The two cars rushed through the night, switch-backing up and down the strange streets of that strange town. Clement had the queer feeling that he was passing through a dream city created by some fantastic fairy tale illustrator. The streets of Cobalt wound haphazard amid houses built haphazard. The bumpy driveway wriggled between buildings now on the road-level, now hanging above it on rocky outcrops. Now an ordinary side road was passed in the dusk. Now a flight of stairs shot upward in place of a road.
“We’ve got him,” said Clement cheerfully, looking out at the speeding car ahead, “and we’ll get Neuburg through him. That is, if your driver——”
“That’s all right,” said the detective Gatineau. “He’s game. I put him wise before I hired him. For twenty dollars and a little excitement he’ll do all you want him to do.”
“There may be gunning,” said Clement.
“He knows that. All he said was that the burg had been kind of sluggish anyhow for the past six months.... This is a mining town, you know. Don’t you worry, he thrives on excitement.”
The cars swept out of the town. Between the stiff, rocky hills and the giant humpings of silver mine workings they were pressing towards the wild tracts of the open country. The road grew deliriously worse.
“What about headlights?” asked the detective. “We don’t want Siwash or his driver to see us.”
“They haven’t yet,” said Clement. “That rear lamp would go out if they did. It’s a closed car, anyhow, and unless we were right up to them I don’t think they would notice our lights. But to be on the safe side they might be half-switched down, though.”
He rose and spoke to the genial and husky driver about this.
“Sure,” said that individual, and he checked down his lights until there was but a faint radiance on the road before them. “If this wasn’t such a hell of a trail I’d cut ’em out altogether. Must have some light. I’ll bump my springs to scrap else.”
“Put down all repairs to us,” said Clement. “You’re a good scout to take this on. There may be trouble.”
“Ain’t exactly done tatting all me life meself,” grinned the driver.
“I guess you haven’t,” smiled Clement, looking at his burly figure. “Where are those chaps heading for?”
“Hudson Bay and the Arctic Belt gen’rally, sh’d say, from the way they’re hitting it,” grinned the man. “Somewhere fresh t’me anyways. Not that I mind novelties, only I hope this trail holds to wherever they’re going.”
There was, indeed, every indication that the trail would not. It had become astonishingly rough, so that they bumped and soared on the padded seats in an astounding way, their only satisfaction being that Siwash and his companion in front were also feeling the strain, and had checked their pace down to something more humanly bearable.
As the road grew rougher the country became more inhospitable and empty. Its emptiness, in fact, was impressive. They had, some time ago, left the last vestige of the township behind them. They had passed the last of the outlying mines—the blank and almost inhumanly empty grouping of a discarded and probably forgotten working. They were now heaving and shouldering along this strange trail, where grass proclaimed a lack of traffic, going always into a bleak, strange land where not even the bark of a dog gave indication of the dwellings of man. The enormous emptiness of it weighed on the mind.
The country over which they had been passing for hours, it seemed, had been flat. At length it became broken up. The hard rock was thrusting its way up through the thin soil, first in little outcrops, then in mounds and bluffs that resembled the ground at Cobalt. The trail, which had gone forward as directly as an arrow, began to twist, worming round the rocky pockets, forever finding the most negotiable way. Then, in the midst of his automatic and quite unsplenetic growls at the tricky steering this new circumstance demanded, the driver said, “Hey, look at that big Swede. Hey, but just you look at him, hitting it up again.”
It was a fact. The car in front of them had abruptly increased its speed. From its steady, but cautious pace, it had suddenly started to run away.
“Have they seen us?” asked Clement.
“Not they,” said the driver. “That’s the explanation.” He pointed ahead of him towards the trail. Even as he pointed the reason for the change of speed became obvious. The car ceased its wild and stormy bumping. They were still pitched about, but the rough trail across country had ceased; they were on a road. As they wound in and out among the rocks they could see the fairly even and rutted surface under their headlights.
“Where are we? What road?” demanded Clement.
“I miss my guess,” said the driver, his eyes fixed warily ahead for the abrupt and surprising twists. “I don’t know more’n you. It’s Nowhere in the middle of Neverwas.”
They ran on, twisting and turning along the crooked, rock-dodging path. Clement’s pulse began to beat with excitement. A made road—that meant a house. A house meant....
The driver said abruptly, his expert eye flashing to the side of the track and back again with a darting glance, “Thought so ... workings.” He pointed with a stabbing finger. “Stuff taken out of there—see. Ugh! ye brute, do ye want to go, prospecting wid yer nose?”
