She possessed great strength, this remarkable woman; for the instant she was inside the door, heavy as he was, she raised him in her arms, and carried him into an adjoining room, where she closed the door behind her, and deposited him upon a couch.
And then, still working with great rapidity, she pulled aside a rug that was on the floor, and, having lifted a trapdoor, she again took him in her arms, and descended through the opening in the floor to the depths beneath it.
After a little she reappeared, and this time there was a grim smile upon her face, while she replaced the rug over the trapdoor, and otherwise rendered the room the same as it had been before the incident happened.
She passed coolly out upon the piazza, and for a time strode up and down it in deep thought; but at last she raised her head quickly, and called sharply to the sentinel who was pacing up and down in front of the cottage.
"Send Handsome to me!" she ordered; and then she continued her pacing until Handsome appeared.
Handsome belied his name terribly in the light of day, for an uglier-looking chap could not be imagined; and yet, withal, there was a gleam of humor in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. She turned to him abruptly.
"Where are the others of that bunch who were found with Dago?" she asked sharply.
"Yonder," replied Handsome, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the glade beyond them.
"What do you think about them, Handsome?" she asked again.
"I haven't thought much about them," he replied. "They are about the usual sort, I believe; no better and perhaps no worse."
"I am not so sure of that."
"No?" he asked, vaguely surprised.
"Handsome, I want you to take them, one by one, to the pool in the woods, strip them, and scrub them with soap, and water, and sand, if necessary. I want you to make sure that there is no suggestion of disguise about any of the three. Do it at once – and when it is done, no matter whether there is a question of disguise about any of them or not, bring them to me."
Handsome departed without a word. It was plain that Black Madge was accustomed to obedience. It was plain also that her suspicions were thoroughly aroused; for now she paced up and down again restlessly, and continued so to pace until almost an hour later Handsome stood before her again.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Two of them were plainly disguised," he replied.
"And the other?" she demanded, frowning.
"The other, as plainly was not disguised."
"And the two who were disguised – what of them?"
"I cannot tell if they are known to each other. I cannot tell whether they are spies or not, only it is quite likely that they are."
"And the third one? The one who wore no disguise?"
"I think he is all right. He is the one called Pat. When he realized that the others who had been with him were in disguise, he flew at one of them, thinking that he had been followed himself, and I think would have killed the fellow if I had not been there to prevent it."
Madge listened, with a shrug of her shoulders; then she said briefly:
"Bring them here, Handsome. Bring the two who were disguised, first. Leave the other one alone until I send for him. What are the supposed names of these two?"
"One is called Tenstrike, and the other calls himself the Chicago Chicken."
"The Chicago Chicken," she said slowly. "Chick, for short, is it not? I think we are on the right track, Handsome. Bring that one here alone – first."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DETECTIVES FACE A CRISIS
Chick had committed the folly of not being entirely thorough in the creation of his disguise; so also had Ten-Ichi; and the soap and scrubbing brushes, as employed by Handsome, had done the work of removing it.
But Patsy? Well, it had not been necessary for Patsy to be quite so thorough, for his own particular person and features were sufficient disguise, with a few minor alterations and additions.
For instance, at the risk of not having it wear off soon enough to suit his purposes, he had gone to a professional hair dyer, and had ordered his shock of hair indelibly dyed to a dirty brick-red; and he had put spots on his face, and the back of his hands, with nitrate of silver, so that the spots burned into the skin. No soap and water could remove these. They would only disappear with time; but Patsy had never traveled on a reputation for beauty, and he did not give the matter a thought beyond the immediate necessities.
He had taken another precaution, also, just before he entered the woods to go to the place of meeting. He had stripped himself in a secluded place near the railway tracks, and he had rolled himself in the coal dust around the track, griming the dirt into his body, so that when it came to the time that Handsome stripped him – well, it can be imagined how he looked.
A little snuff rubbed thoroughly against his teeth had rendered them sufficiently discolored, and altogether he so thoroughly looked his part that Handsome, when he stripped him, had not the slightest doubt of his reality.
But the frauds connected with Chick and Ten-Ichi were easily detected.
Black Madge, while still seated at the table with the detective, had suddenly recalled the name that had long ago been mentioned in her presence by the chief of the Paris police. It had come to her in a flash that the name was Nick Carter – and that this man who was so calmly seated in her presence was Nick Carter.
Madge knew a great deal more about Nick Carter than Nick supposed she did; she knew all about his household, and about his assistants. She knew their names as well as if they were followers of her own – and when Handsome, in mentioning the names of the other men, had talked about Tenstrike and the Chicken, she had connected the names at once.
