Part 2

“All right—yes, naturally,” agreed the superintendent again. Then, after a short pause, anxiously: “Anything turned up at all, MacVightie? Any clue to that necklace? The governor's wife is making a holler that's reached from here to the road's directors down in Wall Street.”

“Damn it,” growled MacVightie. “I'm well enough aware of it—but the necklace isn't any more important than any one of the other affairs, is it? No; there's nothing—not a blamed thing!”

“Well, what about this Sing Sing convict, the Hawk, that the papers are featuring to-night?” Lanson asked. “Anything in that?”

“I don't know—maybe,” McVightie answered viciously. “He's only one more, anyway. This gang was operating before he was released—and it's likely enough, if they're old pals of his, that he's come out here to give them a hand. The New York police say he went to Chicago immediately after his release, two weeks ago. The Chicago police reported him there, and then he disappeared; then Denver spotted him a few days later—and that's the last that's been seen of him. You can make what you like of that. He's certainly been hitting a pretty straight trail west. He wasn't stopped, of course, because he isn't 'wanted' at present; he's only a man with a bad record, and labelled dangerous. We were warned to look out for him, that's all.”

“Got his description?” inquired Lanson.

“Yes”—MacVightie's laugh was a short bark. “Medium height, broad-shouldered, muscular, black hair, black eyes, straight nose, good-looking, and gentlemanly in appearance and manner, dresses well, age twenty-four to twenty-six, no distinctive marks or disfigurement.”

“There's probably not more than twenty-five thousand men in Selkirk City who would answer to every detail of that!” Lanson commented sarcastically.

“Exactly!” admitted MacVightie. “And that's——”

The Hawk was creeping forward again in the shadows of the roundhouse.

“Yes, I guess it interested me,” muttered the Hawk; “I guess it did. I guess I'm playing in luck to-night.”

III-THE PAYMASTER'S SAFE

FROM the roundhouse it was only a few yards to the rear of the long, low-lying freight sheds and, unobserved, the Hawk gained this new shelter. He stole quickly along to the further end of the sheds; and there, crouched down again in the shadows, halted to make a critical survey of his surroundings. .

Just in front of him, divided only by a sort of driveway for the convenience of the teamsters, was the end wall of the station, and, in the end wall—the window of the divisional paymaster's office. The Hawk glanced to his left. The street upon which the station fronted, an ill-savoured section of the city, was dark, dimly lighted, and deserted; the only sign of life being the lighted windows of a saloon on the corner of a narrow lane that bisected the block of somewhat disreputable, tumble-down wooden structures that faced the station. To his right, on the other side of the freight shed, the railroad yard had narrowed down to the station tracks and a single spur alongside the shed. There was no one in sight in either direction.

The Hawk's eyes strayed back to the paymaster's window. The station, like its surrounding neighbours, was an old wooden building; and, being low and only two-storied, the second-story window offered inviting possibilities. From the sill of the lower window, a man who was at all agile had the upper window at his mercy. Against this mode of attack, however, was the risk of being seen by any one who might pass along the street, or by any one who might chance upon the end of the station platform.

“What's the use!” decided the Hawk, with an abrupt shrug of his shoulders. “Play safe. There's a better way.”

The Hawk crept across the driveway, reached the street side of the station, peered cautiously around the corner of the building, and, satisfied that he was unobserved, edged down along the building for a short distance, paused in a doorway, glanced quickly about him again—and then the door opened and closed, and he was standing in a murky passageway, that was lighted only by a single incandescent far back by a stair well.

He stood motionless, listening. From above, through the stillness, came the faint drumming of a telegraph key. There should be no one upstairs now but the dispatcher, whose room was at the opposite end of the building from the paymaster's office—and, possibly, with the dispatcher, a call boy or two. And the hallway above, he could see, was dark.

Moving stealthily forward, as noiseless as a cat in his tread, the Hawk took a mask from his pocket, slipped it over his face, and began to mount the stairs. He gained the landing—and halted again. It was pitch black here, since even the door of the dispatcher's room, where there would be a light, was closed.

And then once more the Hawk moved forward—and an instant later, the paymaster's door at the extreme end of the corridor, under the deft persuasion of his skeleton keys, had closed behind him.

