Starting with a fine spun thread, a mere film that only one man in a million would have picked up under such circumstances, Nick Carter had gradually twisted it to the size of a cord of considerable strength, of which he now aimed to make a rope with which to twist, perhaps, the necks of the culprits deserving it.
It was after two o’clock when Nick, still in disguise and in company with Chick, left the Shelby post office.
Three o’clock found them seated with Judge Barclay and President Burdick, of the S. & O. Railway, in the magnate’s private office, to both of whom Nick had stated his discoveries and suspicions.
It was then that he picked up another strand for the rope.
He learned from President Burdick that an express shipment of sixty thousand dollars in currency and specie was to be made from Philadelphia that day, for the payroll and construction expense on the Shelbyville branch road, then being built; which had aroused the bitter and vengeful opposition of a lawless section of the country through which it was to pass, resulting in the numerous crimes and outrages to which the road since had been subjected, and the perpetrators of which Nick and his assistants had been employed to run down.
“This proves to be about what I suspected,” Nick remarked, after hearing Burdick’s statements. “We are up against some of the same bandits guilty of the previous crimes. I was not sure of it in the case of Jim Reardon, who had a personal grievance, or a fancied one, to avenge.”
“It is not too late to cancel the shipment, Carter, or defer it for a few days,” Judge Barclay suggested.
“That should be done, I think,” Burdick added.
But Nick Carter quickly objected.
“By no means,” he declared. “That is the worst step you could take.”