Part 3

The Hawk threw one leg over the sill. With a rip and tear, the door smashed inward, sagging from its lower hinge. Came a hoarse yell. MacVightie was plunging through the doorway.

Instantly the Hawk, hugging the pay bag, drew back his leg, and dove into the clerk's room through the door which he had left ajar. There would have been no use in letting the Butcher go at all if he led the chase through the window—the man was barely crawling away. Across the room, light enough now from the open doorway behind him to point the way, raced the Hawk. He reached the corridor door, as MacVightie lunged through the connecting door in pursuit.

MacVightie's voice rose in a bellow of warning:

“Look out there, Lanson! The next door—quick!”

But the Hawk was the quicker. He tore the door open, and dashed through, just eluding the superintendent and another man—the dispatcher probably, attracted by the row—as they sprang forward from the paymaster's door.

Running like a deer, the Hawk made for the stairway. It was lighter now in the hall. The dispatcher's door along at the farther end was open. At the head of the stairs, a call boy, wide-eyed, gaped, openmouthed. The Hawk brushed the boy aside incontinently, and, taking the stairs three and four at a time, leaped downward, MacVightie's bull-like roar echoing behind him, the top stairs creaking under the detective's rush.

The street door opened outward, and as the Hawk reached it, and, wrenching at the knob, pushed it open, there was a flash, the report of a revolver shot—and, with a venomous spat, the bullet buried itself in the door jamb, not an inch from his head, it seemed, for the wind of the bullet was on his cheek.

Cries sounded now from the railroad yard; but the street in front of him, deserted, was still undisturbed. He was across it in a twinkling, and, passing the saloon that was now closed, darted into the lane.

He flung a glance over his shoulder—and his lips set hard. MacVightie, big man though he was, was no mean antagonist in a race. The detective, quicker in initiative, quicker on his feet, had outdistanced both Lanson and the dispatcher, and was already halfway across the street.

Again MacVightie fired.

On the Hawk ran. If he could reach the next corner—providing there was no one about the street—there was a way, a risky way, but still a way, his best chance of escape. The cheap combination lodging house and saloon, that was just around the corner, was where he had a room. Yes, it was his one chance! He must get to cover somewhere without an instant's delay. With MacVightie firing now, emptying his revolver up the lane, with the yells and shouts growing constantly in volume from farther back toward the station, it was only a question of minutes before the whole neighbourhood would be aroused.

Again he glanced behind him. It was very dark in the lane. He was grimly conscious that it was the blackness, and not MacVightie's poor marksmanship, that had saved him so far. That flash of the other's revolver was perhaps fifty yards away. He had gained a little, then! If there was any one around the corner, the plan of reaching his room would not serve him, and he would still have to run for it. Well, he would see in an instant—it was only two yards more—a yard—now!

Without slackening his pace, at top speed he swung from the lane—and, with a gasp of relief at sight of an empty street, slipped into a doorway just beyond the now dark entrance to a saloon that occupied most of the ground floor of a dirty and squalid three-story building.

The door gave on a narrow flight of stairs, and up these the Hawk sprang swiftly and with scarcely a sound. And now, as he ran, he pulled his mask from his face and thrust it into the pay bag; a pocket-book from his inside coat pocket followed the mask, and, with the pocketbook, the flashlight, and the two pistols, his own and the Butcher's. He opened a door at the head of the landing, and stepped into a room, leaving the door partly open.

He was not safe yet—far from it! He did not under-estimate MacVightie. It would be obvious to MacVightie that he was not far enough ahead to have disappeared in any but one way—into some building within a very few yards of the lane! And the presumption, at least, would be that this was the one.

The Hawk worked now with almost incredible speed. He switched on the light, ran to the window that opened on the rear of the building, felt with one hand along the sill outside, lifted the pay bag out of the window, let go of it, and turned instantly back into the room. He hung up his hat on a wall peg, and tearing off his jacket, flung it haphazardly upon the bed. There was a small table against the wall near the foot of the bed. The Hawk opened a drawer, snatched up a pack of cards, and sat down at the table.

The street door opened and closed. A quick, heavy tread sounded on the stairs.

In his shirt sleeves, his back to the door, the Hawk was coolly playing solitaire.

