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Title: Nick Carter Stories No. 131, March 13, 1915: A fatal message; or, Nick Carter's slender clew

Author: Nicholas Carter
        Roland Ashford Phillips

Release date: July 9, 2021 [eBook #65805]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: David Edwards, Stephen Hutcheson, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Northern Illinois University Digital Library at http://digital.lib.niu.edu/)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NICK CARTER STORIES NO. 131, MARCH 13, 1915: A FATAL MESSAGE; OR, NICK CARTER'S SLENDER CLEW ***

                              NICK CARTER
                                STORIES


  _Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post
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   Copyright, 1915, by_ Street & Smith. _O. G. Smith and G. C. Smith,
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                       NEW YORK, March 13, 1915.
                     No. 131.    Price Five Cents.




                                CONTENTS


  A Fatal Message; Or, Nick Carter’s Slender Clew.                     1
  I. A Suspicious Wire.                                                1
  II. The Intercepted Letter.                                          3
  III. Nick Carter’s Plans.                                            5
  IV. The Real Substitute.                                             7
  V. Night Work.                                                       9
  VI. How Patsy Made Good.                                            11
  VII. Chick Carter’s Cunning.                                        13
  VIII. A Change of Base.                                             15
  IX. The Result of the Ruse.                                         17
  On A Dark Stage.                                                    19
  XX. The Second Act.                                                 19
  XXI. Enter the Girl.                                                20
  XXII. A New Mystery.                                                22
  XXIII. The Ardent Sleuth.                                           23
  XXIV. Mr. Amos Jarge.                                               23
  The News of All Nations.                                            27




                            A FATAL MESSAGE;
                    Or, NICK CARTER’S SLENDER CLEW.


                      Edited by CHICKERING CARTER.




                               CHAPTER I.
                           A SUSPICIOUS WIRE.


Nick Carter leaned nearer to the wall and listened to what the two men
were discussing.

The wall was that of a booth in the café of the Shelby House. It was a
partition of matched sheathing only, through which ordinary conversation
in the adjoining booth could be easily overheard, and both men in this
case spoke above an ordinary tone.

Obviously, therefore, they were discussing nothing of a private nature,
or anything thought to be of much importance, or serious significance.
It meant no more to them, in fact, than it would have meant to most men,
to all save one in a million.

That one in a million was seated alone in the next booth—Nick Carter.

The two men were strangers to the detective. They had entered when he
was near the end of his lunch, and while waiting for their orders to be
served they engaged in the conversation which, though heard only by
chance, soon seriously impressed the detective.

“You were a little later than usual this noon, Belden,” said one.

“Yes, a few minutes, Joe, but I thought you would wait for me. My ticker
got busy just as I was about to leave. I remained to take the dispatch,
Gordon, and it proved to be quite a long one.”

“Something important?”

“Not very. Only political news for the local paper.”

“Belden evidently is a telegraph operator,” thought Nick.

“Anything warm by wire this morning?” questioned Gordon.

“No, nothing,” said Belden; and then he abruptly added: “There was a
singular message, however, and an unusual circumstance in connection
with it.”

“How so, Arthur?”

“The dispatch was addressed to John Dalton, and we were instructed to
hold it till called for,” Belden explained. “I looked in the local
directory, but it contained no John Dalton. I inferred that he was a
traveling man, or a visitor in town, whose address was not known by the
sender.”

“Naturally.”

“Strange to say, however, he showed up in about five minutes and asked
if we had a dispatch for him.”

“Why, is there anything strange in that? He evidently was expecting it.”

“It was strange that he came in so quickly, almost while I was receiving
the message. That, too, was singular.”

“The message?”

“Yes.”

“Why so?”

“As I remember it, Joe, it read: ‘Dust flying. S. D. on way. Ware
eagle,’” said Belden. “It was signed with only a single name—‘Martin.’”

It was then that Nick Carter pricked up his ears and leaned nearer to
the wall to hear what the two men were saying.

“By Jove, that was a bit singular,” remarked Gordon.

“I thought so.”

“Dust flying, eh?” Gordon laughed. “The dispatch must have come from a
windy city.”

“It came from Philadelphia.”

“I’m wrong, then. Not even dust flies in Philadelphia. Did Dalton send
an answer?”

“Not that I know of; certainly not from our office.”

“Or volunteer any explanation?”

“No. It probably was a code message, or had some secret significance. He
took the dispatch and departed.”

“A stranger to you, eh?”

“Total stranger. I don’t imagine the message amounted to anything. It
appeared a bit odd, however, and—ah, here’s our grub,” Belden broke off
abruptly. “The Martini is mine, waiter. Here’s luck, Joe.”

It was obvious to Nick that the discussion of the telegram was ended. He
immediately arose and departed. He sauntered into the hotel office, then
out through the adjoining corridor, which just then was deserted, of
which he took advantage. He quickly adjusted a simple disguise with
which he was provided, and he then passed out of a side door leading to
the street. Nick was watching the café when the two men emerged. He
followed them until Gordon parted from his companion and entered a large
hardware store, where he evidently was employed.

Arthur Belden walked on leisurely alone, and Nick judged that he was
heading for the main office of the Western Union Company, whose sign
projected from a building some fifty yards away. The detective walked
more rapidly, and quickly overtook him.

“How are you, Belden?” said he, slipping his hand through the young
man’s arm. “Don’t appear surprised. Pretend that you know me. I have
something to say to you.”

Belden was quick-witted, and he immediately nodded and smiled.

“I will explain presently,” Nick continued. “We’ll wait until we are
under cover. It’s barely possible that we are observed. You work in the
telegraph office, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’m assistant manager.”

“Got a private office?”

“Yes. I receive and send most of the important dispatches.”

“Good enough. I’m going with you to your office. Carry yourself as if it
was nothing unusual. Fine day overhead, isn’t it?”

“Yes, great,” laughed Belden, gazing up. “This way. We’ll cross here.”

Nick accompanied him across the street into the building. Not until they
were seated in his private office, however, did the detective refer to
the matter actuating him.

“I was in the adjoining booth while you and your friend Gordon were
discussing a telegram received here this morning,” Nick then explained.
“I wish to talk with you about it.”

“For what reason?” questioned Belden, more sharply regarding him. “Have
you any authority in the matter?”

“Yes.”

“How so? Who are you?”

Nick saw plainly that the young man was trustworthy. He smiled
agreeably, yet said, quite impressively:

“This is strictly between us, Belden, so be sure that you don’t betray
my confidence under any circumstances. I am in Shelby on very important
business. Any indiscretion on your part might prove very costly. You
read your local newspaper and must know me by name, at least. I am the
New York detective, Nick Carter.”

Belden’s frank face underwent a decided change. He quickly extended his
hand, saying earnestly:

“By gracious, I ought to have guessed it. Know you by name—well, I
should say so! I’m mighty glad to meet you, too, Mr. Carter, and to be
of any service. The local paper has, indeed, had a good deal to say
about you and your mission here, as well as about your running down Karl
Glidden’s murderer, Jim Reardon. Yes, by Jove, I ought to have guessed
it.”

Belden referred to recent events. The secret employment of Nick and his
assistants to run down the perpetrators of a long series of crimes on
the S. & O. Railway, his investigation of the murder of the night
operator in one of the block-signal towers, resulting in the detection
and death of the culprit, James Reardon, and the arrest of several of
his associates suspected of being identified with the railway outlaws,
though their guilt could not then be proved—all had occurred during the
ten days that Nick Carter, Chick, and Patsy had been in Shelby, and all
still were vividly fresh in the public mind.

Nick smiled faintly at Belden’s enthusiastic remarks.

“We still have much to accomplish here,” he replied, referring to
himself and his assistants. “We got James Reardon, all right, and
cleaned up that signal-tower mystery, which was what we first undertook
to do. That did not clinch our suspicions against some of his
associates, however, as I had hoped it would do. I refer to Jake Hanlon,
Link Magee, and Dick Bryan, who have succeeded in wriggling from under
the wheels of justice.”

“But you expect to get them later?”

“I expect to, yes,” said Nick. “But my identity and mission in Shelby
now are generally known. That has put the railway bandits on their
guard, which makes our work more difficult. But that’s neither here nor
there, Mr. Belden, and I am wasting time. I wish to see a copy of that
telegram you were discussing with Gordon and to ask you a few questions
about it.”

“Go ahead. Go as far as you like, Mr. Carter. I’ll never mention a word
of it,” Belden earnestly assured him.

“Good for you,” Nick replied. “About what time was the telegram
received?”

“Precisely ten o’clock.”

“And Dalton called for it almost immediately?”

“Within three or four minutes.”

“That indicates that he was expecting it at just that time,” said Nick.
“If I am right, and I think I am, he was acting under plans previously
laid with the sender, Martin, or he was otherwise informed just when the
message would be sent. Do you recall ever having received another
dispatch from Philadelphia signed Martin?”

“I do not,” said Belden, shaking his head.

“What type of man is Dalton? Describe him.”

“He is a well-built man, about forty years old, quite dark, and he wears
a full beard. He was clad in a plaid business suit.”

“The beard may have been a disguise.”

“I think I would have detected it.”

“You do not detect mine,” smiled Nick. “He may be equally skillful.”

“There may be something in that,” Belden admitted, laughing. “At all
events, Mr. Carter, the man was a total stranger to me. But why do you
regard the message so suspiciously?”

“Have you a copy of it?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Let me see it.”

Belden stepped into the outer office, returning presently with a
spindle, on which were copies of all of the telegrams received that day.
He began to remove them, seeking the one in question, and Nick said,
while waiting:

“By the way, Belden, have you received any other telegrams from
Philadelphia this morning, or within a day or two?”

“Yes. There was one this morning.”

“Let me see that, also. Was it received before the other, or later?”

“About an hour earlier.”

“Let me see both of them.”

“Here is the first one,” said Belden. “It was received at nine o’clock.
See for yourself, Mr. Carter.”

Nick took the telegram and read it:

  “Gus Dewitt, Reddy House, Shelby: Ten will hit me. Quickest route.

                                                            A. Monaker.”

It was a message that would have signified very little to most men. It
might have been an ordinary business communication, a wire concerning
the price and quantity of desired merchandise and the direction for
shipping it.

Nick Carter’s strong, clean-cut face, however, took on a more intent
expression.

“By Jove, I am right,” he said. “It’s a hundred to one that this was
sent to notify Dalton just when to call for the message.”

“Why do you think so?” Belden inquired, leaning nearer to read the
telegram.

“For three reasons,” said Nick. “First, the signature—A. Monaker.”

“What about it? It evidently is a man’s name. I see nothing remarkable
in that.”

“There is, nevertheless,” Nick replied. “Monaker, Belden, is a slang
term for a nickname. Undoubtedly in this case it refers to a fictitious
name, or an alias. It means, I think, that an alias would be used in the
message afterward sent, signed Martin and addressed to John Dalton,
presumably an alias of which Dalton already was informed.”

“By gracious, Carter, you may be right.”

“Ten will hit me told Dalton at just what time he must expect the
message. He was, in effect, directed to call for it at that hour.
Obviously, too, the business is secret and important, as well as off
color, or such a circumspect method of communication would not be
necessary.”

“Surely not,” Belden agreed. “But what do you make of the last—quickest
route?”

“By wire, Belden, of course,” said Nick. “A telegram is the quickest
means of communication when the telephone cannot be wisely and
conveniently used.”

“That’s right, too,” Belden readily admitted. “By Jove, you have a long
head, Mr. Carter.”

“Training enables one to detect such points as these,” Nick replied. “Do
you know Gus Dewitt, to whom this message is addressed?”

“I do not.”

“It was sent to the Reddy House.”

“Yes. It may have been signed for by the clerk, or delivered to Dewitt
himself. The boy who took it there could tell us, but he is out just
now. You can telephone to the Reddy House and find out.”

“Not by a long chalk,” Nick quickly objected. “I don’t want my interest
in this matter suspected. Have you found the other message?”

“Yes, here it is.”

Belden tendered the yellow paper on which the copied message was
written.




                              CHAPTER II.
                        THE INTERCEPTED LETTER.


Nick Carter read more carefully the telegram discussed in the hotel
café, and which had so seriously aroused his suspicions.

  “John Dalton, Shelby: Dust flying. S. D. on way. Ware eagle.

                                                                Martin.”

Belden watched the detective for a moment, then asked:

“What do you make of it? Dust flying seems to have no definite
significance.”

“On the contrary, Belden, it is very significant to me,” said Nick. “You
have heard it said, no doubt, that some men have dust on their clothes,
others in them.”

“Dust—you mean money?”

“Exactly. There is money moving in some way, Belden, or about to be
moved, of which felonious advantage is going to be taken. In other
words, Belden, crooks are out to get the money.”

“Ah, I see!” Belden exclaimed, with eyes lighting. “You suspect that a
crime is being framed up.”

“Precisely. I feel reasonably sure of it, in fact.”

“For any other reason?”

“Yes. Notice the last phrase in the message.”

“Ware eagle,” said Belden, reading it. “What the deuce can you make of
that? Is one of them to wear an eagle, or some such insignia?”

“Not at all,” said Nick. “It’s a warning.”

“A warning?”

“Surely. Observe the spelling of ‘ware.’ The word does not refer to
something to be worn, or it would be properly spelled. It is an
abbreviation of the word beware. In reality, Belden, the phrase means:
Beware eagle.”

“But how do you interpret that?” questioned Belden perplexedly. “Why is
Dalton to beware of an eagle. I can’t see any sense to that.”

Nick laughed a bit grimly.

“I can,” he said tersely. “Crooks have favored me with all sorts of
names and epithets. I am the eagle referred to, Belden, as sure as
you’re a foot high.”

“Ah! I see the point.”

“This man, Martin, the sender of the message, has warned Dalton to
beware of me,” Nick added. “It was that phrase that first led me to
suspect the character of the entire message. It is generally known, now,
that I am here in the service of the S. & O. Railway. This message
convinces me, therefore, that another of the railway crimes is about to
be attempted. It’s up to me to head it off, if possible, or at least to
get the outlaws.”

“By Jove, you are a wonderful man, Mr. Carter,” said Belden, with much
enthusiasm. “There is no denying that you probably have interpreted both
messages correctly.”

“I think so,” said Nick modestly.

“But how can you head off the anticipated crime, or succeed in getting
the outlaws?”

“That’s another part of the story,” Nick replied, smiling.

“One of them evidently is on the way here. Some one whose initials are
S. D.,” added Belden, glancing at the message. “If you can identify him
and find Gus Dewitt——”

“I shall certainly do the latter,” Nick interposed. “But you are wrong
in regard to the other.”

“How so?”

“S. D. does not, in all probability, refer to a man.”

“A woman?”

“No.”

“To what, then?”

“To a special-delivery letter,” said Nick confidently.

“Oh, by thunder!” Belden exclaimed. “That must be right, too. You have
nailed every point in both of these messages.”

“And the next step, Belden, is to nail the special-delivery letter,”
Nick declared. “It presumably is coming from Philadelphia, and most
likely sent by this man Martin. Do you know whether a mail from
Philadelphia has arrived here since ten this morning?”

“There has not,” said Belden promptly. “I know all about the mails. One
is due here from Philadelphia at two o’clock.”

“Very good. Let me use your telephone to talk with one of my assistants.
I want him to meet me at the post office.”

“Certainly. Go as far as you like.”

“In the meantime, Belden, kindly make me a copy of each of these
messages,” Nick added, turning to the telephone. “I then will be off to
intercept that special-delivery letter. I may yet succeed, I think, in
putting something over on Martin, Dalton, and Dewitt.”

Belden hastened to comply.

Nick called up the Shelby House, in the meantime, and quickly got in
communication with Chick Carter and Patsy Garvan, his two assistants,
both of whom he directed to meet him in disguise at the local post
office. Then, having again cautioned Belden to absolute secrecy, Nick
hastened away to keep the appointment.

It was half past one when he entered the post office, where he found
Chick and Patsy awaiting him. Without delaying to explain the situation,
he at once led the way to the private office of the postmaster, Adam
Holden, who readily gave him an interview.

Nick then made himself known, introducing Chick and Patsy, after which
he exhibited the two telegrams, confiding his suspicions to Holden and
stating what he required of him.

“But that is decidedly against the law, Mr. Carter, the intercepting and
opening of another person’s letter,” Holden forcibly objected. “I don’t
see how I can consent to let you do so. It is a very serious offense.”

“Not nearly as serious as the circumstances,” Nick forcibly argued.
“When dealing with offenders against the law, with a gang of criminals
engaged in we know not what, nor have other means of learning, an
unlawful step in order to foil them and serve the law may very properly
be taken.”

“Possibly. I do not feel, nevertheless, that I can permit——”

“Now, Holden, you wait one moment,” Nick interrupted. “It is absolutely
necessary that I shall see that letter. I will assume all of the
responsibility.”

“But——”

“Or, if you prefer,” Nick cut in impressively, “I will send Chick to
Judge Barclay, of the local court, and get from him a special order to
open the letter. He is corporation counsel for the S. & O. Railway
Company and will have a very keen appreciation of the circumstances.
Bear in mind, too, that the letter is not to be held up permanently. It
will be delayed only a very few minutes, and the recipient will be none
the wiser. I can open and reseal the letter without his even suspecting
it.”

“Very well,” Holden said reluctantly. “You get an order from the court,
Mr. Carter, and I will yield to your wishes.”

“Attend to it, Chick,” said Nick, turning to his assistant. “State the
circumstances to Judge Barclay and bring the order here as quickly as
possible. You will have no trouble in getting it.”

“Surely not,” Chick agreed, rising to go. “He has absolutely confidence
in your judgment. I’ll return within a quarter hour.”

“You have ample time,” put in Holden. “The mail will not be in for
nearly half an hour.”

“Very good,” said Nick. “In the meantime, Patsy, you go to the Reddy
House and see what you can learn about Gus Dewitt. You will probably
find him there, for he must be expecting the special-delivery letter and
should be waiting for it.”

“Sure thing, chief, if the game is what you suspect,” Patsy declared.

“Be off, then, and phone me here,” Nick directed. “Make sure you do
nothing to arouse his suspicions.”

“Trust me for that.”

“Look up Dalton, also, and see what you can learn about him. Call me up
in half an hour for further instructions.”

“I’ve got you, chief,” said Patsy, hastening to depart.

Nick waited patiently.

Postmaster Holden appeared nervous and uncertain. He was relieved in
about fifteen minutes, however, by the return of Chick, bringing from
the magistrate the order Nick had requested.

Ten minutes later a mail wagon rattled into the post-office yard, and
Holden went to bring all of the special-delivery letters to his private
office.

There proved to be only six of them, and the one referred to in the
telegram was easily determined. It bore the Philadelphia postmark and
was addressed to Gus Dewitt, at the Reddy House.

“How can you open and reseal it?” Holden questioned doubtfully, while
the detective examined the letter.

“Very easily,” said Nick.

“So that it will not be detected?”

“Surely. A little steam will turn the trick, no wax having been applied
to the flap of the envelope. Your radiator will serve us. We’ll find out
in about two minutes what this letter contains.”

Nick arose while speaking and stepped to the radiator. He turned the key
of the small air tube and opened the valve. A faint blowing and
sputtering ensued, soon followed by the ejection of a slender stream of
steam.

Nick adjusted it carefully, then held the back of the envelope in the
thread of steam until the heat and moisture softened the paste on the
flap, which he then opened without injury, removing the letter and
laying the envelope aside to dry.

“Now, Chick, we’ll see what Martin has to say in this special delivery,”
he remarked complacently, while unfolding the single sheet of paper so
artfully taken from its cover.

Chick drew nearer to gaze at it.

The communication also was typewritten, on a sheet of perfectly plain
paper. It read as follows:

  “Dear Gus: The pay-roll package goes through to-night, Tuesday, on the
  Southern Limited. We’ll have the substitute down fine in ample time,
  and the other dead to rights. Be on hand to relieve us of the goods at
  the point agreed upon. Nothing doing until south of North Dayton. It
  looks like a walk-over. I will see you after turning the trick.

                                                                Martin.”

Nick Carter glanced through the letter, then read it aloud to his two
companions. The significance of it could not be mistaken.

“By gracious!” Holden exclaimed. “You were right, Mr. Carter. It’s a job
to rob the express car on the Southern Limited.”

“Nothing less,” said Nick. “I suspected something of the kind.”

“That train is due here from Philadelphia soon after midnight.”

“A fit hour for such a felonious job,” Nick declared. “But we must be
equal to the needs of the hour. Not a word of this to others, Holden,
under any circumstances.”

“Surely not. You can depend upon my discretion.”

“I will make a copy of this letter. You then may reseal it and have it
delivered precisely as if it had not been opened.”

“I will do so, Mr. Carter.”

It took Nick only a few moments to make the copy. Holden had not
finished resealing the letter, however, when the ringing of the
telephone was the harbinger of a communication from Patsy.

“Hold that letter until after I have a talk with him,” Nick directed.

Patsy’s report was brief and to the point.

