A Woman at Bay; Or, A Fiend in Skirts
and, merely bestowing a single glance upon what was taking place, he
hurried silently past them--it was almost dark now--and in a moment more
had passed through the pathway to the clearing around the cottage.
As he entered the clearing silently, he came directly upon the sentinel,
who, after listening to the row in the glade for a moment, had just
turned to retrace his steps; this made him assume a position with his
back toward Patsy, and in an instant the young athlete had leaped upon
his back and shoulders, and had seized him by the throat, so that he
bore him to the ground in absolute silence.
And even as he did that, Chick and Ten-Ichi dashed out of the woods and
helped him; and Ten-Ichi, none too gentle, now that his anger was
aroused, rapped the sentinel on the head with the butt of his pistol, so
that he stiffened out and offered no more resistance.
They had been thoughtful enough to bring the rope with them, too, and
it did not take long to tie the man; and then the three assistants of
Nick Carter leaped forward toward the door of the cottage, realizing
that at any instant they might be interrupted in their work, and knowing
that the odds would be terribly against them if they were.
They leaped upon the piazza--and as they did so the door opened directly
in front of them, and Nick Carter appeared before them with the
senseless form of Black Madge in his arms.
For just one instant he started backward; and then he recognized his
three assistants.
"Quick!" he exclaimed. "Hold her, Chick!" and he put Madge into Chick's
arms. "I have drugged her with some of her own stuff. There's plenty of
it in the house. Get into the woods, all of you, over there"--and he
pointed to the spot he wished them to go--"and wait for me. I'll be
there in a moment."
While they obeyed him, he turned back into the house; and from the edge
of the clearing, where the others had concealed themselves, they
presently saw a blaze flare up inside the house; then another, and then
another, until there were many of them; and then Nick Carter dashed out
of it again and ran toward them with all speed.
"Look, now!" he said. "Watch that upper window, in the gable!"
And looking as he commanded them to do, they presently saw, when the
light had gained in brightness, the form of a woman standing there,
outlined against the blazing fire; and if they had not known
differently, there was not one of them who would not have sworn that it
was Black Madge who stood there, surrounded by flames.
"It is a dummy that I fixed up," whispered the detective. "It was done
to keep the attention of the crowd away from us. Look! The men have
discovered the fire!"
The hoboes were rushing toward the scene in crowds now; and they saw the
figure of the woman at the window in the gable instantly.
A cry, then a shout, then a wail went up, for they thought it was their
chief--Black Madge, otherwise Hobo Harry, the Beggar King, as she
preferred to be known outside her own fraternity; and in that instant
the crowd went mad.
There was not a soul among them who did not rush to the rescue of their
chief, believing that Nick's dummy at the window was she; and then
danced and shouted, and yelled and screamed around that burning cottage,
like so many madmen.
"Come, now," said the detective. "This is our opportunity!"
Like shadows they sped away through the trees. They skirted the glade,
now without a sign of life within it; they hurried down the path among
the alders toward the place where the boat was kept, and where there
were now no less than four boats.
But they took them all in order that none might be left for the
pursuers, when it should occur to them to take up the chase; and then,
with the strength of desperation, and guided by Nick, who had been twice
over the route without being blindfolded, they made their way silently
and swiftly through the maze of the swamp, to dry land at the other side
of it.
"We have not made good our escape yet," said Nick, as they climbed the
grade of the railway. "If only a train would come along now, so we could
flag it--hark!"
Even as he spoke, a freight came around the curve toward them, and Nick,
giving the unconscious form of Madge into the care of Chick, leaped out
upon the track between the rails, and, at the risk of his life, stood
within the glare of the advancing headlight and waved his coat for the
engineer to stop.
Fortunately it was a freight, and it was going rather slowly. The
engineer saw the frantic appeal, and closed his throttle and applied the
brakes.
The party was taken aboard, and Black Madge was locked up in the jail at
Calamont. She jeered at her captors, assuring them that she would be
free again, and that when she was they had better remember who and what
she was.
Nick and his assistants then returned to New York, pretty thoroughly
tired out by their experiences with Black Madge and her followers.
The following day Nick Carter called upon the president of the E. &
S. W. R. R. Co., and told him the story of the capture of "Hobo Harry."
"Also, I want to tell you," said the detective, "that I was one of the
burglars that robbed the bank at Calamont. I see there is quite a stir
about it. But I know where the loot is concealed, and if you will raise
a hundred men for me I will go back and clean out that swamp, and not
only return the property to the bank, but I will find almost all that
has been stolen from different places for a long time."
Arrangements were at once made to carry out Nick's plans, but the
detective was not quick enough.
The news of the arrest of Black Madge had spread through the surrounding
country like wildfire, and, by the time Nick and his force of railroad
employees reached the place, the gang had fled, and the people of the
near-by towns, having formed vigilance committees, had swooped down on
the stronghold in the swamp.