As for the other one – Pat – that had a significance also; but Pat is a very common name, and she did not do herself the honor to suppose that Nick Carter would bring all three of his assistants into the woods with him in search of her. One, she thought, would have to be left behind to look after the business, and, therefore, she was all the more ready to believe that Patsy, since he was not in disguise, was one of her own kind, who had inadvertently fallen into the company of the detectives.
Handsome and four other men accompanied Chick to the cottage, and when he stood before Madge she looked him over from head to foot with cold scorn.
"So," she said venomously, "you thought to deceive me, did you – you and your master?"
Chick made no reply, and, after a moment, she went on:
"We have a way of ridding ourselves of such men as you are, when they come among us. It is not pleasant for them, but it serves as a lesson to others. Step inside the house. Take him inside, Handsome. Let the others wait out here, and if there is the slightest sound of a row inside the house let them enter it at once."
When the three were in the room together, she said to Chick:
"You observe that I know who you are?"
Chick nodded – and he also smiled.
She stamped her foot upon the floor under her, and continued:
"Down there, beneath us, unconscious and chained to the wall, is Nick Carter. Even Handsome did not know that till now. He did not know that Dago John, who went with him last night to rob the bank, was no other than Nick Carter. But it is true, Handsome."
"Gee!" breathed Handsome, his fingers twitching.
"He is all right now, Handsome. He cannot hurt you. I have put him out of business – and I don't think we had better let the men know that Nick Carter has been among them. Let them wreak their vengeance upon this fellow, and upon the other – that little Jap. As for Nick Carter himself, I will take care of him. He will never come out of that cellar alive. And now, Chick, I want you to answer me a question."
"You will save your breath if you do not ask it," replied Chick. "I am not answering questions just at present."
"Not to save yourself, or your master?"
"I know very well that nothing that I can say will have the least effect upon my fate, or upon Nick Carter's," he replied.
"Very good," she replied slowly; and then to Handsome: "Take him away, Handsome. Take him out there to the men. Tell them who he is, and that they may do as they please with him. I think the quicksand bog would be as good a place as any for him; or the fire tree; but they may do as they please – so long as they kill him. Take him away."
Chick, realizing that it was all up with him, and that he might as well make a fight for it, leaped forward quickly, full at the woman, intending to seize upon her, and hold her as a shield; but even as he attempted to do so, the floor beneath him sank under him for the depth of two feet, and before he could recover his balance, Madge had thrown a table cover over his head, and in another moment Handsome had thrown him to the floor, and called the others to his assistance.
And so Chick was tightly bound and borne away a captive – to what fate he could only imagine.
"You need not bring the Jap here at all," Madge called after them. "Let my hoboes take him with them, along with this one; but do you bring the man Pat to me at once."
And five minutes later Handsome reappeared with Patsy in tow, only that Patsy was not a prisoner – as yet.
"Now, my man," said Madge coldly, "you will have to give a pretty straight account of yourself. You were found in bad company."
"Sure, ma'am, don't I know the same? I've been apologizing to meself ever since I discovered it, an' if Handsome here had only left me alone, faith, I'd have settled wan part of me misgivings then and there, so I would. I had me doubts about the bunch from the beginning, ma'am, when they came a-sneakin' up to me fire, and eatin' of me grub; and when that other gazabo dropped from the trees, sure, I was certain of it. I was after kapin' me eyes peeled all the time since then, your worship, but I thought it wasn't f'r the likes of me to be after makin' suggestions to y'r majesty, at all, at all."
"Who are you, and what are you, Pat?" she asked, smiling upon him.
"Sure, ma'am, it's nobody I am. I've never done anything worse than pick a pocket untel a short time ago, when I had the misfortune to get mixed up in a bit av a scrap – and the other feller didn't have the common dacency to get on his feet ag'in when it was over. He jest stayed there, so he did, and thinkin' that somebody would be axin' questions of me, I lit out. Ye wouldn't know a thing more about me if I should talk for a week – but, sure, if there's a question ye'd like to ax me, I'll be afther answerin' it to the best of me ability, so I will."
"What brought you to me?"
"Me legs – no less; begging y'r pardon for mentionin' it. They weren't purty to look at when Handsome stripped me – but we needn't mention that, aither."
"But you came here in search of Hobo Harry."
"I did. That same."
"Who sent you here to find him?"
"Nobody. I had to go somewhere. I had been readin' the papers, and I had seen a lot about Hobo Harry in 'em. All of the papers said that he was to be found around here somewhere, and that the divil himself couldn't catch him; and I says to mesilf, says I, sure that's the broth av a boy ye want to find, Pat – and here I am, ma'am."