“John Dalton is not known here,” said he, speaking from a booth in the
Reddy House. “Gus Dewitt arrived here two days ago. He has been here on
other occasions for a day or two, but nothing definite is known about
him. He now is in the hotel office and evidently is waiting for the
special-delivery letter.”

“Anything more?” Nick inquired.

“That’s all to date,” returned Patsy. “I’ve got my eye on the man.”

“Keep it on him, Patsy, after he receives the letter,” Nick directed.
“Shadow him, if possible, or find some way to trail him. Listen while I
tell you what the letter contains. It may be of advantage to you.”

“Shoot! I’m all ears,” said Patsy.

Nick then repeated the letter verbatim and told Patsy of what his
suspicions consisted, again directing him to make a special mark of
Dewitt until otherwise instructed. Replacing the receiver, Nick then
turned to the postmaster and said:

“Now, Holden, you may send that letter along. Take it from me, too, that
Dalton will not be the wiser—until I snap a pair of bracelets on his
wrists.”

“The sooner the better, Carter, in my opinion,” replied the other. “It
could be done when the letter is delivered.”

“I know that, Holden, but that’s much too soon. It’s not going to be
done until I can put bracelets on every crook engaged in this job,” Nick
declared, with grim determination.

“I agree with you that that would be still better,” smiled Holden,
turning to hasten out with the fateful letter—for such it proved to be.




                              CHAPTER III.
                          NICK CARTER’S PLANS.


Starting with a fine spun thread, a mere film that only one man in a
million would have picked up under such circumstances, Nick Carter had
gradually twisted it to the size of a cord of considerable strength, of
which he now aimed to make a rope with which to twist, perhaps, the
necks of the culprits deserving it.

It was after two o’clock when Nick, still in disguise and in company
with Chick, left the Shelby post office.

Three o’clock found them seated with Judge Barclay and President
Burdick, of the S. & O. Railway, in the magnate’s private office, to
both of whom Nick had stated his discoveries and suspicions.

It was then that he picked up another strand for the rope.

He learned from President Burdick that an express shipment of sixty
thousand dollars in currency and specie was to be made from Philadelphia
that day, for the payroll and construction expense on the Shelbyville
branch road, then being built; which had aroused the bitter and vengeful
opposition of a lawless section of the country through which it was to
pass, resulting in the numerous crimes and outrages to which the road
since had been subjected, and the perpetrators of which Nick and his
assistants had been employed to run down.

“This proves to be about what I suspected,” Nick remarked, after hearing
Burdick’s statements. “We are up against some of the same bandits guilty
of the previous crimes. I was not sure of it in the case of Jim Reardon,
who had a personal grievance, or a fancied one, to avenge.”

“It is not too late to cancel the shipment, Carter, or defer it for a
few days,” Judge Barclay suggested.

“That should be done, I think,” Burdick added.

But Nick Carter quickly objected.

“By no means,” he declared. “That is the worst step you could take.”

“Why so?”

“Because we now have an unusual advantage over these rascals, in that we
have anticipated their designs, and now is the time to catch them
red-handed.”

“Surely,” Chick agreed. “It’s a rare opportunity. It is one that should
not be lost.”

“There is something in that, Carter, after all,” Burdick thoughtfully
admitted. “We can easily protect the shipment by concealing a posse of
well-armed men in the express car. How will that do?”

“It won’t do at all,” Nick replied. “The crooks might discover the fact
and throw up the job. They are not working blindly, Mr. Burdick, nor in
the dark. Being absolutely ignorant of their identity, moreover, you
might reveal your intentions to some man who would betray you. You must
leave this matter entirely to me. I want the rascals to undertake the
job. I’ll be on hand to prevent it.”

“You may safely depend on him, Burdick,” put in Judge Barclay.

“What are your plans, Mr. Carter?” President Burdick inquired.

“I don’t know,” Nick said frankly. “I have not laid any plans, nor shall
I until I get all of the information I can obtain. All I want of you,
Mr. Burdick, is to answer a few questions for me. I then will do the
rest.”

“Very well. I will leave it to you, then.”

“You will make no mistake,” Nick confidently predicted. “Now, to begin
with, how is the money to be shipped? It will be in the express car, I
infer.”

“Yes, certainly, locked in the safe.”

“Who has charge of the car?”

“A man named Daniel Cady.”

“Reliable?”

“Until the last gun is fired,” said Burdick emphatically. “I know him
root and branch, Carter, and he has both judgment and courage. He would
fight to the last ditch.”

“Does he run alone on the car?”

“Yes. The night run does not ordinarily require a second man. The
express carriage on that particular train is never very heavy. Cady has
had charge of that car for a dozen years.”

“Where does he live?”

“His home is here, in Shelby. He has a wife and several children. He now
is in Philadelphia, however, for he goes and returns on alternate
nights.”

“Very good,” said Nick. “What time is the express due in North Dayton?”

“Twelve o’clock precisely.”

“Does it stop there?”

“Not at the station. It stops at the junction of our western division
south of the town to take water and get instructions from Sampson, the
train dispatcher here in Shelby. It is the last stop the limited makes
before reaching Shelby.”

“A run of eighteen miles, isn’t it?”

“Nearly that.”

“What is the next stop north?”

“Amherst, fourteen miles beyond North Dayton.”

“There is a block-signal tower at the North Dayton Junction, I infer.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Who is the night operator?”

“Tom Denny, a very reliable man.”

“Capital!” said Nick promptly. “Write a line introducing me to Denny and
directing him to coöperate with me. I shall require nothing, President
Burdick, that will interfere with his customary duties.”

“I will give you a letter to him.”

“Also one to Daniel Cady,” added Nick. “Make it of the same character. I
am probably a stranger to both men.”

President Burdick turned to his desk and wrote the two letters, then
handed them to the detective.

“I think that is all,” said Nick, taking his hat. “By the way, however,
what time does the next north-bound train leave Shelby?”

“At five-thirty.”

“Does it stop at North Dayton and Amherst?”

“Yes, both stations.”

“That’s all,” Nick repeated, rising. “Do absolutely nothing more in this
matter, gentlemen, but leave it all to me. I will contrive to thwart
these rascals and land them behind prison bars. Come, Chick, we must get
a move on.”

“What’s your scheme?” Chick inquired, when they emerged up the street.

“That can be briefly told,” Nick replied. “Martin, whoever he is,
evidently is in Philadelphia, where he probably learned about the money
shipment and most likely he was there with that object in view. It is
almost a safe gamble, too, that he will be on the Southern Limited
to-night, since his letter to Dewitt states that he will see the latter
after the robbery.”

“I agree with you,” Chick nodded. “It does look, indeed, as if he would
be on the train.”

“What part he will play in the robbery, however, is an open question,”
said Nick. “He may take no active part in it, as far as that goes, but
may leave the work to his confederates.”

“Possibly.”

“We have, of course, no idea just when, where, or how the job will be
attempted,” Nick continued. “The letter states, however, that there will
be nothing doing until the train is south of North Dayton.”

“I remember.”

“The job will be undertaken, then, somewhere in the run of eighteen
miles to Shelby.”

“Surely.”

“Thinking they have a walk-over, as Martin terms it, the rascals may be
overconfident,” Nick added. “I think we can foil them, however, and get
them with hands up. I will leave Patsy to trail Dewitt to cover, if
possible, while we tackle the train end of the job.”

“But what do you make of the other statements in Martin’s letter?” Chick
inquired.

“As to having a substitute down fine by that time and the other dead to
rights?”

“Yes. What do you make of that?”

“That seems open to only one interpretation,” Nick reasoned. “It
probably refers to the package containing the money. A substitute
evidently is to be used in some way, and the other taken from the
express car.”

“That seems like a reasonable theory.”

“The money certainly is to be on the car, however, for Dewitt is
directed to be on hand to relieve some one of the goods, possibly Martin
himself.”

“Very likely.”

“But, as the letter also states, nothing is to be done until after
leaving North Dayton,” Nick repeated.

“And your plans?”

“We will leave town in disguise at five-thirty. You go as far as
Amherst, to board the express when it arrives. You must be governed by
the make-up of the train as to what car you will take. Select that which
Martin would be most likely to occupy, and be on the lookout for him, or
for any other suspicious circumstances. There is a fourteen-mile run
before you arrive in North Dayton.”

“I understand, Nick, and will be governed accordingly,” Chick assured
him. “But what are your own designs?”

“I’m going to board that express car at North Dayton,” said Nick, with
rather grim intonation. “I’ll contrive to do so in a way that will
occasion no misgivings, even if I am seen by some of the gang.”

“And then?”

“Predictions beyond that point would be speculative. I will make only
one. If Cady proves to be the man of nerve and courage ascribed to him
by President Burdick—well, in that case, Chick, if this bunch of bandits
gets away with the money, I’ll chuck my vocation and open an old man’s
home.”

Chick Carter laughed.




                              CHAPTER IV.
                          THE REAL SUBSTITUTE.


It was a clear night with a myriad of stars in the sky. The silver
crescent of a quarter moon had sunk below the wooded hills in the west.
A chill from the distant mountains was in the air, though but little
wind was stirring.

The midnight stillness of the rural country south of North Dayton, where
the lofty signal tower loomed up at the junction of the western division
of the S. & O. Railway, was broken only by the frequent croakings of
frogs in a swamp east of the tracks, or the occasional cry of some night
bird circling overhead.

The N. D. tower, as it was known on the wire, was in a lonely locality.
Trains stopped there only for water, or in response to the signal
lights, which changed from green and red to white when the night
operator, Tom Denny, worked the huge levers in the tower chamber.

He was seated at his telegraph stand shortly before twelve on that
eventful night, a compact, muscular man of middle age. A revolver was
lying near the instrument.

The murder in the K. C. tower at Shelby, the brutal killing of Karl
Glidden, also the other crimes and the outrages along the S. & O.
road—all were so fresh in the mind of every night operator during his
weary vigil, that none was taking any chances of being caught
unprepared.

Three bells suddenly broke the stillness of the tower chamber. They told
Denny that the operator in the next tower north was waiting for his
unlock, that the Southern Limited was approaching North Dayton, and
Denny pushed the plug into the box and held it for an O. K. Getting it
almost instantly, he arose and set his signals.

As he turned from the lever, he heard a step on the tower stairs. As
quick as a flash, while a hand was laid on the knob of the door, Denny
stepped to the table and seized his revolver.

The door was opened and a roughly clad, bearded man appeared on the
threshold. He looked like a track hand, or one employed on the railway.
He was a stranger to Denny, however, who covered him instantly, crying
sharply:

“Hold on! Stop right there! What do you want?”

Nick Carter smiled and said quietly:

“A few words with you, Denny, nothing more. I have a letter of
introduction from President Burdick. It will tell you who I am and why I
am here.”

Denny appeared incredulous and suspicious.

“Stay where you are!” he commanded. “Toss me the letter, then hands up
while I read it.”

Nick obeyed, remarking, with a laugh:

“You’re all right, Denny. He will be a good man, indeed, who catches you
napping.”

Denny read the brief letter, all the while with one eye upon the
intruder. He had no doubt of Nick’s identity, however, after reading the
missive and seeing the familiar handwriting of the railway president.

“By Jove, you gave me a disagreeable surprise to start with, Mr. Carter,
but this more than makes up for it,” he said heartily, placing the
letter and weapon upon the table and extending his hand.

“Good enough,” Nick replied, entering and shaking hands with him.

“I can, indeed, guess why you are here,” Denny added. “It is something
in connection with your efforts to run down the railway bandits. I at
first thought you were one of them.”

“Quite naturally, Denny, I’m sure,” smiled the detective.

“I know you are in the employ of the road, of course, since you cornered
Jim Reardon and sent him after his victim. But what’s your mission here
to-night? How can I be of any help to you?”

Nick knew that he could safely confide in him, and he then briefly
informed him of the circumstances and of the steps he was taking to
prevent the suspected robbery.

“I wish to board the express car without incurring suspicions, Denny, in
case any of the gang are on the watch during this last stop of the
train, before the job is to be attempted,” Nick proceeded to explain. “I
can do so, all right, by pretending to be a track hand and in the employ
of the road. No observer seeing me come down from the signal tower would
think it strange for me to board the car as if to ride to Shelby.”

“Surely not,” Denny quickly agreed. “That frequently occurs. You look
the part to the letter, too, Mr. Carter.”

“I wish to be with Cady in the car during the run,” Nick added. “I will,
I think, show these bandits that their knavery will be far from a
walk-over.”

“No doubt,” said Denny, smiling. “You’ll find Cady all right, too, and
game to the core. He’s one man in a thousand.”

“So Burdick informed me.”

“No one has anything on Cady.”

“Can you consistently leave the tower after the train arrives?”

“Yes, indeed, while the engine is taking water. I nearly always have
dispatches to take down.”

“Capital! Go down with me to the express car, then, and pretend that you
know me to be a track hand and that I have a right to ride with Cady. I
wish to get into the car without any display of opposition on his part.”

“I’ll fix you, Mr. Carter, as far as that goes.”

“And that is all I will require of you,” said Nick. “I will explain to
Cady after the train leaves here. How soon is it due?”

“In about five minutes,” said Denny, glancing at a clock on the wall.
“I’ll slip on my coat and be ready to go down with you.”

“Very good,” Nick said approvingly. “Pay no attention to any persons who
may be on the platform, or step from the train during the stop. An
inquisitive stare might cause misgivings.”

“I’m wise, Mr. Carter,” Denny assured him. “I’ll do precisely as if I
knew nothing about this deviltry. I’m over seven, you know, and——”

He was interrupted by the sudden, rapid ticking of the telegraph
instrument. It proved to be a dispatch for the engineer of the coming
train, and Denny scarce had transcribed it when the whistle of the
locomotive sounded in the near distance.

Half a minute later the glare of its headlight appeared amid the
scattered lights of the town, from which it emerged at high speed and
immediately began slowing down to make the junction.

“Come on!” Denny cried, leading the way. “She stops only five minutes.”

Nick followed him from the chamber and down the long flight of stairs
from the tower. He could feel the structure trembling under the
vibrations caused by the heavy train, which then was approaching the
long platform and coming to a stop, amid the clanging of the locomotive
bell, the furious hissing of steam, and the grinding of the brakes.

Only a solitary man was pacing the platform, carrying a traveler’s grip
and a light overcoat. Nick saw at a glance that he was a commercial
drummer and not worthy of suspicion.

Several men stepped from the train, obviously to break the monotony of a
night journey, but neither the looks or actions of any appeared
suspicious. Nick quickly noted the make-up of the train, a baggage car,
the express car, a smoker, an ordinary passenger car, and two Pullman
sleepers in the rear. He knew that Chick was on the train, but he did
not know just where, nor particularly care at that moment.

Denny ran to the locomotive and gave the engineer the dispatch, then
hurriedly rejoined Nick and led the way to the express car.

The sliding side door was thrown open from within while they approached,
and Denny quickly greeted the man who appeared in the brightly lighted
car.

“Hello, Cady, old chap!” he exclaimed. “You’re right on time to-night,
all right. Here’s Jack Dakin, track hand, who will ride with you to
Shelby. He missed the last local. You don’t know him, I reckon, but he’s
all right.”

“Ride with me?” questioned Cady, sharply regarding both.

He was a well-built man of middle age, of sandy complexion, and wearing
a full beard. He was clad in blouse and overalls, with a woolen cap
pulled over his brow.

Nick did not wait for him to make any objections. He grasped the edge of
the door and drew himself up from the platform, saying quietly, while he
entered the car:

“It’s all right, Cady. I’ve got a letter to you from President Burdick.
Don’t oppose me. Pretend this is nothing unusual.”

Cady seemed to grasp the situation. A fiery gleam appeared for a moment
in the depths of his gray eyes, but he drew back to make room for Nick,
replying, in quick whispers:

“What’s up? There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

“Wait until we leave here. Don’t question,” cautioned Nick.

“It’s all right, Cady,” Denny quickly assured him, leaning in through
the open door.

“Good enough, then,” Cady nodded. “I’ll take your word for it, Tom.”

Nick had strode across the car and seated himself on a packing case, one
of several that evidently had been shipped by express and which occupied
one side of the car. He noticed that the door of a safe in one corner
was closed, and the handle indicated that the safe was properly locked
and the combination scattered. He felt reasonably sure that he could,
with the help of Dan Cady and Chick, foil and arrest any gang that would
attempt the robbery.

The clanging of the locomotive bell told that the train was about to
start.

Passengers on the platform scampered toward the cars from which they had
emerged.

“So long, Cady!” cried Denny, while he hastened toward the tower stairs.

Cady responded with a gesture and then closed and secured the door of
the express car.

A backward jolt, a jangling of bumpers and couplings, a furious hissing
of steam, followed by the labored puffing of the locomotive, and the
train made way and the lonely junction with its platform and the signal
tower were quickly left behind, grim and silent in the twilight of the
starry night.

Nick Carter then lost no time in explaining the situation, the outcome
of which was far from what he expected, yet what no mortal man could
have anticipated.

“Now, Cady, I’ll put you wise to what’s in the wind,” said he, rising
from the case on which he was seated. “Here is the letter from President
Burdick that will tell you who I am, and a word will explain why I am
here.”

Cady opened the letter and read it, then gazed more sharply at the
detective.

“Well, say, this is some surprise,” he said bluntly. “I did not dream
that you were Nick Carter, though I knew you were in the employ of the
road. Do you suspect something wrong to-night, Mr. Carter, that you have
boarded my car in this way?”

“More than suspect,” Nick replied. “You are carrying a money package of
sixty thousand dollars, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Mr. Carter, I am.”

“Where is it?”

“Locked in the safe, sir, of course.”

“Very good,” Nick nodded. “It will be up to you and me, Cady, to prevent
a bunch of bandits from removing it from the safe. Not only to prevent
them, Cady, but also to corner and arrest them. Are you game for such an
undertaking?”

Cady continued to look Nick straight in the eye.

“Game, sir!” he exclaimed. “You bet I’m game. If they get that money,
Mr. Carter, they’ll get it over my dead body. But why do you suspect
anything of the kind?”

Nick briefly informed him, and the bearded face of the express-car man
took on a more serious expression.

“So you got wise to all that from the two telegrams?” he said
inquiringly.

“Exactly,” Nick nodded.

“You’re a keen man, Mr. Carter.”

“Not at all, Mr. Cady. It’s a part of my business to detect such things
when they come my way.”

“What other steps have you taken to prevent this job?”

“None of importance,” Nick said evasively. “I think that you and I,
Cady, will be able to prevent it.”

“Sure, sir, as far as that goes,” Cady quickly agreed. “Do you know just
where and how it is to be attempted?”

“Not how, Cady, but somewhere between here and Shelby.”

“We have not long to wait, then,” Cady declared. “We make the run from
North Dayton in twenty-six minutes.”

“Where are we now?”

“We have covered about eight miles. We are in Willow Creek section, a
mighty lonely locality, and the next place near which we pass is Benton
Corners.”

“Benton Corners!” Nick echoed. “That’s where I rounded up Jim Reardon,
and where Jake Hanlon, Link Magee, and Dick Bryan live. I suspected them
of having been Reardon’s confederates, but we could not convict them. It
may be, by Jove, that they are engaged in this job.”

“Quite likely. They certainly are bad eggs.”

“You know them, then?”

“By name and sight,” Cady nodded. “But we’ll be ready for them. You are
armed, sir, of course, and I have a revolver in the safe. I’ll get it
and——”

“No, no, don’t unlock the safe,” Nick quickly objected. “The job may be
attempted at any moment. I have two revolvers. Take one of them and be
ready to hold up the rascals.”

“I’ll be ready,” Cady declared, taking the weapon. “Throw up your hands,
Carter, and be darned quick about it, or you’ll get a slug of lead from
your own weapon.”

Nick Carter was never more surprised in his life.

Cady had turned the revolver squarely upon the detective, and there was
a gleam in his eyes, a vicious ring in his voice, denoting that he meant
what he said.

No sane man would have ignored them, and Nick threw up his hands. They
stood confronting one another in the swaying car, these two men, Cady
with a murderous look on his bearded face, the detective with an
expression of sudden terrible sternness, mingled with surprise.

“What’s this, Cady?” he demanded. “I was told that you were true blue
and a man of courage.”

“You don’t want to believe all you’re told,” Cady snarled back at him.
“Don’t drop your hands, Carter, or I’ll drop you.”

“Are you in with this gang?” Nick sternly questioned.

“You bet I’m in with it. I’m out to get this coin—and to get you, now,
since you know so much about——”

The car lurched suddenly on a curve.

The revolver covering the detective’s breast deviated for a moment, as
Cady swayed under the sudden lurch.

It was the moment for which Nick Carter was watching. He was as quick as
a flash in seeing and seizing the opportunity. His left hand shot
downward and grasped the miscreant’s wrist, turning the revolver aside,
while his right shot out and closed with a viselike grip around Cady’s
neck.

“In with this gang, are you?” he shouted. “You shall pay the price,
then.”

