The Wire Devils

by Frank L. Packard

Seal, wax (and) paper planted behind large framed picture over mantel Meridan('.s sitting room.

The Hawk stared at it grimly.

“'Yea,” said the Hawk, “I guess that's right! I guess the job is wished on the young fellow to a finish; he wouldn't have a hope, and MacVightie would never look any further.” The Hawk was silent for a moment. “Twenty-five thousand dollars—in cash!” murmured the Hawk again.

The way freight ran slowly, very slowly—and it had already been from ten to fifteen minutes late in reaching Conmore. At the next station the train crew seemed possessed of a perversity infernal for shifting, shunting and lifting cars. The Hawk, fuming with impatience, consulted his watch, as they finally pulled out into the clear again. It was twenty-five minutes of eleven.

The train rattled, bumped and jerked its way along—and at the remaining intermediate stations there was more delay. And when, approaching Selkirk at last, the Hawk consulted his watch again as the train whistled, he was conscious that his impatience was tempered with a sort of sullen, philosophical expectation of defeat. His luck had been too abundant during the early part of the evening! It was now ten minutes of twelve. He leaned out of the doorway, peering ahead. They were just rolling into the Selkirk yard.

The Hawk swung himself out from the car, dropped to the ground, darted quickly to one side over several spur tracks, and stood still. The way freight, like a snail, dragged past him, opening, as it were, a panorama of the scene in the yard: the low switch lights, red, green, purple and white, like myriad and variegated fireflies hovering everywhere over the ground; the bobbing lantern of a yardman here and there; the dancing gleam of a headlight, as the little yard engine shot fussily away from a string of lighted coaches—the Eastern Express—which it had evidently just made up and backed down on the main line beside the station; while to his right, up the yard, on one of the spurs, perhaps a hundred yards away, its platform showing in the glow of the dome light, stood the superintendent's car; and to his left, not quite so far up the yard, and therefore nearer to him than the private car, the Hawk could make out the black, irregular outline of the old freight shed.

The yard engine wheezed its way importantly up past the station, stopped, a switch light winked, changed colour, and the shunter began to puff its way back. The Hawk shrugged his shoulders resignedly. The game was up and he was too late, unless Dixer had been forced to defer his attempt until some time during the run that night, which was hardly likely. The yard engine was backing down now to take the superintendent's car up to the main line, preparatory to running it back and coupling it to the string of coaches beside the station platform. The Hawk smiled in the darkness without mirth, as he lost sight of the little switcher on the other side of the private car. Well, at least, he could gamble on the one chance that was left! There was only one thing to do—go over to the station and get a Pullman berth. If Dixer and the Butcher—the Butcher was “Number One”—were on the Pullman, the money was still in the private car, and——

The Hawk's eyes narrowed suddenly. A man, crouched and running swiftly, circled the end of the private car, and headed in the direction of the freight shed—and like a flash the Hawk whirled and leaped forward, running silently toward the same goal. The Hawk's brain, stimulated, keen, alert, worked with lightning speed, and suddenly a strange low laugh was on his lips. Their courses were convergent, his and that black running shape's, and the other had not noticed him, and there appeared to be something, a package, under the other's arm. The Hawk, as he ran, slipped his mask over his face. Was it the dummy package—or the twenty-five thousand in cash? Had the man succeeded, or had the yard engine, backing down to couple on, disturbed him in his attempt just at the psychological instant? Again that strange low laugh, in a panting breath, was on the Hawk's lips. It did not matter! There was a way now. He was not too late. If he got both of the packages he could not lose—and there was a way to accomplish that, a wild, dare-devil way, but a sure way!

It was black, pitch black, in near the shed, and the Hawk, with the shorter distance to cover, reached the edge of the freight shed platform, and crouched down on the track. Came the faint crash and bump of the yard engine coupling to the private car; then the short, quick gasps of a runner out of breath, and a flying form bounded across the tracks, sprang to the platform, and dashed for the freight shed door—and the Hawk, his muscles, rigid, taut as steel, released suddenly, as a coiled spring is released, leaped and hurled himself upon the other.

There was a yell of dismay, of surprise and fury, that seemed to echo from one end of the yard to the other. The man went down in a heap from the impact. The package, from under his arm, rolled off along the platform—and the Hawk in a swoop was upon it. He snatched it up, and running like a deer now, headed for the yard engine and the private car.