"Did you ever hear of Nick Carter?"
"I have that."
"Ever see him?"
"I did that."
"Would you know him, do you think, if you should see him again?"
"I would that. It isn't three weeks since I saw him wid these two eyes as plain as I see y'r own beautiful face this minit. Sure, I'd know him."
"Come this way, then."
She went into the adjoining room, and they followed. There she pulled aside the rug again, and, having raised the trapdoor, descended, Patsy and Handsome following close behind her.
The narrow steps took them into a spacious cellar, and, having passed through a partition by opening a heavy oaken door, they entered what appeared to be a prison room.
Nick Carter was there. He had recovered consciousness, and was seated on a low stool against the wall. His arms were stretched wide apart, and each was held in position by an iron chain on either side of him. A ring of these chains had been passed around each wrist, and locked there, and the chains were fastened to the stone walls by staples.
Madge stopped directly in front of the detective, and glared at him, while he returned her fierce look with a half smile – for he had entirely recovered from the effects of the dose she had administered.
She raised her arm and pointed toward the detective, but before she could utter a word, Patsy cried out:
"That's him! That's him! Sure, ma'am, I'd know him among a thousand! He's got stain on his skin; I can see that; and he is disguised in other ways, ma'am, I can see that, too; but it's him. I'd take me oath to it, so I would."
Madge smiled, and softly rubbed her hands together.
"Carter," she said coldly, "do you know this man who recognizes you?"
Nick shrugged his shoulders in disdain, for he understood perfectly well that Patsy had some well-defined plan in his head for doing as he did; and he replied:
"I suppose he is somebody whom I have arrested at some time. It is only the worst criminals, like yourself, Madge, that I take the trouble to remember."
She turned away with a toss of her head.
"Come!" she ordered; and they followed her from the cellar room, and up the narrow stairs again, where she reclosed the trap.
"Go back, Pat, and take your place among the others," she ordered him then. "You will be watched for a long time, and at the first break you make you will be knifed, or shot. It is up to you whether you make good in this community or not. Go now."
When he had gone, she turned to Handsome.
"Handsome," she said slowly, "you can go now, too. Keep an eye on that Pat. At midnight to-night, come here to the cottage, for I want you to help me to carry the body into the woods to the quicksand pit. We will throw him there – Nick Carter, I mean."
"Of course. Shall you chuck him in alive?"
"No; for he would find some way to crawl out and escape. I will put him out of the way first. It will be only a dead body that we will have to carry, but I don't want the men to know that Nick Carter has been among us until after he is dead. Then it will not matter."
"Right you are," said Handsome; and he took his departure.
But down in the cellar beneath them something had happened, for as soon as the party of three left him, Nick calmly and easily pulled the iron staples from the wall and stood upon his feet. The fact was that he had already succeeded in loosening them when he heard the approach of Madge and the others, and he had been afforded barely time to resume his position of helpless captivity when the door was opened and they entered.
But now he was free, save for the short chains that were still fastened to his wrists, and the plank walls that rose between him and liberty.
But the chains on each wrist were short, and the walls were only plank; and in Madge's eagerness and haste in fastening him there she had neglected – or she had not thought it necessary – to search him for his weapons.
He knew now that there was very little time to spare, and that he and his three assistants were in a bad predicament.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ESCAPE FROM THE SWAMP
In the meantime, Patsy had been in half a dozen different kinds of a brown study. He realized that now the entire situation depended solely upon him, and that the lives of his chief, and of Chick and Ten-Ichi, rested wholly in his hands.
He stood, be it said, all alone, in the midst of a huge swamp, from which escape could only be had by means of a boat, and into which he had been conducted blindfolded. Around him were men, all ready at any instant to take his life for the merest excuse; and already the lives of his three friends were sacrificed unless he could do something – and that very speedily – to save them.
In the cellar at the cottage he had not dared to look squarely at his chief, for fear that the inclination on his own part to make some sort of signal would be too strong for him to resist; and he had known that Madge was watching every act and motion, as a cat watches a mouse.
When he left the cottage, and had gone as far as the edge of the glade, he halted, and waited there for Handsome, for he guessed that the man would be sent away directly; and when Handsome did come, Patsy said to him:
"Sure, Handsome, will ye tell me what is to be done wid the others?"
"I haven't made up my mind about that yet," replied Handsome.
"And is it left to you that it is?"
"Certainly."
"Faith, but that's fine. I wish it was left to me, so I do."