“I guess I'd better be smoking,” murmured the Hawk. “Maybe I'm breathing a little hard.”

He picked up a pipe from the table, lighted a match—and, half the deck of cards in one hand, the lighted match in the other, swung around in his chair with a startled jerk.

The door slammed back against the wall. MacVightie had unceremoniously kicked it wide open. MacVightie was standing on the threshold.

The Hawk, in a sort of surprised gasp, sucked the flame of the match down into the bowl of his pipe, and stared at MacVightie through a curtain of tobacco smoke. The detective's eyes travelled sharply from the Hawk around the room, came back to the Hawk, narrowed, and, stepping into the room, he shut the door with equal lack of ceremony behind him.

“Say, you got a gall!” ejaculated the Hawk.

“You bet your life I have!” flung out MacVightie. “Now then, my bucko, what are you doing, here?”

“Say,” said the Hawk, as though obsessed with but a single idea, “say, you got a gall! You got a gall, busting into a fellow's room and asking him what he's doing there! Say, maybe you might answer the same question yourself—eh? What are you doing here?”

“Your room, is it?” snapped MacVightie.

“Sure it's my room!” replied the Hawk, a little tartly.

“How long you been here?”

“'Bout a week”—the Hawk was growing ungracious.

“Boarding here?”

“Yes.”

“Where'd you come from?” MacVightie was clipping off his words. “What do you do for a living?”

“Say,” said the Hawk politely, “you go to hell!”

MacVightie stepped forward toward the Hawk, with an ominous scowl; and, throwing back the lapel of his coat, tapped grimly with his forefinger on a shield that decorated his vest.

The Hawk whistled low.

“O-ho!” said the Hawk, with sudden cordiality. “Well, why didn't you say so before?”

“I'm saying it now!” snarled MacVightie. “Well, where do you come from?”

“Chicago,” said the Hawk.

“What's your business?”—MacVightie's eyes were roving sharply again around the room.

“Barkeep—when I can get a job,” answered the Hawk; and then, insinuatingly: “And, say, I'm looking for one now, and if you can put me on to anything I'd——”

“I guess you've got to show me!” growled Mac-Vightie, uncompromisingly.

“Look here,” ventured the Hawk, “what's up?”

“I'm waiting!” prompted MacVightie significantly.

“Oh, all right!” The Hawk flared up a little. “If you love your grouch, keep on hugging it tight!” He jerked his hand toward the coat that was lying on the bed. “I must have lost the letter the pastor of my church gave me, but there's a couple there from the guys back in Chicago that I worked for, and there's my union card with them. Help yourself!”

MacVightie picked up the coat brusquely, shoved his hand into the inside pocket, brought out several letters, and began to read them.

The Hawk shuffled the half deck of cards in his hand monotonously.

There was a puzzled frown on MacVightie's face, as he finally tossed the letters down on the bed.

“Satisfied?” inquired the Hawk pleasantly.

MacVightie's frown deepened.

“Yes, as far as that goes,” he said tersely; and then, evenly, his eyes boring into the Hawk: “About five minutes ago a man ran into this house from the street. What's become of him?”

The Hawk started in amazement—and slowly shook his head.

“I guess you've got the wrong dope, ain't you?” he suggested earnestly.

“Don't try that game!” cautioned MacVightie grimly. “And don't lie! He had to come up these stairs, your door was partly open, and he couldn't have passed without you knowing it.”

“That's what I'm saying,” agreed the Hawk, even more earnestly. “That's why I'm saying you must have got the wrong dope. Of course, he couldn't have got by without me hearing him! That's a cinch! And, I'm telling you straight, he didn't.”

“Didn't he?” MacVightie's smile was thin. “Then he came in here—into this room.”

“In here?” echoed the Hawk weakly. His gaze wandered helplessly around the room. “Well, all you've got to do is look.”

“I'm going to!” announced MacVightie curtly—and with a sudden jerk he yanked the single bed out from the wall. He peered behind and beneath it; then, stepping over to a cretonne curtain in the corner that served as wardrobe, he pulled it roughly aside.

There were no other places of possible concealment. MacVightie chewed at his under lip, and eyed the Hawk speculatively.

The Hawk's eyes were still travelling bewilderedly about the room, as though he still expected to find something.