It was not quite so dark here. The lights from the platform and the yard filtered in through the window in a filmy sort of way; but it was too dark to distinguish objects in anything more than grotesque, shapeless outlines.

The Hawk produced his flashlight, and turned it upon the lock he had just picked. It was a spring lock, opened readily from the inside by the mere turning of the doorhandle. He tried it carefully, assuring himself that it could not be opened from the corridor without a key—and then his light swept around the room. It played in its circuit upon the paymaster's flat-topped desk against the wall, and upon a large safe in the corner, near the window, whose polished nickel dial sent back an answering flash under the darting ray; but the Hawk, for the moment, appeared to be interested in neither desk nor safe. The flashlight was holding in a kind of dogged inquisitiveness upon another door close to the window, and directly opposite the safe.

He stepped without a sound across the room, and, reaching this door, snapped off his flashlight. He tried the door cautiously, found it unlocked, and very softly opened it the space of an inch. He listened attentively. There was no sound. He pushed the door open, switched on his flashlight again, and stepped through the doorway. It appeared to be a clerks' office—for the paymaster's staff, presumably. The Hawk seemed to possess a peculiar penchant for doors. The only thing in the room that apparently held any interest for him now was the door that opened, like the paymaster's, upon the corridor. He slipped quickly across the room, and, as before, examined the lock. Like the other, it was a spring lock; and, like the other, he tested it to make sure it was locked on the outside.

“Ten thousand dollars,” confided the Hawk to the lock, “isn't to be picked up every night; and we can't afford to take any chances, you know.”

He began to retrace his steps toward the paymaster's office, but now, obviously, with more attention to the details of his surroundings, for his flashlight kept dancing quick, jerky flashes in all directions about him.

“Ah!” The exclamation, low-breathed, came suddenly. “I thought there ought to be something like this around here!”

From, beside a desk, he stooped and picked up an empty pay satchel; then, returning at once to the other office, but leaving the connecting door just ajar, he dropped the pay bag in front of the safe, and went silently over to the desk—a mouse running across the floor would have made more commotion than the Hawk had made since his entry into the station.

“... Upper drawer, left side,” he muttered, “Locked, of course—ah!” A tiny key, selected from its fellow outlaws, was inserted in the lock—and the Hawk pulled out the drawer, and began to rummage through its contents.

From the back of the drawer, after perhaps a minute's search, he picked up a card, and with a nod of satisfaction began to study it.

“'Left—two right; eighty-seven, one quarter—left; three... '” The Hawk's eyes travelled swiftly over the combination. He read it over again, “Thank you!” murmured the Hawk whimsically—and dropped the card back in the drawer, and locked the drawer.

A moment more, and the white beam of the flashlight was playing on the face of the safe, and the silence of the room was broken by the faint, musical, metallic whirring of the dial. Bent forward, a crouching form in the darkness, the Hawk worked swiftly, a sure, deft accuracy in every movement of his fingers. With a low thud, as he turned the handle, the heavy bolt shot back in its grooves, and the ponderous door swung open. And now the flashlight's ray flooded the interior of the safe, and the Hawk laughed low—before him, lying on the bottom of the safe, neatly banded as they had come from the bank, were a dozen or fifteen little packages of banknotes.

The Hawk dropped on his knees, and reached for the pay bag. Ten thousand dollars was not so bulky, after all—if the denominations of the notes were large enough. He riffled one package through his fingers—twenties! Gold, yellow-back twenties!

There was a sort of beatific smile on the Hawk's lips. He dropped the package into the bag.

Tens, and twenties, and fives—the light, in a curiously caressing way, was lingering on the little fortune as it lay there on the bottom of the safe. There was only a pile or two of ones, and the rest was—what was that!

The smile vanished from the Hawk's lips, and, in a rigid, tense, strained attitude, he hung there, motionless. What was that—that dull, rasping, sound! It was like some one clawing at the wall outside. The window!

With a single motion, as though stirred to life by some galvanic shock, the Hawk's hand shot out and swept the packages of banknotes into the bag. He snapped off his flashlight. The room was in darkness.

That sound again! And now a creak! The window was being opened. Something black was bulking there on the sill outside—and something queerly white, a man's face, was pressed against the pane, peering in.

