Part 8

“Get out of that cab, and get out damned quick! Down you come—jump now! Now, boys, run 'em back, and keep firing down the length of the train as you go; and if these guys don't run faster than you do, let 'em have it in the back! Beat it now—beat it like hell! I'll pull out the minute you're uncoupled. You two grab the rear end as she moves, there's room enough for you, and you can bust in the door, and——”

A fusilade of shots rang out. Flashes cut the black. The Butcher's two companions, evidently driving the engineer and fireman before them, were coming on the run along the trackside from the cab. The Hawk retreated back a step, and closed the car door. He heard the men rush past outside. The fusilade seemed to redouble in intensity; and now, added to it, were shouts and yells from the rear of the train itself, and—if he were not mistaken—answering shots.

His hand on the doorknob, he stood waiting tensely. With the Butcher on guard out there in front, it would have been equivalent to suicide to have opened the door again until he knew the other was back in the cab—against the background of the lighted interior he would have made a most excellent mark for the Butcher!

His eyes swept past the huddled form of the young messenger in the chair, and fixed speculatively on the safe. He nodded suddenly, grimly. Twenty thousand dollars! Well, he wasn't beaten yet—not till he threw down his own hand of his own accord—not till he lost sight of the safe for keeps!

Over the shouts and revolver shots came the sharp, vicious hiss of the air-hose, as it was uncoupled; and then, with a violent jerk, the car started forward, as the Butcher evidently whipped the throttle open. And, coincidently, there was a smash upon the rear door—and the Hawk opened the forward door and slipped out again.

A din infernal was in his ears. Like a maddened thing under the Butcher's unscientific spur, the big ten-wheeler was coughing the sparks heavenward in a volleying stream, while the huge drivers raced like pinwheels in another shower of sparks as the tires sought to bite and hold. And now the rear door of the car crashed inward; the shots came fast as a gatling, and shouts, screams and yells added their quota to the uproar.

The Hawk, crouched by the door, moved suddenly to one side, as he caught the dull, ominous spat of a bullet against one of the panels. The train crew and those of the passengers who were armed were, very obviously, keeping up a running fight from the stalled section of the train, and pumping their bul-lets through the broken rear door and up the aisle of the express car as long as they could hold the range; and, from within, he could distinguish the duller, muffled reports of the Butcher's confederates firing in return, preventing any attempt being made to rush the rear of the car.

And then the sounds began to recede and die away. The men inside the car ceased firing, and he could hear them now moving the safe out from the side of the car. It seemed as though a very long interval of time had been consumed in the hold-up; but in reality he knew it had been little more than a matter of seconds—the time it had taken the two men to run the length of the car, uncouple it, and leap on the rear end. The fight afterwards could hardly count, for once the express car began to pull away the thing was done.

They were moving fast now, and with every instant the speed was increasing. The Hawk clutched at the handrail, and lowered himself to the iron foot-rung which, on the express car, served in lieu of steps. Here, having chosen the opposite side to that of the Butcher at the throttle in the cab, he ran no risk of being observed. This “five-mile crossing,” wherever it was, promised to concern him a great deal more than he had anticipated! He leaned out, and clung there, staring ahead.

The big ten-wheeler was swaying and staggering like a drunken thing; the rush of the wind whipped at his face; a deafening roar sang in his ears. The Fast Mail usually ran fast; but the Butcher was running like a dare-devil, and the bark of the exhaust had quickened now into a single full-toned note deep as thunder.

With a sort of grim placidity, the Hawk clung to the lurching rail. Far ahead along the right of way, a shaft of light riven through walls of blackness, played the headlight. Shadowy objects, trees that loomed up for an instant and were gone, showed on the edge of the wavering ray. They tore through a rock cut, and, in the confined space and in the fraction of a second it took to traverse it, the roar was metamorphosed into an explosion. And then suddenly, as though by magic, the headlight shot off at a tangent, and the glistening lines of steel, that were always converging but never meeting, were gone, and the ray fell full upon a densely wooded tract where leaves and foliage became a soft and wonderful shade of green under the artificial light. The Hawk braced himself—and just in time. The ten-wheeler, unchecked, swung the curve with a mighty lurch, off drivers fairly lifted from the rails. She seemed to hang there hesitantly for a breathless instant, then with a crunch, staggering, settled back and struck into her stride again.