“Are you dead sure he came into this house,” he inquired heavily, as though the problem were entirely beyond him.

MacVightie hesitated.

“Well—no,” he acknowledged, after a moment. “I guess you're straight all right, and I'll admit I didn't see him come in; but I'd have pretty near taken an oath on it.”

“Then I guess he must have ducked somewhere else,” submitted the Hawk sapiently. “There wasn't no one went by that door—I'm giving it to you on the level.”

MacVightie's reluctant smile was a wry grimace.

“Yes, I reckon it's my mistake.” His voice lost its snarl, and his fingers groped down into his vest pocket. “Here, have a cigar,” he invited placatingly.

“Why, say—thanks”—the Hawk beamed radiantly. “Say, I——”

“All right, young fellow”—with a wave of his hand, MacVightie moved to the door. “All right, young fellow. No harm done, eh? Good-night!”

The door closed. The footsteps without grew fainter, and died away.

The Hawk, staring at the door, apostrophised the doorknob.

“Well, say, what do you know about that!” he said numbly. “I wonder what's up?”

He rose from his chair after a moment as though moved by a sort of subconscious impulse, mechanically pushed his bed back against the wall, and returned to his chair.

He dug out his pipe abstractedly, filled it, and lighted it. He gathered up the cards, shuffled them, and began to lay them out again on the table—and paused, and drummed with his fingers on the table top.

“They're after some guy that's ducked his nut somewhere around here,” he decided aloud. “I wonder what's up?”

The Hawk spread out his remaining cards—and swept them away from him into an indiscriminate heap.

“Aw, to blazes with cards!” he ejaculated impatiently.

He put his feet up on the table, and sucked steadily at his pipe.

“It's a cinch he never went by that door,” the Hawk assured the toe of his boot. “I guess he handed that 'bull' one, all right, all right.”

The minutes passed. The Hawk, engrossed, continued to suck on his pipe. Then from far down the stairs there came a faint creak, and an instant later the outer door closed softly.

The Hawk's feet came down from the table, and the Hawk smiled—grimly.

“Tut, tut!” chided the Hawk. “That treadmill diminuendo on the top step and the keyhole stunt is pretty raw, Mr. MacVightie—pretty raw! You forgot the front door, Mr. MacVightie—I don't seem to remember having heard it open or close until just now!”

The back of the Hawk's chair, as he pushed it well away from the table and stood up, curiously enough now intercepted itself between the keyhole and the interior of the room. He stepped to the door, and slipped the bolt quietly into place; then, going to the window, he reached out, and, from where it hung upon a nail driven into the sill, picked up the pay bag.

“That's a pretty old gag, too,” observed the Hawk almost apologetically. “I was lucky to get by with it.”

The Hawk's attention was now directed to his trunk, that was between the table and the foot of the bed. He lifted the lid back against the wall, and removed an ingeniously fashioned false top, in the shape of a tray, that fitted innocently into the curvature of the lid. The Hawk stared at a magnificent diamond necklace that glittered and gleamed on the bottom of the tray, as its thousand facets caught the light—and grinned.

“If you'd only known, eh—Mr. MacVightie!” he murmured.

From the pay bag the Hawk took out the packages of banknotes, the flashlight, the mask, the two pistols, and packed them neatly away in the tray. The only article left in the bag was his pocketbook. He opened this, disclosing a number of crisp, new ten-dollar bills. He held one of them up to the light for a moment, studying it admiringly.

“I guess these won't be much more good around here, according to that little conversation between MacVightie and the superintendent,” he muttered—and, with a shrug of his shoulders, tossed the entire number into the tray.

He fitted the false top back into the lid, and closed the trunk. There remained the empty pay bag. He frowned at it for an instant; then, picking it up, he tucked it under the mattress of his bed.

“I'll get rid of that in the morning”—he nodded his head, as he turned down the bed covers.

The Hawk began to undress, and at intervals voiced snatches of his thoughts aloud.

“Pretty close shave,” said the Hawk, “pretty close.... Ten thousand dollars is some haul.... All right as long as they don't find out I've got the key to their cipher.... And so Butcher Rose is one of the gang, eh?... Number One—Butcher Rose.... Guess he got away all right—from MacVightie.... He nearly did me.... Pretty close shave....”