The Hawk glanced sharply around him. Inch by inch he was pushing the safe door shut. He could not reach the door leading to the clerks' office, for he would have to pass by the window, and—he shrank back quickly, the safe door closed but still unlocked, and crouched low in the corner against the wall. The window slid up to the top, and with a soft pad, like some animal alighting on the floor, the man had sprung into the room.

The Hawk's fingers crept into his pocket and out again, tight-closed now upon an automatic pistol. The other's flashlight winked, went out, then shot across the room, locating the desk—and once more all was darkness.

There was not a sound now, save the short, hurried breathing of the other, panting from the exertion of his climb. Then the man's step squeaked faintly crossing the room—and the Hawk, a few inches at a time, began to edge along the wall away from the neighbourhood of the safe.

Then the man's flashlight gleamed again, lighting up the top of the desk. There was a sharp, ripping sound, as of the tearing of wood under pressure, and the upper drawer, forced open by a steel jimmy, was pulled out.

“Birds of a feather!” said the Hawk grimly to himself. “Number One, of the Wire Devils! I didn't beat him to it by as much margin as I thought I would!”

The Hawk shifted his automatic to the hand that was clutching the pay bag, and, with the other hand, began to feel in wide sweeps over the wall above his head. The electric-light switch, he had noticed in that first quick glance when he had entered the room, a glance that had seemed to notice nothing, and yet in which nothing had escaped the sharp, trained eyes, was somewhere about here.

“Dangerous—for both of us—if it's seen outside,” communed the Hawk with himself again. “But when he finds the safe unlocked, and the goods gone, there'll be trouble. If he gets a flashlight on me, he's got me where he wants me. Ah—here it is!” The Hawk's fingers touched the switch. He lowered the pay bag cautiously to the floor between his feet, his automatic free in his hand again.

There was a rustling of papers in the drawer; then the man's hand, holding a card, was outlined as though thrown upon a screen, as, with his other hand, he focused his flashlight upon it. Then the flashlight swung an arc over the opposite wall, and pointed a pathway to the safe, as the man turned abruptly and stepped back across the room.

The Hawk, one hand raised to the switch on the wall, his automatic outflung a little in the other, tense, like an animal in leash, watched the other's movements.

The dark-outlined form was in shadowy relief against the light, that played now upon the glistening knob and dial of the safe. The man gave a preliminary, tentative twist at the handle. Came a quick, dismayed, hissing sound, like the sharp intake of 'breath. The safe door was wrenched open with a jerk. There was a low, angry cry now. The man sprang back, and as though involuntarily, in a sort of uncertain, panic-struck search, his flashlight shot along the wall—and fell full upon the Hawk.

The Hawk's finger pressed the switch. The room was ablaze with light. With a startled, furious oath, the man's hand was sweeping significantly toward his pocket.

“No, you don't!” snarled the Hawk, covering the other. “No, you don't! Cut that out!” His eyes, behind the mask, narrowed suddenly. “Hello!” he sneered. “It's 'Butcher' Rose—I might have known from the way you opened that drawer!”

It was a moment before the man answered.

“Blast you!” he whispered finally. “You gave me a bit of a start, you did! I thought at first you were a 'bull'.” His eyes fastened on the pay bag at the Hawk's feet. The top gaped open, disclosing the banknotes inside. The man raised his eyes to the Hawk's, and a cunning look came over his thin, hatchet-like face. “Caught with the goods this time, eh?” he jerked out.

The Hawk smiled unpleasantly.

“Yes,” he said. “The nest's empty. What is it they used to tell us in the nursery?—it's the early bird that grabs the worm. How long you been out in these parts, Butcher?”

“Look here,” said the Butcher ingratiatingly, ignoring the question, “I guess it's a case of split—eh?”

“You've got a nerve!” ejaculated the Hawk coolly.

“Well, put that light out, then, and we'll talk it over,” suggested the Butcher. “If it's seen from outside, we'll both get caught.”

“I'd rather take a chance on that, than a chance on you,” replied the Hawk curtly. “There's nothing to talk over. I've got the coin, and you've got a frost—all you've got to do now is beat it.”