But again the unexpected occurred. Another lurch of the car threw both
men, then engaged in the terrible struggle, against the wall of the car.

Cady’s beard was torn off and the truth revealed—the man was not Cady.

It was not a substitute package to which the telegram had referred,
but—a substitute man!

Something like a half-smothered oath broke from the detective. He swung
the struggling ruffian around and forced him against the wall of the
swaying car. He could have overcome him and crushed him within half a
minute—if help had not been at hand.

All transpired, in fact, in far less time than half a minute.

The covers of two of the packing cases flew upward.

Out of each case leaped a man.

A bludgeon in the hand of one fell squarely on Nick’s head.

The fist of the other caught him on the jaw.

A blow from the supposed Cady landed over his heart.

And under this combined assault, made with all the vicious energy of
utter desperation, Nick Carter sank to the floor of the reeling car,
bleeding and insensible, with every muscle relaxed.




                               CHAPTER V.
                              NIGHT WORK.


Chick Carter, in accord with the plans laid out by Nick, was in Amherst
that evening in the disguise of a traveling salesman. He was waiting on
the station platform when the Southern Limited arrived.

Chick sized up the train as it rolled into the station. He did not
definitely know, of course, whether the crook who had sent the telegram
from Philadelphia was among the passengers, but he strongly suspected
that he was, and he also knew that Nick would board the express car at
North Dayton.

“If the crook is on the train and intends to take any active part in the
robbery, it’s ten to one that he is in the ordinary passenger car,”
Chick reasoned. “He certainly would not be in a sleeper. He would
reason, too, that he would be less liable to suspicion than if he rode
in the smoker.”

Chick acted upon these theories. He entered the next car back of the
smoker, the latter being back of the express and baggage cars, and he
took one of the rear seats, from which he could see most of the other
occupants of the car. It was about two-thirds filled with men and women,
traveling singly or in couples.

Chick pretended to have no interest in any of them. None, nevertheless,
escaped his furtive scrutiny during the run of fourteen miles to North
Dayton. He could discover none, however, whose looks or actions seemed
to warrant suspicion.

Twenty minutes took the train to North Dayton.

Gazing furtively from the window, Chick saw the lights in the signal
tower, saw Nick and Denny hasten down the stairs, saw Denny return alone
just as the train was starting, which convinced him that Nick then was
in the express car, as planned.

Two men who had briefly left the train returned to the car in which
Chick was seated. He was a keen reader of faces. He saw plainly enough
that neither of the men was a crook, or at least no such crook as he was
seeking.

The train rushed on through the starry night.

Chick knew that the time was rapidly approaching when, if Nick’s
deductions were correct, the robbery would be attempted.

“I’ll not cut much ice here,” he said to himself, at length. “I think
I’ll take a look at the occupants of the smoker. That will bring me
nearer the express car.”

He was about to do so when his attention was drawn to a couple three
seats in front of him and on the opposite side of the aisle.

One was a respectable-looking, well-dressed man of forty, with grave,
dark eyes and a Vandyke beard.

His companion was an attractive woman of about thirty years old, with a
fair complexion and an abundance of light-brown hair. Her fine figure
was clad in a tailor-made traveling costume of bottle green. They were
about the last couple in the car to have invited suspicion.

The train had begun to labor on a steep up grade.

The man with a Vandyke beard drew out a cigar and bit the end from it,
then said a few words to the woman. She bowed and smiled, revealing a
double row of white teeth, and the man arose with a backward glance and
smiled at her, then went into the smoker.

Chick watched him thoughtfully, but not suspiciously, when he strode
through the aisle and out of the car. Plainly enough, it appeared, the
man had excused himself politely to his companion in order to go for a
smoke. It appeared like the act of a gentleman.

Chick felt no immediate impulse to follow him, and his attention was
again drawn toward the woman. She was moving to a position nearer the
lamps, and was spreading a newspaper to read it.

Chick saw that it was a Philadelphia newspaper.

“By Jove, they evidently came from Philadelphia,” he said to himself.
“Can it be that they—no, no, that seems quite improbable. No man engaged
in a train robbery, or with any interest in one, would be traveling with
a woman. Besides, neither looks like a crook, but quite the contrary.
She may have bought the paper on the train, or——”

Chick’s train of thought took a sudden, startling turn.

A brakeman went rushing through the aisle in the direction of the
smoking car.

Chick noticed now that the train was rapidly slowing down. He heard
shouts from the smoker when the brakeman opened the door.

“Great guns!” he muttered, starting up and following him. “Has the trick
been turned? Has the job been done, in spite of us?”

Chick hurried through the car and entered the smoker. A dozen excited
men were gathered near the forward door and upon the platform and steps.
In another moment Chick was among them, and he saw at a glance what had
occurred.

The train had been divided. The rear cars of it had come to a stop on
the steep up grade.

The forward section, consisting of the locomotive, the baggage car, and
the express car, was vanishing around a curve in the tracks more than
half a mile away.

A solitary man then was on the rear platform of the express car, though
invisible in the darkness—the man with a Vandyke beard.

Scarce two minutes had elapsed since he passed through the smoker. He
had not sat down, nor lighted his cigar, but walked deliberately out
upon the front platform.

Then, with the speed and dexterity of one familiar with such work, he
disconnected the signal cord and the air-brake couplings, set the front
brake of the smoker, and then unlocked and threw the lever that
uncoupled the two cars. Then he leaped to the back platform of the
express car just as it forged ahead, leaving the rear section of the
broken train falling swiftly behind.

Leaning out from the platform steps to make absolutely sure of his
location, the man then waited until the forward section struck the curve
mentioned. He then seized the bell cord and signaled the engineer to
stop.

The response was immediate. Almost on the instant the grinding of the
brakes was mingled with the roar and rumble of the wheels and the rush
of the night wind around him.

Gazing toward the desolate wooded country on the right, he saw that he
had timed the desperate work to a nicety.

Three quick flashes of light met his gaze, coming from a point in the
woods scarce twenty feet from the railway. He turned and banged twice on
the car door with the butt of his revolver.

The three men within were awaiting the signal. The sliding door of the
car then was opened. So was the door of the safe. A large leather bag,
nearly as large as a letter pouch, was lying on the floor.

Near by, gagged and securely bound, lay Nick Carter, still insensible.
One of his assailants of only a few minutes before, now hearing the
expected signal, yelled excitedly:

“Out with him, Mauler! The roadbed is sandy. Out with him.”

“Sandy be hanged!” shouted Mauler, the miscreant who had impersonated
Cady. “It may be lucky for us if his neck is broken.”

He rolled the detective’s inanimate form from the car while speaking,
and it vanished into the gloom outside.

The large leather pouch quickly followed.

The car was steadily slowing down.

There was a bang on the front door—but the door was locked and
barricaded.

One after another of three men leaped from the car. The man on the rear
platform sprang down and joined them.

They ran back over the roadbed, while the deserted car surged onward for
nearly fifty yards before stopping, before the engineer and baggage
hands began a more active and energetic investigation.

The four men then were a hundred yards down the track, invisible in the
faint starlight at that distance. Other figures appeared from amid the
gloomy woods. The burdens lying on the roadbed, one more than the
scoundrels had figured upon, were quickly seized and removed—into the
depths of the forest that flanked the railway for miles in that
locality.

Much can be quickly accomplished by determined men under such desperate
circumstances.

Only eight minutes had passed since the Southern Limited had left North
Dayton.

Something like three minutes later, Chick Carter, followed by half a
score of men anxious to learn what had occurred, came running up the
track and joined the engineer and other train hands then gathered in and
around the looted express car.

Chick saw at a glance that the trick had, indeed, been turned; also that
Nick Carter was missing.

“Great guns!” he exclaimed to himself. “This is strange, mighty strange,
and where in thunder is Cady?”

Chick decided to listen briefly before revealing his identity and what
he knew about the case, a self-restraint which few would have had under
such circumstances, and he very soon determined to say nothing.

For the engineer and train hands, familiar with the desolate section of
the country, quickly came to two conclusions; one, that Cady had been
overcome by the robbers who had been concealed in the empty packing
cases; the other, that he had been carried away with the plunder from
the open safe by a gang of desperadoes whom it would be useless to
pursue at that time.

Chick knew that they were mistaken, and he also felt sure that he could
accomplish nothing then and there. The evidence in the car showed him
plain enough that Nick had been overcome by the bandits, and he realized
that any attempt at immediate pursuit would be worse than futile.

He sprang into the express car, when the conductor insisted that he must
run on to Shelby, and the cars were first run back to couple on the rear
section of the broken train.

Chick returned to his seat in the car which he had occupied from
Amherst.

The blond woman, apparently wearied by the delay, and with no interest
in the occasion for it, seemed to have fallen asleep over her newspaper.

Chick Carter noticed her again soon after resuming his seat, and he was
suddenly hit with an idea.

“By thunder!” he mentally exclaimed. “What has become of her companion?
Can he have been in the smoker all the while? No, not by a long chalk!
He would not have left her here asleep, if she really is asleep. He
would have returned to tell her about the robbery.”

“Humph! there’s nothing to this,” he abruptly decided. “I have had that
Philadelphia crook under my very eye, this woman’s companion, the fellow
with a Vandyke beard. He must have bolted with the gang, too, or I
should have seen him on the railway, or in the smoker. All this will be
a cinch, by Jove, unless he shows up before we reach Shelby. I’m glad I
kept my trap closed. My identity is not suspected, and I will have a
clew worth following—the woman!”

Presently, moving from side to side, selecting such persons as hit his
fancy, the conductor came through the car and took the names and
addresses of several people, explaining that witnesses might be wanted
in a later investigation, who were not in the employ of the railway
company.

The woman was among those whom he questioned. She yawned and looked up
at him with a frown.

“Pardon me,” she declined, a bit curtly. “I do not wish to be brought
into an investigation.”

“It may not be necessary, after all,” said the conductor suavely.

“But I know nothing about the affair, except that the train stopped and
that a robbery is said to have been committed,” the woman objected.
“Besides, my home is in Philadelphia, and it would not be convenient for
me to be summoned to an investigation.”

“You would be excused, no doubt, in that case,” persisted the conductor.
“Surely, madam, you have no other reason for refusing to give me your
name and address.”

“No other reason!” she exclaimed impatiently. “Certainly not, sir!”

“Kindly do so, then.”

The woman hesitated for another moment.

“By Jove, she is deciding whether to give him a fictitious name,”
thought Chick, intently watching her frowning face. “She’ll not be fool
enough to do so.”

Chick was right.

The woman decided nearly as quickly as he that deception at that time
might later make her liable to serious suspicion. She drew herself up a
bit haughtily and said:

“Very well, then, since you insist upon it. My name is Janet Payson.”

“Thank you,” smiled the conductor. “And your address?”

“No. 20 Martin Street, Philadelphia.”

The conductor bowed and moved on.

“Martin Street,” thought Chick, instantly recalling the signature on the
Dalton telegram. “Martin fits in here, all right. She told the truth,
and I’ve picked up a very proper lead. It’s not such a long, long way to
Tipperary, after all. We shall see.”

The woman left the train at Shelby, carrying only a suit case, and she
accosted a cabman outside of the station.

“Shelby House,” she directed curtly.

Chick was at her elbow and heard her.

Ten minutes later he read her name inscribed on the hotel register:
“Miss Janet Payson, Philadelphia.”




                              CHAPTER VI.
                          HOW PATSY MADE GOOD.


It was one o’clock when Chick Carter entered his room in the Shelby
House. He removed his coat, hat, and disguise, then lit a cigar and sat
down to size up the circumstances and the evidence he had found in the
express car.

How was the robbery committed? How did Cady figure in it, and what
became of him? How had Nick been overcome, and why had he been carried
away by the bandits, assuming that he had not been killed and thrown
from the car?

Chick did not believe the last. He would have seen the body when
hastening up the tracks. He knew that these crooks would commit murder
only as a last resort, moreover, and the evidence in the car did not
point to bloodshed and murder.

Chick felt reasonably sure, in fact, that Nick was alive and in the
hands of the desperadoes.

“Two empty packing cases and an open safe, opened by means of the
combination,” he mused intently. “No force apparent except what must
have been required to get the best of Nick and Cady. But could two men
concealed in packing cases, and the cases could not have contained more
than two, have overcome two such men as Nick and Cady? By Jove, it
doesn’t seem possible.

“Nor could Janet Payson’s companion have had any hand in the work done
in the express car. He would have had time only to disconnect the train,
which he certainly went forward to do. All that was cut and dried,
previously planned, and it was done by a man expert at such work.

“Is it possible, then, that Cady is in league with these crooks? Did he
hold up Nick and get him with the help of his hidden confederates? Did
he open the safe? Did he substitute—stop one moment! By Jove, there was
no substitute money package in the car, nor in the safe, or I must
surely have seen it. I made a thorough inspection.”

Chick’s brows knit closer under the mental concentration with which he
strove to fathom the conflicting circumstances.

“That special-delivery letter certainly mentioned a substitute. It read,
I remember distinctly: ‘We’ll have the substitute down fine in ample
time and the other dead to rights.’

“H’m, that’s not so clear, in view of what has occurred and the fact
that no substitute money package was found in the car. It certainly is
worded a bit oddly. To have one dead to rights is a term usually applied
to a situation, a gang, or a man; not to a parcel, package, or anything
of that kind.

“By Jove, it may in this case have been a man. The substitute may have
been a man in place of Cady. That would explain Cady’s disappearance
from the car. A man made up to perfectly resemble Cady—that’s it, by
gracious, as sure as I’m a foot high,” Chick decided. “That’s why Martin
worded the letter in that way, that he’d have a substitute down fine, in
ample time. A substitute to take Cady’s place in the express car—that’s
what!”

Chick’s countenance had lighted. Through this process of reasoning he
had deduced the one fact, the one crafty subterfuge, that had made the
robbery possible under all of the other known circumstances.

It told Chick, too, how easily confederates of the substitute rascal
could have been concealed in the car, and how easily Nick could have
been held up and overcome under such unexpected adverse conditions.

“But what has become of Cady?” Chick next asked himself. “He was
supposed to be in Philadelphia, of course, in order to make this run. By
Jove, I have it! Got him dead to rights, eh? I’ll see about that. I’ll
set another ball rolling in this game—one that may knock out a
ten-strike.”

Chick sprang up with the last and hastened down to the hotel office.
Entering a telephone booth and closing the door, he called up the
central exchange and learned that he could quickly get a clear wire to
Philadelphia.

“I want the police headquarters,” said he. “The officer in charge.”

Chick had waited only seven minutes, when the operator rang him up and
announced:

“All ready.”

“Hello!” Chick called. “Police headquarters, Philadelphia?”

“Yes.”

Distance did not serve to soften the strong, sonorous voice. The wire
carried the sound perfectly. The voice was a familiar one to the
detective, that of an old friend in police circles, and Chick laughed
audibly.

“It’s easy to recognize a voice that rings true,” said he. “How are you,
Lieutenant Lang?”

“Fine!” came the answer. “But who are you?”

“Chickering Carter.”

“Oh, ho! Chick, eh?” Lang’s sonorous laugh could be heard. “Glad to hear
from you. Where are you?”

“On a case down Shelby way.”

“I heard that Nick was in that section. Something doing?”

“Plenty, Lang, and then some.”

“That just about suits you, I suppose. How can I aid you?”

“I want hurry-up information about a woman.”

“What name?”

“Janet Payson.”

“You’ll not have to wait long,” cried Lang, laughing. “I can supply you
right off the reel.”

“Good!” Chick cried. “Do you know her?”

“Only professionally,” Lang responded. “She’s pretty well known here by
the boys in brass buttons.”

“What about her, Ned?”

“Fly!” Lang said tersely. “As fly as one often meets.”

“A crook?” Chick inquired.

“Crooked, but not a crook. I don’t know that she has ever been arrested.
She devotes her attractions to bleeding any easy mark that comes her
way. She is known here as Jaunty Janet.”

“I’ve got you,” said Chick. “Do you know where she lives?”

“That’s a fat question. What am I on the force for?” Lang cried,
laughing. “She has a ground-floor flat in Martin Street, No. 20.”

“Correct!” Chick exclaimed. “Do you know anything about her male
friends?”

“No, nothing.”

“Listen. I want you to do something for me.”

“Come across with it, Chick, and consider it done.”

“Telegraph me the result. Address me in care of the Shelby House.”

“I will do so. What’s wanted?”

Chick told him and returned to his room, at the door of which he now
found—Patsy Garvan.

“Gee! I’ve been on nettles for an hour, ever since the Southern Limited
arrived,” Patsy impatiently declared, after greeting him. “I was at the
station and heard about the robbery, but I saw nothing of you, or the
chief, and I figured that you both were in wrong, for fair. What’s
become of the chief? I’ve been here twice in search of you. Couldn’t you
head off the job? What do you want for a starter? Why didn’t you——”

“Cut it! Cut it!” Chick interrupted. “Bridle your tongue, or you’ll ask
more questions than I could answer before daylight. Hit up a cigar and
give me time to explain. You’re not all the mustard in the pot. Didn’t
you know that?”

“Sure I know it,” retorted Patsy. “But I’m some mustard, all the same,
with a dash of tabasco thrown in. What’s eating you, anyway? Send for an
ice bag and cool your block. Your hair may wilt with the heat and look
like dead grass. You’d be a bird, then.”

Chick laughed and lit another cigar.

It was two in the morning, mind you, and both had been busy and on their
nerves for eighteen hours, a sufficient excuse for impatience and
irritability, which really had no sting.

Patsy grinned and sat down, taking a brier pipe from his pocket and
deliberately filling it. Not until he had lit it and wafted a cloud of
smoke toward the ceiling did he speak again, and then he stared at Chick
and said simply:

“Well?”

Chick settled back in his chair and told him what had occurred.

Patsy’s face then had lost its sphinxlike expression.

“Gee whiz!” he commented. “Say, Chick, old top, this isn’t so bad.”

“Come on with it,” Chick replied, knowing he had something to report.
“What have you learned that’s worth knowing?”

“Worth knowing—that’s my long suit with four honors,” said Patsy. “I
never pick up thirteen measly duckers, no matter who deals the papes.
Say, Chick, old chap, listen!”

“Listen, eh? What do you think I’m doing? Do I look like a lay figure
with wax ears? I am listening.”

Patsy ended his levity and drew up in his chair.

“You know whose trail I have been on—that of Gus Dewitt,” he said
earnestly. “I got the chief’s telephone spiel from the post office,
which put me wise to what that special-delivery letter contained, and
that was the last I knew of his suspicions and designs. But I had my eye
on Dewitt, all right, and I saw him receive the letter and read it.”

“And then?” questioned Chick.

“He then made a move that nearly shook me off his track,” Patsy
continued. “He bolted straight for the stable back of the Reddy House.
He had a horse out there tied under a shed, and he mounted him without a
word to any one and rode out of town as if a dozen devil’s imps were
after him.”

“You knew why he went, of course.”

“Sure thing, Chick, since I knew what was in the letter. I knew he had
gone to notify the gang that the job was to be done to-night.”

“Certainly,” Chick nodded. “There was nothing else to it.”

“There was enough more to it to keep me on the go until nearly dark,”
Patsy protested. “It was up to me to trail him, wasn’t it?”

“Sure,” Chick smiled. “I admit that.”

“Well, it didn’t prove to be soft walking,” Patsy resumed. “I got next
to the hostler, two stable hands, and a chauffeur, who hang around
there, but they didn’t know him from a side of leather, except that his
name was Gus Dewitt and that he occasionally rode into town for a day or
an evening.”

“I see.”

“Then a cabby showed up who remembered having seen him ride in one night
with Jake Hanlon, at whose place we cornered Jim Reardon for the Glidden
murder.”

“At Benton Corners.”

“Sure,” nodded Patsy. “That, of course, put a bee in my bonnet. I
reasoned that, if Dewitt and Hanlon were friends, both might be in this
job, as well as those two thoroughbred rascals who hang out at Hanlon’s
place, Dick Bryan, and Link Magee.”

“Quite likely, Patsy,” Chick agreed.

“I reckoned, too, that Dewitt was heading for Benton Corners, since he
had taken that direction.”

“You went out there?”

“I decided to take that chance, for I could see no other way of trailing
him. As I was leaving the stable yard, however, I noticed the tracks
left by his horse’s hoofs.”

“What about them?”

“One had a little peculiarity.”

“What was that?”

“The shoe on the off fore hoof was different from the others. It had a
bar plate, and the mark of it showed plainly wherever it struck yielding
soil.”

“I follow you,” Chick nodded.

“And I followed the tracks of that bar-plate shoe,” said Patsy. “There
were none in the paved streets, mind you, but I hustled out to the road
leading to Benton Corners, and there I found the tracks again.”

“Good work.”

“Knowing I might be mistaken, however, if I assumed that Dewitt had gone
to Hanlon’s place, I decided to stick to my trail.”

“A wise decision, Patsy.”