The thunder of the exhaust ceased abruptly, and the speed began to slacken. The Butcher had slammed the throttle shut. At the end of the headlight's ray, that was straight along the track again, a red light flashed up suddenly three times and vanished. The Hawk leaned farther out, tense now, straining his eyes ahead. It was evidently Number Four and Number Seven signalling from “five-mile crossing.”

The Butcher began to check with the “air.” And now, in the headlight's glare, the distance shortened, the Hawk could discern a large wagon, drawn by two horses, that appeared to be backed up close to the right-hand side of the track. Two forms seemed to be tugging at the horses, which equally seemed to be plunging restively—and then, being on the wrong side of the car, the angle of vision narrowed and he could see no more.

The Hawk turned now—his eyes on the door of the car. There was a possibility, a little more than a possibility, that the men inside, knowing that they had reached their destination, would come out this way. No—he had only to keep hidden from the men out there with the wagon until the car stopped—the men within were sliding back the side door. He swung himself still farther out on the foot-rung; then, curving back with the aid of the handrail, flattened himself against the side of the car.

They were close up to the wagon now, and he could hear voices cursing furiously at the horses, as the frightened animals stamped and pawed. And then the car bumped and jerked to a standstill, and the Butcher was bawling from the cab:

“Take the horses out, you blamed fools, and tie 'em back there on the road a bit till we're gone! We'd have a sweet time loading the wagon with them doing the tango every second! Take 'em out! We'll back the wagon up against the car.”

The Hawk lowered himself silently to the ground—to find that the car had come to a stop directly over a road crossing. The men in the car had joined their voices with the Butcher's, and in the confusion now the Hawk slipped quickly along the side of the car, stole around the rear end, and from that point of vantage stood watching the Butcher and his men at work.

He could see quite plainly, thanks to the light from the car's wide-open side door that flooded the scene. The horses had been unharnessed, and were being led away along the road. One of the men in the car jumped to the ground, as the Butcher called out, and together they backed the wagon close up against the car doorway; and then, presently, the men who had accompanied the horses, one carrying a lantern, came running back. The Hawk's eyes, from a general and comprehensive survey of the scene, fixed on the man who until now had not left the car, but who had now sprung down into the wagon and was running a short plank, to be used as a skid evidently, up to the threshold of the car door, which was a little above the level of the wagon. The light shone full in the man's face.

“Number Six—Crusty Kline!” confided the Hawk softly to himself. “I'm glad to know that. The last time I chummed with Crusty was back in little old Sing Sing. Guess he got out for good behaviour—thought he was elected for five spaces yet!”

Crusty spoke now, as he jumped back into the car.

“Look here, Butcher, I'm telling you again, this guy in here's in pretty bad shape.”

“Never mind about that!” replied the Butcher roughly. “Get the safe out! All hands now! We've got no time to monkey with him. He'll come around all right, I guess—anyway, it's none of our lookout!”

The men were bunched together now, three in the doorway of the car and two in the wagon, the safe between them. The Hawk was studying one of the two who stood in the wagon. One was Whitie Jim, as he already knew, but the other had had his back half turned, and the Hawk had not been able to see his face. The safe slid down the plank, and was levered and pushed forward into the middle of the wagon.

“French Pete!” said the Hawk suddenly and as softly as before, as the man he had been watching straightened up and turned around. “Say, I guess Sing Sing's gone out of business—or else somebody left the door open!”

But if the Hawk's words were indicative of a facetious mood, his actions were not. There was a sort of dawning inspiration in the dark, narrowed eyes; and the strong jaw, as it was outthrust, drew his lips into a grim, hard smile. They were spreading a huge tarpaulin over the wagon and safe—and abruptly the Hawk drew back, dropped to his hands and knees, crawled along the trackside on the opposite side of the car again until almost opposite the wagon, and there lay flat and motionless at the side of the road. There was a chance yet, still a chance, a very good chance—for that twenty thousand dollars' worth of unset stones.