The Hawk turned out the light, and got into bed.

“I guess I played in luck to-night,” said the Hawk softly, and for the second time that night. “Yes, I guess I did.”

IV—AT BALD CREEK STATION

IT was twenty-four hours later. A half mile away, along a road that showed like a grey thread in the night, twinkled a few lights from the little cluster of houses that made the town of Bald Creek. At the rear of the station itself, in the shadow of the walls, it was inky black.

There was stillness! Then the chattering of a telegraph instrument—and, coincident with this, low, scarcely audible, a sound like the gnawing of a rat.

The chattering of the instrument ceased; and, coincident again, the low, gnawing sound ceased—and, crouched against a rear window, the Hawk chuckled a little grimly to himself. Within, and diagonally across from the window, an otherwise dark interior was traversed by a dull ray of light that filtered in through the open connecting door of the operator's room beyond. Inside there were Lan-son, the division superintendent, and Martin, the trusted Bald Creek operator; while at any minute now, MacVightie would be up on No. 12. They were preparing to spring their trap for the Wire Devils to-night! The Hawk was quite well-informed on this point, for the very simple reason that the Hawk himself had not been entirely idle during those twenty-four hours that were just past!

Again the sounder broke into a splutter; but this time the gnawing sound was not resumed—the window fastenings were loosened now.

Came then the distant rumble of an approaching train; the rumble deepening into a roar; the roar disintegrating itself into its component sounds, the wheel trucks beating at the rail joints, the bark of the exhaust; then the scream of the brakeshoes biting at the wheel tires; the hiss of steam—and in the mimic pandemonium, the Hawk raised the window, and crawled in over the sill.

And again the Hawk chuckled to himself. Up and down the line to-night, at all stations where there were no night operators, the road's detectives, stood guard over the telegraph instruments. It had been MacVightie's plan, originated the night before. It was very clever of MacVightie—if somewhat abortive! Also, quite irrelevant of course, and quite apart from that little matter of ten thousand dollars which he, the Hawk, had taken from the paymaster's safe last night, MacVightie to-night was likely to be in no very pleasant mood!

The engine without, blowing from a full head of steam, drowned out all other sounds. The Hawk picked his way across the room to a position near the connecting door, and composedly seated himself upon the floor behind a number of piled-up boxes and parcels. With a grin of acknowledgment to the escaping steam, he coolly moved two of the parcels a few inches to right and left, thus providing himself with an excellent view into the operator's room. From one pocket he took an exceedingly small flashlight, and from another a notebook, and from his hip pocket his automatic pistol. This latter he transferred to his right-hand coat pocket. Bunching the bottom of his coat over his hand, he flashed on the tiny ray, found a convenient ledge formed by one of the boxes, and upon this laid down his notebook. The first page, as he opened the book, contained a neatly drawn sketch of the interior of Bald Creek station. He turned this over, leaving the book open at a blank page, and switched off his light.

The door from the platform opened and closed, as the train pulled out again, a man stepped into the operator's room—and in the darkness the Hawk smiled appreciatively. It was MacVightie, and Mac-Vightie's thin lips were drawn tighter than usual, and the brim of the slouch hat, though pulled far forward, did not hide the scowl upon MacVightie's countenance.

“Well, you're here all right, Lanson, eh?” he flung out brusquely. “Nothing yet, by any chance, of course?”

Lanson, from a chair at the operator's elbow, nodded a greeting.

“Not yet,” he said.

MacVightie was glancing sharply around him.

“Martin,” he ordered abruptly, “close those two ticket wickets!”

The operator rose obediently, and pulled down the little windows that opened, one on each side of the office, on the men's and women's waiting rooms.

“What's that door there?” demanded MacVightie, pointing toward the rear room.

“Just a place I had partitioned off for stores and small express stuff,” Martin answered. “There's no back entrance.”

“All right, then,” said MacVightie. He pulled up a chair for himself on the other side of the operator, as Martin returned to his seat. “You know what you're here for, Martin—what you've to do? Mr. Lanson has told you?”

“Yes,” Martin replied. “I'm to test out for east or west, if there's any of that monkeying on the wire to-night.”

“Show me how it's done,” directed MacVightie tersely. .

The operator reached over to the switchboard and picked up a key-plug.