Clement looked to the side of the trail, but saw nothing of the signs of mining which the driver noted at a glance. But he saw and felt the road, saw signs of the presence of man in that, and he recognized that they were coming to the critical point of their ride. He braced himself alertly, looking ahead. His hand went into his pocket, caught at the automatic pistol and held it ready.
“Water, see,” said the driver, jerking left with his ear, to where something shimmered flatly and; eerily in the dark.
Ahead of them the red light of the rear lamp swerved and vanished.
“Hell,” groaned the driver, and working his hands one over the other like a strenuous pianist, he whipped the car round an “S” curve into a straight, round another curve, and caught the distant twinkling of the red light again.
“They’re moving away,” cried the detective, now by Clement’s side.
“They know the ground, hang ’em,” said Clement.
“There’s the outfit,” stabbed the driver. “You look. Don’t wanter pile her up....”
Clement imitated the action he had just seen the driver indulge in. He bent low down so that he could catch faintly the black silhouette of the earth against the fainter darkness of the sky. He saw merely masses of dark shades on shadow—fantastic, indeterminable shades—rocks, no doubt.... Then ... yes, there was the tall, square shoulder of a mine building, the frail fret of derrick against the dark, and the humped mound of slack.
“I see it,” he cried. “That’s the place, for a certainty.”
“Seems so,” growled the driver. He swore deeply. He had lost the tail light. He was laboring round another cruel bend. He straightened out. “Where in creation....” he began, searching for the red light.
“There!” cried the detective.
“There!” cried Clement. “Straight ahead. Why, we’ve got ’em. We’re on top of ’em. We’ve got ’em sure.”
There was a sudden and appalling bump.
“Fer th’ love of Mike....” yelled the driver. He wrenched frantically at the wheel. “We’re off the trail ... off....”
There was a sudden succession of terrific and violent bumps. The car seemed to jump. It thrust forward, sank. Kicked again, buried its nose deep, and threatened to capsize. Then the hind part sank softly and squarely.... All movement ceased.
The all-but-buried headlights, the driver instinctively switched full on, shone on a flat, moist surface that threw back the rays with a curious, livid shine. The driver swore deeply.
“Steve,” he cried to Clement. “Steve, we’re done. We’re knocked. We’re beat.... We’re bogged.”
In the distance the red light dwindled and dwindled, and abruptly was lost.
In the first car Siwash, leaning towards Joe Wandersun, smiled his cold Indian smile. “They’re in it, pard,” he said. “In it up to the lamps. That settles them.”
Clement, in rage, tore at the door of the car, opened it and made to leap out.
The detective gripped his arm. The driver, leaning back over the seat, joined the detective in that grip.
“Here, Steve,” snapped the driver. “You quit that.”
“We can get to these buildings in time—but we must hurry,” snapped Clement angrily, trying to struggle free.
“You can not,” said the driver. “You can get up to your occiputt in enduring mud, Steve, an’ that’ll be about the limit o’ your carnal activities. What we’ve hit is a slime lake. That mine dumped into here, see? It’s probably a little more solid than water, but more uneasy to swim in, see?”
“But—but—man, we must do something....” cried Clement.
“Sure, Steve, but with circumspuction. As we ain’t sinking no more, we have a sure base or deepo’ to work from. By workin’ cautious....”
“And while we are being cautious—with our lights full on—what will be happening at that mine, my good chap?”
“Not much,” said the driver. “A coyote prowling round, a bat flutterin’ hither an’ thither.... Not much more, Steve. This mine is an abandoned mine, Steve. C’n tell that by the surface o’ th’ slime....”
“An abandoned mine,” snapped Clement in an edgy voice. “But that’s just the place....”
“Moreover, Steve,” said the driver. “Moreover, our pals in the forward car did not go to or enter said abandoned mine. Take that as law, Steve. For why—I saw their headlights flash on the building and pass. I saw them lights turn beyond a big outcrop of rock further on, going away left, Steve, turning their back on that old mine.”
“They’ve gone on?” gasped Clement, in a tone of despair.
“They sure have,” said the driver. “An’ it’s no good feelin’ sore about it. Circumstances is just gone bad on us, an’ that’s that. No call fer chasing a Hudson Six to Baffin Bay on the unaided feet.”
Clement, his eyes still fixed on the point in the darkness where the red light had vanished, dropped back into his seat. “What exactly happened?” he asked, more in a groan than anything else.
“We got bogged,” said the driver, with a touch of irony. “I was the tin horn, an’ well, we got bogged. See how it is? That trail takes a sharp loop round this lake. I came round in a crazy hurry, missed that tail light—then I picked it up dead ahead—that was when they picked up th’ straight again after getting round th’ lake. Me being that tin horn, I took me eyes off the trail for a fleck and drove right ahead instead o’ goin’ round. And—and, well, Steve, we was well and duly bogged.”
