A Woman at Bay; Or, A Fiend in Skirts
that the depredations and robberies committed by Hobo Harry's gang had
been remarkable in their extent and thoroughness; and that every effort
to break up the gang had been in vain.
Whenever one of the yeggmen was arrested and sent to prison, two new
ones, even more proficient in their thievery, seemed ready to spring up
in his place; and so the thing had gone on and on until the people who
had been robbed so often became desperate.
And then it was determined to call Nick Carter into the case.
Of Hobo Harry himself, nothing whatever was known beyond the fact that
there was such a character, and that he was the head and front of the
hobo gang--their chief, to whom absolute and implicit obedience was
accorded. His power over them seemed absolute.
Whether it was because of fear of him, or for love of him, it was,
nevertheless, true that not one of the fraternity of hoboes who had been
arrested could be prevailed upon to betray the master. Neither threats
nor offers of bribery had any effect upon them.
Hobo Harry remained as entirely in the dark as ever; and even in the
cases of the eight men to whom the president of the railroad had
referred as having confessed that each of them was Hobo Harry
himself--they had each seemed to get a queer sort of enjoyment in
posing, even for a time, as their dreaded chief.
As the president explained to Nick, there were many among the detectives
who had been detailed upon the case who insisted that there was no such
person as Hobo Harry. It was their belief that the name was merely a
fictitious one, to which the hoboes, one and all, had agreed to give
obedience.
But the president of the railroad did not believe this; neither did the
detective. The completeness of the organization of the gang was a
sufficient negative to such a statement. To have a perfect organization
there must be a chief; a head; a ruling power.
By investigating the case a little further before actually starting out
upon it, Nick discovered that the yeggmen had carried their depredations
even into whole villages. In one town--Calamont--the place had been
literally gutted in a single night.
The yeggmen had descended upon it in such numbers that the inhabitants
were terrified, and could only protect themselves by barricading their
doors, and remaining with their guns and other weapons in their hands,
while they watched the looting of their bank and post office. And there
had been other occasions as bad as that one.
Sometimes the yeggmen traveled in small groups; sometimes they worked
in twos or threes, but often they went about in large bands which had
been known to include as many as fifty or even more.
Had the outrages been confined to one community the inhabitants would
have risen in their might and, by organizing vigilance committees, could
have driven them out--possibly. But they were not confined to
communities at all; they extended all along the line of the railroad,
and the descent of the robbers seemed always to have been arranged far
ahead--and perfectly planned by a master mind at that.
These descents always happened when it was known that there were large
sums of money, either in the banks that were robbed, or when the post
offices that were broken open were better provided than usual with cash.
At every place where there was a siding along the line of the railroad,
freight cars had been broken open, and denuded of their contents; and
this often happened when there was one or more night watchmen on hand
for the purpose of preventing that very thing.
But in each case the watchman had been overpowered, and either beaten
into insensibility or maimed--and in at least one instance--killed.
And hence it was that the railroad company was willing to pay well for
the apprehension of the chief of these marauders.
All of this information Nick Carter gleaned before he formed any
definite plans for his campaign.
Roughly speaking, there was a stretch of main line of the railroad over
which, or rather along which, the yeggmen seemed to be most active. This
principal thoroughfare for their nefarious trade was approximately five
hundred miles long; and it was here where the greatest and the most
persistent outrages were committed.
There were branches of the line, too, along which they worked; but off
the main line the organization seemed to lose some of its power for
concentration of force.
After Nick had pieced together all the information that could be gleaned
without being actually at the scene of the trouble, he called his three
assistants together in consultation with him. For he had determined to
make use of all of them in this case. Indeed, that was the only method
by which he believed that he could entirely succeed at it.
To them he related the circumstance of his connection with the case,
after which he told them all he had been able to learn about it; and in
conclusion he said:
"Now, lads, there is only one way by which we can hope to succeed in
this undertaking, and that is, we must become hoboes ourselves."
The three nodded almost in unison.
"If we decide to do that," continued the detective, "we must do it
thoroughly. We must do as General Grant did when he decided, against the
wishes of his generals, to invest Vicksburg--be cut off from his base of
supplies; and that is what we must do."
"I don't think I understand exactly what you mean," said Patsy, who was
paying close attention; for Patsy liked the plan inconceivably.
"I mean," replied Nick, "that when we start out to become hoboes, we
must become so in fact, and not in appearance merely. It is easy enough
for any one of us to make ourself up as a tramp, or a hobo, or even a
yeggman, and to play the part; but in this case we must do more than
that: We must be the part."
"But that 'base of supplies' business--what do you mean by that?"
insisted Patsy.
