He reached the foot of the grade, and paused to look back along the track, as suddenly from behind him came the hoarse scream of an engine whistle. That was the way freight now, whistling perfunctorily for the deserted station! He had made the grade in plenty of time, though the nearer to the top he could get the better, for the freight, requiring all the initial impetus it could attain, would hit the foot of the grade wide open.
The Hawk broke into a run again, glancing constantly back over his shoulder as he sped on up the grade. And then, when he was well on toward the summit, opening the night like a blazing disk as it rounded a curve, he caught the gleam of the headlight. It grew larger and larger, until, beginning to fling a luminous pathway up the track that, gradually lengthening, crept nearer and nearer to him, he swerved suddenly, plunged down the embankment, and, well away from the trackside, dropped flat upon the ground.
The engine, slowed, was grunting heavily on the incline as it strained by the spot where he lay; there was the glimmer of the front-end brakeman's lamp from the top of one of the forward cars—and, with a quick, appraising glance to measure the length of the train, the Hawk, on hands and knees, crawled forward, and up the embankment, and, in the shadow of the rolling cars themselves, stood up. There would be sharp eyes watching from the cupola of the caboose. He laughed a little. And not only the train crew there, perhaps! The railroad detectives, at their wits' ends, had acquired the habit of late of turning up in the most unexpected places!
A boxcar rolled by him, another, and still another—but the Hawk's eyes were fixed a little further along toward the rear on an open space, where, in the darkness, a flat car gave the appearance of a break in the train. The flat car came abreast of him. He caught the iron foot-rung, jumped, and, with a powerful, muscular swing, flung himself aboard.
The car was loaded with some kind of carriage, or wagon, tarpaulin-covered. The Hawk crawled in under the tarpaulin, and lay down upon his back, pillowing his head on a piece of timber that blocked the carriage wheels.
The train topped the grade, gained speed, and roared on through the night. Occasionally, during what was close to a two-hours' run, it stopped at intermediate stations, and the Hawk peered furtively out from under the tarpaulin to locate the surroundings, with which he appeared to be intimately familiar; and once, nearing the end of the run, as the faint-suffused glow from the city's lights in the distance showed under the shadows of the towering peaks, he spoke aloud, “Ten thousand dollars,” remarked the Hawk pleasantly. “Nice picking for a few hours' work—ten thousand dollars!”
II—THE TEN-DOLLAR COUNTERFEIT NOTE
THE Hawk crawled out from under the tarpaulin and dropped to the ground, as the freight, slowing down, began to patter in over the spur switches of the Selkirk yard. He darted, bent low, across several spurs to escape the possibility of observation from the freight's caboose; then began to make his way toward the roundhouse ahead of him. He would have to pass around behind the roundhouse in order to get up opposite the station and the divisional offices. The Hawk glanced sharply about him as he moved along. He dodged here and there like some queer, irresponsible phantom flitting amongst the low, myriad red, green and purple lights that dotted the yard; and he carefully avoided those other lights, the white lights of the yardsmen, now bobbing as the men ran up and down, now swinging from the footboard of a passing switcher, that seemed to be unusually ubiquitous—for the Hawk was secretive, and for certain good and valid reasons was possessed of an earnest desire that no stranger should be reported prowling around the railroad yard that night.