Clement groaned. Again, through the veriest slip, he had lost his chance of saving the girl Heloise.
“If they’d planned it, they couldn’t have beat us to it better,” said the driver, with a curse.
“Perhaps they did plan it,” said the detective Gatineau softly and suddenly.
“Eh,” gasped Clement; “but, of course, they didn’t do that. How could they know we....”
“Then why are they turning back?” said the detective. “There, abreast of us between those two rocks....”
Clement and the driver swung their eyes to the left. Between the two rocks, distantly, they saw the glow of automobile lamps. They shone steadily. Then the rocks hid them as they moved. Without a word the men in the bogged car sat staring into the darkness, searching it for those glowing lights. They came again from behind a rock. Now they were well to the rear. The significance of those lights was unmistakable.
“They’ve circled,” said Clement.
“You’re damn right,” said the driver angrily. “They’re heading to cut the trail behind. They’re going to make Cobalt again by the same road.”
Before he could say another word Clement was out of the car. He plunged desperately, slime or no slime. He went down over his knees in the viscid stuff. He jumped forward. He found a shelf of rock, strode off it, again up to his knees. He went on. He slipped and half fell in a deeper pocket, and with the effort of recovery found himself on ground that was but shin deep. He plunged forward, and a bush whipped his faces. He was on solid ground at once.
He ran back along the trail until he met the face of the rock where the turn had been so disastrous to them. At this he sprang, clambering upwards. It was a hard, steep climb, but he was glad of it. The higher it was, the more commanding a position it would give him. He knew he was at the summit by the sudden sight of the departing car lights he obtained. But even as he scrambled erect those lights disappeared, leaving a faint, moving glow only.
Clement followed that steadily with his eyes. Then as the lights abruptly flamed into view, his hand went up, and the automatic pistol in it spoke and spoke again. As he fired, the lights disappeared, and he wondered if he had hit. They came again, and again he fired. He emptied his clip and jerked out an exclamation of anger as he reached into his pocket for a fresh magazine. As he did that, the lights vanished once more.
He heard a man panting by his side, and the detective Gatineau’s voice said, “Too far and too dark for fine shooting, Mr. Seadon, I’m afraid. Also it’s quite illegal.”
And even as he said that, his own automatic was pumping off, to be joined at least ten seconds later by the snap of Clement’s pistol.
But the darkness and the distance were against them. Both men fired once more when the lights showed, but the car appeared to go steadily and calmly on its course. Soon it swung into the trail, and all that could be seen of it was the up flung haze of its great lamps. Presently even that was lost, though they could hear on the almost preternaturally silent air the drone of the car’s engines as they dwindled and sank into the distance.
“Yes, you were right. It was planned and we were deliberately tricked,” said Clement harshly, as he turned to clamber down to the car, and he did not, indeed could not, speak again, so hot was his anger against himself. When he reached the edge of the slime lake, within hailing distance of the stranded car, he called to the driver. “It was a trap, after all. A trap to maroon me out here miles away from anywhere——”
“About forty miles from Cobalt station, anyhow, Steve,” said the driver. “Forty miles, if it’s an inch.”
“Forty miles away from Cobalt,” gasped the detective Gatineau.
“I reckon that,” said the driver. “I reckon it; but don’t you ask me where we are. In the middle of the Sarah Desert of Africa, for all I know.”
“And we’re right out of touch of anybody. Miles away from the nearest house?”
“Hundreds of miles,” said the driver fervently and with convincing inaccuracy. “I don’t know of even a shack out this way.”
“I don’t suppose there is one ... trust Neuburg and his gang for that,” said Clement bitterly, reviewing the situation and finding its meaning.
“There may be a telephone in that old mine,” suggested the detective, with no great conviction.
“Oh, there may be,” said the driver. “There may be a Packard de luxe only waiting to take us back. Anyhow, to look won’t mean any harm. An’ it’ll be an occupation. There’s all the night yet.”
Clement and the detective went round by the trail to the abandoned mine. They felt their way carefully with their torches, and they carried their pistols ready. There was no need for the latter. The mine was dark and empty, its buildings degenerating into rot, its workings choked with weeds. There was not a telephone.
They had left another torch with the driver, and he had spent his time carefully surveying the position of the car in the rather vague hope that she might be got out of the slime lake on her own power. As Clement and his companion returned, he called out to them, “Nothin’ doing with th’ old girl. It’ll take a team to pull her clear, and an overhaul in a garage when she is clear an’ back at Cobalt. But she won’t sink any more, so she’s safe to sleep in.”
