CHAPTER IX.

THE RESULT OF THE RUSE.

It was in the miserable place, in part described, that Nick Carter awoke to a realization that something unexpected had befallen him. Returning consciousness brought a sense of cramped limbs and bruised muscles, the results of the blows he had received and the violence of his fall from the moving train, when Sol Mauler rudely rolled him from the express car.

The effect of all this was to leave Nick unconscious for several hours, how many he hardly knew when he finally revived.

He found himself lying on the floor of a stall in a miserable stable, bound hand and foot in a way that precluded liberating himself. He was sore, stiff, and scarce able to stir, but he could use his eyes and ears, and his brain soon became cleared of the cobwebs.

He could hear the movements of horses in the near stalls. He could see the sunlight through chinks in the walls of the old building. He knew that day had dawned, if not already well spent, for the early songs of birds in the trees through which he could hear the sweep of the wind had ceased, and he reasoned that the morning was far advanced.

All this was confirmed a little later, when the steps of approaching men fell upon his ears, and the broad door of the stable swung open on its rusty hinges. A blaze of sunlight was shed into the dismal building.

Two men strode in and around to the stall in which the detective was lying. They were Sol Mauler, who had impersonated Cady, and his brother—Zeke Mauler. Why they dwelt alone in that desolate region and how they earned their living was a mystery to many, but there were hints at moonshine whisky.

“I reckon he’s still in dreamland, Zeke,” Sol Mauler was saying, when they approached. “He was hardly breathing half an hour ago, when I fed the nags. Mebbe he’ll croak on our hands and save us the trouble of—no, blast him! here he is with eyes wide open. His head’s like a hickory nut. So you’re not going to croak without help, eh?”

The last was added when the two ruffians appeared in the entrance to the stall, both halting to glare down at the prostrate detective.

Nick Carter gazed up at them, pale and bruised, but his eyes had lost none of their confidence and severe austerity.

“It’s no fault of yours, Mauler, that I am still in the land of the living,” he sternly answered.

“You bet it ain’t,” growled Sol, with expressive nods. “You’d have been done brown and planted deep, barring a kick came from one we have to hear to. He ain’t taking chances of a rope. The coin is all he’s out for.”

“We’ve got it, too,” put in Zeke, with a villainous leer. “We got it in spite of you.”

“Make sure you hang onto it, then,” Nick coldly advised.

“You can bet your boots on that. We’ll soon have it planted where no infernal New York dick will find it.”

“Don’t be so sure of it. You may slip a cog.”

“No slips for us,” said Sol confidently. “You ought to know that, Carter.”

“I’m not telling all I know.”

“They did a fat job who brought you down here to corral us fellows,” Mauler went on derisively. “We’re too slick for any city guy of your cut. Why, I near laughed in your ugly mug, when you boarded that express car and shoved a letter from Burdick under my nose.”

“You did, eh?”

“And then you started in to tell me who you was and all about the job you were out to queer. Oh, my, but that was rich!” cried the ruffian, with a burst of coarse laughter in which his low-browed brother joined.

“Yes, very rich,” Nick allowed.

“And then you pulled out a gun and wanted to know was I game?” cried the rascal, shaking with evil mirth. “You shoved the gun right in my hand and as much as told me to hold you up. I did it all right, Carter, and we got you—as we’re going to get those two duffers who’ve been helping you.”

“Unless they contrive to get you, you miscreant,” Nick retorted, frowning.

“Don’t you bank on that,” cried Mauler, with a snort and sneer. “We’ll have both of them by this time to-morrow. We’ll wipe you off the earth, all of you, and—by thunder, Zeke, that must be Murdock already. Let’s have a look.”

The chugging of the laboring touring car, which was at that moment entering the clearing, had fallen upon the ears of all.

Sol and Zeke Mauler rushed out of the stable, and uttered a series of triumphant yells when they saw the laden car and the powerless captive it contained.

It swept around the yard back of the house and stopped nearly in front of the stable.

Jake Hanlon came running from the house at the same moment, while Murdock leaped out of the car and cried:

“Hold your tongue, Sol. Your yelling would wake the dead.”

“There’ll soon be dead uns here to wake, all right,” Sol shouted. “So you’ve got the other one, eh?”

“One of them.”

“And that leaves only one.”

“We’ll get him, too, a little later,” snapped Murdock. “Lend a hand and bring him into the stable. We must get rid of both before dark.”

“We’ll do that, all right.”

“Swing round, Bryan, and back in the car after they’ve got him out,” Murdock continued to command. “It might be seen and known by chance. Get it under cover. I don’t want it suspected that I am in this business with you fellows. That would queer us, for fair.”