“All right, now!” It was the Butcher's voice. “Pull her away a few feet into the clear!” The wagon creaked and rattled. “That's enough! Now get a move on—everybody!”

Steps crunched along the trackside—the Butcher and his two companions obviously making for the cab—and a moment later came the cough of the engine's exhaust, and the express car began to glide past the spot where the Hawk lay.

The Hawk raised himself cautiously on his elbows. Two dark forms and a bobbing lantern were already speeding toward where the horses had been left. The Hawk crawled forward, crossed the track—and paused. The engine and express car were fast disappearing in the distance; the lantern glimmered amongst the trees at the side of the road a good hundred yards away.

There was no shadow to fall across the back of the wagon.

“I said it was a nice night, and that it was strange how some people preferred a moon!” observed the Hawk cheerfully—and, lifting the end of the tarpaulin, he swung noiselessly under it into the wagon, and stretched himself out beside the safe.

X—THE THIRD PARTY

The Hawk felt upward with his hand over the safe. It was faced, he found, toward the rear of the wagon. This necessitated a change in his own position. He listened tensely. They were coming back with the horses now, but they were still quite a little way off. He shifted quickly around until his head and shoulders were in front of the safe.

“It was the last turn of the combination that I fell down on, though I don't see how it happened!” muttered the Hawk.

He felt above his head again, this time rubbing his fingers critically over the tarpaulin—and then the diminutive little flashlight winked, winked again as it played around him, and finally held steadily on the nickel dial. There were no inadvertent openings, and, particularly, no holes in the tarpaulin, and the texture of the tarpaulin was a guarantee that the tiny rays of light would not show through.

They were harnessing the horses into the wagon now. The Hawk, in a somewhat cramped position, due to the wagon's narrow width, his legs twisted at right angles to his body as he lay on his back, reached up and began to twirl the dial knob slowly and with painstaking care.

“Left, twenty-eight, one quarter,” murmured the Hawk; and, a moment later: “Two right, four——”

The Hawk swore earnestly under his breath. The jolt of the wagon, coming unexpectedly as it started forward, had caused him to spin the knob too far around.

It was hot, stifling hot, under the heavy tarpaulin, that, slanting downward from the little safe, lay almost against his face. A bead of sweat had gathered on his forehead. He brushed it away, and began again to work at the dial. It was more difficult now—the wagon bumped infernally. And as he worked, he could hear the muffled clatter of the horses' hoofs, and occasionally the voices of the two men on the seat.

And then suddenly the Hawk's fingers travelled from the dial knob to the handle. Had he got it this time, or—yes! The handle swung easily—there was a low metallic thud—the bolt had slipped back to the end of its grooves. The safe was unlocked!

“Twenty thousand dollars!” said the Hawk very softly—and, without the slightest sound, he edged his body backwards to afford space for the swing of the opening door. “Twenty thousand doll——”

The word died, half uttered, on the Hawk's lips. The flashlight was illuminating the interior of the safe. On the bottom lay a single, crisp, ten-dollar counterfeit note, over the face of which was scrawled in ink—“With the Hawk's compliments!” Otherwise the safe was empty.

For a moment, like a man dazed, he stared at the counterfeit note. He could not seem to believe his eyes, Empty—the safe was empty! The diamonds were gone—gone! Gone—and these poor fools were driving an empty safe to the Master Spider—and another poor fool, with dropped jaw, was staring, gaping like an imbecile, into one! And then, a grip upon himself again, he laughed low, grimly, unpleasantly. “With the Hawk's compliments!” He had sent a bill like that once to MacVightie inscribed—“With the Hawk's compliments!” This was very neat, very clever of—somebody. Of somebody—who must have known what the Wire Devils were up to to-night! There would be no doubt in the minds of the Wire Devils, who would have heard of that little episode with MacVightie, but that the Hawk had again forestalled them, and left them a ten-dollar counterfeit bill in exchange for—twenty thousand dollars' worth of unset diamonds! Only it was this somebody, and not he, the Hawk, who was twenty thousand dollars the richer for it!