"I mean that when we start out on this case, there will be no returning
here until we have lodged Hobo Harry behind the bars. We are going to
live as hoboes, and do as hoboes do, carrying out a real robbery or so,
on our own hooks, taking care, of course, that one or more of the real
article shall know about it."
"And taking care also," interjected Chick, "that we keep track of what
we steal, so that it, or its value, may be returned to the owners later
on."
"Of course, Chick; that goes without saying. Now, there is another
thing."
"What is that?"
"At the present time there are no less than fifty detectives, some from
Pinkerton's, and some from other places, engaged upon this case. If we
play our parts as we should play them, we are bound to run into some of
those chaps sooner or later. If we do that----"
"Well?" asked Patsy.
"We must continue to play our cards to the end, no matter what
happens--even to the extent of being arrested, and possibly tried for
the offenses that have been committed. If one of us should get caught,
he must play his part even then, for the protection of the others who
are still on their jobs; for if that one should confess himself a
detective, the usefulness of the others would be past."
"That is clear enough," said Ten-Ichi.
"It sure is," said Patsy. "It isn't very pleasant, either. Although it
will be some fun to work on the opposite side of the fence for once."
"How do you mean?" asked Ten-Ichi.
"Why, we are always chasing down criminals, aren't we? Now we will have
some fun in letting others chase us while we play the criminal. Say,
chief?"
"Well?"
"We will have a chance to learn a little about that other side of the
fence. We will discover how it feels to be chased, instead of doing the
chasing."
"Yes," said the detective; and Patsy turned then to Ten-Ichi.
"I'll make you a bet," he said. "I'll bet you anything you like, on the
basis of two to one, that I don't get nabbed while we are on this lay."
"That's a go," smiled Ten-Ichi, "for I think you will be the very first
one to go under."
"How much do you want to bet?"
"Never mind the betting part of it, lads," Nick interrupted them. "The
point is, that each of you is to do his utmost to carry out his part to
the end, no matter what happens. Now, if you please, all step this way.
I have a map here that I wish to show you."
He spread the map upon the table, and upon it he showed them the five
hundred miles of railway along which they were to work; and presently he
put his finger upon the name of a town along the line, and he said:
"Here is a place called Calamont. It is, roughly speaking, two hundred
and fifty miles from New York. Some time ago Calamont suffered greatly
by the descent of the hoboes upon it. It has not quite recovered from
the effects of that time yet, although several months have elapsed since
the occurrence. Do you see it, all of you?"
They admitted that they did.
"Right here," he continued, drawing his pencil with which he was
pointing a little to the eastward, "is a patch of woods through which
the railway runs. There are about twenty acres of woodland there, and
the road passes through the centre of it."
They nodded, and he went on:
"To the south of the railroad, through the woods, is a swamp. It is
almost an impassable swamp, I am told. I will have more to say about
that part of it presently. Understand, do you?"
They did understand.
"To the north of the tracks, through the woodland and beyond it, the
country is hilly and almost mountainous. There is a limestone formation
there. There are deep ravines and gulches, high cliffs and precipices,
and, although I stated in the first place that there is only about
twenty acres in the woodland, I meant to say in that particular patch of
woods to which I first drew your attention."
"Yes," said Chick.
"As a matter of fact, the country all around this region is wild and
unsettled. It is much too rough to settle, and there are woods and
forests everywhere. Just beyond these woods, to the northward, the
forest is almost unbroken for several miles, save that there is a narrow
clearing to separate this particular bit of woods from those beyond it."
"Well?" asked Chick, who was paying close attention.
"To the south of the tracks it is almost the same, save that the
country is flat and low. As a matter of fact, the railroad passes across
the spur which lies between the rough country to the north and the flat,
swampy country to the south.
"I have not been able to gain any very exact information about those
swamps, but from the best opinions I can get, I should assume that it is
a sort of another Dismal Swamp down there. Men and cattle, horses and
sheep have been known to wander in there, and never return. Presumably
they were lost in the swamps or----"
"Or else eaten up by the yeggmen," suggested Patsy.
"Precisely. But it is a wild country. Now"--he rested one finger upon
the map--"right here at the point where my finger rests, two weeks from
to-morrow, at or near the hour of darkness, I will meet each of you. You
will find me just north of the track; or, if any of you get there before
I do, you will wait there for me, and for the others. Whoever arrives
first must build a fire. We part to-night, here, now. You must each
leave the house separately, and become lost to the world--you must each
become a hobo in the meantime, in your own particular way. Fix
yourselves up as you please, and go where you please--only go
separately. And keep your appointment for two weeks from to-morrow.
That's all."
CHAPTER II.
THE YEGGMEN'S CAMP FIRE.
Each of the detective's three assistants understood thoroughly that Nick
Carter's reason for directing them to do as he did was that they might
each have learned the parts they had to play thoroughly by the time the
actual work of it should begin.