“It took me some time to follow it, but it led me to Hanlon’s place, all
right, and, after watching from the woods back of the stable until late
in the afternoon, I made a discovery.”

“Yes?”

“Jake Hanlon showed up on horseback and rode into the stable, and Dick
Bryan came from the house and joined him.”

“But the discovery, Patsy?”

“Bryan had it in his hand,” said Patsy dryly. “The special-delivery
letter and the disguise he had worn as Gus Dewitt.”

“Bryan and Dewitt are the same, eh?”

“Yes, and Dalton thrown in,” declared Patsy. “Bryan has been posing in
all three characters. He’s a pretty slick gink at that, too, I judge,
from the confidence with which he spoke when talking with Hanlon about
it.”

“You could hear what they were saying?”

“Only for a few moments. Bryan showed him the letter and the telegrams,
and they then hurried into the house. Out they came in about ten
minutes, however, both with revolvers and shotguns, and then they
mounted their horses and rode off to the north.”

“To join others of the gang, no doubt,” said Chick.

“That’s how I sized it up.”

“Surely.”

“Hanlon spoke of another crib, but he said nothing definite, and I knew
only the direction they took,” Patsy went on. “I felt pretty sure that
you and the chief would head off the robbery, you see, so I hiked back
to Shelby to hunt you up and report. Now, hang it, I learn that the job
has been pulled off, and you think the chief is in the hands of the
rascals.”

“I have hardly a doubt of it,” said Chick.

“It won’t be easy, then, to corner this gang and recover their plunder,”
Patsy dubiously declared. “They’ll know we are after them and——”

“But not what you have discovered,” put in Chick pointedly.

“That’s true. That may help some,” Patsy allowed. “If we could only find
out what other crib Hanlon meant and where it is located, and devise
some way to get there before they can cover their tracks and dispose of
Nick——”

“Stop a moment,” Chick interrupted. “I think we can accomplish both.”

“You do?” Patsy’s countenance lighted.

“I certainly do. We’ll put something over on these ruffians, Patsy, that
will have failed to enter their heads. We’ll get them, all right, take
it from me.”

“What do you mean? Explain.”

“Pull up here and listen,” said Chick, tossing away his cigar.




                              CHAPTER VII.
                        CHICK CARTER’S CUNNING.


Miss Janet Payson was seriously startled about ten o’clock the following
morning, when a somewhat insistent knock sounded on the door of her
apartments in the Shelby House.

The same was true of her companion, who had entered about half an hour
before, after leaving his touring car in a neighboring street, in charge
of a chauffeur and another man, as if their mission was one that
required at least a moderate degree of caution.

Janet Payson’s companion was the man with a Vandyke beard—but he had
removed it and slipped it into his pocket since entering.

The removal of the disguise did not improve him. It had served to hide a
thin-lipped, sinister mouth, a bulldog jaw and chin, and the hard lines
of a desperate and determined face.

That he was all that his face denoted, moreover, appeared in the
celerity with which he whipped out a revolver from his hip pocket the
instant the knock interrupted the subdued conversation with the woman.
At the same time he muttered quickly:

“What’s that? Who the devil can that be?”

Janet Payson turned pale, or as pale as the tinge of rouge in her cheeks
permitted, and she laid her finger on her lips, then pointed to the
adjoining bedroom.

“Keep quiet, Jeff,” she whispered. “I’ll find out.”

The man, Jefferson Murdock by name, seized his hat and tiptoed into the
bedroom and set the door ajar. Then he waited and listened, revolver in
hand.

The knock sounded again on the hall door.

“Presently,” cried the woman. “Who’s there?”

She tore open the collar of her waist while speaking, receiving no
reply, then stepped to the door and opened it.

“I had not finished dressing,” she said impatiently, hastening to rehook
the collar. “What do you want?”

Chick Carter was the person who had knocked, and none would have
recognized him. Though fairly well clad and somewhat flashily, he had
the sinister aspect of an East Side tough, or a man capable of any
covert knavery.

Chick removed his hat and smiled, nevertheless, replying as politely as
one would have expected:

“I want to talk with you for half a minute, or mebbe longer, Miss
Payson, if you’re alone here.”

“Talk with me?” said Janet, with brows knitting. “What about, and who
are you?”

“My name is Kennedy, Jim Kennedy, and I live in Philadelphia,” said
Chick, dropping his voice suggestively. “I happened to be on the train
last night when——”

“Wait! Stop a moment,” Janet curtly interrupted, drawing back. “Step
inside. I don’t care to be seen talking with you. Close the door.”

“Sure,” Chick vouchsafed, with sinister intonation. “That hits me all
right. It’s just what I wanted. But none would think less of you for
talking with me, as far as that goes—not much!”

There could be no mistaking such a beginning as this, and the woman’s
white face lost much of its beauty under the vicious scowl that settled
upon it.

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.

“You ought to know,” said Chick.

“Well, I don’t know,” Janet retorted.

“Let it go at that, then. Take it for what it’s worth.”

“See here, you insolent——”

“Oh, cut that!” Chick interrupted, unruffled. “Don’t go into the air
because I’m not handing you a pasteboard with my monaker on it. I don’t
happen to have one. I ain’t a gink what carries his name pasted in his
lid. My name is Kennedy, plain Jim Kennedy, and I’ve got a word to say
to you on a little matter of business. That’s why I’m here, Miss
Payson.”

Chick coolly took a chair while speaking, the same from which Murdock
had just arisen. He noticed at once that both wooden arms of the chair
were slightly warm, where the hands of some person had been recently
resting on them. Though he already knew that the woman was not alone,
having been watching her apartments since early morning, he looked up at
her and quickly added:

“I’ve taken your chair, mebbe.”

“No,” she replied, pointing to one near her dressing stand. “I was
sitting there. See here, Mr. Kennedy, what’s the meaning of this visit?
Come to the point.”

She had appeared in doubt up to that time, uncertain what course to
shape; but her voice and countenance now denoted that she anticipated
what was coming, that she suspected the mission of her sinister visitor,
and that she also felt fully equal to meeting the situation. She sat
down quite abruptly and repeated:

“Come to the point. What do you want here?”

“That’s quickly told,” Chick replied. “It’s about the little job that
was pulled off last night.”

“What job, Mr. Kennedy?”

“That train robbery. You know all about it.”

“All about it!” Janet exclaimed. “What do you mean by that? I know
nothing about it—except that there was a robbery.”

“Oh, yes, you do,” Chick insisted. “Nix on that. I happened to be on the
train, and I’m wise to something that no other gazabo noticed.”

“What was that?” she coldly questioned.

“There was a gink with you in the car who didn’t show up after the
robbery.”

“What of that?”

“He quit you just before the trick was turned, and he didn’t come back
to you. He was no come-back kid,” Chick declared. “He went through the
smoker and uncoupled it from the express car. He was the gink who did
the job, or one of the bunch—and you know it.”

The woman heard him with hardly a change of countenance.

“You are very much mistaken,” she said icily.

“About what?”

“My knowing anything about the robbery—or the man you mention.”

“He was with you, wasn’t he?”

“He sat with me, yes,” Janet coldly admitted. “But that signifies
nothing. There was no other vacant seat when he entered the car, so he
sat with me, and we entered into conversation that did not end until he
left me and went into the smoker. That’s all I know about him, all I
care about him. He was a total stranger to me.”

Chick grinned derisively and shook his head.

“Say, do I look as if I’d swallow that?” he asked, with sinister
contempt.

“You may swallow it, or not, as you like,” Janet retorted, with apparent
indifference.

“It might slip down the red lane of a country parson, but not down
mine,” Chick went on. “You see, Miss Payson, I haven’t knocked round
Quakertown all my life for nothing. I know all about you. I’ve seen you
round town for years.”

“Suppose you have,” sneered Janet. “What of that?”

“Nothing of it, barring that I know all about you,” Chick informed her,
more impressively. “Your name is Janet Payson, sometimes Jaunty Janet,
and you live in a ground-floor flat in Martin Street. That’s what. You
see, I am onto your curves, and I’m here to knock out a homer. That’s
me!”

“See here——”

“Nix on the see-here gag!” Chick interrupted. “You wait till I’ve said
my little verse. Then you can have your spiel and go as far as you like.
You ain’t any main dame in the social game. You’re only the little
casino in a soiled deck. Your word wouldn’t go in a Quaker meetinghouse,
say nothing of a criminal court. I know! I’m wise! You can’t put nothing
over on me.”

“Well, what are you coming to?” scowled Janet with the rouge glaring
more vividly on her pale cheeks.

“That’s right. That’s more like it,” Chick went on, with a sinister nod.
“Now we’re getting down to brass tacks. Pass up the grouch and let’s
talk business.”

“Well?” snapped Janet.

“You know what I want. There was a slick job pulled off last night, and
somebody has got sixty thousand bucks in his jeans. I want a bit of it.”

“You do!” Janet sneered. “You’ll take it out in wanting, then, as far as
I’m concerned.”

“Mebbe so, though I have a hunch that you’ll change your mind,” Chick
retorted. “If you don’t, it will be all over but the settling.”

“What do you mean by settling?”

“You know what I mean, all right. Mebbe, though, you don’t quite get me;
I’ll make it so plain that a blind monkey could see it in the dark. I’m
out for the coin myself, you know, when I see a chance to lift any. I’d
be a bird if I let this chance slip by.”

“You mean——”

“I mean all I am saying,” Chick cut in, with ominous mien. “Understand,
though, I’m not a gink who would betray a pal. I wouldn’t squeal on a
friend if I was strung toes up. Not on your tintype. But I’m not a pal
of yours, nor of any of the bunch. I wasn’t in this job, I’m only
looking to get in.”

“You mean that you are here to blackmail me,” snapped Janet. “Is that
it?”

“Blackmail be hanged!” growled Chick derisively. “You can’t blackmail an
ink spot. You know what I want—and I’m going to have it.”

“I’ll know when you tell me,” frowned the woman. “Not till then.”

Chick jerked his chair nearer to that in which she was seated. There
was, indeed, no mistaking his meaning, if one was to have judged from
outward appearances. His hangdog face wore an expression that none could
have misinterpreted.

“I’ll tell you what I mean, all right,” he replied, with more
threatening intonation. “I want a bit of that coin and I’m going to have
it. When I get it, I’ll go about my business and keep my trap closed.
I’ll never squeal. I’ll never yip till the day of judgment. You can bank
on that, and bank on it good and strong.”

“I can, eh?”

“That’s what.”

“And suppose you don’t get it?” questioned Janet, with lowering gaze at
him. “What then?”

“You’ll get yours, instead.”

“You mean, I take it, that you’ll inform the police.”

“That’s just what I mean,” Chick nodded. “Unless some one comes across
with the coin, it’s you for the caboose. I’ll have a bull after you
inside of half a minute. I’ll tell all I know about the job and all I
know about you. Your story wouldn’t stand washing in distilled water.
The gink with the Vandyke whiskers did the job, and you know it. I’ll
hand all this to the bulls, unless I get mine, and I’ll lose no time
about it. That’s all. It’s up to you, now. What d’ye say?”

“I say that you may go to the devil, Kennedy, and do your worst,”
snapped Janet, with eyes flashing. “I say——”

“Stop a moment! Stop a moment!” cried Murdock, stepping into the room.
“I reckon it’s time for me to have my say—or this!”

Chick swung around in his chair and found himself gazing—into the black
muzzle of a leveled revolver.




                             CHAPTER VIII.
                           A CHANGE OF BASE.


Chick Carter did not appear much disturbed by the threatening turn of
the situation. He gazed at the weapon, then at the man, without stirring
from his chair.

Murdock had not replaced his disguise. His dark-featured face wore a
look as threatening as his weapon. He added coldly, nevertheless, while
Janet Payson shrank back with a look of alarm:

“You keep quiet, Janet, and let me settle this fellow. I ought to let
the gun do the talking, Kennedy, but I’m not going to. I only want to
show you that I could turn you down on the spot, if I was so inclined.”

Chick recognized the man in spite of his changed appearance, and he had
known from the first that he was in Janet’s apartments. He pretended to
be surprised, however, and to have no idea that this was her companion
of the previous night on the train. He drew up in his chair and replied,
frowning darkly:

“You have got the drop on me, all right, but——”

“But I don’t intend to take advantage of it,” Murdock interrupted,
thrusting the weapon into his pocket. “There is a better way and a less
risky one to settle this business. I have heard all you said to this
woman, Kennedy.”

“She told me she was alone,” growled Chick, with an ugly glance at her.

“No, she didn’t,” said Murdock, taking a chair. “You took it for
granted. I heard all she said. That’s neither here nor there, however.
The question is, Kennedy, what do you really intend doing?”

“You heard what I said,” replied Chick, with a defiant stare at him.

“You really mean it, do you?”

“That’s what. I’m going to have my bit out of this job, or there’s going
to be something doing.”

“You will tell all you know, eh?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“But you can be bought?”

“Sure thing. That’s what I’m here for.”

“I see,” said Murdock, with a nod. “But why does it devolve upon her to
buy your silence? That’s up to the person who committed the crime.
Assuming that you are right, that the man you saw with her on the train
had a hand in the robbery, she certainly played no part in it. It’s
hardly fair to ring her into it, or to ask her to buy your silence.”

“I’m out for the coin, and I’m going to get it,” Chick grimly insisted.

“Do you know the man, her companion?”

“No. But it’s enough that she knows him, and——”

“Could you identify him?” Murdock interrupted.

“Sure I could. I saw him plain enough on the train.”

Murdock smiled a bit oddly, sure that Chick did not suspect him of
having been the crook. He took a cigar from his pocket and lit it,
remarking carelessly:

“You’re a bad egg, Kennedy, and you’re serving this woman a scurvy
trick. No more could be expected of a fellow of your cloth, I suppose,
and I’m not sure but that would be the best way to settle with you.”

“Sure it would!” Chick quickly agreed.

“See here, Jeff——”

“You keep quiet, Janet!” Murdock commanded. “It’s plain enough that
Kennedy cannot be bullied. You’re in a mess, Janet, and I’m going to
pull you out. Nevertheless, Kennedy, you must see that it’s not up to
this woman to settle,” he added. “She had no hand in the job, even if
your suspicions are correct. It’s up to the man to buy your silence. As
a matter of fact, too, she has no money with which to bribe you. Nor
have I. You must see the man himself.”

“Trot him out, then,” Chick said bluntly. “He’s the very gink I want to
see. I’ll bring him to time, all right, if I can get my lamps on him.”

“It’s not so easy to trot him out,” Murdock replied. “He would have to
trot a considerable distance.”

“You mean he ain’t in town?” questioned Chick, frowning suspiciously.

“Not within a dozen miles of Shelby.”

“You know where he is, then, I take it.”

Murdock nodded.

“I not only know where he is, Kennedy, but I’ll take you to him,” he
said, after a moment. “He’s the man for you to see, and I have no doubt
that you can make some kind of a deal with him. He will conclude that’s
the best way out of the difficulty, most likely, providing your demands
are not exorbitant.”

“Oh, I don’t want the earth,” Chick allowed.

“It’s up to you, then.”

“What is?”

“To go with me and see him,” said Murdock, in more friendly fashion. “I
came in this morning to take Janet out there. You may go with us.”

“There’s a better way,” Chick objected, grimly shaking his head.

“A better way?”

“Sure! Let him come here and see me.”

“Don’t be a fool, Kennedy,” Murdock replied, with a growl. “He wouldn’t
take chances of coming into town. It would be all that his neck is worth
to him.”

“And it might be all that mine is worth to me, if I went where he is,”
Chick dryly asserted.

“What do you mean by that?”

“He might give it to me where the chicken got the ax.”

“Turn you down? Is that what you mean?”

“That’s what,” Chick nodded. “I’m not taking that kind of a chance. Not
for mine!”

Murdock laughed and shook his head.

“You’ll take no chance at all, Kennedy, in going to see him,” he
replied, in assuring tones. “Neither he, nor any of his gang, would risk
running their necks into a rope unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“Wouldn’t, eh?” queried Chick doubtfully.

“Certainly not,” Murdock insisted. “And it wouldn’t be necessary in this
case. With the big wad of money acquired by the robbery, they’ll be
willing enough to settle for any ordinary sum, rather than take the risk
of putting you away, even if so inclined.”

“Mebbe so, after all,” Chick demurred.

“I already have shown you, besides, that I could have turned you down on
the spot, if I had wanted to,” Murdock added. “But I wouldn’t have a
hand in that kind of a job. You’ll take no risk, Kennedy, in going to
see the man.”

Chick was not blind to the trap that was being laid for him. He had
expected no less, and had laid his own plans accordingly. He still
pretended to have some misgivings, nevertheless, but asked, as if
somewhat impressed:

“Where must I go to see him?”

“Up Willow Creek way,” said Murdock indefinitely.

“Where’s that?”

“Nearly a dozen miles from here.”

“Is there a train?”

“You can do better than take a train. None runs very near the place, nor
could you find it alone.”

“What d’ye mean by better?” Chick demanded.

“I have the touring car that I came down in this morning,” said Murdock.
“I’m going to take Janet up there. You can ride with us.”

“Say, is this on the level?” asked Chick, frowning. “If not, I’ll blow
the head off of some one.”

Murdock laughed.

“You mean my head, of course,” said he. “But you’ll have no cause to do
so, Kennedy, on my word. I’m giving it to you dead straight, and you’ll
take no risk in going with me.”

“That settles it,” Chick declared abruptly. “I’ll go. Where is your
car?”

“In the next street.”

“Come on, then, and——”

“Wait!” Murdock interrupted. “We must wait for Janet.”

“I’m ready, Jeff, all but my hat!” she cried, rising.

“Put it on, then, and we’ll be off.”

Chick waited, still with ominous and doubtful mien.

They left the hotel five minutes later, however, and Murdock led the way
to the waiting car.

Chick hesitated again when he saw the chauffeur and another man in the
conveyance, but Murdock said quickly, in a confidential way:

“That’s only my chauffeur and one of the gang. You might do worse,
Kennedy, than to join us.”

“That would hit me all right,” Chick said quickly.

“It could be arranged, I think.”

“Go on, then. I’m with you.”

Murdock introduced him to the two men—Dick Bryan and Link Magee, both in
disguise.

Chick recognized both, but did not betray it. He shook hands with them,
then took a seat in the tonneau, with Bryan and Murdock on either side
of him, Janet riding in front, with the chauffeur.

Chick knew precisely what he was up against, and he went against it
willingly.

Murdock thought he knew, also, but the game was deeper than he so much
as suspected.

It was eleven o’clock when the touring car sped out of Shelby.

A quarter hour later it passed through the miserable settlement known as
Benton Corners, the scene of previous arrests by the Carters, and its
course then lay north, as Chick was expecting.

Others had passed that way since morning, however, several others, and
then were waiting miles beyond to note the direction taken by this car
at the only crossroad. They had traveled through the woods, and were
waiting in the woods.

When Chick had ridden another mile, however, reaching a desolate part of
the wooded foothills, the expected occurred. He felt Murdock suddenly
seize his arm with a viselike grip, and a revolver was thrust under his
nose.

“Now, Kennedy, you sit quiet,” he cried. “You move a finger and you’ll
get all that’s coming to you.”

“What’s this?” snarled Chick, shrinking. “You don’t mean——”

“I mean what I say, blast you!” Murdock fiercely interrupted. “I’ve
known you from the first. You are Chick Carter, the detective, and we’re
going to land you with your running mate. Get a rope on him, Bryan. Lend
a hand here, Link, and make him fast. I’ll send a bullet through him, if
he shows fight, and that will end him. Be quick about it.”

The rascals needed no second bidding, but their task did not prove
difficult.

For this was precisely what Chick had been expecting, and he offered no
resistance, though he met their threatening remarks with predictions at
which the ruffians only laughed and sneered.

Half an hour later the car swerved out of the woodland road and entered
a clearing. It surrounded an isolated, miserable old house, with a
stable and numerous tumble-down outbuildings, the home of two members of
the bandit gang, Solomon Mauler and his brother.

Chick Carter, then bound hand and foot, sized up the miserable place—but
appeared to have no interest in its surroundings.




                              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.)




                              CHAPTER XX.
                            THE SECOND ACT.


Klein went on with the business of his part, poking at the property
fire—a bunch of red globes buried in a grate of coke. Other characters
made their appearance, and the dialogue opened briskly.

Miss Lindner, first to pick up the silver frame, frowned as she
delivered her lines. In an undertone, aside to Klein, who was busily
engaged in dusting an already spotless piece of china, she said:

“According to the property man, I’ve got a new lover to-day. Did you
notice the change?”

She laughed—her back was to the audience—and as Dodge, the character
man, entered noisily, she made a face at him. Dodge took his art
seriously, and would not “clown” on a scene. Others of the cast, aware
of it, “kidded” him at every possible opportunity.

When Dodge stood in front of the picture, addressing it in thunderous
rage—as the play demanded he should—Klein watched him narrowly. Nothing
happened, and Klein decided mentally that the character man had not
noticed the difference between to-day’s photograph and the one used in
the previous performances.