He reached in, picked up the bill to put it in his, pocket—and suddenly laid it back again, and closed and locked the safe. Why deprive the Master Spider of a little joy; and, besides, it would carry a message not perhaps so erroneous after all—for, in a flash, logically, indisputably, apparently impossible though it appeared to be on the surface, he knew who that somebody was. The shelving of the theft to the Hawk's shoulders would have defeated its own object unless the theft were committed and discovered on this particular division of the railroad where the Hawk and, incidentally, his supposed gang of desperadoes were known to be operating. The messenger certainly had not been in a drugged condition when he went on duty, and, since it was only reasonable to assume that he would have satisfied himself everything was all right at that time, it was evident, as he had given no alarm, that the contents of the safe had been intact when he took charge—whether as a “through” man in New York, or at the eastern terminus of the road, or at the last divisional point—it did not matter which. The robbery, then, had been committed while the messenger was present in the car—and it had been committed on this division. The safe had not been forced, it showed not the slightest sign of violence—it had been opened on the combination. Some one then, an expert safe-worker, in the first stages of the messenger's drugged condition, had happened into the car just ahead of him, the Hawk, and had done exactly what he, the Hawk, had intended to do?

“No,” said the Hawk. “No, I guess not.” He was wriggling noiselessly backward, and his feet were hanging out now over the end of the wagon. “No—coincidences like that don't happen—not very often!” The Hawk's head and shoulders were still under the tarpaulin, but his feet now could just feel the ground beneath them. “I guess,” said the Hawk, as he suddenly withdrew his head, and, crouching low, ran a few steps with the wagon, then dropped full length in the road, “I guess it's—the third party.”

The wagon disappeared in the darkness. The Hawk rose, and, turning, broke into a run back along the road.

He had been longer in the wagon than he had thought—it took him ten minutes to regain the railroad tracks.

Here, without pause, still running, he kept on along the right of way—but there was a hard twist to his lips, and the clenching of his fists was not wholly due to runner's “form.” How far had the Butcher taken the car before deserting it? A mile? Two miles—three? He could not run three miles under half an hour, and that would be fast over railroad ties! How long would it be before the train crew of the stalled Mail got back to Burke's Siding and managed somehow, in spite of the cut wires, to give the alarm—or how long before the dispatcher at Selkirk, with the Fast Mail reported “out” at Burke's Siding and no “O. S.” from Bradley, would smell a rat? It would take time after that, of course, before anything could be done; but, at best, the margin left for him was desperately narrow.

He ran on and on; his eyes, grown accustomed to the darkness, enabling him to pick out the ties with a fair degree of accuracy. There was not a sound save that of his own footsteps. He stopped for breath again and again; and again and again ran on at top speed. It seemed as though he had run not three miles, but six, when finally, far ahead, he caught a glow of light. The Butcher and his confederates had evidently not taken the trouble to close the side door of the car!

Instinctively, the Hawk, in caution, slowed his pace—and the next instant, smiling pityingly at himself for the act, ran on the faster. The Butcher and the other two would long since have made their getaway! There was only the messenger—and the messenger was drugged. That was all that need concern him now—the messenger—to find some way to rouse the man so that he could talk.

The Hawk reached the car, ran along the side to the open door—and stood suddenly still. And then, with a low, startled cry, he swung himself up and through the doorway, and running forward, knelt beside a huddled form on the floor. It was the messenger, sprawled on his face now, motionless, and it was no longer a case of being drugged—the man had been shot! There was a dark, ugly pool on the flooring, and a thin red stream had trickled away in a zigzag course along one of the planks. The Hawk's lips were tight. The Butcher's work! But why? Why? Yes! Yes, he understood! The Butcher, too, in some way had discovered that the messenger was—the third party!

The boy—he was even more of a boy now in appearance, it seemed to the Hawk, with his ashen face and colourless lips—the boy moaned a little, and, as the Hawk lifted him up, opened his eyes.