“We’ll send back that team,” said Clement. He turned to the detective. “Or, rather, I will; there’s no need for you to walk in, I’ll send back another car.”
“I’ll come along,” said Gatineau.
“A hell of a walk on a dark night with a trail bad enough to be easily missed. You’re risking a lot,” said the driver.
“We’ve got to,” answered Clement. “You see, the reason we were lured out here, and marooned, is, as I look at it, that those people in the car want to get us out of the way and keep us out of the way for a long time.... Isn’t that the way you see this, Mr. Gatineau?”
“That’s the only reason in it,” agreed the detective. “I should say that we got to Cobalt before Neuburg and his lot were ready for us. They had to decide on this desperate trick to get us out into the wilds and maroon us. I take it that the man in the car signaled to Siwash directly he saw him.”
“I agree in the main,” said Clement, who had been thinking hard. “But this thing has been well planned. They knew if they could get us out here we might be landed helpless.... And to get us out here, well, Siwash must have been the bait. I don’t see how they knew we knew of his presence on the train——”
“Perhaps his showing himself at North Bay was deliberate,” said the detective. “Half-breed Indians with all the tricks of the woods don’t give themselves away so easily. Although it’s rather late in the day to remember that.”
“And the fact is neither here nor there, anyhow,” said Clement. “Our chief concern is that we are ten or more hours tramp away from Cobalt on this bad trail, and that during those ten hours Neuburg and his rogues will be able to do things—things connected,” he meant to mention Heloise Reys’ name, but he boggled at that, he said instead, “do things that our presence in Cobalt would have prevented. They have gained very valuable time.”
“But they, whoever you’re talking about, have gained it,” pointed the driver. “You can’t get away from that. That being so, where’s the value of risking that tramp along a dangerous trail in a dark night? It’s mortal easy to stray and get lost in these parts.”
“That’s a risk I think we’ve got to take,” said Clement. “They may be counting on the fact that we won’t try to follow the trail during the night; I mean by that they may need more time than those ten hours. Again, we may have luck, may hit upon a shack or a homestead where we could get a rig or some conveyance. And always, too, the closer we keep to their heels the more likely we are to throw their plans out.”
“I don’t know who they are, but these fellers seem a healthy lot of toughs from the indications thrown off,” said the driver. And as he voiced his ignorance, Clement swung round on him with an inspiration.
“Do you know a man named Henry Gunning?” he demanded.
“Henry Gunning,” cried the driver. “What, again! Do I know him? Why, the feller’s an epidemic.”
Clement, startled by the tone of the man’s voice, simply echoed the expression, “an epidemic?”
“He’s certainly that. The whole world’s asking after him.”
“What do you mean by the whole world?” demanded Clement in some excitement.
“In a manner o’ speaking, I mean he seemed an ordinary sort of feller up to a day or so ago. Then a big fat man hits the burg and he and a feller with him begins to agitate for this Henry Gunning——”
“That is Neuburg and Joe Wandersun—the big man is Neuburg,” said Clement.
“That’s Neuburg,” said the driver. “Well, I can understand your lack of heartiness about him—a shifty-looking mammoth he is. Well then, they asked and asked for Henry Gunning, reg’ler raised the burg. And then, when they’d finished—when the subject might be considered dropped, so to speak—there came the ladies——”
“The two ladies,” said Clement quickly.
“Yep, the queen one, a real swell Jane, and the plain prune one. They made the burg to-day, and they asked. The big shark had nothin’ on them ladies in eagerness for Henry. An’ now here’s you.”
This seemed all very strange to Clement. If Neuburg had asked for Gunning, why should Heloise, in her turn, have had to ask so persistently? He said, “I don’t quite follow this. The big man asked for Gunning, you say, and then the lady.... Does that mean that Neuburg did not find Gunning?”
“Oh, he found him. You bet he found him all right, all right.” From the amusement in the driver’s tone it was evident that there was some ripe story connected with Neuburg’s discovery of Gunning.
Clement ignored that. “Well, then—why the lady? Why did she have to ask for Gunning?”
“Why,” said the driver. “Why, don’t you see, because that Neuburg feller found him first, see.”
“I don’t see at all.”
“Well, he found him first, didn’t he. Took him away. Beat it with him——”
“What!” cried Clement. “Are you saying Gunning has left Cobalt with Neuburg?”
“First train out, sure,” said the man. “This morning, or rather, yesterday mornin’.”
“An’ the lady——?”