By this time Tanner was on the scene, and for possibly ten minutes the
dialogue and the action did not concern the photograph. Then Miss
Lindner made a hurried exit, and Tanner began a soliloquy.

This was one of the longest speeches in the piece, and the best, and
Tanner delivered it with all the power and passion he could command. At
the finish, Klein, as the butler, was supposed to enter and announce a
visitor, who happened to be Metcalfe.

Just before Klein’s entrance Tanner strode across the floor and picked
up the frame. To this he was supposed to deliver the final line, which
at the same time supplied the butler’s cue.

“And as for Lord Wellingmay,” he dramatically recited, “let him beware.
I am not the man to——” He stopped so abruptly as to cause a titter to
run through the audience, who, up to this point had listened,
spellbound.

Tanner had picked up the frame at this critical moment and noticed the
photograph.

Klein, waiting in the doorway for his cue, felt his pulse quicken. The
sight of the photograph—Delmar’s photograph—had caused Tanner to
hesitate!

The wait grew longer. Fearful of the delay, and aware that his entrance
might set the dialogue moving once more, Klein stepped through the door.

“A visitor, Mr. Lemly!” he announced stiffly.

Klein’s line apparently brought Tanner back to earth again, and with a
peculiar frown he turned and took up his cue.

While they were waiting for Metcalfe to enter, Klein spoke aside to
Tanner in the way that is quite common on the stage, and which is often
done, although the audience has no idea how much private conversation
goes on among the actors during a play.

“What made you go up in the air?” he asked—and all the time a voice
whispered in his ear: “Tanner’s the man! Tanner’s the man! His actions
have proved it!”

Tanner, meanwhile, was fumbling nervously at his collar.

“I guess it—it was my nerves,” he answered. “I’ve been pounding too hard
on the next week’s part. It’s frightfully warm here, isn’t it?”

The entrance of Metcalfe interrupted the conversation. The juvenile man
dashed in and addressed his opening line to Tanner. Klein withdrew to
the background, where he arranged the decanter and the glasses on a
tray, preparatory to the next piece of business.

The dialogue between the other men continued. Both poured out their
drinks. Metcalfe, posing dramatically before the table, proposed a
toast.

But the toast was never drunk. Hardly had the words left Metcalfe’s lips
when he reeled slightly; the muscles in his throat contracted violently.
The glass slipped from his fingers and crashed upon the surface of the
polished table.

A strange hush fell upon the scene, and in the silence the steady hum of
the calciums came like the droning of a million bees.

It seemed an age must have elapsed before the strain was broken, but in
reality it could not have been more than a few seconds. Yet in that
time, swift as it was, and unexpected, too, Klein had discovered the
reason for the interruption.

Metcalfe’s eyes, at the moment of the toast, had fallen upon Delmar’s
photograph. And the sight of it had robbed him of all speech! He had
betrayed even greater agitation than had Tanner. What did it mean? What
could it mean, other than——

Like a snapping of a taut thread the tension was broken. Metcalfe, as if
suddenly aroused from a stupor, broke into a hard and forced laugh, and
he took up the regular lines of the play.

Passing close to him, bearing the tray, Klein noticed that the juvenile
man’s fingers were clenched and that he was breathing a trifle faster
than normal.

Klein was off the scene before the curtain of the act, and was touching
up his eyes when Metcalfe came into the dressing room.

In a calm and matter-of-fact way Klein sought to bring out the truth of
the affair by referring to the incident casually.

“Were you trying to reconstruct the second act?” he asked.

Metcalfe sank down into his chair and removed his wig.

“What are you getting at?” he asked curtly.

“Why, that impromptu scene over the toast,” Klein explained. “It was
good as far as it went.”

The juvenile man’s hands were still trembling as he squared himself in
his chair preparatory to removing his make-up. “I—I don’t know what—what
came over me. My nerves, I guess.”

“You looked as if you’d seen a ghost,” Klein ventured to suggest.

Metcalfe flashed him a quick glance, but Klein, bending over his mirror,
pretended not to notice it.

“I—I guess I did see a ghost,” he wavered. “Maybe I am a fool, and all
of that, but if——” He hesitated, daubing his cheeks. “Klein,” he began
once more, as if determined to relieve his mind of some weight, “I’ve
been upset ever since I joined this company. There is
something—something I’d like to talk over with you.”

“Fire away,” Klein told him, treating the statement with assumed
indifference. “I’m all ears. I suppose one of your mash notes——”

“It is nothing like that, Klein,” Metcalfe interrupted gravely. “I’m
serious for once.”

He paused, slowly unbuttoning his waistcoat. Klein waited expectantly
for him to continue, confident that whatever was troubling the juvenile
man would have a direct bearing upon Delmar’s photograph. That the
photograph had temporarily upset and confused Tanner was not to be
questioned. The excuse he had given Klein was obviously a lie. Then,
following this, had come Metcalfe’s dramatic scene, which beyond any
doubt had been prompted by the same photograph.

Yet both men avoided the real issue, and both attributed their lack of
self-control to a case of “nerves.”

“In the first place,” Metcalfe said, “on the very day I left New York——”

The door of the dressing room was at this present moment thrown open,
and Dodge stepped inside. He stood before the occupants with folded
arms, glaring from one to another.

“What’s the trouble, Dodge?” Metcalfe asked, sinking back in his chair,
plainly annoyed at the interruption.

“Matter? Matter?” Dodge burst out indignantly. “I should think you
gentlemen would be ashamed of yourselves!”

“Ashamed?” echoed Klein. “What have we—-”

“I’d like to be stage manager of this company for about five minutes,”
the character man interrupted. “That’s what I would! Such outrageous
actions as I witnessed this afternoon would not be tolerated for an
instant. You gentlemen have absolutely no respect for your
profession—none at all. To clown on a scene deliberately is beneath the
dignity of a conscientious artist.”

“He’s off,” muttered Metcalfe; then louder: “I suppose when you were
with Booth and Barrett——”

“When I was with Booth, young man,” thundered Dodge, his deep voice
rolling impressively, “we looked upon our art as a most serious matter.
In those palmy days, sir, an actor held himself above such shameful
proceedings as clowning. Mr. Booth would no more have allowed it than——”

“When I was playing the leads with ‘Too Proud to Beg,’” mocked the
juvenile man, burlesquing the other, “in the palmy days of the
melodrama, we were——”

“Say no more,” interrupted Dodge, lifting a hand. “It is not a thing to
jest over. An artistic performance should never be marred by impromptu
speeches.”

Metcalfe puckered his lips and started to whistle. Dodge glared at him
for a second, then almost turned pale under his make-up.

Metcalfe laughed. “Still superstitious, Dodge? Well, don’t take it too
hard. Let’s see; to whistle in a dressing room is a sign that the man
nearest the door will be whistled out of the company. Isn’t that it?”

But the character man stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

“I guess he took the hint,” Klein said. “To my mind, he is the one bore
in the company.”

The call boy’s voice came echoing through the hall:

“Third act! Third act!”

Klein, who was on near the opening of the act, rose to his feet.

“That’s me! I almost missed my entrance last night. If I get in late
this afternoon, Bond will fine me. I’ll talk with you later, Metcalfe.”

He hurried out of the room and down the hall to the stage.




                              CHAPTER XXI.
                            ENTER THE GIRL.


The following night, Saturday, while the stage crew were setting the
second act, Klein strolled into the property room for a “side prop.”

“Where’s my decanter?” he asked of the property man, Kingston.

The latter motioned toward a shelf. “Up there. I’ve had a new batch of
tea put in it.”

Klein took the decanter and started with it toward the door. At the same
time he noticed Kingston placing a new photograph in the silver frame
used in the coming act.

Aware of the actor’s apparent interest, the property man said, in a
disgusted way: “These fool temperamental actors make me sick. Tanner
told me I must change the picture in this frame. I told him to go chase
himself, but when Metcalfe came along a few minutes later and asked me
to do the same thing—well, I thought I’d better give in and not take
chances on makin’ trouble.”

“What is the matter with the photograph?” Klein asked casually.

“That’s what I couldn’t get at,” Kingston returned. “The thing ain’t
seen by the audience. If it wasn’t for the director stickin’ to what he
calls details, I could just as well have stuck in a sheet of cardboard.”

Klein reflected, watching the man insert a new photograph and toss
Delmar’s into a drawer.

“Didn’t Tanner or Metcalfe give any reason why they wanted the change
made?” he asked presently.

“Nary a one,” Kingston answered. “Oh, I ain’t been around actors for ten
years for nothin’. You got to treat ’em like a bunch of kids. If I
didn’t change this picture, and one or the other of the fellows went up
in the air over it, Bond would lay me out. You see, I ain’t takin’ no
chances.”

Klein went on the scene that night still puzzled. The fact that both
Tanner and Metcalfe had urged Kingston to remove Delmar’s photograph
from the frame suggested to Klein’s mind several possibilities.

In attempting to deceive him, both men had placed themselves in a bad
light. It was plain to Klein that the two men had been acquainted with
Delmar, in one way or another, and for certain reasons neither of them
desired the fact to become known.

Had not Dodge interrupted yesterday, Metcalfe might have cleared up some
of the mystery; but later, when Klein broached the subject in a tactful
manner—he did not want to give the impression of being too
interested—the juvenile man seemed strangely perturbed, and did not
appear at all anxious to resume the story.

While Klein was disappointed, he was still far from being discouraged—in
fact, he had long ago dismissed the latter word from his vocabulary.

“As Nick Carter would say,” he murmured to himself, as he took his
position before the fireplace and waited for the rising of the curtain:
“‘The trail is growing warmer every minute.’”

After the fall of the final curtain, a party of young people who had
witnessed the performance came back to the stage. Metcalfe, who had been
through the second act, guided them around, answering volleys of
questions.

To the ordinary person in the audience there is always a certain amount
of mystery and glamour connected with the region on the other side of
the footlights, and when offered an opportunity to visit this kingdom of
canvas and tinsel little time is lost in accepting.

When Klein had finished dressing and was giving a final tug at his
cravat, the door of his room was flung open and a bevy of giggling
girls, led by Metcalfe, swarmed in.

“Behold Mr. Klein!” cried the juvenile man, making an exaggerated bow.
“Our lowly but none the less faithful butler.”

Klein was introduced to all of the party.

“This comes near being a surprise party, doesn’t it?” he exclaimed. “Oh,
perhaps, you ladies are making a tour of inspection.”

“Miss Lydecker has come to invite us all to her house,” said Metcalfe
enthusiastically.

Klein bowed his personal acknowledgment. Miss Lydecker seemed about the
most attractive girl he had ever seen.

On the way out of the theater Klein found himself between Miss Lydecker
and her friend, Miss Reed. The latter was considerably the younger of
the two girls, and appeared to be at that age when the feminine heart is
likely to yearn for the glamour of the footlights.

“I think you made a splendid butler, Mr. Klein,” she said. “Really, I
do. I told Helen so when you first came out. Didn’t I, Helen?”

Helen Lydecker nodded.

“Oh, it must be wonderful to be on the stage,” Miss Reed went on, gazing
around at the bare walls, her eyes shining. “To think of devoting all
the years of your life to such a grand profession! Don’t you just love
it, Mr. Klein?”

“I find it interesting,” Klein answered. Swiftly, like a film upon a
screen, he recalled the hours he had spent in chilly offices waiting for
engagements that never materialized; recalled, too, the nerve-racking
rehearsals, once an engagement had been trapped, and the hundred side
parts he had learned in a few days, to say nothing of the weary months
of one-night stands. All of this he remembered, but still smiled into
the girl’s eager face.

Later, when they had reached the stage door and were climbing into
several automobiles standing at the curb, Miss Reed leaned close to
Klein and whispered:

“I’m just dying to be an actress. Don’t you think you could help me to
get on the stage?”

“I’m afraid any assistance I might offer would be of small benefit,”
Klein answered. “Getting a start upon the stage depends on the
individual.”

In the automobile Klein was separated from Miss Reed—a condition of
affairs that brought no regret—and found Helen Lydecker a delightful
substitute.

From her he learned that these Saturday-night dances at her home were
regular throughout the season, and that the members of the Hudson Stock
Company were always honored guests.

“You see,” she hastened to explain, “I discovered there were no
rehearsals on Sunday mornings, so that made it possible for you of the
company to remain up a little later on Saturday nights. Oh, I have taken
a great interest in theatricals. Father, you know, owns the house in
which the company is playing.”

“Your friend, Miss Reed, is also interested in the profession, isn’t
she?” Klein returned. They both laughed.

“Miss Reed imagines she has had a great sorrow in her life,” Miss
Lydecker said. “It was a love affair, of course.”

“And so she turns to the stage for solace, I suppose.”

“That must be it.”

The three big automobiles had deserted the city streets, and were
spinning swiftly along the hard dirt road. Suddenly they swerved and
began climbing a slope.

“Our home is quite a distance from the town,” Miss Lydecker remarked, as
the machines glided between high iron gates and came to a stop before a
big white house. “But it makes it all the more enjoyable.”

Klein helped her out of the motor car. The others, laughing and
chattering, hurried indoors. Miss Lydecker motioned him to the far end
of the long porch.

“Look!” She stretched out a hand. “Isn’t that wonderful? I often sit
here for hours.”

Far below, in the soft, white moonlight, spread the great Atlantic. The
booming of the surf came faintly to Klein’s ears; the humid tang of salt
air crept to his nostrils and misted against his cheeks.

“It is wonderful,” he murmured. Then, after a pause, he added: “This is
my first real glimpse of the Atlantic.”

“You’re from inland, then?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. California claims me. I belong to that sect of
egotists known as Native Sons. We are not supposed to hear, feel, or
see, once we have stepped across our State line. Naturally, under these
conditions, I am of the opinion that there is no ocean except the
Pacific.”

The girl smiled and tossed her head. “Will you always hold that opinion,
Mr. Klein?”

“I don’t know,” he reluctantly confessed. “I—I believe I am already
weakening.”

From one end of the porch ran a narrow footbridge, spanning the lower
lawn and ending at a high cliff. Miss Lydecker, noticing Klein’s
interest in this, hastened to explain.

“Daddy has built a summerhouse on the very edge of that cliff. Would you
care to go out? We call it Eagle’s Nest.”

They ventured out, the girl leading the way. Reaching the cliff, the two
stood for a minute in silence, gazing down upon the sea. Only a narrow
rail, breast-high, was between them and a sheer drop of a hundred feet.

“Don’t lean too far over the rail,” the girl warned him, half jesting.
“One of our men fell here a few years ago.” She shuddered. “I wouldn’t
come near the Nest for months afterward.”

Suddenly, above the steady throb of the surf, there came the first
sounds of a distant orchestra.

“There!” exclaimed Miss Lydecker; “the first dance! And we’re missing
it.”

They ran along the footbridge and across the broad porch toward the big
door. Just as they were about to enter, Miss Lydecker stopped short, and
a cry came from her lips.

“What is the matter?” Klein asked anxiously.

“Right there!” She pointed a finger.

“What?”

“A man! I saw him slipping along—near those bushes!”

Without another word Klein leaped from the porch and gained the high
hedge that ran parallel to the pebbled roadway. He searched both sides
for a dozen yards, finally giving up the hunt and rejoining the girl.

“It must have been a ghost,” he told her laughingly.

“I certainly saw some one,” she answered nervously. Then her brow
cleared. “How foolish of me! Let’s not waste any more time. The first
dance will be over before we get on the floor.”




                             CHAPTER XXII.
                             A NEW MYSTERY.


After several dances in the big room cleared for that purpose, the
guests were invited to an adjoining room, where supper was served by the
hostess and her mother. Tanner, Metcalfe, and other members of the stock
company were hovering about Miss Lydecker, drinking impromptu toasts,
laughing, and exchanging pleasantries.

She finally broke away from them and came over to where Klein was
chatting with Miss Reed.

“I was just telling Miss Reed,” Klein said, “how careless the majority
of you girls are with your jewels.”

“You don’t suppose for one minute, Mr. Klein, that we would keep them
locked up when so many gallant men are about!” Miss Lydecker exclaimed.
She fumbled at a big brooch pinned on her bodice. It was a wonderful
piece of workmanship, fashioned of diamonds and other precious stones,
and cunningly wrought in the shape of a lotus flower.

“Daddy gave me this last week, and told me never to wear it except on
state occasions,” Miss Lydecker announced. “It has been in our family
several generations, and——”

Metcalfe interrupted at this moment. “Playing favorites so early in the
evening, Miss Lydecker?” he asked.

“I’ve just been given a warning,” she said.

“A Black-hand letter?” asked Tanner, who had strolled up.

“Hardly as bad as that. But as usual it fell upon deaf ears.”

Several other men came up at this moment, and the conversation was
abruptly shifted. Klein watched as Miss Lydecker walked away, surrounded
by a group of admirers.

Perhaps five minutes elapsed. None of the guests had left the room—of
this Klein was positive, since he was sitting nearest the door—and the
incessant chatter rose and fell like the murmur of surf on a distant
shore.

The men were allowed to enjoy cigars, and the room was soon filled with
drifting smoke. Tanner, evidently at some one’s request, stepped to the
nearest window and opened it.

“There!” he exclaimed. “That’s better.” He drew in a deep breath. “Isn’t
the sea air refreshing?”

He sat down on the arm of Klein’s chair. “Do you know it is three
o’clock?”

“I’d forgotten about the time,” Klein answered. “I suppose we ought to
be home.”

“Dress rehearsal to-morrow night, remember,” Tanner cautioned. “Bond
raked me over the coals to-day. I’ve got sixty sides for next week, and
I’ve hardly glanced at the script. It is up to me to pound all day
to-morrow.”

Miss Lydecker came over and joined them. “The party is breaking up. I’ll
have the cars sent around,” she said.

“That’s thoughtful of you, Miss Lydecker,” replied Tanner. “What a
hostess you are!”

“You must not forget next Saturday night,” she cautioned both of the
men. “We’re going to have a real party. It’s my birthday. Daddy has
promised me an orchestra from New York.”

“You could not keep us away,” murmured Tanner.

Klein, who had been watching her closely, suddenly spoke. “I notice,
after all, Miss Lydecker, that you have taken heed of my warning.”

“What warning?” she asked, frowning.

“About the brooch. You have put it away.”

The girl’s hand went quickly to her collar, and instantly she paled.
“The—the brooch,” she gasped; “it’s—gone.”

“You didn’t take it off yourself?” cried Klein.

“No,” she faltered; “I—I—it’s lost.”

“Good Lord!” broke from Tanner’s lips.

“You haven’t been out of this room since you spoke with me last, have
you?” inquired Klein.

She shook her head.

“Then it must be in here—some place!”

Tanner gripped Klein’s arms. “Do you think some one might——”

“We’ll have to find that out,” said Klein. “I’ve been sitting here for
the past half hour. Not one of the guests passed out; I’m positive of
that.”

Tanner’s eyes narrowed as he caught Klein’s meaning. “I understand.
We’ll keep them all here until——”

A few minutes later the whole room was made aware of the discovery. The
girls huddled together in a frightened group, while the men gathered
around Tanner and Klein.

“I saw the brooch barely fifteen minutes ago,” Klein said, addressing
them. “And Miss Lydecker has not been out of this room. The brooch must
be in here.”

Under his direction the room was gone over, inch by inch. Nothing was
found. After that, at Tanner’s suggestion, each of the men submitted
himself to a search. Tanner allowed Klein to search him, and then the
process was reversed. Following this, Klein assured himself that none of
the other men present had the jewel upon him.

Klein walked over to Miss Lydecker and spoke to her. “Don’t give up so
readily, Miss Lydecker. Your brooch cannot be far away. Every man here,
I am sure, will make a determined effort to——”

“What—what’ll daddy say?” she moaned. “He told me not to wear it.”

“Cheer up!” exclaimed Klein. “I’ll wager you’ll be wearing it before
next Saturday night.”

Miss Lydecker finally calmed herself, and offered a limp hand to the
departing guests. The machines drew up at the door, and the girls and
their escorts silently took their seats.

“Don’t worry too much,” Klein said, smiling into her white face; “things
may brighten to-morrow. Good-by.”




                             CHAPTER XXIII.
                           THE ARDENT SLEUTH.


Irving Hamilton Tod, man of means and colt reporter for the New York
_Morning News_, realized, after his painful interview with the warden at
the Newport jail, that for the second time in almost as many days he had
been outwitted.

The warden at the jail had never heard of a detective by the name of
Jarge. Where, then, had this black-eyed sleuth disappeared to, and what
had been his object in lying? Had he taken Klein back to New York?

With a dozen other questions hammering at his brain, Tod walked slowly
back to the hotel. Passing the telegraph office recalled to his mind the
hopeful message he had sent to Reed, the city editor. It was like salt
to an open wound.

“Reed will hand me another laugh,” he muttered dismally. “Fate’s against
me, sure.”

He dragged himself through the hotel lobby; then, catching sight of a
swinging door and hearing the tinkle of glasses, he determined to do a
very unusual thing.