“You’re booked to be queered, all right,” thought Chick, while three of the ruffians were hastening to lift him from the car and bear him into the stable.

His anticipations were realized very much sooner, even than he expected.

Of the six ruffians comprising the gang, five of them were flocking into the small stable, three bearing the bound form of the detective.

Only Bryan remained outside, and he fell to turning the car, in which Janet Payson still was seated.

Not one among them had any apprehension of immediate danger.

Other figures were approaching, however, those of half a score of men, Patsy Garvan among them. They were stealing as noiselessly as shadows from the woods and shrubbery back of the stable, which they rapidly approached, with ranks dividing to pass around both sides of it.

Every man was armed with a rifle or a shotgun, save Patsy Garvan, and he carried a revolver in each hand.

As now may be inferred, Chick Carter’s ruse had been to place himself in the hands of Janet Payson and the man known to be her confederate, knowing that they would take him to the headquarters of the gang, and in the meantime to have Patsy so stationed with assistants north of Benton Corners that the subsequent course of the rascals could be stealthily followed.

As a matter of fact, however, Patsy had seen the car containing Murdock, Bryan, and Magee, two of whom he recognized, when it went through Benton Corners on its way to Shelby. The plans already laid with Chick told him what would follow, beyond any reasonable doubt, and he at once set about tracing the tracks of the touring car in the direction from which it had come.

This, of course, brought him and his companions to the Mauler place, less than ten minutes before Chick was brought there, and all hands were concealed scarce thirty feet back of the stable at that time.

The noise within had not abated when they came around both front corners of the stable, half a score of constables and officers from Shelby, but the voice of Patsy Garvan then rang like a trumpet over other sounds.

“Now, boys, get them!” he shouted, leading the way. “Some of you look after that fellow in the car. We’ve got those in the stable cornered like rats.”

There were yells of dismay from within before the last was said, and a rush of five crooks toward the open door.

Not a man among them ventured over its threshold however, or so much as drew a weapon in self-defense. The scene that met their gaze was enough to have daunted any gang of desperadoes.

For they found themselves confronted with half a score of leveled weapons, in the hands of as many determined men, and not one among them but knew that an aggressive move meant death.

It followed, therefore, that the arrest of the entire gang was an easy task. All were in irons in less than five minutes, and long before dark they occupied cells in the Shelby County Jail.

The money stolen from the express car was found in the cellar of the house, and later in the day was restored to the railway company.

Upon returning to the Shelby House with Nick and Patsy, all elated over their good work, Chick found a telegram awaiting him from Lieutenant Lang.

It told him that Dan Cady, the missing express-car man, had been found confined in Janet Payson’s flat in Philadelphia, in charge of another confederate, who had been arrested.

It then appeared that Cady had been on friendly terms with the woman and with Murdock, and that he had carelessly confided the fact that he was to carry a costly money package to Shelby on the night in question. This led to Murdock’s plot with his confederates, all having been awaiting the opportunity to commit the car robbery in the manner described, and Cady was lured to the flat in the early part of the day and overcome, Sol Mauler cleverly playing the part of his substitute.

This was rendered all the more feasible because of the fact that Murdock was one of the old railway hands, discharged for evil habits, and he was thoroughly familiar with all of the details essential to such a plot.

“It will teach Cady a lesson,” Nick remarked to Chick and Patsy that evening, as they sat smoking in their suite in the hotel. “He’ll select his companions more carefully in the future. As for Murdock and the gang—well, it now is up to them to pay the price.”

THE END.

“Broken Bars; or, Nick Carter’s Speedy Service,” is the title of the story that you will find in the next issue of this weekly, No. 132, out March 20th. The great detective and his assistants have more dealings with the desperate criminals that they thought they had so safely jailed.

A SUDDEN THING.

It is generally the easiest thing in the world to drive a horse without spirit, but there is one recorded instance where a coach driver covered himself with glory by doing so.

One afternoon he and his coach and four came rattling up to the hotel like an avalanche. As the coach stopped, one of the horses dropped dead.

“That was a very sudden death,” remarked a bystander

“That sudden?” coolly responded the driver; “that ’os died at the top of the hill two miles back, sir, but I wasn’t going to let him down till I got to the reg’lar stoppin’ place.”

ON A DARK STAGE.

By ROLAND ASHFORD PHILLIPS.

(This interesting story was commenced in No. 127 of Nick Carter Stories. Back numbers can always be obtained from your news dealer or the publishers.)