“But ain’t I bin tellin’ you all the time Henry was gone when she came in?”
Clement stared amazedly at the faint blur of white that in the darkness represented the driver’s face. In the pause the detective Gatineau said, “Then, Miss Reys, this lady and her companion, are still in Cobalt?”
“They certainly are.”
Clement spoke. “Until the first train out,” he said bitterly. “That’s why we’re here. We were lured out here so that Miss Reys can be got away from Cobalt without our meeting or seeing her. They can’t very well get her out of Cobalt until the morning, so they got me, us, out of Cobalt instead.”
Indeed, it was unmistakable. Gunning had been whisked out of Cobalt to some unconjecturable place, either because he was not in a fit state to see Heloise, or because, hearing of Clement’s pursuit, Neuburg feared that his plan might be interrupted. The rest naturally followed.
It was a good thing that the motor driver came back with them along the trail to Cobalt. There were times when the track branched deceptively, and they might have gone astray. It was he who shone his torch on the dusty earth and said, “This way. There’s the heart-shaped tread of the new tire I got on me back wheel.”
Also he enlivened a monotonous journey by his story of the coming of Neuburg to Cobalt.
There was that grim humor in it that Clement naturally connected with the mountain of a man and the circumstances.
Henry Gunning had been in a billiard saloon, “half-canned,” as the driver said, with “bootleg” whiskey. He had been bragging violently about the millionaire he’d be in ten minutes after his marriage. Neuburg had just walked into the billiard dive and looked at him—or rather looked over his shoulder.
Gunning had crumpled at once, and, a thing of limp fear had followed Neuburg “like a dorg.—”
“Jist like er dorg. Neuburg never said a word, but that Gunning feller put his moral tail between his hypothetical legs and went out arter him. When they made the train he was still follering th’ big man—without a word.”
The driver also told them about the coming of Heloise. He had been in that, too. He had heard that she was inquiring for Gunning, and, as he had seen all that had happened, he had “greased” along to the hotel. But, of course, he had not been allowed to get near Heloise.
“A woman with a glacial face handed me the frozen mitt,” he explained. “She come down an’ saw me in the lobby, and said she was glad to hear what I tole her, an’ it was very interesting, an’ she’d make a note o’ it, an’ here’s a dollar fer yer trouble an’ good-by.”
That was how Heloise had been fenced off from the truth.
By the time the driver had finished they had tramped into the dawn. About them the land loomed gray and bleak, and full of up-shouldering masses of rock.
At the same time they gained a hope of being near homesteads, for the main trail was now broken by many branching tracks.
It was while they bent over one of these junctions that the next manifestation of Mr. Neuburg’s criminal efficiency developed.
A spurt of earth kicked up almost in their faces. And then another. They heard the snap of a pistol, and the “whit-whit” of bullets about them.
The driver sprang erect with an oath, but Clement caught him and flung him to the ground.
“Down on your tummy!” he snapped. “Crawl to cover under those rocks. There’s a man on that outcrop ahead, and he’s shooting to kill.”
As the three of them huddled to the earth under cover, there came a sparkle of light from the mound of rock ahead, and a bullet droned above them. At the flash, the driver darted his hand upward, fired every chamber of the five-shot revolver he carried. At once above his head the protecting rock splintered, and on a rock behind a bullet starred.
“Better not do that again,” said Clement, hugging cover.
“Shootin’ me up,” breathed the driver as he reloaded. “I’ll teach him.”
“You won’t that way,” said Clement. “Not without damage to yourself. That must be the half-breed Siwash planted there to hold us away from Cobalt as long as possible. He’s up to all the tricks. We won’t be able to rush him, we’ve got to get him by guile.”
“I don’t care about guile as long as I can shoot him up.”
Clement who, in the broadening pallor of light, had been studying the ground, said crisply, “You shall. Stick your revolver round the farther end of your rock ... no more than your gun, if you value your arm, and when you’ve fired, whip it in sharp. No, don’t trouble to aim at anything. Ready. Now fire.”
The driver’s revolver spoke. Almost at once there was an answering sparkle from the rock-cliff, and the rock against which the revolver rested chipped into flecks of flying particles.
“Close up,” said the driver. “He’s getting his range pretty.”
“He is,” said Clement, who had asked the driver to fire so that he might study their opponent’s position. “Lucky for us his first shots were mere sighters. But now he’ll get anything of us that shows. Also he moves after every shot. We won’t get him by pot shooting. We’ve got to tackle this fellow with some of his own cunning. And we’ve got to do it quickly before the light gets too good?”
His mind, accustomed in the old days to trench warfare, sized up the situation quickly and accurately.
