"No; I was merely going to say that that very thing has been tried four separate times; once with more or less success. But I ought to warn you that two of the four who attempted it lost their lives; a third is a cripple for life, minus a leg; and only the fourth, who ended by arresting the wrong man, after all, had any degree of success. And now he is frightened almost into imbecility, for his life has been sworn away by the yeggmen, and he expects to be murdered every time he goes out alone."
"All the same," said the detective, "that will not deter me."
"You will want money for your expenses, Carter. If you will tell me how much——"
"I will present my bill of expenses along with my demand for the fifty thousand dollars reward," the detective interrupted quietly.
By more closely questioning the president of the railroad, Nick learned that the depredations and robberies committed by Hobo Harry's gang had been remarkable in their extent and thoroughness; and that every effort to break up the gang had been in vain.
Whenever one of the yeggmen was arrested and sent to prison, two new ones, even more proficient in their thievery, seemed ready to spring up in his place; and so the thing had gone on and on until the people who had been robbed so often became desperate.
And then it was determined to call Nick Carter into the case.
Of Hobo Harry himself, nothing whatever was known beyond the fact that there was such a character, and that he was the head and front of the hobo gang—their chief, to whom absolute and implicit obedience was accorded. His power over them seemed absolute.
Whether it was because of fear of him, or for love of him, it was, nevertheless, true that not one of the fraternity of hoboes who had been arrested could be prevailed upon to betray the master. Neither threats nor offers of bribery had any effect upon them.
Hobo Harry remained as entirely in the dark as ever; and even in the cases of the eight men to whom the president of the railroad had referred as having confessed that each of them was Hobo Harry himself—they had each seemed to get a queer sort of enjoyment in posing, even for a time, as their dreaded chief.