"What would you do to them, Pat?"
"I'd skin 'em, begorra!"
Handsome laughed.
"Perhaps I will give you a chance," he said. "However, it is likely that they will go into the quicksand."
"Where is that same, then?"
"Out in the swamp a bit. There is no getting out of it, and it tells no tales. Once a man is thrown into that, he sinks out of sight in a few minutes, and that is the last of him. It is our graveyard. There are about fifty in there now. The place is bottomless."
"Cheerful, isn't it? Sure, man, it's unhealthy, it is; but I'll go and have a look at it. Where is it?"
Handsome directed him how to find it, and he hastened away; but he paused before he started long enough to select a long, strong rope that he had seen near one of the cabins. This he carried with him, and disappeared among the trees.
Patsy was gone less than half an hour, but when he returned he was whistling; and then, after a little, he found an opportunity to linger around the place where Chick and Ten-Ichi were confined in one of the cabins.
And presently he began to sing; at first in a low tone, and in unintelligible words; but his voice was good, and it attracted attention, even among that motley crew, and after a little, perceiving that they were listening, he sang the louder.
If they had but known it, he was singing in Japanese, which Ten-Ichi had taught him to speak perfectly; and the words he uttered as he sang, translated, were:
"There is a quicksand pit not far from here. They are going to throw you both into it. I have carried a rope to the quicksand pit. I have tied it to a tree near there. When you are thrown into the pit, spread out your arms. And also spread out your legs. Keep as still as possible so as not to sink too fast. I will be there as soon as I can do it. I will throw you the end of the rope. And with your own combined strength and mine, we can pull you out. I am not suspected, so I can do the act, all right. Keep up your pluck, and manage not to go into the pit head down."
He sang this over and over several times until he was sure that Ten-Ichi had heard and understood, and would convey the message to Chick, and then he sauntered away.
Twice after that he tried to get near to the cottage to sing to Nick Carter; but each time he was stopped and turned back again; and at last he muttered to himself:
"I'll have to wait till to-night for that part of it. After I have rescued Chick and Ten-Ichi I will have them to help me, and then it will be funny if we don't get the chief out of the pickle he is in."
It was well toward evening, almost the hour of sundown, before Chick and Ten-Ichi were carried to the quicksand pit; and then a procession followed them. The hands and feet of the prisoners were not bound, for it was desired that they should flounder in the quicksand in order to hasten its work; and without ceremony they were hurled into the midst of it, one, and then the other.
Patsy's only fear was that the horde of hoboes would throw sticks and stones at the helpless men in the sand pit; but he found that this was against orders, since the presence of such impedimenta would give the victims something to seize hold of; and the operation of sinking was so slow, and the hoboes had seen it so many times, that they had lost interest in it; so that almost at once after Chick and Ten-Ichi were thrown in they began to withdraw to their several occupations; and finally when only a group of four remained, Patsy, who was one of them, called out: "It's tired of this I am. Come on!" and, nothing loath, the others followed him away.
But he was not long gone. Almost at once he found an opportunity to leave them, and, by making a detour, to hurry back again.
Already when he had reached the pit a second time the two detectives had sunk almost to their armpits; but in an instant Patsy found the rope he had concealed, one end of which was fastened to a tree.
The task which followed can better be imagined than described, and only for the great strength of the trio it must have been unsuccessful. But with Chick and Ten-Ichi straining for their lives at one end, and Patsy pulling on the other as best he could, they came forth inch by inch, until at last they stood, covered with mud, to be sure, but on solid earth.
"Now, go around that way," said Patsy, speaking rapidly. "The cottage is over there, as you know. You'll have to cross a neck of the swamp in getting to it, but the chief is there, a prisoner. I have seen him. He is chained to the wall in the cellar. If you get a chance before I do, overcome that beast of a sentinel, who is walking up and down near the house. I'll go back through the glade, and I'll manage somehow to join you there, if I have to kill somebody in order to do it; and take these. They are extra ones. I swiped them." He handed them each a pistol as he spoke.
Chance played into Patsy's hands when he returned to the glade. Two of the men had been quarreling, and they had taken the centre of the glade to settle their differences; and there a ring had formed around them – a ring which comprised almost every man of the outfit.
The point was that the attention of everybody was diverted from Patsy, and, merely bestowing a single glance upon what was taking place, he hurried silently past them – it was almost dark now – and in a moment more had passed through the pathway to the clearing around the cottage.