“Will you two crawl over to the left there? And, don’t forget, cover is life. I want you to get behind those rocks. When I give you the word, I want one of you to blaze at him and draw his fire. When he fires back, I want you both to loose off.... Can you fire with the left hand, Gatineau? Well, do, alternating your shots. I want that lad to be convinced that he has three men pinned here.”
“And you’re going to flank him?” said Gatineau.
“I’m going to try to do that.”
“Not a very safe job with a slim feller like that,” said the driver.
“I had some practice at it in France.... Great training ground, France. Also, I’ve done quite a lot of stalking. Anyhow, it’s our only chance if we’re not to remain here all day.”
The two men crawled across to their stations and Gatineau fired at Siwash. The shot was immediately answered, and as immediately a very hearty fusilade burst from the two behind their rocks. Clement chuckled at the ardor Gatineau and his companion put into the business. It was a real early morning “hate.” Not three men but a file seemed to be in action.
But though Clement Seadon was grinning, he was also fulfilling his own part of the plan. Directly the attention of the man on the rock was occupied, he began to worm his way in a wide circle to the right. He had good cover, and he made excellent progress. He was also helped by the clever coöperation of his companions. They went one better than instructions. Instead of remaining in one place and firing from that, they worked steadily along the arc to the left, and Siwash—Clement was certain it was Siwash—in swiveling round to follow them, naturally turned his back more and more on Clement. They drew fire with all manner of tricks.
Meanwhile Clement made definite progress. The ground was rocky and made for stalking. In about half-an-hour he reached a position from which he could see the fellow as he moved stealthily from point to point. It was, as he had thought, Siwash.
Actually, at one time, he had Siwash’s legs and thighs at the mercy of his pistol, but though the chances were six to one on his hitting, he decided not to risk it. If he wounded the fellow he might not put him out, while it would betray the double game they were playing. When he fired he must do so with absolute certainty of putting an end to this pistol play.
All the same, he had to fire before he was ready. He had worked round to a fairly good position, when he saw no more than the hands of Siwash (the rest was covered) doing a peculiar thing. The hands seemed to be rolling a cigarette. The hands finished rolling the cigarette, and, with the utmost cunning, it was lighted. A broad puff of smoke rose up, and another, immediately drawing a spattering of shots from the men below. Siwash, hidden, puffed for a minute on the cigarette, then the hands appeared again, and Clement watched them fixing the wet butt of the smoke cleverly to the face of a rock. Siwash had calculated the draught well, for the lighted end gave off a thin thread of smoke, which occasionally became puffs, in the now advanced light of the growing day. Directly he had fixed up the cigarette, he appeared and began to slink away between the rocks.... Then Clement fired.
He had to fire. He recognized Siwash’s game at once. Siwash meant to hypnotize the men below with that cigarette smoke. With their eyes fixed on that, they would not notice the fellow was worming round them. The first intimation of his tactics they would get would be a shot from their exposed flank, and that shot would be aimed to kill. Clement recognized this in a flash, and fired.
He saw Siwash jerk and dive forward out of sight. He thought he had hit, but did not waste time speculating on the matter. He nipped forward rapidly to close with the brute. He had covered half the distance when he heard a shout, and saw the detective Gatineau on the ground where Siwash had fallen and disappeared. Gatineau stood upright, but drew no shot. Clement discarded cover and ran, scrambling over the rocks to join him.
He reached the spot, found Gatineau, but no Siwash. There was blood on the ground leading away through the rocks. Clement was about to ask questions when, with a loud “Got it, Steve,” the driver scrambled into sight. He had a large automatic in his hand as well as his own revolver.
“Say, you got him pretty,” shouted the driver. “But where is that bad man?”
“We saw him go down ‘smash!’ when you fired,” explained the detective. “He shot right into sight before dropping out of it; his gun dropped out of his hand, hit that rock there and went bouncing down to the foot of the outcrop.... I guess you hit him powerful. I came up here quick to get him if he wasn’t done, while the driver went for the gun.”
“An’ I got the gun, but you didn’t get that bad man.”
“He must be a pretty sick man, anyhow,” said Gatineau, pointing to the blood. “He can’t be far off.”
They followed the trail. It wormed in and out of the rocks, and against some of them was a smear of blood. Then suddenly, across an open space ringed with rocks, they lost it. Siwash had evidently staunched the flow before he had crossed this place. They stared at the rocks, the hard surface of which showed no footprints. They could see no sign of movement.
“He might be at any point of the compass there,” said Clement. “We might hunt all day for him, and not find him.... And we don’t particularly want to find him.”