“I’ll take a good, stiff drink before I eat,” he said to himself, with
an air of martyrdom.

He pushed his way into the bar and gulped down a high ball. His lagging
and depressed spirits seemed started on the upward climb. He encouraged
them by repeating his order. Just as he finished tipping up the second
glass a hand fell upon his shoulder.

“Hello,” he said, whirling, “who are you?”

A flushed and grinning face was lifted to his own.

“I remember you,” the intruder stated very clearly, blinking his eyes.
“Your friends left you at the dock last night, didn’t they?”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Tod, as the truth dawned upon him. “You’re the
cabby who——” He stopped, and his heart began to pound swiftly. What luck
this was!

“What are you drinking?” he asked, motioning to the alert barkeeper.

When the drinks were before them, Tod resumed his talk. “Where did you
take my friends last night, cabby?”

The cabby grinned, tossed off his drink, and wiped his lips with the
back of his hand.

“Take ’em? Well, at first they wanted the police station—then they
wanted the railroad station. So I took ’em there!”

“To the railroad station?”

“Just that. I’m thinkin’ it was funny—but it ain’t my place to ask
questions. Just so long as I gets my fare, what’s the odds!” He paused
and bestowed a longing glance upon the bottle in front of him.

“Fill it up again,” Tod said quickly.

“Thanks, I’ll just do that.” The glass was filled and pressed to his
lips.

“Did you notice what train my friends took?” Tod inquired.

“They didn’t both take the same train,” was the unexpected answer. “I—I
was hangin’ around waitin’ for a fare, so I watched.” The cabby chuckled
to himself. “No, sir, they didn’t! One of ’em takes the four o’clock for
Fall River and the other gets on the express for Boston.”

“Good Lord!” burst from Tod. Then, after an effort to control his voice,
he asked: “Which one took the express for Boston?”

The cabby’s head was rolling unsteadily from side to side. “Which—which
one? Now jus’ let me see.” He weighed the question for a moment.

“One of the men wore a badge. You saw it, didn’t you?” broke from the
expectant Tod.

“Sure, I saw it,” returned the cabby, wagging a forefinger in the air.
“And he—and he was the fellow what took the—the Fall River train.”

“The man with the badge took the Fall River train?”

“Sure.”

“Then the other man went to Boston?”

“Sure.”

This final announcement sent Tod’s heart galloping. His wide, blue eyes,
once so clouded, brightened like an April sky after a shower. “Thanks!
Have a couple more on me!” he said, tossed a bill on the bar, and darted
out through the swinging doors into the lobby.

In another minute he had paid his bill at the desk and was hurrying down
the street toward the railroad station. The clerk had informed him that
a train left for Boston in five minutes.

“Everything isn’t lost, after all,” he told himself exultantly. “What a
fool I was to be discouraged so soon! Klein’s in Boston, and I’ll get
him before the week is out!”

And so enthusiastic did he become over the glowing prospects ahead of
him, that he completely forgot that he had neither bathed nor shaved nor
had his breakfast.




                             CHAPTER XXIV.
                            MR. AMOS JARGE.


Two days previous to the mysterious robbery at the Lydecker home a slim,
black-eyed stranger, alighting from the local train at Hudson, inquired
of the cabman who drove him up to the business section the location of a
certain real-estate firm.

As the result of his visit there the stranger engaged an office in the
most prominent business building in the town, and upon the glass door,
so that all who passed might read, was lettered:




                              Amos Jarge.
                       Private Detective Agency.

On the Monday following the robbery the portly form of Mr. Lydecker
might have been seen entering the elevator of the same building. And
directly behind him, also entering the elevator, came hurrying another
man. Apparently preoccupied, this latter stepped upon Mr. Lydecker’s
heels. Instantly he drew back with profuse apologies.

“A thousand pardons, sir! I—I——” He broke off abruptly and held out his
hand. “Why, Mr. Lydecker! This is, indeed, a surprise.”

Mr. Lydecker’s brow cleared and he accepted the hand.

“Bless my soul! What are you doing in Hudson, Mr. Jarge?”

Jarge laughed. “I had quite forgotten that you lived in this city,” he
declared. “Let me see, the last time we met was——”

“On the Fall River boat,” interrupted Mr. Lydecker. “I can never forget
that incident! You returned my daughter’s jewels to me; don’t you
remember?”

“Quite so.” Jarge nodded slowly. “Of course, of course! That was during
the time of my employment with the Fall River Company. Since you have
recalled it, I remember the incident perfectly.”

They had stepped out of the elevator now and were standing in the hall.

“Then you are no longer in the services of the——” Mr. Lydecker began.

“I resigned a month ago,” Jarge interrupted. “I have since started in
business for myself. I have opened a chain of offices between Boston and
New York.”

“Is that so?” exclaimed Mr. Lydecker. “And where——”

“Straight ahead of you, sir.” Jarge waved indifferently toward a door at
the end of the hall. “That is my headquarters for Hudson and the
surrounding district.”

Mr. Lydecker followed the hand, and read the black letters on the glass
door of the office.

“Well, well,” he remarked, “this is pleasing news. I sincerely trust you
will find success in your new venture, Mr. Jarge.”

“Thank you. I believe I have made a good beginning.” He paused
reflectively, as if his thoughts were a thousand miles away. “And now,
if you will pardon me, Mr. Lydecker,” he announced, “I will be hurrying
back to my desk. There are so many details to arrange and so much——”

“Certainly, certainly,” broke in the other. “I understand, of course.
And—and possibly, later on, I might have a little work for you myself,
Mr. Jarge.”

The detective nodded in a disinterested manner. “I shall be pleased to
handle it. Good day, sir.”

Jarge swung briskly away, and Mr. Lydecker watched as the door closed
behind him. Then he walked down the hall.

“A very smart and intelligent man, this Jarge,” he told himself. “I
think I will make no mistake in hiring him.”

The next day Mr. Lydecker called at Jarge’s office, only to be met by a
curt and busy stenographer with the announcement that the detective was
out on an important case, and would not return before the next day.

On the following afternoon Mr. Lydecker was again unfortunate, and
learned from the same busy and curt stenographer that Mr. Jarge was
still engaged and was not expected in the office until Friday at the
very earliest.

So, on Friday, Mr. Lydecker called up Jarge on the telephone and asked
for an appointment.

The detective happened to be in his office at the time.

“I’m afraid I will have to disappoint you, Mr. Lydecker,” he said. “I’m
pressed with other business. Wouldn’t some day next week answer just as
well?”

“I must see you to-day,” insisted the other. “It is a very important
matter.”

“Perhaps one of my assistants can be of service to you,” Jarge went on
to say. “I can arrange to have——”

Mr. Lydecker demurred at once. “I must take this up with you personally,
Mr. Jarge. I am willing to pay extra for the favor. But it must be
arranged before to-morrow.”

“I don’t see just how——” Jarge began, only to be interrupted by:

“Let me see you for five minutes. I can explain my case and you can
judge for yourself. You can surely grant me that much time, Mr. Jarge.”

The detective hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Very well, Mr.
Lydecker,” he answered reluctantly. “I can allow you five minutes. I
will be in the office at eleven o’clock sharp.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Jarge. I shall be there on the hour. If you
only knew how——”

But the detective had already hung up his receiver. So the perturbed Mr.
Lydecker was forced to do the same.

Promptly at eleven o’clock Mr. Lydecker stepped nervously out of the
elevator on the sixth floor of the business block, and, walking to the
far end of the hall, entered the office of Mr. Amos Jarge, private
detective.


                            TO BE CONTINUED.




                        CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.


The jury had retired for consultation prior to bringing in a verdict of
“Guilty,” which was expected of them. Retiring at all seemed little more
than a farce, for from the beginning to the end of the case the evidence
had gone so steadily against the defendant that by the time the last
witness had been called there was no manner of doubt in the public mind
that Robert Sullivan had deliberately and in cold blood murdered Jack
Wilder, and it needed not the vigorous speech of the prosecuting
attorney to convince any one to that effect.

The evidence, being briefly summed up, ran as follows: Robert, or, as he
was more familiarly called, Bob Sullivan, while in a state of
intoxication, quarreled with and lost his last cent to Jack Wilder, a
professional sharper. Awaking the morning after his debauch, to find
himself beggared, he had sworn, in the presence of several witnesses, to
get his money back or kill the man who had outwitted him. Accordingly,
he had set out to meet Wilder on his return from a neighboring town, and
next day the body of the latter was found in a lonely stretch of the
road, with a knife sticking in his heart.

Sullivan had been obliged to admit that he had met his enemy near this
spot, and that they had a stormy interview, but maintained that they
parted without blows, as Wilder promised him to restore his money. There
was no tittle of circumstantial evidence wanting to confirm the
appearance of Sullivan’s guilt, and even the attorney for the defense
was privately convinced of the falsity and absurdity of his client’s
plea of “Not guilty.”

The judge, a large, pompous man, having instructed the jury in his most
severe and autocratic manner, busied himself with some papers, and did
not deign a glance to the assemblage below. It was, as could readily be
observed, a gathering of small tradespeople and farmers. Here and there
the keen face of a lawyer or that of a stranger from the neighboring
city stood out boldly from the sea of honest vacuity which surrounded
it.

The prisoner sat with his face buried in his hands, which had lost their
former tan, and were pale and trembling. Near him was his wife, hugging
a sickly babe to her breast, and showing in her wild eyes, twitching
mouth, and every line of her meager, stooping figure, the terror which
held her in its grasp. A breathless silence was upon that audience in
the shabby courtroom; even the baby had ceased its fretful wailing, and
the buzz of a bluebottle fly entangled in a spider’s web in the window
was the only sound that broke the stillness.

Five minutes passed, ten, twenty, and still the jury had not come. A
murmur of impatience began to be heard, and presently the judge beckoned
the sheriff to him, whispered a few words in his ear, and saw him depart
through the same door which apparently swallowed up the jurors. The
sheriff made his way through several gloomy passages into a large, light
room, where he inquired of the foreman if they were not yet agreed.

“No, we ain’t!” gruffly responded that functionary. “There’s eleven of
us for hangin’, but Conway, there, won’t hear to it. He wants to clear
the feller out an’ out, an’ says he’ll stay with us till kingdom come
before he’ll budge an inch.”

Giles Conway, the man whose obstinacy was causing such unnecessary
delay, was seated rather apart from the rest, and wore the brown jeans
and soft hat which marked him a farmer. Even had not the absence of any
attempt at foppishness proclaimed his caste, there was something about
him which insensibly connected itself in the observer’s mind with the
free winds and untrammeled sunshine of the country. He was much the same
color from his head to his feet, for eyes, skin, hair, and beard were
alike brown, and only the deep lines on his firm, squarely cut face
showed that he was no longer young. Just at present he seemed in no wise
disconcerted by the wrathful impatience of his associates, but pushing
his felt hat farther back on his head, and settling himself more
comfortably in his wooden chair, said slowly:

“No, friends, you won’t ever get me to hand over a man to the gallows on
such evidence as that, an’ there ain’t no special use of cussin’ about
it, for it won’t do a bit of good.”

“Oh, but that is such foolishness!” broke in one of the group. “Here’s
all this evidence, that no man in his senses could doubt, a-goin’ to
prove that Bob Sullivan killed Jack Wilder, and here you sit like a bump
on a log, and won’t listen to none of it.”

“That’s just it,” replied Conway. “You all think that evidence like that
orter hang a man, but if you’d seen as much of that sort of thing as I
have, you’d think different. I ain’t much of a talker, but maybe you
wouldn’t mind listenin’ to a case of this kind I happen to know about,
an’ maybe the time I’m done—an’ it won’t take me long to tell it—you’ll
see why I don’t want to hang a young fellow I’ve known nearly all my
life for somethin’ that very likely he didn’t do.

“You all know how when I wasn’t much over twenty I went West an’ put all
the money I could rake an’ scrape into a ranch an’ cattle. Well, the
place next to mine was owned by a young fellow—we’ll call him Jim
Saunders, although that isn’t his name—who’d come out, like me, to make
his fortune. We took to each other from the first, an’ pretty soon we
were more like brothers than a good many of the real article I’ve seen
since. After a while Jim told me he was goin’ to get married, an’ a few
weeks later he brought home the prettiest little thing you’d see in a
day’s ride. She had lots of yellow hair that was always tumblin’ down
over her shoulders, an’ big blue eyes, an’ a voice like a wild bird, an’
Jim—well, he thought there wasn’t nobody like Milly in all the country.

“She seemed fond of him, too, at first, but it wasn’t long before I
could see that it was a clear case of misfit all round. There was lots
of excuse for her, for of course it was a hard life, an’ she loved
finery an’ pretty things, an’ Jim didn’t have the money to give ’em to
her, though he worked early an’ late, an’ did his level best to make
somethin’ more than a livin’.

“Maybe it would have turned out all right in time if it hadn’t been that
one day Jim went to the nearest town to buy some farmin’ implements, an’
fell in there with a fellow he used to know back East, and nothin’ would
do him but he must go home with Jim to see how he was fixed. Well, he
come, an’ it was a black day for Jim when he set foot on his threshold,
for from the minute he saw Milly he hadn’t eyes for nothin’ else, and
she bein’ a woman, was mightily set up to think a city man would set
such store by her.

“He made himself so pleasant an’ so much at home that they begged him to
stay all night, an’ long about twelve o’clock he was, or pretended to
be, took awful sick. They worked with him till he got better, and
wouldn’t hear of his tryin’ to go away next mornin’; so he stayed on,
setting on the big rockin’-chair with a pillow behind him an’ talkin’ to
Milly while Jim was off at work. He didn’t seem in no particular hurry
about goin’, but Jim never ’spicioned for a minute that anything was
wrong, for he liked the fellow first-rate, an’ would no more have
thought of doubtin’ Milly than he would the Lord that made him.

“One evenin’ he came in late, tired an’ hungry, an’ foun’ that his
wife—his wife that he loved—had left him and gone away with that devil
that he thought was his friend! He went wild for a while. It seemed to
him like everything was black around him, an’ there was great splotches
of blood before his eyes, an’ he could hear voices that kept a-laughin’
at him an’ callin’ him a fool, an’ the only thing he held fast to was
that he must follow ’em to the world’s end and kill the man that had
took away all he had. So he tracked ’em, now here, now there, but always
they doubled on him, till at las’, when his money was gone, he lost ’em
altogether.

“Then he came to himself a little, an’ sold his ranch an’ went back to
his old home to wait—for he knowed somehow that one day, sooner or
later, the Lord would give him his revenge. He worked while he waited,
an’ made money an’ got well off, an’ nobody knew nothin’ ’bout his ever
bein’ married, so he had somethin’ like peace. But he never forgot, an’,
after a while, it seemed like he didn’t feel so hard toward Milly, for
he remembered how young she was, an’ how foolish, an’ what a devil she
had to deal with; an’ sometimes he could see her with the pretty color
all gone from her cheeks, an’ the laugh from her voice, heartbroken an’
deserted.

“At last, twenty years afterward, when he was gettin’ on in life, his
time came. He was ridin’ along, not thinkin’ about anything in
particular, when he happened to look up, an’ there, comin’ toward him
roun’ a bend in the road, an’ ridin’ on a big black horse, was the man
he’d waited for all these years. They knowed each other the minute their
eyes met, an’ the fellow got white as chalk an’ pulled his horse clean
back on his haunches, tryin’ to turn roun’ an’ make a run for it, but it
wasn’t no good, for Jim was off his horse in a minute an’ had him by the
throat, an’ in less time than it takes to tell it, he had pulled him
down, cursin’ an’ cuttin’ at him, to the ground. Then, holdin’ him
there, with his knee on his breast an’ his knife at his throat, he says:

“‘Where’s Milly? Tell me, or I’ll cut your devilish heart out!’

“The fellow glared back at him like a rat in a trap, an’ seein’ death in
his eyes, an’ knowing ’twas no use to lie, says:

“‘She’s dead; she got sick when we got to New York, an’ I left her, an’
she died in a week.’

“‘I’d orter kill you like a snake, but I’ve always lived square, an’ the
Lord helpin’ me, I’ll die that way, so I’ll give you an even chance. Get
out your knife an’ fight, an’ remember that one of us has got to die
right here.’

“Then he let him up, and they went at it. They was pretty evenly matched
to look at ’em, but Jim thought of Milly dyin’ all alone, an’ fought
like a tiger, an’ pretty soon he left the man that had come between ’em
stiff an’ stark with a knife in his heart, an’ his white face a-glarin’
up at the sky.

“Then comes in the part of the story that I want you all to take for a
warnin’, before you’ll be so quick to find any man guilty on nothin’ but
circumstantial evidence. When the body was found, nobody ever thought of
’spicionin’ Jim, but everything pointed to another man as the one who
had done the killin’. He’d sworn to kill the dead man; he was on the
hunt for him when last seen, an’ he couldn’t prove no alibi. So they
arrested him, and the first Jim heard of it he was summonsed on the jury
that was to try him. Jim hadn’t never thought of giving himself up for a
murder, for he knowed he’d fought and killed his enemy fair an’ square,
an’ he was glad he done it. He didn’t see that it was any business of
the law’s to interfere between ’em, and he didn’t like to drag in
Milly’s name before the judge an’ jury an’ all the people who wouldn’t
remember, like he did, when he was young an’ innocent. Even when he was
summonsed, he didn’t have any notion but he would be cleared when they’d
look into things some, an’ he made up his mind not to say nothin’ if he
could help it.

“But when he got there, everything went so dead against the prisoner
that if he hadn’t knowed he’d done the killin’ himself, he’d ’a’ thought
sure he was guilty. He got kind of dazed at last, and didn’t seem to
know nothin’ till he found himself in a room with the rest of the jury,
an’ all eleven of ’em wanting to hang the man that he knowed was
innocent. Then he came to his senses and voted against ’em, an’ when
they asked him for his reasons, he told ’em the story I’ve been tellin’
you.”

Giles Conway stopped and gazed stolidly into the eyes of his audience,
who had gathered around him till they hemmed him in on every side.

“An’ what did they do with him?” asked the foreman at last.

“I don’t know,” he answered slowly. “It ain’t decided yet, for Jack
Wilder was the man that run off with Milly, an’ it was me that killed
him.”


                    NOT TO BE OUTDONE IN POLITENESS.

A rich old man lying on his deathbed had assembled his three nephews to
acquaint them with the manner in which he intended to dispose of his
property.

“To you, my dear John, as you have always been a steady and dutiful
nephew, I have left the sum of twenty thousand dollars.”

“Thank you, my dear uncle,” said John, burying his face in his pocket
handkerchief to conceal his emotion. “I only hope you may live to enjoy
it yourself.”

“You, also, Thomas, have been a good lad. I have, therefore, left you
the sum of fifteen thousand dollars.”

“Thank you, my dear uncle. I only hope you may live to enjoy it
yourself.”

“As for you, Frank, you have been a sad dog; to you, therefore, I have
left the sum of twenty-five cents to buy a rope to hang yourself with.”

“Thank you, my dear uncle,” said the dutiful nephew. “I only hope you
may live to enjoy it yourself!”




                        THE NEW WEATHER SYSTEM.


                             By MAX ADELER.

Cooley is the inventor of an improved system of foretelling the weather.
He has a lot of barometers, hygrometers, and such things, in his house,
and he claims that by reading these intelligently, and watching the
clouds in accordance with his theory, a man can prophesy what kind of
weather there will be three days ahead. They were getting up a
Sunday-school picnic in town in May, and as Cooley ascertained that
there would be no rain on a certain Thursday, they selected that day for
the purpose. The sky looked gloomy when they started, but as Cooley
declared that it absolutely couldn’t rain on Thursday, everybody felt
that it was safe to go. About two hours after the party reached the
grounds, however, a shower came up, and it rained so hard that it ruined
all the provisions, wet everybody to the skin, and washed all the cake
to dough. Besides, Peter Marks was struck by lightning. On the following
Monday the agricultural exhibition was to be held, but as Mr. Cooley
foresaw that there would be a terrible northeast storm on that day, he
suggested to the president of the society that it had better be
postponed. So they put it off, and that was the only clear Monday we had
during May. About the first of June, Mr. Cooley announced that there
would not be any rain until the fifteenth, and consequently we had
showers every day, right straight along up to that time, with the
exception of the tenth day, when there was a slight spit of snow. So on
the fifteenth, Cooley foresaw that the rest of the month would be wet,
and by an odd coincidence, a drought set in, and it only rained once
during the two weeks, and that was on the day which Cooley informed the
baseball club that it could play a match, because it would be clear.

On toward the first of July, he began to have some doubts if his
improved weather system were correct; he was convinced that it must work
by contraries; so when Professor Jones asked him if it would be safe to
attempt to have a display of fireworks on the night of the fifth, Cooley
brought the improved system into play, and discovered that it promised
rainy weather on that night. So then he was certain it would be clear,
and he told Professor Jones to go ahead.