The Hawk produced a flask, and forced a few drops between the other's lips.

“Listen!” he said distinctly. “Try and understand what I am saying. Did they get the diamonds from you after they shot you?”

The boy's eyes widened with a quick, sudden fear. Perhaps the drug had begun to wear off—perhaps it was the wound and the loss of blood that had cleared his brain.

“The diamonds?” he faltered.

“Yes,” said the Hawk grimly. “The diamonds! You took them. Did you tell those men where they were?”

“It's—it's a lie!” The boy seemed to shiver convulsively. Then, his voice scarcely audible: “No, it's—it's true. I—I did. I—I guess I'm going out—ain't I? It's—it's true. But I—I didn't tell. There weren't any men—I——” He had fainted in the Hawk's arms.

“My God!” whispered the Hawk solemnly. “It's true—the kid's dying.”

He held the flask to the other's lips again. It wasn't the Butcher, then, who had shot the boy; and, besides, he saw now that the wound was in a strangely curious place—in the back, below the shoulder blade; the boy had been sitting in his shirt sleeves, and the back of his vest was soaked with blood. And the Hawk remembered the fusillade of bullets that had swept up the interior of the car, and the spat upon the forward door panel as he had crouched there outside—and he understood. The boy, sitting in a stupor in his chair facing the forward door, had been directly in the line of fire, and a stray bullet had found its mark.

“I—I don't know how you knew”—the boy had roused, and was speaking again—“but—but I'm going out—and—and it's true. Two days ago, a man gave me a hundred dollars to stand for—for knockout drops on the run to-night. I—I couldn't get caught—I—I was safe—whatever happened. I'd be found drugged—and—and no blame coming to me—and——” He motioned weakly toward the flask in the Hawk's hand. “Give me—give me some more of that!”

He did not speak for a moment.

“And, instead,” prompted the Hawk quietly, “you double-crossed the game.”

“I—I had a counterfeit ten-dollar bill,” the boy went on with an effort. “I'd heard about the Hawk—and—and MacVightie. I knew from what:—the fellow said—that the Hawk—wasn't one of them. I—I got to thinking. All I had to do was empty the safe—and—and write just what the Hawk did on the bill—and—and shove it in the safe—and—and take the diamonds—and—and then drink the tea that had the drops in it. I—I would be drugged, and they—they'd think the Hawk did it while I was drugged before they—they got here—and—and that's what I did.”

The boy was silent again. It was still outside, very still—only the chirpings of the insects and the night-sounds the Hawk had listened to while he had lain below the embankment waiting for the train at Burke's Siding. There was a set, strained look on the Hawk's face. The kid was paying the long price—for twenty thousand dollars' worth of unset diamonds!

“To make it look like—like the real thing”—the boy's lips were moving again—“I—I cleaned out everything in the safe—but—but of course there mustn't any of that be found—and—and I tied the stuff up—and—and weighted it, and dropped it—into—the—river as we came over the bridge at Moosehead. And then I had to—to hide the diamonds so they wouldn't be found on me, and yet so's they—they'd come along with me—and—and not be left in the car. I was afraid that when some of the train crew found me drugged—they—they'd undress me—and—and put me to bed—and—and so I didn't dare hide the diamonds in my clothes. They're—they're—in——” He raised himself up suddenly, clutched frantically at the Hawk's shoulders and his voice rang wildly through the car. “Hold me tight—hold me tight—don't let me go out yet—I—I got something more to say! Don't tell her! Don't tell her! I'll tell you where the stones are, they're in the lining of my lunch satchel—but don't—oh, for God's sake, don't tell her—don't let her know that—that I'm a—thief! You don't have to, do you? Say you don't! I'm—I'm going out—I—I've got what's coming to me, and that's—enough—isn't it—without her knowing too? It—it would kill her. She was a good mother—do you hear!”

He was stiffening back in the Hawk's arms. “And this ain't coming to her. She was a good mother—do you hear—everybody called her mother, but she's my mother—you know—old Mother Barrett—short-order house—you know—old—Mother—Barrett—good——”

The boy never spoke again.