Nick and his men, however, destroyed everything that remained, with axes
and matches, and what they could not destroy in that way they blew up
with dynamite, so that the place no longer offered a refuge for the
hoboes.
CHAPTER X.
ESCAPE OF THE HOBO QUEEN.
It was about a week later that Nick Carter received a note from the
president of the railroad which caused him great astonishment. It was
brief and to the point. It read:
"Can you call on me at once? Black Madge has escaped."
That was all, but it was enough to stir the detective to action, and,
taking Patsy, who happened to be in when the message arrived, along with
him, Nick at once visited the office of the railroad.
"Well, Carter, it didn't take long for Black Madge to make good her
threat, did it?" said the president as he rose and shook hands with the
detectives.
"I think," replied the detective, smiling, "that, considering the
trouble we were put to in capturing her, it was a very short time for us
to hold her. Now, what can I do for you, Mr. Cobalt?"
"Do? Why, you can catch Black Madge again for us."
"Oh," said the detective, smiling. "Can I? Well, possibly."
"You see," the president continued, "we have called a hasty meeting of
the board since the information of the escape of Black Madge came to us,
and we have decided that no effort shall be spared to get that woman
into custody again. At liberty, she is a constant menace to the welfare
of the road, and of every town along the line, as well as of everybody
who lives in those towns."
"I'll admit that she's a bad one," said Nick.
"We don't want her at liberty. With the following she has, she is a
dangerous woman--much more dangerous than a man would be in her
position."
"I don't know about that. But she is dangerous enough without argument
about it."
"Exactly. We want her caught. And we want you to catch her."
"I imagine that this time, Mr. Cobalt, it will be rather a harder task
than it was before."
"Why so?"
"She will be very much more on her guard now than then. And, besides,
she knows enough about me to know that now I will most certainly hunt
her down."
The railway president was thoughtful a moment, and then he said:
"You see, Carter, the very manner of her escape is a menace to us."
"How is that?" asked the detective. "The first and, therefore, the only
information I have had on the subject was that contained in your
message, which told me merely that she had escaped. What is there that
is particularly interesting about the manner of her escape?"
"Then you have not heard about it, eh?"
"I have just informed you that I have heard nothing."
"Well, to say the least, her escape was characteristic. Her hoboes did
it for her."
Nick raised his brows.
"You don't say so!" he exclaimed. "Well, we might have expected
something like that, I suppose. I regarded it as a little bit
unfortunate that the arrest was made in the county where it was, for
that compelled us to put her temporarily in the Calamont jail--and I
thought at the time that the Calamont jail was a trifle close to her
stamping ground. Now, suppose you tell me exactly what happened."
"You know Calamont, of course?" asked the railway president, and the
detective smiled broadly.
"I know very little about it," he said, "with the exception that I
assisted in the robbing of a bank that is located there."
It was the president's turn to smile.
"That was a queer experience for you, Carter, wasn't it? But the
president of that bank is quite willing that you should rob it again on
the same terms. You know we fixed him all up again, and my company
promises to keep a large deposit there now. Altogether, they regard your
descent upon the bank as a very fortunate experience for them."
"No doubt. Now about that escape."
"Calamont is a village of about three thousand inhabitants. That bank,
for instance, is the only one there."
"What has that----"
"Wait a moment. Calamont has suffered a great deal from the depredations
of the hoboes, and now has a force of special constables, whose duties
consist in arresting and taking to jail every tramp who crosses the
borders of the village. The other night, when Madge made her escape, the
jail was filled with them."
"Oh," said the detective. "I begin to understand."
"Exactly."
"It was a put-up job on their part to get as many of their kind as
possible in the jail for that night, and then to take their queen out of
it; eh?"
"Precisely; and that is just what they did do. You see, the tramps began
coming in early in the day. They made intervals between the times of
their arrivals, and they appeared at different parts of the town, so
that before anybody realized it, the jail was about filled with them.
But they seemed not to know one another, and so the residents of the
town went peacefully to sleep that night, as usual."
"Well?"
"Well, in the morning when they woke up, the jail had been
gutted--literally gutted."
"In what sense do you mean?"
"In every sense."
"Tell me what you mean, please."
"I mean that all the tramps who had been locked up there overnight had
disappeared; that they had managed to break into the main part of the
jail, and that when they went away they took Black Madge with them; and
that before they went away they passed through the jail with axes and
smashed everything in sight. They tore down partitions, they smashed
doors, and where the doors could not be smashed, they destroyed the
locks. They tied up the jailer, and threatened to kill him--I regard it
as a wonder that they did not kill him."
"So do I. Go on."
"That is all there is to it. They went there, of course, with the
deliberate intention of rescuing Black Madge--and they did it."
"I suppose they must have taken to the woods north of the railway line;
eh?"
"You've guessed it, Carter."