On the night of the fifth, just as the professor got his Catherine
wheels and skyrockets all in position, it began to rain, and that was
the most awful storm we have had this year. It raised the river nearly
three feet. As soon as it began, Cooley got the ax, and went upstairs
and smashed his hydrometers, hygrometers, barometers, and thermometers.
Then he cut down the pole that upheld the weathercock, and burned the
manuscript of the book which he was writing in explanation of his
system. He leans on “Old Probs” now when he wants to ascertain the
probable state of the weather.




                        THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.


                     Scale Ounce Over Forty Years.

Sealer of Weights and Measures Robert J. Hongen, of Weissport, Pa., in
testing a scale used by one of the leading merchants for the past forty
years, found that it allowed seventeen instead of sixteen ounces to the
pound.

The merchant says he must have lost considerably through this scale, but
is glad that it operated in favor of his customers.


                       Family of Twenty Children.

Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Anstine, natives of the Pigeon Mountains, near Spring
Grove, Pa., are the parents of twenty children—eight boys and twelve
girls. There are no twins or triplets among them.

Mr. Anstine is fifty years old and his wife is forty-five. They live in
the remotest part of the Pigeon Mountains, in a small hut having but
four rooms. The oldest child is twenty-four years old. The whole family
is hale and hearty despite the limited accommodations of their little
house. They live mostly by money earned from wood-cutting in the
forests.


                      Famous “Houn’ Dawg” in Bad.

The “houn’ dawg” is doomed. The hills that now resound with his throaty
bellow are to be dotted with sheep and subside in silence, believes
Doctor A. J. Hill, who has assisted in preparing a legislative “tin can”
to tie to the sagging tail of the kicked-around hound. The dogs are
blamed for the high price of mutton and the low price of sheep in the
State of Missouri.

Doctor Hill and other interested landowners have drafted a law which
provides that all dogs in the State shall be taxed, and that the tax
money shall constitute an insurance fund to reimburse sheep owners for
their losses by dogs.


                      Wisdom Teeth; Why so Called.

The so-called wisdom teeth are the last two molars to grow, and they
have no real connection with the possession of wisdom. They take their
name from the time of their arrival, from twenty to twenty-five years,
at which age the average person is supposed to have reached years of
discretion.

Cutting one’s wisdom teeth means simply arriving at the point of
completeness in physical equipment, and has no direct relation to mental
equipment. The possession of these teeth is no guarantee of wisdom. They
grow at about the same age in people whether they are wise or not.


                    Walnut Tree Forty-six Years Old.

Colusa, Cal., is laying claim to having the largest California black
walnut in the world, but the dimensions of the Colusa tree do not come
up to those of a tree that is growing on F. W. Schutz’s farm on Sycamore
Slough, six miles northeast of Arbuckle, also in Colusa County.

Some time ago an account in newspapers first brought this monster tree
before the reading public, and it received much attention throughout the
State. The agricultural department of the State University wrote Schutz
about it, stating that information sent by him would be used in a book
that the department is compiling.

In answer to the request of the university authorities Mr. Schutz has
taken accurate measurements of the tree, which are as follows:
Circumference one foot from the ground, twenty-two feet, eight
inches—below this the roots appear above the surface of the ground,
making the tree about twenty-six feet; circumference nine feet from the
ground, nineteen feet nine inches; height, 102 feet; width of shadow at
noon, 120 feet.

The big tree is forty-six years old, having been planted in 1868 by D.
Arnold, a Colusa County pioneer.


                      Virginia’s Oldest Cow Dies.

“Old Nancy,” said to be the oldest cow in Virginia, is dead. This cow
was fifty-two years old when she expired with the old year, thus turning
the recent holiday into a day of gloom for her owner and others. When
young, the cow’s color had been a blood-red, but for more than twenty
years her hair had been turning white, until at the time of her death
her hair was as white as the snow that covered the ground.

Her owner, John Adkins, of Big Laurel, Va., was only one day older than
Nancy, and at his marriage the cow—then being over twenty—was a wedding
gift from his father, who said: “Keep Nancy until she dies, John, for
she’s a good old cow.”

In recent years her owner has been offered good round sums for the aged
animal, but he invariably refused, with the remark: “No, no; I’d just as
soon think of parting with Martha—his wife—as to allow old Nancy to be
toted around the country with a show.”


                 Emigrant from Erin Dies a Millionaire.

The story of the hunt for gold is ever a story of toil and privation,
often a tragedy. For the one who strikes it rich, thousands are lost in
the oblivion of poverty and ill fate.

Colonel Thomas Cruse, who died at the age of seventy-nine, in Helena,
Mont., recently, was one of the lucky few who leaped from poverty to
affluence thirty years ago. He discovered the Drum Lummon Gold Mine,
north of Helena, sold it to an English syndicate for $1,500,000,
retaining one-sixth interest, and shared in the profits of $30,000,000
which the mine has produced.

Mr. Cruse was twenty years old when he left County Cavan, Ireland, to
seek his fortune in the mining camps of the West. He roamed around
various diggings in California, Nevada, and Idaho, blew into Virginia
City, Mont., in 1865, when Alder Gulch was at the height of its glory,
and later struck the placers around Helena, where fortune smiled upon
him.

Drum Lummon drew its name from the locality in Ireland where Cruse was
born. Before it had a name it had a romance redolent with the ill luck
of the original finder. He was a little, wiry Frenchman named L. F.
Hilderbrand, who drove an express wagon to Deadwood long after Tommy
Cruse put Drum Lummon on the mining map. In the very early days
Hilderbrand prospected in Montana. A stumble on the mountain side caused
him to chip off a piece of a bowlder which was so rich in gold quartz
that his eyes popped in the excitement of riches in sight. He and his
partner began to look for the lead from which the bowlder sloughed off.

Unfortunately, Hilderbrand and his partner undertook to roll out of the
way the great bowlder which gave them a clew to wealth. By one of those
queer capers of blasted luck which prospectors fear, the bowlder moved
too quickly and rolled over and crushed the arm of Hilderbrand’s
partner. Being without money and needing medical attention, they left
the place, trudged to Helena, where the partner was under the care of a
doctor, and Hilderbrand went to work in near-by places to earn money to
pay the bill.

Some ten years later, Hilderbrand, still at outs with his luck, and
weary of roaming, reached the spot where the bowlder sent his hopes
skyward. The bowlder had the appearance of an old acquaintance, but the
surroundings were changed to a bewildering extent. Before his eyes was a
monster hoisting plant raising rich ore from a shaft hundreds of feet in
depth, while in the gulch a huge stamp mill was at work. The bowlder
occupied a place of honor in front of a building. Hilderbrand touched
it, patted it affectionately, and tears filled his eyes. Presently
through the mist of his tears he read the sign: “Drum Lummon Mine,
discovered by Thomas Cruse.”

During the period of development, when hard luck pressed Cruse to the
verge of abandonment, some one advised him to strike Sam Ashby for a
couple of hundred. Ashby was a money lender in Helena who knew how to
sweat the coin when put at work on good security. Cruse put the matter
of a loan up to Ashby. All he got, however, was a fine line of free
advice, coupled with the money lender’s assurance that he would rather
throw paper money into the furnaces of his satanic majesty than loan it
to such a “shiftless fellow.”

Years after, when Cruse’s day of prosperity came, one of the early
visitors to the “Thomas Cruse Savings Bank,” just started in Helena, was
Sam Ashby. The fortunes of Cruse and Ashby had been reversed. Cruse was
flush, Ashby empty of pocket. Cruse led his would-be customer to the
door, and, in the underscored language of the West, assured the customer
that he would rather throw his money into the furnaces of his satanic
majesty than to loan it to such “a shiftless fellow” as Sam Ashby.

Soon after his bank was started, at the age of fifty, Cruse decided that
he had enough capital to support a wife. Miss Margaret Carter, sister of
the later United States Senator Carter, became Mrs. Cruse. The wedding,
in 1886, was the greatest social event in the history of Montana’s
capital. It was a celebration for all the population.

Cruse arranged for an open house and free drinks with every saloon in
Helena. Tradition has it that the whole male population of the town got
drunk at the bridegroom’s expense, and it took a week to sober the
people into a working condition. The jamboree was the greatest ever
pulled off in the treasure State; no one attempted to rival the score.

The joys of wedded life were of short duration, however. Mrs. Cruse died
within a year, leaving a baby daughter, on which the father lavished his
affections and means.

What Count John A. Creighton was to Omaha, Thomas Cruse was to Helena.
Every public enterprise, every promising industry, drew his support;
benevolent and charitable movements commanded assistance from his purse.
He was the chief contributor to the building of the Catholic Cathedral
of Helena, which was dedicated on Christmas Day, the Methodist Hospital,
the Young Men’s Christian Association, and the Young Women’s Christian
Association shared in his bounty, and his liberality in supporting the
local club kept Helena on the baseball map.

The career of Mr. Cruse was linked in many ways with the active lives of
several former Omaha residents. A year or two before Cruse struck Alder
Gulch, Patrick Gurnett, Mrs. Gurnett, and three young children started
from Omaha with a bull team in a caravan which occupied six months in
covering the distance to Virginia City, Mont. Cruse and the Gurnetts
probably became acquainted there.

In subsequent years, when the Gurnetts became ranchers in the Missoula
valley, south of Helena, Cruse’s poverty as a prospector was frequently
relieved by the food reserves of the Gurnett homestead.

Frank J. Lange, son of an Omaha family of pioneer grocers, is the active
manager of Cruse’s Savings Bank, and has been confidential associate and
adviser of the millionaire for years past.

Another man, Harry Cotter, married Cruse’s daughter, Mary, who died a
year ago last November. Cruse and Cotter did not pull together, and the
death of the daughter widened the breach, which continued to the gold
miner’s end.


                Put Nickle in Slot, Get Paper Raincoat.

Have you ever arrived in your old home town in a pelting rainstorm, all
dolled up in your Sunday best, and been compelled to pass up a quarter
to the local bus man or linger around the depot until some good
Samaritan with an umbrella is kind enough to escort you to the abode of
your family or friends?

Have you ever noticed a flock of pretty but scolding maidens in a
downtown doorway or the post-office entrance, or the vestibule of a
movie-picture place wildly calling for umbrellas, raincoats, newspapers,
brother’s, or best beau’s silk handkerchief, or anything to prevent that
lovely seven or ten-dollar hat from being ruined by the sudden shower?

If you are a masculine reader, have you ever been compelled to “cough
up” from three to six dollars in order to get your fair Dulcinea home
from play or dance when it is raining pitchforks and black cats and the
rubber-coated man on the box has suddenly become so stiff and lofty—in
his price, at least—that occasionally one doubts if he can be touched
even with a ten-spot bill or a ten-foot pole?

If you have ever passed through any of the above-enumerated
experiences—and what man or woman has not—forget it; deliverance is at
hand. The hour of the hastily impressed newspaper, the borrowed
umbrella, or the painfully extracted cash loan from the hotel clerk or
elevator boy is to bob up unserenely no more, for the paper raincoat has
taken its place alongside the egg sandwich, chewing gum, and insurance
policies placed before the public in vending machines.

The man or woman who drops a nickel for a package of gum to aid in the
digestion of his nickel-in-the-slot meal, and then pays a quarter to
another machine for a policy insuring him or her against the
consequences, may soon get a raincoat from an adjacent machine as a
result of the ingenuity of a woman, who has obtained a patent on a paper
raincoat, said to be waterproof. She plans to manufacture the coats in
large quantities and distribute them in specially devised vending
devices.

It is to be presumed that the feminine raincoat will be provided with a
cute little hood, or capote, as they say in French, and possibly the
masculine garment will have some attachment that will be quite eskimo
and save the wearer’s two-dollar derby from gaining an inch or two in
circumference. All hail, hoch, also hear-hear to the paper raincoat! Bah
to the never-present, disappearing, eye-destroying, pestiferous
umbrella.


                       “Corpse” Smokes in Hearse.

Panic was caused along the road between Jefferson and Chapel, Ohio, by
the spectacle of what apparently was a corpse sitting upright in the
middle of a hearse and serenely puffing a cigar.

The “remains” which had indulged in this unseemly performance were Will
Hodge, of Jefferson. Hodge had attended the funeral of an aunt at
Chapel. On the long trip home after the interment, Hodge started riding
beside the driver of the hearse.

The intense cold soon chilled him to the bone, and he obtained
permission from the driver to get inside the glass case. Here he soon
got warm, and, to add to the comfort of his journey, he lighted a cigar.
Rural folks along the way were terrified.


                     Toss on Raft Four Days at Sea.

Twelve of them, ten men and two women, were out there on the Atlantic
for four days, tossing on a sea-made raft, and no one in New York knew
of it until Charles Olsen, the mate, a six-foot, fair-haired Swede, came
in on the ward liner _Monterey_ and told the story.

It was some story, too, this simple chronological narrative of the
breaking up of the American barkentine _Ethel V. Boynton_ some sixty
miles east of Wilmington, N. C. Olsen said it was God alone who saved
him and his mates. None of them ever expected to see land again.

“I won’t tell all we went through,” he said, half smiling, “because, in
the first place, it would take too long, and then, when I get through,
you’d think I was thinking things, especially when I told you how the
sharks swam round waiting for us and we beat them off, hitting them on
their heads with our paddles.

“Maybe I’d better begin at the beginning like I was reading from the
log. So I don’t forget it, take it down right here now that the twelve
of us lived for six days on a two-pound can of tripe and three cans of
blueberries.”

The barkentine left Mobile December 26th, with lumber for Genoa, Italy,
in command of Captain G. W. Waldemar and a crew of nine men. On board
was Mrs. Waldemar and her young niece, Miss Gladys Larrock.

“Just at sunrise,” said Olsen, “we ran into a hurricane that came up
from the south. It got so bad that we hove to at eight a. m. until
midnight. It eased up a little, but came up again strong by seven
o’clock next morning. We fired the deck load overboard—had to do it, and
do it quick; she was leaking pretty badly.

“About ten-fifteen a. m. up came one of those racers—you know what I
mean, three waves chasing one right behind another. It came full at us
and swept clean over. It seemed to curl up about forty feet above the
deck.

“That wave tore out about thirty feet of our quarterdeck and carried it
over. At midnight we were completely water-logged. Next morning, at
two-thirty, we shipped another of those racers, and it carried off the
forrid house and the fo’c’s’le deck.

“We got kind of uneasy about the two women. They never said a word. If
they were scared, they didn’t let anybody know it, and we didn’t let
them know we were worried about ’em. At six a. m. we cut away the main
and mizzen sticks, and thought for a while we were going to stay above
water, but at nine a. m. we knew it was all off.

“About nine-fifteen a. m. we launched the yawl. But what was the use? We
just did it on a chance, anyway. That yawl had hardly hit the water when
she was smashed to pieces against the side.

“Big sticks of lumber from our jettisoned cargo now slammed the
barkentine hard. At ten a. m. the starboard side opened up. That was
some day. At eight-thirty p. m. the foremast jammed itself through the
bottom; a big part of the foredeck drifted away with it. We were just
simply going to pieces. We didn’t know where to lash the women, because
we couldn’t say what part would go away next.

“The lumber in the hold was just raising hell. The morning of the next
day, at three-thirty o’clock, the stern broke off entirely. At
five-thirty a. m. the main deck splintered and so did the after house. A
half hour later we made a raft out of the roof of it. We all got onto
it, lashing the women. They lay flat and had a hard job to keep from
choking, because the waves were hitting us hard.

“At seven-thirty a. m. we sighted the main deck, and started out for it.
It took us two hours to paddle. We used pieces of the lumber that
drifted to us. When we all climbed on board, we made fast the raft to
it. That was the last thing we did, because at eleven p. m., after three
days and nights on the drifting main deck, the thing bu’sted to pieces.

“That was the only time the women showed excitement. They didn’t want to
get back on that raft. The little gal, Miss Larrock, she lives in
Boston, like I do. She said to me: ‘Mate, we will never see Boston
again.’ I said: ‘Oh, yes. Don’t you give up, little gal, not much.’ She
laughed—it sounded like she was laughing—and she said something she read
some time out of a book. ‘Well, mate, we will die with good and true
hearts.’

“Well, we didn’t die. The Ward steamer _Manzanillo_ came along at
ten-thirty o’clock the morning after the main deck bu’sted to pieces,
and we can thank Warner, the cook, that she saw us. He grabbed the code
flag R when we left the vessel, and we stuck it up on a piece of lumber
on the raft. It is a red flag, with a yellow cross, and they could see
it better than most any flag.”

Olsen turned to the cook and slapped him hard between the shoulders.
“Freddy, old boy, we never missed a meal, did we?”

Warner winced and acquiesced.

“Yes, sir,” continued the mate, “the twelve of us lived for six days on
that measly two-pound can of tripe and three tins of blueberries.
Freddie, here, opened the can of tripe with his teeth and an old fork.
Then he speared a piece at a time on a wire and handed it around three
times a day.

“And, by gosh, the skipper looked at every piece that was swallowed. He
said: ‘I caution you fellas to go light on that tripe, because we might
be a long time here. One of the three cans of berries was given to four
of us. We had a three-gallon keg of dirty fresh water with us on the
raft, and it tasted fine.”

The _Manzanillo_ landed the Boynton’s crew at Santiago, Cuba, where they
were cared for in a hospital. The skipper and his wife and niece later
went by steamer to Mobile.


             How “Long” is a Kiss? “Long” Meant, Not “Why.”

How long is a kiss? No, not “why?”—nobody so foolish as to ask that—but
“how long?”

“As long as you can hold your breath,” somebody has said, but the
question which moving-picture censors and actors and actresses are
debating now is, how much film a kiss may, with propriety, fill.

“Three feet is the limit,” said a recent ruling of the Chicago board of
censors.

“That’s too much,” said Miss Ruth Stonehouse, one of the favorites of
the “movie fans.” “No kiss has a right to more than one foot of film.

“You see, when an actress is kissed on the stage, it isn’t because she
wants to be kissed, but because the artistry of the play demands it, to
indicate emotion on the part of the stage characters. It is utterly
impersonal, you know.”

“It is?” ventured the interviewer.

“Why, of course. It isn’t really the actress who is being kissed, but
the character she represents. Sometimes an unskilled actress uses the
prolonged kiss to convey her idea of a love scene, but if she
understands the art of expression, it is unnecessary.”

“But would you limit the real, honest-to-goodness love kiss to one
foot?” asked the “cub” reporter anxiously.

“We were talking of the stage,” she replied gracefully. “The kind you
mean, my dear boy, are a quite different affair.”


                   Oklahomans Plan Second Wolf Drive.

A wolf drive on a large scale occurred in the hills west of Greenfield,
Okla., a few weeks ago. The ground covered was about twenty-five square
miles. The lines were formed at ten a. m. and at the signal shot
thousands of hunters began to move in toward the center.

When within a mile of the center, all lines were halted and orders were
given by the captains to cease firing until the encircling line could be
formed solid, but before this could be accomplished, many wolves
escaped. When the hunters closed in, eight wolves were discovered, but
five of the eight managed to get away. Many rabbits were killed,
however.

There will be another hunt over the same ground and considerable added
territory. The circular sent out to all residents of the vicinity says
the recent drive was not satisfactory, as several wolves were allowed to
make their escape. It is now proposed to have a big wolf drive and
barbecue dinner after the round-up to all that go into the lines and
help make the drive a success. It has been decided that the captains
issue tickets to all men in their respective lines, all able-bodied to
take part in some line. The committee asks the hearty coöperation of
every man within the adjoining territory to make this drive a success,
as it is not a matter of sport only, but an effort to rid the country of
wolves.

The drive will cover forty-nine square miles, making each line seven
miles in length. “We want to make this drive the most successful of any
held in Oklahoma, and ask that you leave all booze at home to prevent
accidents.

“All firearms are barred except shotguns, and no shot to be used larger
than No. 4.”

The circular further says:

“Each captain will be entitled to four sergeants to help him with his
mile. There will be no shot fired from nine a. m. to ten a. m., the time
of starting. The signal to start will be given at the southeast corner
promptly at ten a. m., each captain to fire his gun, and the sergeants
to fire their guns in turn until the signal is carried entirely around
the lines.

“All wolves are to be sold at auction, and the proceeds to go to pay for
coffee and bread. The meat is to be donated and barbecued on the ground
for all who hold tickets. So be sure that you are in one of the lines in
order to get a ticket. Ladies are invited to the round-up ground and
will get their dinner free.

“No quail to be shot, and all rabbits to be saved and sent to Oklahoma
City, to be distributed among the poor.

“Also please remember, no shooting in the center at round-up ground. The
drive will be held immediately west of Greenfield.”


                       Is Champion Hose Knitter.

Without doubt “Aunt Sallie” Hardly, of Big Laurel, Va., is the champion
hose knitter in the world. She has just celebrated her eighty-fifth
birthday by knitting a pair of men’s hose. Her hobby has always been
knitting. She could knit a pair of men’s hose in two days when she was
nine years old. Aunt Sallie thirty years ago began keeping a record of
hose knit, and since that time has completed 10,005 pairs, she says. “I
believe that in all I have knitted over fifteen thousand pairs, and have
hopes of making it twenty thousand before I reach one hundred, which age
I believe I will live to see,” she said.


