Ted Strong's Motor Car Part 25

"Jumpin' sand hills, so yer got him, eh? Come, climb out," said Bud to Riley, "we need yer on terry firmy."

"Cover him, Bud, while I search him. If he makes a break, kill him. He's an ex-convict, so don't take any chances with him," said Ted.

Riley yielded up a gun and a knife and then he was hustled out of the car, with the midget still clinging to him, and Ted took charge of the tin box.

Billy Sudden and some of his men had come up, and so had Ben and Kit, and Riley was conducted back to the ranch house strongly guarded.

Once inside with their prisoners and the boys, Ted closed the doors on the curious crowd. The first thing he did was to open the tin box. On top were the packages of bills stolen from the cubby-hole, and beneath it a large amount of money and the bonds taken from the Strongburg Trust Company, as well as registered letters from which the money had not yet been extracted, and a large amount of brand-new treasury notes which answered the description of the government funds stolen from Creviss' bank.

"It's all here," said Ted, "and the evidence is complete."

"But how did he manage to do it without leaving a mark or a broken lock behind him?" asked Ben.

"How? By means of this," and Ted placed his hand on the head of the midget, who shrank from him with a snarling cry.

"Still I don't understand it."

"The day I saw him in the Creviss bank he marched out with the plunder under my very eyes. The day before the robbery this fellow went into the bank with the dwarf in his valise. Wiley Creviss was alone. The valise was opened, and the dwarf slipped out of the valise and into the vault, and concealed himself.

"During the night the dwarf collected all the money and bonds he could, and made himself comfortable. When it came time for the bank to open in the morning he again concealed himself, and remained in hiding until noon, when Wiley Creviss again came on watch while the cas.h.i.+er went to dinner. Then Riley, here, entered with his valise, and the dwarf crept into it, and was carried out of the bank with the money."

"But what had the midget to do with the theft of our money?"

"That's simple. Farley and the dwarf were to do the job. The dwarf was sent up to the roof, for he can climb like a monkey, and came down the chimney and opened the door for Farley. That was a mistake, for they would not have been caught, except for Farley."

"How did they know where you hid the money?"

"The dwarf saw us through the window, and Kit saw him, but I thought it was all imagination. That was how they robbed the post office. The dwarf was lowered down the chimney. That is about the size of it. Am I correct, Riley?"

"Correct enough, so far as I'm concerned. I guess it's back to 'the stir' for me. But this midget didn't know what he was doing, and ought to be sent to an asylum instead of the prison," said Riley.

At that moment there was a great commotion without, and a crowd of cowboys rode up. In the center of the circle made by them was Wiley Creviss and several of his gang. In all, with Riley and the dwarf, there were eight of them in custody, and without ado they were hurried to the Strongburg jail.

The United States marshal was in Strongburg when Ted came in with his prisoners.

"What is all this, Strong?" asked the marshal.

"That bank-robbing gang you ordered me to bring in," answered Ted.

"You made quick work of it. Get any of the money?"

"All of it. It is in the Strongburg bank. You see, they made the mistake of robbing us last night. But for that they would have got away, and we would have had a hard time catching them. As it was, they walked right in to us."

Skip Riley went back to the penitentiary for a long term of years, and the midget was sent to an asylum for the feeble-minded.

Jack Farley turned State's evidence, and Creviss and ten other young reprobates were sent to a reformatory.

As for Lucifer, he turned out, next to Sultan and Custer, the best horse on the ranch.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ANONYMOUS LETTER.

A very short time after the capture of Skip Riley, Ted Strong was standing in the waiting room of the Union Station at St. Louis, the metropolis of Missouri, whither he had been summoned by a letter from the chief of the United States secret service.

He was waiting for Bud Morgan, who had gone to the baggage room to inquire about a trunk which had become lost on the way from Moon Valley, and which contained a number of valuable papers, including both their commissions as deputy United States marshals.

The enormous waiting room was crowded with pa.s.sengers from the incoming trains, with which the numerous tracks were full from end to end.

As Ted Strong leaned over the iron railing, looking down into the lower waiting room, he was conscious that a woman had stepped to his side.

Glancing up sideways, he saw that close to him was a very beautiful young girl, who wore a traveling cloak of pearl gray, and a long feather boa, which the draft had blown across his sleeve.

His glance intercepted one from her, and not wis.h.i.+ng her to think that he was idly staring at her, he directed his gaze once more to the surging crowd below. As his eyes wandered over the throng, he saw a man look up, and make the most imperceptible gesture with his head.

He did not know the man. Turning swiftly to the young lady at his side, he caught sight of a smile and a slight uplifting of her eyebrows.

Undoubtedly a signal had pa.s.sed between the two, and Ted, not wis.h.i.+ng to be an eavesdropper, looked away again. But in the swift glance he had given the young girl--for now he saw that she was little else--he made a mental note of her. The gray eyes with the long, dark lashes, the oval face, beautiful in shape and of an ivory tint; the scarlet, curving lips, the slender, trim figure, and the strange, subtle perfume which she exhaled, one would never forget.

He also noted the appearance of the man who had signaled the girl.

The man was five feet seven inches in height; his face was well rounded, but not too fat. He had a brown, pointed beard; the eyes were pale, almost colorless; the forehead, broad and high, a fact which Ted noted when the man lifted his hat to wipe his brow. He had the air of a well-bred man of the world, and was probably a resident of New York.

There was something familiar about the man that made Ted think that he had seen him before.

Ted saw Bud come through the door into the waiting room from the midway of the station, look up and wave his hand, with a frown and a shake of the head that told him his pard's quest for the missing baggage had been fruitless.

At the same time, the girl at his side seemed to b.u.mp into him, and as he turned to her she muttered an apology and hurried away. Although he followed her with his eyes a few moments, she was soon lost in the crowd.

He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and, with his back to the railing, prepared to wait until Bud reached him.

As his left hand sank into his pocket, his fingers came in contact with a piece of paper.

He knew that he had not placed the paper in his pocket, and glanced around with his usual caution to see if any one was watching him. He saw that wonderful pair of gray eyes with the dark lashes--Irish eyes, he called them--watching him over the shoulders of a man a dozen feet away in the crowd. But the moment the woman realized that she was being observed, she disappeared.

"Deuced strange," he muttered to himself, fumbling with the paper, which he had not withdrawn from his pocket. "That girl placed this paper in my pocket. I wonder why. There is something out of the way here, for the paper was not there before she stood beside me."

One less wise than Ted, and not so modest, might have thought that the girl was trying to flirt with him. But to Ted there was something more important and mysterious than that in her actions.

If he read them aright, she had placed the paper in his pocket when she apparently accidentally b.u.mped into him, and had gone away only to come back to see if he had discovered it.

Although he searched the crowd with eager eyes, he did not see her again, and was confident that she had disappeared as soon as she had accomplished her mission, which was to convey some message to him.

Although he was somewhat curious to know what, if anything, was written on the paper, he restrained himself until he could be alone, for he did not know who might be in that crowd looking for just such a move on his part.

Just then Bud brushed his way through the crowd and came up to Ted.