CHAPTER XXXIII.

CLEANING OUT THE COUNTERFEITERS.

Another day has dawned.

Along the blazed roadway conducting the traveler to the sequestrated den occupied by Captain Jerry Prime and his gang of counterfeiters, a large number of men are riding.

Captain Harry Hale rides at the head of his picked band.

They had come into the emigrant camp one hour after the fight that had resulted in the extermination of James Van Dorn and his savage band.

Mustang Max is leading a selected body of the hardy emigrants, men picked out for their fighting qualities, and the half smile on the face of the tall guide tells very plainly that a battle must be very near at hand.

Preceding the two bands, and traveling at an easy pace to accommodate the horses, are the Steam Horse and his regular chum, the Steam Man.

Pomp is playing on his banjo and singing at the top of his voice.

Barney is scraping away with might and main on his “darlint” fiddle, and putting in an accompaniment to Pomp’s melodious singing.

Altogether it looks like a triumphant entry into an enemy’s domains, although of a character somewhat novel.

With music, mirth, song, laughter and jest, they march along over the sunlit road towards Captain Prime’s house, with the very charitable intention of cleaning him out if he refuses to come to their terms of surrender.

“Barney,” sings out Barry Brown.

“I moind,” said Shea, never ceasing in his see-saw.

“Do you play by note?”

“Divil the note.”

“Oh,” said Brown, with an air of relief. “I thought you did and felt bad for your favorite composers. Then, my friend, you play by ear?”

“Divil the ear,” returned Barney, still scraping away.

The listeners laughed.

“What,” cried Brown. “Neither by note nor by ear? What then do you play by?”

“By main strength, be jabers,” said the Irishman, and went on with his steady scrape amid the loud laughter of his hearers.

The road began to wind in among the trees.

“Form in solid,” said Captain Hale. “Keep up the playing. We must make our entry in good style.”

And in close form they went along the winding roadway until the opening in front of the house was reached, and then the word was given:

“Halt!”

The odd cavalcade pulled up, the two steam monsters halting also and retaining their position at the van.

“We will hail the enemy,” said Hale, and stepping forward, he placed his hand to his mouth, and shouted:

“Halloa! Captain Prime.”

No answer came back for a moment, and then the wicket in the upper floor was flung open.

“What’s wanted?” demanded a gruff voice from the opening.

“Captain Prime.”

“What for?”

“None of your business,” said Hale. “Trot out Captain Prime.”

“Go to the devil.”

“Sorry, but I can’t oblige you.”

“Captain Prime is not here.”

“Then we’ll walk in and see you.”

“You won’t.”

“But I say we will, my friend, and I mean what I say.”

“You can’t come in here.”

“We’ll see about it.”

“I shall shoot,” said the voice.

“Shoot and be blanked,” said Captain Harry Hale, only he said something else instead of “blanked.”

“This is an outrage,” cried the voice from the wicket.

“How so?”

“This is an express office.”

“Well!”

“And contains goods belonging to many different parties. We carry on an honest and straightforward business, and we will not allow ourselves to be plundered by any lawless band.”

“You say that well,” said Hale.

“Do I?”

“Yes; you ought to leave the expressing and go on the stage.”

“Oh!”

“Just so,” said Hale. “Now, Mr. Fraud, let me tell you that I know you. You are Captain Prime in person, and I tell you plainly, that I am Captain Hale of the United States Secret Service, and that I’m here with these armed men at my back to arrest you on charge of uttering counterfeit money.”

“All right, my dear,” was the reply of the counterfeiter chief. “All you’ve got to do is to come out and take me.”

“You refuse to surrender?”

“I do.”

“Absolutely?”

“Even so, my lord,” said the sarcastic Prime. “Pile ahead with your show, and let the band resume its melodious strains.”

“Plucky, by Jove,” said Hale, turning to his friend Brown. “It’s a shame that such a man is not in the Secret Service. He would make a valuable member of the body. However, we must try to clean the rascal out, Charley.”

“What?” said Gorse.

“Be kind enough to hew down that young tree for me.”

“Certainly,” said Gorse, and seizing his ax he hastened to chop away at the tree indicated by Hale, which was nearly one foot thick, and about twenty feet or so in length.

