The next day the three detectives were on their way to Chicago, leaving Barney, who had played the part of Jim Cummings in cell 43, to remain in Kansas City and hunt for the "planted swag."
CHAPTER XVII.
JIM CUMMINGS IN CHICAGO—THE SPOTTED HOUSE—SHADOWED BY CHIP—JIM CUMMINGS ARRESTED.
When Jim Cummings, by his bold strike for liberty, escaped the trap set for him, he pushed his horse to its highest speed until he had put miles between himself and the spot where the detectives had made the attempt to capture him.
He saw that Dan was captured, and with Cook also in jail he felt the toils of the law tightening around him. He must get out of the United States. To Canada, Mexico, Brazil, it mattered little, but he must first secure some of the money he had taken from the express car. To go to Kansas City or Leavenworth to raise it was like putting his head into the noose.
Chicago was the only place open for him, and to Chicago he must go as fast as horse and steam could get him there.
While he was thinking of all these things his horse was plunging through the dark over the plain, skirting the timber, dashing through streams of water without staying his speed, and at last the ring of its hoofs striking the steel rail, and the crunching of the gravel informed Jim that he was crossing a railroad track.
He pulled in his panting steed, and, far on the horizon, he saw the approaching head-light of an engine.
In the hurry and confusion incident to his escape, the outlaw had lost his bearings, but knew that this must be the M., T. & K. R. R., and shining over the head-light he saw the Great Dipper circling in the heavens.
The train was, then, a south-bound train, either passenger or freight. Looking south along the track, he spied a small light twinkling through the night; and now, having recovered his reckoning, he surmised it was the water-tank some miles below Blue Jacket.