The Wire Devils

Chapter IX: The Looting of the Fast Mail

-IXTHE LOOTING OF THE FAST MAlI. T HE minutes went by, ten, fifteen, twenty of them-a half hour--and then, from far down the track, hoarse through the night, came the scream of a whistle. From his pocket the Hawk took out his diminutive flashlight , thin as a pencil. It might have been the winking of a firefly, as he played it on the dial of his watch. "On the dot I" murmured the Hawk. "Some train -the Fast Mail! I guess, though, she'll be a little late, at that, to-night-when she pulls into Selkirk1" A roar and rumble was in the night again, increasing steadily in volume. Down the right of way, in the distance, a flash of light stabbed through the black. It grew brighter and brighter. The Hawk, wary of the spread of the powerful electric headlight , edged further away from the trackside. And now the rails gleamed like polighed silver-and the water-tank stood up out of the darkness, a thing of monstrous size. There was the hiss of steam, theJ rasp and grind of the setting brakes, the glinting rays from the windows of a long string of coa.ches that trailed back to the station platform, and a big 129 ISO THE WIRE DEVILS ten-wheeler, like some human thirsty thing, was panting beside the water-tank. The engineer, with his torch, .swung from the gangway for an oil around. There was the creak of the descending spout, the rush of water, and, silhouetted against the water-tank, the Hawk could make out the fireman standing on the back of the tender. And now, poking with his long-spouted oil can, weirdly swallowed up in the darkness at intervals as he thrust the torch far in under the big machine , the engineer moved slowly along the side of the engine, and finally disappeared around the end of the pilot. The Hawk stole forward closer to the track again, his eyes on the fireman, who, now that the engineer 's torch was on the other side, was more sharply outlined than before. Came then the swish and gush of water as it overflowed, the spout banged back against the water-tank, and the fireman scrambled back over the tender into the cab. It was the moment the Hawk had been waiting for. Swiftly, but still crawling as a safeguard against being seen by any of the train crew in the rear, he moved up the embankment, and in an instant had swung himself up between the tender and the forward door of the express car. There was no platform here, of course, but the end beam of the car, making a sort of wide threshold, gave him ample room on which to stand. The roar of escaping steam drowned out all other sounds; the back of the tender hid him from any THE LOOTING OF THE FAST MAIL 131 chance of observation from the cab. He tried the door cautiously. It was locked, of course-there were twenty thousand dollars' worth of stones in the safe inside! The Hawk felt carefully over the lock with his fingers, classifying it in the darkness, as it were, by the sense of touch, and produced from his pocket his bunch of skeleton keys. He inserted one of the keys, worked with it for a moment, then shook his head, and selected another. This time he felt the lock-bolt slide back. The train was jerking into motion now. He exchanged his keys for his automatic, turned the knob softly, opened the door an inch, and listened. Even the Wire Devils were not infallible, and if by any chance the messenger -The Hawk whistled low and contentedly under his breath. He had caught a glimpse of the interior of the car-and now he slipped quickly through the door, closing the door behind him. A quarter length down the car, in the aisle made by the express packages which were piled high on either side, the messenger, a young man of perhaps twenty-two, was huddled, apparently unconscious, in his chair. In a flash the Hawk was down the car, and bending sharply over the other. The man sat in a helpless, sagging attitude; he was breathing heavily , and his head, hanging forward and a little to one side, swayed limply with the motion of the car. There was no question as...