A Woman at Bay Part 10

"I was trying to figure out in my mind what sort of a lay we are on to-night," replied Nick. "I'm not used to starting out without knowing where I am going. I feel like a horse--with you for a driver."

"Well"--Handsome laughed--"I won't use the whip unless you get skittish."

"What are we waiting here for?"

"We are waiting for our chauffeur with the automobile," grinned Handsome. "Nice road for an auto, isn't it?--b.u.mping over those ties."

"Hark!" said Nick.

"I'm harking, my gun."

"It does sound like an automobile, sure enough," said Nick.

"Didn't I tell you that we are waiting for one. Come on."

He leaped the fence, and Nick followed him over; then they climbed the grade, and paused beside the track.

And then, while they stood there, and the droning sound peculiar to automobiles came momentarily nearer and nearer, the detective began thoroughly to realize for the fist time that something really serious was afoot for the night.

But he was not long left in doubt as to the character of the approaching vehicle, for in a moment more it swept around a curve in the railroad, and came to a stop immediately in front of them.

And, strangely enough, it was an automobile arrangement, only that it was equipped with car wheels instead of with rubber tires; wheels that had f.l.a.n.g.es to fit the tracks. But it was provided with a gasoline engine, and Nick knew from the appearance of the apparatus that it was capable of great speed.

When it came to a stop Nick saw that it already contained two men, one of whom was driving; but he got down from the seat under the steering wheel, and climbed into the rear of the machine, while Handsome took his place.

"New man; Dago for a handle," said Handsome briefly, by way of introducing Nick to the others. What their names might be he evidently did not deem it important to mention.

"Try-out?" asked one of the men, while Nick was climbing into the box of the machine.

Handsome nodded curtly--and that was all that was said at the moment.

It was significant, however, to Nick, for it meant a lot. It meant that these other men entirely comprehended the situation, and that all three of them were prepared to shoot him in the back at any moment when his conduct of the business in hand did not entirely satisfy them.

But Nick was resolved not to be shot in the back that night. Whatever the business might prove to be upon which they were engaged, he was resolved to see it through to a finish, even to the extent of helping them burglarize a bank, if that was the lay.

"To do a great right, do a little wrong," he muttered to himself.

Whatever might be stolen or whatever damage might be done that night, he would charge up in his expenses, and see to it that the railroad people made it good later on, when his work should be done.

In the meantime the railroad automobile had been gathering speed, and now it seemed to Nick to be little less than wonderful that it remained on the tracks at all, for if he was any judge of speed, he knew that they must be flying along at much more than a mile a minute--and he wondered what would happen if the headlight of a locomotive should loom suddenly before them--and then, just as the thought occurred to him, they rounded a short curve, and came to a sudden stop.

CHAPTER VI.

NICK CARTER ROBS A BANK.

The instant the strange machine was brought to a stop--and it was done wonderfully soon, considering the speed at which they had been traveling--the three men leaped to the ground beside the track, and Nick was ordered to follow them.

He did so, and then he was told to bear a hand; and, following directions that were given him, he seized hold of the boxlike tonneau.

Almost in a twinkling of time after that the machine was lifted from the track in sections, and finally, still in sections, was carried to a highway near at hand, where it was put together again, minus the iron wheels. But there were other wheels concealed in that commodious body, and these were quickly taken out and adjusted.

Within twenty minutes of the time when they came to a stop on the track, after rounding the curve, the machine was fitted with regular automobile wheels, and was ready to proceed along the highway.

Nick saw in this arrangement much that had puzzled other men who had been on the job. He had no doubt from what he knew of automobiles that this machine was capable of sixty miles an hour, or even more than that, on the highway; and, if that was true, it, of course, could make a half greater speed than that on rails.

But he made no comment. That was not expected of him, and would have been resented had he attempted to do so; but he climbed to his place when he was told, and again they sped away toward some destination, the nature of which he did not know.

Once he ventured to ask the man nearest him what time it was, and received a curt "Shut up!" by way of reply; so he remained silent after that.

And after a while--less than half an hour--they drove into a village, and presently ran the machine around behind a church, where it was placed in one of the stalls of a shed.

And still his three companions worked in utter silence. Beyond now and then a curt word uttered by Handsome, who seemed to be in command of the expedition, nothing at all was said.

Nevertheless, each man there seemed to know exactly what to do; as if every move they made had been nicely planned out for them--and such Nick believed to be the case.

When the machine was stored away, the men fell into line, Nick being shoved into position directly behind Handsome, and then, in Indian file, they moved silently forward toward a high fence that was near at hand.

They went over this one by one, Handsome waiting with patience until the last one was over, and then the march was taken up again.

They pa.s.sed now through the rear of a large yard, and before them loomed a brick building, which Nick figured must be a courthouse; and after a moment they made a half circuit around, and came to a stop between two buildings of brick, one of them being that one already mentioned.

The night was dark now, for the moon had gone down, and there were no street lamps in that village evidently; or, if there were, they were not burned on nights when there was supposed to be a moon.

But there was light enough for Nick to discover that they were close to the main street of the village; he could see the store windows on the opposite side; and it suddenly came to him that the building that was next to them--the second one--was a bank, and that they were about to rob it.

He knew now what was expected of him; and again he determined to see the thing through to the end.

It was not to prevent one robbery that he was engaged; but to prevent many. It was not to apprehend the partic.i.p.ants in a minor job like this one promised to be, but to capture the head that directed many such robberies, and so stop them altogether.

And still no word--not even a whisper--was spoken between the men. They worked on in utter silence, as if their plans had been thoroughly conned until they were learned absolutely by heart.

Nor did they pause in the yard next to the bank. There was scarcely a halt there; but they pa.s.sed to the rear of the building, and followed one another over the high fence that was there, to the rear of the bank building.

Keeping themselves well in the shadows, they crept forward silently to a rear door of the building, and here Handsome paused for a moment, and put down a canvas bag that he had been carrying all the way; and now he whispered in Nick's ear:

"There are the tools, Dago. Let's see what kind of a cracksman you are."

Nick did not need a second bidding. Having determined upon his course, he did not hesitate, but he seized the bag, pulled open the mouth of it, and, having selected such tools as he wanted, he applied himself to the task that had been set for him.

A professional burglar of long experience could not have gotten that huge oak door open more quickly and silently than Nick Carter did, and Handsome gave him an approving pat on the shoulder.

He was the first to enter the bank, Nick following, and the others coming behind them; and presently, after forcing another door, they stood crouching inside the bank itself.

A dim light burned in a gas jet in the centre of the large room, which was divided only by the wire screen which separated the customers' side of the rail from the clerks; and almost beneath the light, exactly where it could shine full upon the steel doors, was the huge safe of the inst.i.tution.