“I've only got to plug this in—here—or here. Those are my ground wires east and west. The main batteries are west of us at Selkirk, you know. If I ground out everything east, for instance, and he's working to the east of us the sounder'll stop because I've cut him off from the main batteries, and we'll hear nothing unless I adjust the relay down to get the weak circuit from the local batteries. If he's working west of us the sounder will be much stronger because the main batteries at Selkirk, with the eastern half of the division cut out, will be working on a shorter circuit.”

“'T see.” MacVightie frowned. “And he'd know it—so Mr. Lanson told me last night.”

“Yes; he'd know it,” said Martin. “The same as we would.”

“Well, you can do it pretty quick, can't you?” suggested MacVightie. “Sort of accidentally like! We don't want to throw a scare into him. You'd know almost instantly whether he was east or west, wouldn't you? That's all that's necessary—to-night! Then let him go ahead again. We'll have found out what we want to know.” He turned to Lanson, his voice rasping suddenly. “Did you see the Journal on the 'Crime Wave' this afternoon?”

Lanson's alert, grey eyes took on an angry glint. “No; I didn't see it, but I suppose it's the old story. I wish they'd cut it out! It hurts the road, and it doesn't get them anywhere.”

“Perhaps not,” said MacVightie, with a thin smile; “but it gets me! Yes, it's about the same—all except the last of it. Big headlines: 'Ten thousand dollars stolen from paymaster's safe last night—What is being done to stop this reign of assassination, theft, outrage, crime?—Has the clue afforded by the Hawk's release from Sing Sing been thoroughly investigated?' And then a list of the crimes committed in the last ten days—two murders, one in the compartment of that sleeping car; the theft of the diamond necklace; the express robbery; and so on through the list, ending up with last night. Then a nasty shot at the local police; and, finally, prefacing the remark with the statement that the crimes were all connected with the railroad, a thinly veiled hint that I am either a boy on a man's job, or else asleep, in either of which cases I ought to be—well, you understand?” MacVightie's fist came down with a crash on the operator's table.

Lanson, with a worried look, nodded his head.

“Damn it!” said MacVightie. “I——” He stopped abruptly, and laid his hand on the operator's sleeve. “Look here, Martin,” he said evenly, “you're the one man that Mr. Lanson has picked out of the division, you're the one man outside of Mr. Lanson and myself who has any inkling that these secret messages coming over our wires have anything to do with these crimes—you understand that, don't you? This is pretty serious business. The newspaper didn't exaggerate any. We're up against a gang of crooks, cleverly organised, who will stop at nothing. Murder appears to be a pastime with them! Do you get me—Martin?”

For a long second the two men looked each other steadily in the eyes.

“Yes,” said Martin simply.

“All right!” said MacVightie. “I just want you to realise the necessity of keeping anything you may hear, or anything that may happen here to-night, under your hat.” He turned to Lanson again, the scowl heavy upon his face once more. “I was going to say that I know who the man is that slipped through my fingers last night.”

“You—what!” Lanson leaned sharply forward in his chair. “But he got away! You said he——”

“It was the Hawk”—MacVightie bit off the words.

“The Hawk?”

“The Hawk!”

“But how do you know?” demanded Lanson incredulously. “You said yourself that he had left no clue to his identity. How do you know?” MacVightie reached into his pocket, took out his pocketbook, and from the pocketbook passed a new, crisp ten-dollar banknote to Lanson.

“What's this?” inquired Lanson. “The counterfeit ten-dollar bill you showed me last night?”

“No—another one,” MacVightie answered curtly. “Look on the other side.”

Lanson turned the banknote over, stared at it, and whistled suddenly under his breath.

“'With the compliments of the Hawk!'.rdquo; he read aloud. He stared now at MacVightie. “Perhaps it's a fake, inspired by that newspaper article yesterday evening,” he suggested.

“It's no fake,” declared MacVightie grimly. “The Hawk wrote that there all right—it was inside the pay bag in which the ten thousand was carried away from the paymaster's office last night.”

“You mean—you recovered the bag?” cried Lanson eagerly. “Where? When?”

The Hawk, watching MacVightie's face, grinned wickedly. MacVightie's jaws were clamped belligerently, and upon MacVightie's cheeks was an angry flush.