Charley, an expert wood-chopper, hewed it down in a few minutes, and then Harry Hale turned to Frank.

“Do you think you could fix that battering ram between your horse and Gorse’s man, and smash that door in?”

“You bet,” cried Frank.

“Sartin,” said Charley, and the two young fellows seized upon it and swung the heavy beam between the two wagons, by means of strong, elastic bands.

Then they mounted their wagons, let on a requisite amount of steam, and let drive, a score of men standing ready with cocked rifles to guard them from assault or shot.

Whiz, crash, and with a thundering bunk the heavy end of the young tree smashed up against the strongly-made door, fairly starting it from its hinges, and with great skill Charley and Frank shut off steam at the right moment.

The beam recoiled.

Back it went to the full stretch of the elastic bands that held it, and then flew forward again.

With a reluctant crash the door gave way, and with the same idea uppermost in their minds, Frank and Charley tumbled over backwards, and landed in their wagons.

Well it was for them that they did so, for at that moment half a dozen rifles where thrown forward from the doorway, and as many bullets out the air above the vacant driving-seats.

Had not the drivers been prompt in their action, they must inevitably have been riddled with balls.

“Charge!”

It was Harry Hale’s voice, giving the word of command.

“Hurrah!”

And like a resistless torrent the band rushed forward.

Mustang Max, Barry Brown, Hale, Jared Dwight, Pomp, Barney, and a lot more of the toughest knots, led the wild and irresistible assault.

Like a fierce mountain torrent they swept across the open space, keeping the wagons between them and the open doorway, and thus really advancing from behind a barricade.

Onward, with a wild, exultant, Western cheer.

Around the wagons they dashed, and fairly into the arms of the counterfeiters.

These latter were clustered in the hallway to the number of thirty odd, and they all looked desperate.

“Surrender or be chawed up,” yelled Barry Brown.

“Don’t give up, ye divils ye,” shouted Barney Shea, creating headaches without number with his blackthorn stick; “foight on like blazes, me beauties, and ye may bate the very insides out of us. Don’t yez give up.”

Which advice was given so freely because he didn’t want such an “illegant row” to end in a hurry.

Pomp had a picnic all to himself, for he sat down in a big chair that stood in the hallway, and contented himself with picking off those of the enemy who were getting the best of any of his friends, and in this particular line the black dead-shot was not to be excelled.

Jared Dwight fought like a machine, and created a panic by his deadly mechanical style of fighting.

Barry Brown stormed around like some human threshing-machine.

Mustang Max walked through everything with that terrible battle smile on his lips, and all these rough-and-tumble chaps soon knocked the counterfeiters quite out of time.

Captain Prime leaped towards Captain Hale.

A flashing knife went up in the air as the outlaw seized the detective by the throat.

Crack! crack!

The knife flew far away, and Captain Prime fell dead.

Pomp had fired two shots in rapid succession, one for the knife that was descending, and the other for Captain Prime’s heart, and Harry Hale’s life was saved.

The loss of their leaders seemed to take the courage out of the counterfeiters, and they began to waver.

“Surrender!” cried Hale.

“Don’t do it,” cried Barney Shea, cracking one of them over the head, and laying him out stiff. “Don’t yez give up yet, me lads.”

“Oh, dry up,” laughed Hale, amused over the Irishman’s odd advice. “Surrender and we’ll spare your lives.”

The outlaws sprang back and lowered their weapons.

“Will you give us a fair show and a real square trial?” asked one.

“We will,” said Hale. “I promise you a safe conduct to the nearest city, if you don’t escape on the road.”

“And no stringing up?”

“On my honor, no.”

“Then we give in.”

“Take ’em, boys,” said Hale to his men, and as if by magic any number of steel handcuffs appeared and were snapped on the wrists of the prisoners.

“For the divil’s sake,” cried Barney, “an’ is the foight over?”

“You bet,” said Hale.

“What a man,” cried Barney, “to sthop an illegant ruction loike that.”

“Search through the house,” commanded Hale. “Break open every door, drawer, cabinet and panel. Bring all you find up here and lay it upon the grass, and then we’ll set fire to the crib and have a grand flare up.”