Sharp, little, black, ferret eyes the Butcher had, and they roamed around the room now in an apparently aimless fashion—only to come back and fix hungrily on the bag of banknotes again. A sullen look came into his face, and the jaw muscles twitched ominously.

“So you're the Hawk they're talking about, eh?” he said, trying to speak smoothly. “Well, there's no use of us quarrelling. If you know me, we must be old pals. Take off that mask, and let's have a look at you. There ain't any reason why we can't be pals again.”

“Nix!” said the Hawk softly. “Nothing doing, Butcher! It suits me pretty well the way it is. I've made it a rule all my life to play a lone hand, and the more I see of the raw work that guys like you try to get away with, the more I pat myself on the back. Savvy? Why, say, even a drag-worker on Canal Street wouldn't show his face to a self-respecting crook for a month, he'd be so ashamed, if he took a crowbar to a desk drawer the way you did, you poor boob!”

The Butcher's face flushed, and he scowled.

“You're looking for trouble, ain't you!” he said hoarsely. “Well, mabbe you'll get it—and mabbe you'll get more than you're looking for. How'd you get wise to this game to-night?”

“It's the way I make my living—getting wise. How'd you suppose?” queried the Hawk insolently.

The Butcher was chewing at his lips angrily; his eyes, closed to slits, searched the Hawk's masked face.

“This is the second time!” he said, between his teeth. “You pinched that necklace, and——”

“O-ho!” exclaimed the Hawk, with a grin. “So you were after that, too, were you?”

The Butcher's flush deepened.

“That's none of your damned business!” he gritted. “And if I thought——” He bit his lips quickly.

“Go on!” invited the Hawk sweetly. “Don't mind me. If you thought—what?”

“You've had the luck with you,” mumbled the Butcher, half to himself. “It can't be anything else, there's no chance of a leak. But I'm going to tell you something—your luck's going to get a hole kicked in it. I'll tell you something more. There's a few of us that have picked out this little stamping ground for ourselves, and we ain't fond of trespassers. Get that? It ain't going to be healthy for you to linger around here over more than one train!”

“Are the rest of 'em all like you?” inquired the Hawk maliciously.

“You'll find out quicker than you'll want to, perhaps!” the Butcher retorted furiously.

“All right!” said the Hawk. “And now I'll tell you a little something. I don't know who are in this gang of yours, but you might take them a little message from me. If they're finding it crowded out here, they'd better move on to somewhere where competition isn't so likely to put them out of business through lack of brains, because I'm kind of figuring on hanging around until it gets time to open my château down at Palm Beach and stick my feet up on the sofa for a well-earned rest. Do you stumble to that? And”—the Hawk was drawling now—“I might say, Butcher, that I don't like you. My fingers are crossed on that trespassing gag. It don't go! I don't scare for any half-baked outfit of near-crooks! I stick here as long as there's anything worth sticking for.”

The Butcher's eyes seemed to be fascinated by the pay bag—they were on it again. He choked a little, swallowing hard; and, attempting a change of front, forced a smile.

“Well, don't get sore!” he said, in a whining tone. “Mabbe I was only trying to chuck a bluff, and got called. But, say, how'd you like to break in here to-night like I did, and find another fellow'd got all the swag? Say, it's damned rough, ain't it? Say, it's fierce! And, look here, I'm in on it now, anyhow. I know who took it. I'm going to keep my mouth shut, ain't I? You ain't going to leave me out in the cold, are you? All I ask is a split.”

“It's not much!” said the Hawk, in a velvet voice. “It hardly seems enough. You're too modest, Butcher. Why don't you ask for the whole of it? You might as well—you'd stand just as much chance of getting it!”

The smile faded from the Butcher's lips, and his face became contorted with rage again. He raised his fist and shook it at the Hawk. He cursed in abandon, his lips livid, beside himself with passion.

“You'll get yours for this!” He choked, in his fury, over his words. “You think you're slick! I'll show you what you're up against inside of twenty-four hours! You'll crawl for this, d'ye hear, blast you—you'll crawl!—you'll——”

The Hawk's automatic, dangling nonchalantly in his hand, swung suddenly upward to a level with the other's eyes.

