten of them. The man's hours
were long undoubtedly, and usually there were two in charge of the
news-counter, which might perhaps account for the man's weariness,
and the profound slumber that was possible even in such an uncomfortable
position! The Hawk turned to the editorial page of his newspaper. There
were almost two hours before No. 18 was due, and, though he had a little
business of a purely personal and intimate nature to transact before
then, there was time in abundance and to spare, and it might possibly
be utilised as profitably here as anywhere else. In any case, there was
usually an editorial diatribe, interesting principally for the virulent
language in which it was couched, anent the Hawk and the Wire Devils,
with whose leadership he, the Hawk, was universally credited. The Hawk
smiled thinly. If leadership was vested in the lion's portion of the
spoils, then MacVightie, and Lanson, and the newspapers, and the public
generally were unquestionably right—but, since those spoils had
been snatched from under the noses of the Wire Devils, thanks to his
possession of their secret code, the Wire Devils and the Ladybird in
particular, that peer of the underworld who, as he had discovered a few
nights ago, was the moving spirit of the gang, held a very different and
even more decided opinion on the subject!
He folded the paper over, and sprawled himself out lazily on his
seat—but if the editorial in question was on the sheet before him, he
did not see it. The man at the desk raised his head, yawned, stretched
himself, and, as though wearily resuming his work, reached into a small
drawer that stood open in the upper section of the roll-top desk, took
out a pad of paper, and began to write.
Still another five minutes passed; and then the man tossed his pencil
away from him, and reached out for the telephone at his elbow. But now
he seemed to hesitate, then evidently changed his mind. He pushed
back his chair, stood up, tore the sheet of paper on which he had been
writing from the pad, replaced the pad in the drawer, closed the drawer,
and, turning quickly, opened the office door. He came down the narrow
space behind the news-counter itself, stepped out into the waiting
room, glanced hurriedly about him, and, breaking suddenly into a run,
disappeared through the waiting room door in the direction of the
platform.
The Hawks lassitude seemed suddenly to have vanished. In a flash he had
covered the few feet of space that separated his seat from the doorway
of the news-counter, and now, crouched low, hidden by the counter
itself, he darted silently for the little office, gained it, wrenched
open the drawer of the desk—and over the Hawk's set, tense features
there flickered again that curious smile. Faint, muffled, but none the
less distinctly, there came from the interior of the drawer, which,
as he reached in his hand, he found was open through to the wall, the
clicking of a telegraph sounder. But, while he listened, the Hawk was
working with breathless haste. His fingers closed on the pad of paper,
and tore off the topmost sheet. Without folding or crushing the paper,
he laid it carefully inside his vest, buttoned his vest over it again,
closed the drawer of the desk noiselessly—and in another instant was
lolling again in his seat in the waiting room, apparently immersed once
more in his newspaper.
It had taken the Hawk a matter of less than a minute to go and come,
but for all that his margin of safety had been small. The man returned
almost instantly, and again entered the office. The Hawk, finding that
for once the editorial which might have afforded him a genuine, if
passing, interest, was absent, turned another page of the paper, spent
a few minutes in the somewhat unprofitable perusal of what proved to
be massed columns of “Help Wanted” and “Situations Vacant”
advertisements, and, finally, throwing the paper down on the seat beside
him, got up leisurely, and strolled out through the main entrance of the
station to the street.
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.