Chick knew that they were mistaken, and he also felt sure that he could accomplish nothing then and there. The evidence in the car showed him plain enough that Nick had been overcome by the bandits, and he realized that any attempt at immediate pursuit would be worse than futile.
He sprang into the express car, when the conductor insisted that he must run on to Shelby, and the cars were first run back to couple on the rear section of the broken train.
Chick returned to his seat in the car which he had occupied from Amherst.
The blond woman, apparently wearied by the delay, and with no interest in the occasion for it, seemed to have fallen asleep over her newspaper.
Chick Carter noticed her again soon after resuming his seat, and he was suddenly hit with an idea.
“By thunder!” he mentally exclaimed. “What has become of her companion? Can he have been in the smoker all the while? No, not by a long chalk! He would not have left her here asleep, if she really is asleep. He would have returned to tell her about the robbery.”
“Humph! there’s nothing to this,” he abruptly decided. “I have had that Philadelphia crook under my very eye, this woman’s companion, the fellow with a Vandyke beard. He must have bolted with the gang, too, or I should have seen him on the railway, or in the smoker. All this will be a cinch, by Jove, unless he shows up before we reach Shelby. I’m glad I kept my trap closed. My identity is not suspected, and I will have a clew worth following—the woman!”
Presently, moving from side to side, selecting such persons as hit his fancy, the conductor came through the car and took the names and addresses of several people, explaining that witnesses might be wanted in a later investigation, who were not in the employ of the railway company.
The woman was among those whom he questioned. She yawned and looked up at him with a frown.
“Pardon me,” she declined, a bit curtly. “I do not wish to be brought into an investigation.”