A Woman at Bay: or, A Fiend in Skirts. Carter Nicholas
face.
Outside, when they had passed the sentinel, and were again in the part which led to the other glade, he stopped.
"Wait a minute, Handsome," he said. "I want to ask you a question."
"There isn't time now, Dago. Save it until later. We must get away from here at once. Do you remember where we left the boat?"
"Yes."
"Go there alone, and wait there for me. I won't be three minutes."
He did not await a reply, but darted off to one side as soon as they reached the glade, and Nick saw him disappear inside one of the cabins before referred to.
"I am in for it now, to the whole length of the tether," he told himself, as he stepped briskly forward toward the place where he knew the boat to be; and he was halfway across the glade when suddenly from one of the groups of men near a fire, one of them leaped up and confronted him, with his hands upon his hips, a cigar pointed at an angle in the corner of his mouth, and a leering grin upon his face.
"Where to now, my pal?" he demanded, standing in front of Nick, and thus stopping him.
Nick looked at the man, and smiled. He did not answer. He guessed instantly why Handsome had left him to find his way to the boat alone. This was doubtless one of their tricks – to see what a new recruit would do under these circumstances. Possibly, too, he thought, the woman wished to see an exhibition of his strength, and they had for that purpose pitted one of their best bullies against him.
He surveyed the fellow with a quick and comprehensive glance; and in that glance he saw that the man was a burly one, who evidently possessed great strength. But Nick did not care for that. He was only turning over in his mind in that instant what course it would be best for him to pursue. And the answer came to him when the bully repeated the question.
"Where to, pard?" he demanded again, still with the sarcastic leer on his dirty face.
"When you get back, I'll tell you!" exclaimed Nick; and at the same instant he darted a step forward and seized the man by the throat-and-hip hold of ju-jutsu, and the next instant had sent him whirling through the air as if he were a cartwheel.
He struck the ground ten feet away, and went rolling over and over among the bushes, where there happened to be a mass of cat brier, or creeping thorn; and the series of howls and curses he sent up was a wonder.
A roar of laughter from every side proved to Nick that all had been watching for the outcome of that episode; but he looked neither to the right nor the left, but strode onward toward the boat.
And then he heard a cry of warning from behind him, and he leaped aside just as the fellow he had thrown fired a bullet pointblank at him from close behind.
As it was, the missile pierced his coat sleeve inside his arm.
As Nick leaped aside he also turned.
The hobo who had fired the shot was already running toward him, and now he was endeavoring with every effort in his power to discharge the weapon again; but for some reason the mechanism of the lock refused to work, and in an instant more Nick had leaped upon him and grasped him a second time.
He was determined now that the fellow should have a lesson indeed; so while he held him at arm's length with one hand, he pummeled him with the other until his face was a mass of bruises; and then, when the yeggman was in a condition bordering upon insensibility, Nick raised him bodily from his feet, and holding him in his arms, ran with him down along the path toward the water.
And reaching the edge of the swamp, he threw him out into the muddy water, headfirst.
It was not deep, but it was filled with soft ooze, which filled the ears, and eyes, and nose, and mouth of the fellow, so that, when he rose to his feet, he was sputtering and spitting, and coughing and swearing when he could.
The detective left the man to make his way out of the water to dry land as best he could, and turned coolly away to rejoin Handsome, who approached at that moment, grinning.
"Well done, Dago," he said. "You served him just right. Come along."
They entered the scow without more words, and Handsome poled it away from the shore, and along the waterway through the almost impenetrable darkness – but there was never a word said about the use of the blindfold.
"How is this?" Nick asked, after a little. "Aren't you going to tie that handkerchief over my face again?"
"No. I ought to do it, I suppose, but it's too much trouble. Besides, you're all right. I can tell a man when I see one."
"All right," said Nick. "It's your funeral; not mine. Only if the lady should raise a kick – what then?"
"She would raise a kick, too, if she knew about it," replied Handsome dubiously. "But how is she going to know it? You are not likely to tell her, and I won't."
"No," said Nick, "I won't tell her."
"Well, then we'll dispense with the handkerchief."
They poled on in silence for a time after that; but presently Nick asked:
"What's the lay to-night, Handsome?"
"I can't tell you that, Dago. You'll have to wait, and find out; and you'll have to do your own part, too; for if you flunk by so much as a hair, it's my duty to kill you."
"Which I suppose you would do, eh?"
"Sure I'd do it – why not? If you ain't what you seem to be, I'd as soon put a hole in you as dip this pole into the water. You hear me!"
"Sure thing."
"And that notwithstanding I like you. I reckon you're all right, and I'm going a great way toward proving what I think about it by not binding that handkerchief over your eyes now."
"Are there any others in this thing with us, Handsome?"
"You'll find out soon enough. The best way for you is not to ask too many questions, but to be satisfied to do as you're told."
They lapsed into silence after that, and there was no more said until after they had arrived at the bank where the scow was to be left.
"I suppose I can ask about those other guns that we left in the woods to-night, without giving offense, can't I?" asked Nick then.
"That depends on what you want to ask about 'em," was the reply; they were now hurrying in the direction of the tracks.
"I want to know if Hobo Harry is going to send for them?"
"Didn't you hear her say so?" was the rejoinder; and then, when Nick laughed softly, Handsome turned on him with fury, and would have seized him had he not suddenly recalled the fact that his own strength was no match for that of the man beside him.
But his anger disappeared as quickly as it came, and he joined in the laugh.
"I gave it away that time, didn't I?" he said. "You were too cute for me, Dago. But it is dangerous knowledge, Dago. I'll tell you that."
"You didn't give it away," replied Nick. "Any fool would have known that the woman was Hobo Harry."
"Then there are a lot of fools in the outfit. You're wrong, Dago. Lots of 'em don't suspect it. They think only that she is Hobo Harry's wife, or sister, or sweetheart, or something like that. There isn't half a dozen of us who really know for certain that Black Madge is Hobo Harry. And there! I've let the cat out of the bag again. But you're all right. It won't do no harm to tell you."
"Not a mite," replied Nick; but he chuckled noiselessly all the same. That last admission made by Handsome was worth hearing.
"Black Madge, eh?" he was thinking to himself. "Now I know why it was that there was something so strikingly familiar about the woman. Black Madge, eh? Well, well, who would have supposed that?"
For Black Madge was a character well known in the criminal world, and to the police, although very little was known about her really. There was a picture in the Rogues' Gallery in New York that purported to be of her; but Nick knew now that it was not.
Nevertheless, he remembered that once upon a time he had seen Black Madge, who was the daughter of a Frenchwoman