“It seems that he was out for the stuff, and wanted to join a gang where there would be something doing.
“The old woman was putting him next to a touch of the warm variety, and, say! I heard enough to land them both in the Tombs.
“The hag was telling about her son, Five Points, and how he had connected with a Montana man who was working a graft that was as novel as it was successful.
“The old woman, you see, thought that her brother might be able to join the same gang, and he was dead anxious to make the attempt.
“From what the hag said, it appears that there were four in Clancy’s party—Clancy himself, Five Points, a man called Spark, and another known as Cricket.
“They came together at some place in Vermont, and captured an auto car belonging to some Chicago people who were doing the New England States.
“Clancy, it seems, had had his eye on this party for some time.
“He is a gambler and appears to have plenty of money, so that he could have bought his own machine if he had wanted to, but that wasn’t his object.
“He lays for the Red Spider, makes prisoners of the Chicago men, and tucks them away somewhere in the Vermont woods where they will be safe; then he and his outfit gets into the Chicago men’s clothes, and go piking around the circle as Leonard Martin, Leslie Hibbard, Morris Markham and Emil Z. Schiffel——”
“By Jupiter!” exclaimed Nick, as the whole graft dawned on him. “That was a clever game, for no one could ever suspect these rich Chicago men of looting a bank, or doing any other crooked work.”