The Hawk did not move, save that his eyes rested casually on a passenger who was making a hurried and belated dash for the door. It was quite possible that the man was not one of the gang, and equally possible that the man was—he, the Hawk, did not recognise the other. But he would do the Wire Devils less than justice to credit them with lack of interest in passengers for Conmore—or in any occupant of any car who might have left his seat and found the platform attractive, say, just before Conmore was reached! If the man was a spy, then—well—the Hawk smiled at his now burned-to-the-butt cigar—the man would have little to report!
The train jerked forward into motion again. The station was on the same side as the Hawk's seat—the Hawk did not look out of the window, but he was far from being oblivious to the fact that no platform lights had shown through the car windows on the opposite side of the aisle. The speed increased a little, but still the Hawk did not stir. The train rattled over the east-end siding switch of the Conmore yard. And then the Hawk rose languidly, tossed his cigar butt into the cuspidor, brushed a very noticeable quantity of cigar ash from his vest, paused for a drink at the water-cooler, and, as though, his smoke finished, he was seeking the clearer atmosphere of a rear car, opened the door, and stepped out on the platform.
The Hawk dropped to the right of way from the side of the train opposite to that of the station, landed as sure-footed as a cat, flung himself instantly flat down at the edge of the embankment, and lay still. The local racketed its way past—the red tail-lights winked, and vanished—and there fell a silence, a drowsy night silence, broken only by the chirp of insects and the far-distant mutter of the receding train. The Hawk raised his head, and looked about him. A few hundred yards away glinted the station semaphore and window lights; the siding switch light, nearer, showed green like a huge glowing emerald in the black; there was nothing else. There was no sign of habitation—nothing—the little hamlet lay hidden in a hollow a mile away on the station side of the track.
XV—THE LADYBIRD
THE Hawk rose, and began to move forward. Conmore was certainly an idealistic spot—from the Wire Devils' standpoint! He frowned a little. There was no doubt in his mind but that in a general way he had solved the problem, that somewhere in this vicinity the right of way held the wire tappers' secret; but, as he was well aware, his difficulties were far from at an end, and that particular spot might be anywhere within several miles of Conmore, and it might, with equal reason, be east or west of the station. And then the Hawk shrugged his shoulders. The night was early yet, early enough to enable him to cover several miles of track on both sides of the station, if necessary, before daylight came. If he had luck with him, he was on the right side now; if not, then, by midnight, he would start in on the other. It required the exercise of a little philosophical patience, nothing more.
It was black along the track—a black night, no moon, no stars. And it was silent. A half hour passed. Like a shadow, and as silent as one, the Hawk moved forward—from telegraph pole to telegraph pole. A pin point of light showed far down the right of way, grew larger, brighter, more luminous—and the Hawk-sought refuge, crouched beneath a culvert, as a big ten-wheeler and its string of coaches, trucks beating at the fishplates, quick like the tattoo of a snare drum, roared by over his head.
Still another half hour passed. It was slow work. He was perhaps, at most, a mile and a half from the Conmore station. And then, suddenly, the Hawk dropped to his hands and knees and crawled down the embankment, and lay flat and motionless in the grass—faint, almost inaudible, a footstep had crunched on the gravel of the roadbed ahead of him. The Hawk's only movement now was the tightening of his fingers around the stock of his automatic, as, out of the blackness, a blacker shape loomed up, and a man sauntered by along the track.
The Hawk's lips compressed into a grim smile. His caution had not been exaggerated! The Wire Devils' guard! Luck, at least initial luck, was with him, then! The “tap” was here east of the station, and at the next pole probably. But it was more than likely that there was another guard patrolling on the other side. They would certainly take no chances, either of surprise, or of being unable to dismantle their apparatus instantly at the first alarm—and it would almost necessarily require more than one man for that. He crept forward again, and again lay still. The man on the track returned—passed by—and, close to the telegraph pole now, two blurred shapes showed; and then, low, there came voices, and a laugh.