A Woman at Bay: or, A Fiend in Skirts

"Yes. Beggars, you know, is supposed to be the name of their organization."

The detective nodded.

"Will you take the case, Carter?"

"I suppose so – if there isn't a time limit set upon it."

"You may take your own time; that is, of course, if it is not too long."

"It will require some time to do the thing thoroughly."

"I suppose so. Well, have it your own way; only succeed. That is all the railroad people desire – success."

"I will get your man; only I won't promise to do it in a day, or a week, or a month. I won't set a time."

"All right. You shall be your own master in the case."

"I will have to be that – absolutely. After I leave this office, when my interview with you is finished, you will not see me again until I have got Hobo Harry in my clutches. You will not communicate with me, or attempt to do so, and I will not communicate with you."

"That is a little hard, isn't it, Carter? We would like to know, from time to time, how you are getting on, and what you are doing."

"That is precisely what you will not do."

"All right. Have it your own way. But what about the other men that are now on the case, Carter?"

"Leave them on it. Add more of them. Appear to increase your vigilance in other quarters. If there are fifty detectives on the case now, add fifty more if you wish. I would prefer that you should do so rather than not. The more the better."

"But suppose that one of them should nab the real Hobo Harry while you are seeking him. You would lose the reward."

"I will take my chances about that. The point is that I must work absolutely independent of all others who are on the case, and that nobody outside of yourself and the board of directors of your company must know that my services have been called into the matter. Will you agree to that?"

"Certainly."

"Increase your vigilance on every side, if you can. If you do so, you will assist me."

"I suppose," said the president slowly, "that it is your plan to become a yeggman yourself, in pursuing this case."

"It does not matter how I may accomplish it, does it?"

"No; I was merely going to say that that very thing has been tried four separate times; once with more or less success. But I ought to warn you that two of the four who attempted it lost their lives; a third is a cripple for life, minus a leg; and only the fourth, who ended by arresting the wrong man, after all, had any degree of success. And now he is frightened almost into imbecility, for his life has been sworn away by the yeggmen, and he expects to be murdered every time he goes out alone."

"All the same," said the detective, "that will not deter me."

"You will want money for your expenses, Carter. If you will tell me how much – "

"I will present my bill of expenses along with my demand for the fifty thousand dollars reward," the detective interrupted quietly.

By more closely questioning the president of the railroad, Nick learned that the depredations and robberies committed by Hobo Harry's gang had been remarkable in their extent and thoroughness; and that every effort to break up the gang had been in vain.

Whenever one of the yeggmen was arrested and sent to prison, two new ones, even more proficient in their thievery, seemed ready to spring up in his place; and so the thing had gone on and on until the people who had been robbed so often became desperate.

And then it was determined to call Nick Carter into the case.

Of Hobo Harry himself, nothing whatever was known beyond the fact that there was such a character, and that he was the head and front of the hobo gang – their chief, to whom absolute and implicit obedience was accorded. His power over them seemed absolute.

Whether it was because of fear of him, or for love of him, it was, nevertheless, true that not one of the fraternity of hoboes who had been arrested could be prevailed upon to betray the master. Neither threats nor offers of bribery had any effect upon them.

Hobo Harry remained as entirely in the dark as ever; and even in the cases of the eight men to whom the president of the railroad had referred as having confessed that each of them was Hobo Harry himself – they had each seemed to get a queer sort of enjoyment in posing, even for a time, as their dreaded chief.

As the president explained to Nick, there were many among the detectives who had been detailed upon the case who insisted that there was no such person as Hobo Harry. It was their belief that the name was merely a fictitious one, to which the hoboes, one and all, had agreed to give obedience.

But the president of the railroad did not believe this; neither did the detective. The completeness of the organization of the gang was a sufficient negative to such a statement. To have a perfect organization there must be a chief; a head; a ruling power.

By investigating the case a little further before actually starting out upon it, Nick discovered that the yeggmen had carried their depredations even into whole villages. In one town – Calamont – the place had been literally gutted in a single night.

The yeggmen had descended upon it in such numbers that the inhabitants were terrified, and could only protect themselves by barricading their doors, and remaining with their guns and other weapons in their hands, while they watched the looting of their bank and post office. And there had been other occasions as bad as that one.

Sometimes the yeggmen traveled in small groups; sometimes they worked in twos or threes, but often they went about in large bands which had been known to include as many as fifty or even more.

Had the outrages been confined to one community the inhabitants would have risen in their might and, by organizing vigilance committees, could have driven them out – possibly. But they were not confined to communities at all; they extended all along the line of the railroad, and the descent of the robbers seemed always to have been arranged far ahead – and perfectly planned by a master mind at that.

These descents always happened when it was known that there were large sums of money, either in the banks that were robbed, or when the post offices that were broken open were better provided than usual with cash.

At every place where there was a siding along the line of the railroad, freight cars had been broken open, and denuded of their contents; and this often happened when there was one or more night watchmen on hand for the purpose of preventing that very thing.

But in each case the watchman had been overpowered, and either beaten into insensibility or maimed – and in at least one instance – killed.

And hence it was that the railroad company was willing to pay well for the apprehension of the chief of these marauders.

All of this information Nick Carter gleaned before he formed any definite plans for his campaign.

Roughly speaking, there was a stretch of main line of the railroad over which, or rather along which, the yeggmen seemed to be most active. This principal thoroughfare for their nefarious trade was approximately five hundred miles long; and it was here where the greatest and the most persistent outrages were committed.

There were branches of the line, too, along which they worked; but off the main line the organization seemed to lose some of its power for concentration of force.

After Nick had pieced together all the information that could be gleaned without being actually at the scene of the trouble, he called his three assistants together in consultation with him. For he had determined to make use of all of them in this case. Indeed, that was the only method by which he believed that he could entirely succeed at it.

To them he related the circumstance of his connection with the case, after which he told them all he had been able to learn about it; and in conclusion he said:

"Now, lads, there is only one way by which we can hope to succeed in this undertaking, and that is, we must become hoboes ourselves."

The three nodded almost in unison.

"If we decide to do that," continued the detective, "we must do it thoroughly. We must do as General Grant did when he decided, against the wishes of his generals, to invest Vicksburg – be cut off from his base of supplies; and that is what we must do."

"I don't think I understand exactly what you mean," said Patsy, who was paying close attention; for Patsy liked the plan inconceivably.

"I mean," replied Nick, "that when we start out to become hoboes, we must become so in fact, and not in appearance merely. It is easy enough for any one of us to make ourself up as a tramp, or a hobo, or even a yeggman, and to play the part; but in this case we must do more than that: We must be the part."