As he entered the clearing silently, he came directly upon the sentinel, who, after listening to the row in the glade for a moment, had just turned to retrace his steps; this made him assume a position with his back toward Patsy, and in an instant the young athlete had leaped upon his back and shoulders, and had seized him by the throat, so that he bore him to the ground in absolute silence.
And even as he did that, Chick and Ten-Ichi dashed out of the woods and helped him; and Ten-Ichi, none too gentle, now that his anger was aroused, rapped the sentinel on the head with the butt of his pistol, so that he stiffened out and offered no more resistance.
They had been thoughtful enough to bring the rope with them, too, and it did not take long to tie the man; and then the three assistants of Nick Carter leaped forward toward the door of the cottage, realizing that at any instant they might be interrupted in their work, and knowing that the odds would be terribly against them if they were.
They leaped upon the piazza – and as they did so the door opened directly in front of them, and Nick Carter appeared before them with the senseless form of Black Madge in his arms.
For just one instant he started backward; and then he recognized his three assistants.
"Quick!" he exclaimed. "Hold her, Chick!" and he put Madge into Chick's arms. "I have drugged her with some of her own stuff. There's plenty of it in the house. Get into the woods, all of you, over there" – and he pointed to the spot he wished them to go – "and wait for me. I'll be there in a moment."
While they obeyed him, he turned back into the house; and from the edge of the clearing, where the others had concealed themselves, they presently saw a blaze flare up inside the house; then another, and then another, until there were many of them; and then Nick Carter dashed out of it again and ran toward them with all speed.
"Look, now!" he said. "Watch that upper window, in the gable!"
And looking as he commanded them to do, they presently saw, when the light had gained in brightness, the form of a woman standing there, outlined against the blazing fire; and if they had not known differently, there was not one of them who would not have sworn that it was Black Madge who stood there, surrounded by flames.
"It is a dummy that I fixed up," whispered the detective. "It was done to keep the attention of the crowd away from us. Look! The men have discovered the fire!"
The hoboes were rushing toward the scene in crowds now; and they saw the figure of the woman at the window in the gable instantly.
A cry, then a shout, then a wail went up, for they thought it was their chief – Black Madge, otherwise Hobo Harry, the Beggar King, as she preferred to be known outside her own fraternity; and in that instant the crowd went mad.
There was not a soul among them who did not rush to the rescue of their chief, believing that Nick's dummy at the window was she; and then danced and shouted, and yelled and screamed around that burning cottage, like so many madmen.
"Come, now," said the detective. "This is our opportunity!"
Like shadows they sped away through the trees. They skirted the glade, now without a sign of life within it; they hurried down the path among the alders toward the place where the boat was kept, and where there were now no less than four boats.
But they took them all in order that none might be left for the pursuers, when it should occur to them to take up the chase; and then, with the strength of desperation, and guided by Nick, who had been twice over the route without being blindfolded, they made their way silently and swiftly through the maze of the swamp, to dry land at the other side of it.
"We have not made good our escape yet," said Nick, as they climbed the grade of the railway. "If only a train would come along now, so we could flag it – hark!"
Even as he spoke, a freight came around the curve toward them, and Nick, giving the unconscious form of Madge into the care of Chick, leaped out upon the track between the rails, and, at the risk of his life, stood within the glare of the advancing headlight and waved his coat for the engineer to stop.
Fortunately it was a freight, and it was going rather slowly. The engineer saw the frantic appeal, and closed his throttle and applied the brakes.
The party was taken aboard, and Black Madge was locked up in the jail at Calamont. She jeered at her captors, assuring them that she would be free again, and that when she was they had better remember who and what she was.
Nick and his assistants then returned to New York, pretty thoroughly tired out by their experiences with Black Madge and her followers.
The following day Nick Carter called upon the president of the E. & S. W. R. R. Co., and told him the story of the capture of "Hobo Harry."
"Also, I want to tell you," said the detective, "that I was one of the burglars that robbed the bank at Calamont. I see there is quite a stir about it. But I know where the loot is concealed, and if you will raise a hundred men for me I will go back and clean out that swamp, and not only return the property to the bank, but I will find almost all that has been stolen from different places for a long time."
Arrangements were at once made to carry out Nick's plans, but the detective was not quick enough.
The news of the arrest of Black Madge had spread through the surrounding country like wildfire, and, by the time Nick and his force of railroad employees reached the place, the gang had fled, and the people of the near-by towns, having formed vigilance committees, had swooped down on the stronghold in the swamp.
Nick and his men, however, destroyed everything that remained, with axes and matches, and what they could not destroy in that way they blew up with dynamite, so that the place no longer offered a refuge for the hoboes.