The Wire Devils. Frank L. Packard

ten-dollar bills. He held one of them up to the light for a moment, studying it admiringly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      IV.

       At Bald Creek Station

       Table of Contents

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “Not yet,” he said.

      MacVightie was glancing sharply around him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “Perhaps not,” said MacVightie, with a thin smile; “but it gets me! Yes, it’s about the same—all except the last of it. Big headlines: ‘Ten thousand dollars stolen from paymaster’s safe last night—What is being done to stop this reign of assassination, theft, outrage, crime?—Has the clue