“No, the sooner we get to Cobalt the better,” agreed Gatineau. “And his teeth are drawn anyhow. We can lodge information at the town and the police there can deal with him—if he remains hereabouts to be dealt with. We’d better get along.”
It was another hour and a half before they reached Cobalt. Here they learned that the tactics of Mr. Neuburg had accomplished all that that villain desired. Heloise and the companion Méduse Smythe had left. They had taken tickets to North Bay. By this time they were already beyond North Bay and any telephone message that could be got there.
They had vanished into the maze of cross lines that radiated from that railway junction.
The journey from Cobalt to North Bay was made on one of those skeleton motor trolleys railway men use to get from place to place. It was the only means of making the journey.
It was swift and thoroughly uncomfortable. They had to cling tight to the center handrail as they rocked and swung through a primitive country of bare rocks and skeleton like, burnt-out forests. Clement, bone-tired from his heavy and sleepless night, was saved from pitching onto the ballast several times by the grip of the motorman or Gatineau.
At North Bay, they had to walk across goods yards through groups of men to get to the station offices. This walk, slight though it was, seemed to have so curious an effect on Clement that he behaved entirely out of the normal. He refused to go on with Xavier Gatineau.
The little detective hesitated for a moment, puzzled, and Clement said quietly, “Go in—I must stay outside, for a reason.” In a louder voice he cried, “I’ll put these suitcases in the baggage room, and make inquiries there.”
Mystified at this strange behavior, Xavier Gatineau went into the station superintendent alone. When he came out half an hour later he expected Clement to be missing from the platform, but he was still there. His eye that caught Gatineau’s said, “Well?”
“The ladies have gone south,” said the little detective. “They’ve gone to a place called Orillia. It’s a junction town. They can break off from there anywhere—back to Montreal, or to the West, or even down to the States.”
He gave his information in a matter-of-fact tone. He was astonished, in fact, horrified, when Clement Seadon said in a loud voice, “Orillia! I see it; it’s like them. They are banking on us rushing straight west to Sicamous, the dogs! While we scamper west, the meeting between Miss Reys and Gunning will happen at Orillia, or near it. Good God, it’s a neat blind. But, thank heaven, we have your organization behind us; that’s saved us; well steal a march on them to Orillia.”
Xavier Gatineau was completely mystified as well as aghast at this attitude. He was aghast that this stupid fellow should talk so that all the world could hear. He was mystified, because, unless Clement Seadon had suddenly lost his senses, this dash to Orillia was obviously not at all the thing to do.
“I also found out——” he began.
“You found out the next train to Orillia?” said Clement loudly.
Gatineau named the time of the train, trying not to feel that this young man was a fool. The young man exploded.
“Absurd! We can’t wait all that time. We must find a quicker way of getting there.”
“There isn’t a quicker way,” said the detective tartly.
“We’ve got to find one. We must take another of those motor trolleys.”
“No good. There isn’t one.”
“But, my dear man, we can’t wait hours,” shouted Clement, showing his anxiety with his waving hands. “Do you realize what may happen in those hours?” He began to stamp up the platform in his agitation.
“It can’t be helped,” snapped Gatineau, forced to follow him. “We’ve just got to wait.”
Waving his hands, arguing, Clement reached the end of the platform. He turned and shot a glance along it. He still waved his arms angrily, but in an even tone he said,:
“Think I’m acting like a looney, Gatineau? There’s a reason. Tell me anything more you’ve found out, quick.”
“I’ve found out that Neuburg and Gunning pulled out from here to the west. That means the meeting place won’t be in Orillia, but somewhere west, in Sicamous, likely.”
“Of course,” said the astonishing Clement.
“But you said....”
“More than that, I howled it,” said Clement still making wild gestures. “I wanted somebody to hear it. That thick-set man over there. He’s been shadowing me ever since we left the motor-trolley. Now play up, my lad....” He made a gesture of resignation, and said aloud, “All right, then, I suppose there is nothing more for it but to wait. But it’s awful—ghastly.... What shall we do?”
“There is a hotel here, we might get a sleep.”
“Ah! And a bath. I want one. We’d better get reservations to Orillia first, though,—save the rush at the end. Come along.”
As they went to their hotel, Gatineau made a point of crossing the road in front of a great shop window. He chuckled.
“Yes, he’s following us, that attentive friend of yours. It’s probably that Joe Wandersun. He’s the only one unaccounted for.”
“What’s his game?”
“Easy. He’ll sleuth us to our rooms, then he’ll wire brother Neuburg somewhere west that we’re here and following hotly the blind trail to Orillia. You played him princely, Mr. Seadon. We’ll settle him.”