                      Girl Rifle Team Gets “Defi.”

The girl’s rifle team of the Iowa City High School, Iowa City, Ia., has
been challenged by a girls’ rifle team of Washington, D. C., and
probably will accept the “defi.” The coach is Professor C. E. Williams,
a member of the Iowa university national championship team of other
days, and now coach of the national high-school champion five of Iowa
City.


               Small Pitching Staff Best, Says Old-timer.

Jimmy Ryan, veteran player and one of the best of the famous Chicago
Colts, believes baseball is going back to the old days, when five
pitchers were all the biggest club would carry.

“At present,” he says, “we find big-league clubs with ten or more
pitchers on the pay roll, when three or four are actually doing the
work. What is the result? Why, these regulars are liable to be fretty
because they have to perform the heavy tasks and at the same time see
six or seven men sitting on the bench drawing pay and performing no
actual labor in championship games.

“‘Why do I have to do so much and wear myself out, when those guys are
having it so soft?’ they frequently say to themselves. And you can’t
blame them.

“Instead of a dozen high-priced men stepping on each others’ toes, I
believe that the day is coming when six will be the limit any club
carries. Manager Stallings, of the Boston Braves, has shown to the
present generation that it can be done.

“Back in the eighties, when I was pitching, John Clarkson, another
fellow, and myself would do the bulk of the work. And it didn’t hurt us
any, either. We were in shape, and had to keep so.

“It was seldom one heard a pitcher say he was feeling bad then, or had a
kink in the arm. He had to get out and work or lose his job.

“They can talk all they want to about baseball’s improving. But I fail
to see it that way. We could teach the present-day players a lot about
the game, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.

“Hard work never hurt any ball player. You see what it did for the
Boston Braves! It won them a world’s championship.”


                 Catches Coyotes in an Original Manner.

A coyote likes to have a newspaper clipping to read before it puts its
foot in a trap. This is according to the philosophy of John Harvey, of
Riverside County, California, who has about two hundred animals to his
credit—by traps, shotgun, and poison.

Harvey’s favorite trap is one of the familiar steel-jawed type with a
strong spring at each end. He sets it with his knees, by bringing almost
his whole weight on the springs. The spot chosen is usually on plowed or
cultivated ground. The flat pan, or trigger, of the trap is covered
skillfully with a piece of newspaper about four inches square, and all
is carefully covered with earth. Even the six-foot chain and drag are
concealed. Then over the place spread a lot of chicken or bird feathers,
and any other available animal or fowl trash, such as entrails and
pieces of pelt. This proves the undoing of Mr. Coyote when he comes
prowling about in the night.

The trapping is generally done in the fall or winter, after the buzzards
have migrated, as the bait is also tempting to that kind of “health”
birds.


                       Bars Men Who Drink Liquor.

The Milton Manufacturing Company, an ironworking concern which has the
largest plant in Milton, Pa., with hundreds of employees, has posted
notices in the plant, barring all men who use intoxicating drinks.
Employees who have signed saloon applications for the establishing of
saloons, now before the Northumberland County court, must have their
names withdrawn from the applications if they desire to continue in the
company’s service.


                 Lost Diamond Mine Discoverer is Found.

The lost locator of Kimberley lost diamond mines has been found. Joseph
H. Meyers, for whom a world-wide search was started three months ago by
men whom he had interested in a South African diamond-mining
proposition, has written to the stockholders of his company explaining
his long silence and giving a report on the prospects of the
undertaking.

Meyers had been missing since July 5, 1910, and Doctor Fred C. Wheat, of
Minneapolis, Minn., last November asked members of the Iowa Alumni
Association to “comb all the quarters of the earth” in an effort to find
him. Meyers was a graduate at the class of 1888, University of Iowa.

Meyers is a mining engineer, and his wife is said to be an expert in
minerals. In 1904 he was in charge of a large mine at San José, Cal.,
where he befriended an old Scotchman named Sandy McDonald. When the old
man died, he showed Meyers a map giving the location of a valuable
diamond mine near Kimberley. This map, he said, he had secured from
another Scotchman.

Meyers, at first skeptical, finally went to Kimberley, found the mine,
and returned with the report that in a few days he had dug out five
hundred carat weight of gems. He interested his friends in the United
States and secured $25,000 to buy the land. If he had taken it as a
diamond claim, he would have had to split the diamonds with the
government.

Returning to South Africa, he found that the price of the land had gone
up as a result of the discovery of other mines near, and he was forced
to return to this country and raise $10,000 more. He was last seen in
San Francisco.

In a letter to J. L. McLaury, of Glenwood, Minn., Meyers, writing from
Fresno, says he is still blocked in his effort to secure title to the
diamond property, but that the obstacle may be removed any day.

Doctor Wheat refuses to discuss the details of the venture, although he
said that he was satisfied that Meyers was absolutely honest, and that
eventually the proposition would be a success.


                      King of the Rabbit Hunters.

Stephen Osborn, seventy-eight years old, who lives five miles southwest
of Gentry, Mo., claims the distinction of being the champion rabbit
hunter—for his age, at least—of northwestern Missouri. He has killed 500
rabbits so far this winter, and is not through yet.

Osborn, who is an expert shot, does his hunting in a buggy which is
drawn by a twenty-one-year-old horse. He is accompanied by two dogs. The
dogs scare the rabbits from their hiding places; then, after the fatal
shot is fired, they bring the dead animals to the hunter, who is not
compelled to leave his buggy. Osborn says his best day’s work was
forty-nine rabbits out of fifty shots.


                  Modern Lumberjack a Real Aristocrat.

Should an old-time lumberjack wander back into the neighborhood of
Mellen, Wis., searching for old, familiar scenes, and with the possible
desire to once again, for a brief time, enter into the old calling for
pastime or physical improvement, he would be apt to make a hasty survey
of present conditions, and, with a voice softened by disappointment,
declare: “No, this is not the same—not at all the same. This may be all
right for a minister’s son, but not for me—not for me. Too much like
Chicago.”

Last week residents of Mellen had an opportunity to watch a train of new
boarding cars switched out into the woods over the logging railroad of
the Foster-Latimer Lumber Company. The cars were built in the local car
shops of that concern and are the last word in quarters for woodsmen.

The outfit comprises a “kitchen car,” equipped with the most modern
kitchen appliances, such as can only be found in the culinary
departments in hotels of large cities; two “sleepers,” equipped with
steel double-deck beds, springs, and mattresses, there being no bunks,
but regular upper and lower berths, each for two persons and provided
with individual ventilating windows; in the roof are also eight patent
ventilator stacks. The two diners are provided with individual tables
for setting four persons each.

The entire train is comfortably heated by steam heat. The cars are
provided with hard-wood floors, neatly painted inside and out, well
lighted, and also provided with the latest model gasoline-lighting
system.


                       Set New Roller-skate Mark.

Frank Bryant, of Duluth, and Raymond Kelly, of St. Paul, lowered the
world’s record for relay roller skating when they finished their
twenty-four-hour grind in Duluth, Minn. The team skated 348 miles and
eight laps.

Fred Martin, of Milwaukee, and Frank Bacon, of Detroit, made the former
record two weeks ago at the Madison Square Garden, when they rolled off
293 miles.

Bryant and Kelly showed wonderful endurance, by sprinting the last two
hours. They are professionals, Bryant being Northwestern champion on the
wheels.


                      Two Days Under Felled Tree.

A Mexican living three miles southwest of Binger, Okla., was chopping
wood, when a tree fell on him and held him fast from Friday until Sunday
morning. An Indian chief, “Big Snow,” discovered the Mexican’s plight
and succeeded in releasing him. There were no bones broken, but the
Mexican was badly bruised and suffered much from his long exposure to
the cold.


               Hero Gives His Life to Save Little Child.

This is a story of a brave and heroic youth who sacrificed his own life
that a little child might live. The tragedy marked the close of a merry
coasting party, and the death toll might have been greater but for the
unfortunate hero, Edward Schumacher, aged seventeen years.

Near Dundee, Ill., a fine hill stretches, invitingly long and white in
the winter days and nights. For long it has been a favorite spot for
coasters, and it was not unusual that the fatal evening found a gay
party spinning down the shimmering course. Schumacher sat at the
steering lever of the big coasting “bob,” with a small child in his lap.
Behind were three other boys and four girls.

“Don’t be afraid, little fellow,” he said to the timid child. “I’ll take
good care of you, all right.”

The sled shot down the incline at a furious speed. Half-way to the
bottom it encountered a sharp grade and became unmanageable. The
steersman lost control for a moment, and the “bob” darted to the side
just as a post loomed up a few paces ahead. Collision was inevitable.

Schumacher’s mind worked quickly, and then, without a thought of
consequences to himself, he flung the child from him into a deep
snowbank. The next instant the sled hurled itself upon the post, with
the steersman still at his place.

The child was picked up, unhurt, and of the seven young persons who sat
behind, none were injured beyond a severe shaking up, but the boy in
whose hands, for a moment, were the lives of all in the sled lived only
a few minutes after the crash. But he had kept his promise to the child,
even at the cost of his own life.


                Is Seventy-five and “Spry as a Cricket.”

There is an old lady living in Harrogate, Tenn., Taylor by name, who, at
the age of seventy-five years, is the mother of fifteen children, 108
grandchildren, ninety-six great-grandchildren, and 25
great-great-grandchildren, and she is still as spry as a cricket.


                        New Line Over Continent.

Work on the latest American transcontinental railroad is nearing
completion. “Only a few miles remain to link the Canadian Northern
railroad from ocean to ocean,” said R. Creelman, general passenger agent
of the Canadian Northern, when on a visit in Chicago the other day. “The
last gap, north of Kamloops, in British Columbia, is being closed at the
rate of nearly three miles a day, and the final linking of the unbroken
line of steel from the Atlantic to the Pacific should take place before
the end of this month. It still lacks more than four years of a half
century since the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific linked the two
oceans, forming the first continuous all-rail route across the
continent. In 1885 the Canadian Pacific was completed. The Canadian
Northern is the latest of the transcontinentals. The line extends from
Quebec through Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Port Arthur, Winnipeg, Regina,
Edmonton, Calgary, to Vancouver. While the main line is approximately
3,100 miles long, from Quebec to Vancouver, feeders increase the mileage
of the system to slightly over 9,000, nearly two-thirds of which has
been in operation for a number of years.

“The completed road will be a monument to the enterprise of two famous
railroad builders—Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann. Their first
experience in railroad building came with the construction of the
Canadian Pacific thirty years ago. Since 1896 they have been engaged on
the Canadian Northern system.”


                              GREENBACKS!

Pack of $1,000 Stage Bills, 10c; 3 packs 25c. Send for a pack and show
the boys what a WAD you carry. C. A. NICHOLS, Jr., BOX 59, CHILI, N. Y.


                                CACHOO!

Make the whole family and all your friends “just sneeze their heads off”
without knowing why, with CACHOO, the new long distance harmless snuff.
Sent anywhere for 10c. 3 for 25c. C. A. NICHOLS, Jr., Box 59, CHILI, N.
Y.


                             Tobacco Habit
                            Easily Conquered

A New Yorker of wide experience, has written a book telling how the
tobacco or snuff habit may be easily and completely banished in three
days with delightful benefit. The author, Edward J. Woods, 230 G,
Station E, New York City, will mail his book free on request.

The health improves wonderfully after the nicotine poison is out of the
system. Calmness, tranquil sleep, clear eyes, normal appetite, good
digestion, manly vigor, strong memory and a general gain in efficiency
are among the many benefits reported. Get rid of that nervous feeling;
no more need of pipe, cigar, cigarette, snuff or chewing tobacco to
pacify morbid desire.




                        The Nick Carter Stories


                         ISSUED EVERY SATURDAY
                        BEAUTIFUL COLORED COVERS

When it comes to detective stories worth while, the Nick Carter Stories
contain the only ones that should be considered. They are not overdrawn
tales of bloodshed. They rather show the working of one of the finest
minds ever conceived by a writer. The name of Nick Carter is familiar
all over the world, for the stories of his adventures may be read in
twenty languages. No other stories have withstood the severe test of
time so well as those contained in the Nick Carter Stories. It proves
conclusively that they are the best. We give herewith a list of some of
the back numbers in print. You can have your news dealer order them, or
they will be sent direct by the publishers to any address upon receipt
of the price in money or postage stamps.

  700—The Garnet Gauntlet.
  701—The Silver Hair Mystery.
  702—The Cloak of Guilt.
  703—A Battle for a Million.
  704—Written in Red.
  707—Rogues of the Air.
  709—The Bolt from the Blue.
  710—The Stockbridge Affair.
  711—A Secret from the Past.
  712—Playing the Last Hand.
  713—A Slick Article.
  714—The Taxicab Riddle.
  715—The Knife Thrower.
  717—The Master Rogue’s Alibi.
  719—The Dead Letter.
  720—The Allerton Millions.
  728—The Mummy’s Head.
  729—The Statue Clue.
  730—The Torn Card.
  731—Under Desperation’s Spur.
  732—The Connecting Link.
  733—The Abduction Syndicate.
  736—The Toils of a Siren.
  737—The Mark of a Circle.
  738—A Plot Within a Plot.
  739—The Dead Accomplice.
  741—The Green Scarab.
  743—A Shot in the Dark.
  746—The Secret Entrance.
  747—The Cavern Mystery.
  748—The Disappearing Fortune.
  749—A Voice from the Past.
  752—The Spider’s Web.
  753—The Man With a Crutch.
  754—The Rajah’s Regalia.
  755—Saved from Death.
  756—The Man Inside.
  757—Out for Vengeance.
  758—The Poisons of Exili.
  759—The Antique Vial.
  760—The House of Slumber.
  761—A Double Identity.
  762—“The Mocker’s” Stratagem.
  763—The Man that Came Back.
  764—The Tracks in the Snow.
  765—The Babbington Case.
  766—The Masters of Millions.
  767—The Blue Stain.
  768—The Lost Clew.
  770—The Turn of a Card.
  771—A Message in the Dust.
  772—A Royal Flush.
  774—The Great Buddha Beryl.
  775—The Vanishing Heiress.
  776—The Unfinished Letter.
  777—A Difficult Trail.
  778—A Six-word Puzzle.
  782—A Woman’s Stratagem.
  783—The Cliff Castle Affair.
  784—A Prisoner of the Tomb.
  785—A Resourceful Foe.
  786—The Heir of Dr. Quartz.
  787—Dr. Quartz, the Second.
  789—The Great Hotel Tragedies.
  790—Zanoni, the Witch.
  791—A Vengeful Sorceress.
  794—Doctor Quartz’s Last Play.
  795—Zanoni, the Transfigured.
  796—The Lure of Gold.
  797—The Man With a Chest.
  798—A Shadowed Life.
  799—The Secret Agent.
  800—A Plot for a Crown.
  801—The Red Button.
  802—Up Against It.
  803—The Gold Certificate.
  804—Jack Wise’s Hurry Call.
  805—Nick Carter’s Ocean Chase.
  806—Nick Carter and the Broken Dagger.
  807—Nick Carter’s Advertisement.
  808—The Kregoff Necklace.
  809—The Footprints on the Rug.
  810—The Copper Cylinder.
  811—Nick Carter and the Nihilists.
  812—Nick Carter and the Convict Gang.
  813—Nick Carter and the Guilty Governor.
  814—The Triangled Coin.
  815—Ninety-nine—and One.
  816—Coin Number 77.
  817—In the Canadian Wilds.
  818—The Niagara Smugglers.
  819—The Man Hunt.


                               NEW SERIES
                          NICK CARTER STORIES

  1—The Man from Nowhere.
  2—The Face at the Window.
  3—A Fight for a Million.
  4—Nick Carter’s Land Office.
  5—Nick Carter and the Professor.
  6—Nick Carter as a Mill Hand.
  7—A Single Clew.
  8—The Emerald Snake.
  9—The Currie Outfit.
  10—Nick Carter and the Kidnaped Heiress.
  11—Nick Carter Strikes Oil.
  12—Nick Carter’s Hunt for a Treasure.
  13—A Mystery of the Highway.
  14—The Silent Passenger.
  15—Jack Dreen’s Secret.
  16—Nick Carter’s Pipe Line Case.
  17—Nick Carter and the Gold Thieves.
  18—Nick Carter’s Auto Chase.
  19—The Corrigan Inheritance.
  20—The Keen Eye of Denton.
  21—The Spider’s Parlor.
  22—Nick Carter’s Quick Guess.
  23—Nick Carter and the Murderess.
  24—Nick Carter and the Pay Car.
  25—The Stolen Antique.
  26—The Crook League.
  27—An English Cracksman.
  28—Nick Carter’s Still Hunt.
  29—Nick Carter’s Electric Shock.
  30—Nick Carter and the Stolen Duchess.
  31—The Purple Spot.
  32—The Stolen Groom.
  33—The Inverted Cross.
  34—Nick Carter and Keno McCall.
  35—Nick Carter’s Death Trap.
  36—Nick Carter’s Siamese Puzzle.
  37—The Man Outside.
  38—The Death Chamber.
  39—The Wind and the Wire.
  40—Nick Carter’s Three Cornered Chase.
  41—Dazaar, the Arch-Fiend.
  42—The Queen of the Seven.
  43—Crossed Wires.
  44—A Crimson Clew.
  45—The Third Man.
  46—The Sign of the Dagger.
  47—The Devil Worshipers.
  48—The Cross of Daggers.
  49—At Risk of Life.
  50—The Deeper Game.
  51—The Code Message.
  52—The Last of the Seven.
  53—Ten-Ichi, the Wonderful.
  54—The Secret Order of Associated Crooks.
  55—The Golden Hair Clew.
  56—Back From the Dead.
  57—Through Dark Ways.
  58—When Aces Were Trumps.
  59—The Gambler’s Last Hand.
  60—The Murder at Linden Fells.
  61—A Game for Millions.
  62—Under Cover.
  63—The Last Call.
  64—Mercedes Danton’s Double.
  65—The Millionaire’s Nemesis.
  66—A Princess of the Underworld.
  67—The Crook’s Blind.
  68—The Fatal Hour.
  69—Blood Money.
  70—A Queen of Her Kind.
  71—Isabel Benton’s Trump Card.
  72—A Princess of Hades.
  73—A Prince of Plotters.
  74—The Crook’s Double.
  75—For Life and Honor.
  76—A Compact With Dazaar.
  77—In the Shadow of Dazaar.
  78—The Crime of a Money King.
  79—Birds of Prey.
  80—The Unknown Dead.
  81—The Severed Hand.
  82—The Terrible Game of Millions.
  83—A Dead Man’s Power.
  84—The Secrets of an Old House.
  85—The Wolf Within.
  86—The Yellow Coupon.
  87—In the Toils.
  88—The Stolen Radium.
  89—A Crime in Paradise.
  90—Behind Prison Bars.
  91—The Blind Man’s Daughter.
  92—On the Brink of Ruin.
  93—Letter of Fire.
  94—The $100,000 Kiss.
  95—Outlaws of the Militia.
  96—The Opium-Runners.
  97—In Record Time.
  98—The Wag-Nuk Clew.
  99—The Middle Link.
  100—The Crystal Maze.
  101—A New Serpent in Eden.
  102—The Auburn Sensation.
  103—A Dying Chance.
  104—The Gargoni Girdle.
  105—Twice in Jeopardy.
  106—The Ghost Launch.
  107—Up in the Air.
  108—The Girl Prisoner.
  109—The Red Plague.
  110—The Arson Trust.
  111—The King of the Firebugs.
  112—“Lifter’s” of the Lofts.
  113—French Jimmie and His Forty Thieves.
  114—The Death Plot.
  115—The Evil Formula.
  116—The Blue Button.
  117—The Deadly Parallel.
  118—The Vivisectionists.
  119—The Stolen Brain.
  120—An Uncanny Revenge.
  121—The Call of Death.
  122—The Suicide.
  123—Half a Million Ransom.
  124—The Girl Kidnaper.
          Dated January 30, 1915.
  125—The Pirate Yacht.
          Dated February 6, 1915.
  126—The Crime of the White Hand.
          Dated February 13, 1915.
  127—Found in the Jungle.
          Dated February 20, 1915.
  128—Six Men in a Loop.

    PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY. If you want any back numbers of our
  weeklies and cannot procure them from your news dealer, they can be
obtained direct from this office. Postage stamps taken the same as money.


     STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK CITY




                          Transcriber’s Notes


—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
  is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
  _underscores_.

—Created a Table of Contents based on the chapter headings.

—Note that this was published as a periodical and contains incomplete or
  continued stories.



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NICK CARTER STORIES NO. 131, MARCH 13, 1915: A FATAL MESSAGE; OR, NICK CARTER'S SLENDER CLEW ***


    

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