“That's enough, you cheap skate!”—there was a cold, menacing ring in the Hawk's voice now. “I've heard enough from you. You and your hot-air crowd of moth-eaten lags! If you, or any of you, run foul of me again, you won't get off so easy! Tell 'em that! Tell 'em the Hawk said so! And you beat it! And beat it—now!” He caught up the pay bag, and advanced a step.

The Butcher retreated sullenly.

“Get out of that window!” ordered the Hawk evenly. “And take a last tip from me. If you try to plant me, if you let a peep out of you while I'm making my own getaway, I'll get you for it, Butcher, if it's the last thing I ever do. Go on, now! Step quicker!”

Still sullenly, mumbling, his mouth working, the Butcher retreated backward toward the window. The Hawk, his lips like a thin straight line just showing under the mask, followed grimly, step by step. And then, suddenly, both men halted, and their eyes met and held each other's in a long tense gaze.

From outside in the corridor came the sound of voices and footsteps. The footsteps drew nearer; the voices grew louder. The Hawk shot a glance toward the door. He drew in his breath sharply. No, there was no fanlight, the light would not show in the hall. That was the superintendent's voice. That letter Lanson was going to send down on No. 8! The other, probably, was MacVightie. Yes; it was MacVightie—he caught the detective's gruff tones now. The door on the opposite side of the corridor from the paymaster's room opened.

The Butcher licked his lips.

“Me for the window, and for it quick!” he muttered under his breath.

He turned, and, his back to the Hawk now, tiptoed to the window, turned again sideways, as though to throw one leg over the sill—and his right hand, hidden, suddenly lifted the side of his coat.

It came quick, quick as the winking of an eye. Racketing through room and building, like the detonation of a cannon in the silence, came the roar of a revolver shot, as the Butcher fired through his coat pocket. Mechanically, the Hawk staggered backward; and then, the quick, keen brain working like lightning, he reeled, dropped the pay bag, and clutched wildly at his side. He was not hit. The Butcher had missed. So that was the man's game! Clever enough! They'd break in here at the sound of the shot, and find him dead or wounded on the floor!

The Butcher, a devil's triumph in his face now, came leaping back from the window, and, stooping, snatched at the pay bag.

“I'd put another in you to make sure,” whispered the Butcher fiercely; “only they'll get you anyway, you——”

The Hawk straightened, his arm streaked outward from his side, his pistol butt crashed on the Butcher's skull, and he was upon the other like a flash, his free hand at the Butcher's throat.

From the room opposite came startled cries; across the corridor came the rush of feet—then the doorhandle was tried, the door shaken violently.

The Butcher was struggling but feebly, making only a pitiful effort to loosen the Hawk's clutch upon his throat, hanging almost limply in the Hawk's arms, half dazed by the blow upon his head. White to the lips with passion, the Hawk whipped his hand into the other's pocket, whipped out the other's revolver, and flung the man away from him. And then, as the Butcher reeled and lurched backward to the window, and, clawing frantically at the sill, attempted to work his way out, the Hawk ran silently back, picked up the pay bag, and, jumping to the window again, caught the Butcher roughly by the collar of the coat.

The Butcher, white, haggard-faced with fear, moaned.

“For God's sake!” he pleaded piteously. “Let me go! Let me go! For God's sake, let me go—they'll get me!”

There was a terrific crash upon the door, as of some heavy body hurled against it. The Hawk laughed mirthlessly.

“If I let you go, you'd break your neck!”—the Hawk's words were coming through clenched teeth. “Don't worry, Butcher! They'll not get you. I don't want them to get you. I want to get you myself for this. Some day, Butcher, some day I'll do the getting!” He pushed the Butcher's feet over the sill. “Feel with your toes for the window casing beneath! Quick!” He leaned out, gripping at the Butcher's collar, lowering the man—his lips were close against the Butcher's ear. “Some day—for this—you yellow cur—you and me, Butcher—remember—some day!”

A crash again upon the door! The Butcher's feet were on the lower sill; but here the man lost his hold, and toppled to the ground. The Hawk glanced backward into the room. The door was yielding now. He looked out of the window again. The Butcher had regained his feet, and was swaying against the wall, holding to it, making his way slowly, weakly toward the corner.