“How?”
“Leave it to me. All I ask you to do is to dawdle about in the lobby of the hotel for five minutes before going to your room. I want to get out of the back to be ready when he comes out of the front door again.”
Clement was shrouded in bath towels when the little detective came back to the hotel. He was all smiles, and sat beaming at Clement as he fanned his young bald head with his hat.
“It was easy as fallin’ off a wall,” he grinned. “That feller went straight to the station telegraph and filled in a blank. He didn’t even look round. Here’s the blank.”
“Good Lord!” cried Clement. “How did you get that?”
“Our work, we have the pull there.”
“What an ass,” said Clement. “He ought to have known better than to use the C.P.R. lines.”
“Couldn’t help himself. Look at the address, Banff in the Rockies; we’re the only cable company to serve it. Also, he thinks he’s well covered. Read it.”
The wire read:
“Banff Springs Hotel.
“ARTHUR NEWMAN,
“Our party reached North Bay from Cobalt. Learned of business in Orillia. We go there next train.
“NIMMO BATES.”
“Nimmo Bates,” said Clement. “I’ll swear that’s Joe Wandersun.”
“Why not,” smiled Gatineau, “since Arthur Newman is Adolf Neuburg?”
“That’s true,” agreed Clement. “Well, this bears things out. The meeting place is in the west, at Banff probably instead of Sicamous. In fact it’s lovely. Banff and its beauty will be idyllic for a—a lovers’ reunion. Also it is near Sicamous, and they can get away from it, as they can get into it, easily. The ladies will be able to work round behind us and reach there?”
“Easy,” said Gatineau.
“Then we go to Banff. Meanwhile there is this fellow Nimmo, or Joe.”
“I’ll fix Joe,” said Gatineau grimly.
“But there’s this telegram. Neuburg will expect reports from Orillia....”
“Nope!” said Gatineau.
“But of course he will, this telegram....”
“That telegram isn’t the one that was sent.”
“Eh?” gasped Clement.
“This is the one I sent.”
He handed Clement a carbon duplicate which went:
“Banff Springs Hotel.
“ARTHUR NEWMAN,
“Our party reached North Bay from Cobalt. Think business better done Montreal. We go there next train.
“NIMMO BATES.”
“That quiets brother Neuburg, see?” grinned Gatineau in the face of Clement’s perplexity. “It tells brother Neuburg we’ve muddled the trail and cut back to headquarters at Montreal. Quite natural. You see, like you, I figured Neuburg’d want reports, and he can get them from Montreal.”
“Can he? How?”
“The Chief will see to that. I’ve sent all facts to him, he’ll send reports to Arthur Newman that will keep Neuburg purring. Trust The Chief, he’s a bear. Of course Nimmo Bates will sign ’em. Meanwhile we go comfortably to Banff.”
Clement roared with laughter.
“Well, of all the calm, foreseeing, clever little devils.... It’s a dazzling idea, Gatineau. Neuburg will be certain we’re at a loss in Montreal, will think he has plenty of time, while all the time we are overhauling him.”
“That’s it,” agreed the little detective. “The only thing that worries me is will the girl—Miss Reys—figure according to plan. I mean if she has any sense she’ll be suspicious at all this roundabout traveling, this chopping and changing of plans.”
“I hope she will be,” said Clement. “But I’m afraid she won’t. She doesn’t know the country; her companion does. She’s bound to follow blindly. And then anything can be put down to the erratic movements of Gunning.”
“She’ll find him too erratic, I’m thinking,” said Gatineau wisely.
“I’m hoping that, too,” said Clement.
Both had the sleep they needed, and a meal, and went to the railway station in good fettle. Under Gatineau’s instructions, Clement suddenly turned from the platform and entered the booking hall as though making for the street.
The man who had shadowed him from the hotel did not hesitate for a moment, but trailed after him. In the middle of the booking hall the hand of Xavier Gatineau came down on his shoulder, and he swung round to find the muzzle of an automatic within six inches of his solar plexus. He started to put up his hands.
“What’s the game?” he snarled.
“I want you, Nimmo Bates,” said Gatineau. “I want you in connection with the jewel robbery on the Empress of Prague. Cut out the rough stuff, Joe, and go quietly.”
As Joe Wandersun stared amazed, three large railway policemen slipped out of the office.
“Take him along, boys,” said Gatineau. “The Chief will give you instructions in Montreal.”
As the police hustled the half-dazed rogue away, Gatineau went to the booking window.
“Say, Jim, got those reservations for Banff on the next westbound? Good.... She’s on time, I hope.”