Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1920-07-07

The Hawk inspected his hands. and
smiled whimsically. Number One was
the Butcher. He had not given the
Butcher credit for being so observ-
ant! Presently he stared out of the
window.
wonder how much of haul / can
make tonight?" he murmured. Reg
ular Ell Dorado--having EN- work it
all up and handing it to you on a
gold platter. Pretty soft! Hope they
won't get discouraged and quit pick
ing the chestnuts out of the fire for
melville there's any chestnuts left"
And then the Hawk frowned sud-
denly. The chestnuts appeared to be
only partially picked for him tonight.
What was the game-as planned?
There must have been a previous
message that had got by him. His
frown deepened There was no way
of remedying that. To hope to inter-
cept them all was to expect too much.
There was no way whereby he could
spend twenty-four hours out of twen-
! ty- four in touch with a sounder. He
shrugged his shoulders philosophical
ly after moment. Perhaps it was
just as well. They credited him with
playing lone hand, believeing that
his and their depredations were
clashing with one another simply by
virtue OF the fact that their mutual
pursuits We're of competitive GRIM
inal nature, that was all. II it hap
pened with too much regularity, they
might begin to suspect that he had
| the key to their cipher. and then-the
Hawk did not care to contemplate the
eventuality. There would be no more
chestnuts!
The Hawk read the first part Of the
message over again. Who was Isaac
Kirschell? The name seemed to be
familiar. The Hawk studied the toe
of manipulating and carefully poll
ished shoe thoughtfully. When he
looked up again, he nodded. He re-
membered now. He had lunched the
day before In restaurant that oc-
cupied portion of the ground floor
of an office building, the corridor of
which ran thru from street to street.
In going out, he had passed along the
corridor and had seen the name on
the door panels of two OF the offices.
He resumed the study Of his boot
4 toe. II was not very vital matter. A
moment spent in consulting the city
directory would have supplied the in
formation In any case. He nodded
again. Macvightie was unquestion-
ably right. Some one on the inside,
some railroader, and probably more
than one, was in on the game with
the Wire Devils--and 1t was perhaps
as well for this Calhoun that Mac
Vightie, already suspicious. was not
likewise possessed of the key to the
cipher! Also. Lanson had been right.
1t was no easy task to locate a new
splice on a wire that was already
Scared with countless repairs. Still.
If Lanson's men went at 1t system
atically and narrowed down the radi-
us of operations, 1t was not Impossible
that they might stumble upon a clue
lii Calhoun did not placfdly inform
them that 1t was but another of his
own making! But even then, granted
that the wire was found to have been
tapped in a certain place one night,
that was no reason why it should not
as MacVightie suggested, be tapped
fifty miles away the next! The
Hawk, grthned. Mr.. Lanson and his
associates. backed even by Mr.. Mac
vightie, were confronted with a prob
lem of considerable difficulty!
II wonder" communed the Hawk
with himself, who's the spider that
spun the web; and I wonder how
many little spiders he's got running
around on 1T"
He perused the message once more:
but this time he appeared to be con-
cerned maily with the latter portion,
He read it over several times: 1.-TWO
puts a bullet in him.
Nobody seems to like me-" COM
planned the Hawk softly, "Mac-
Vightie doesn't; and the Butchers
crowd seem peeved Two thousand
dollars for my hide! l guess il ]
stick around here long enough may
be it'll get exciting-for somebody"
/ The Hawk tore up the message, tie
sheet ON which he had deciphered It.
the sketch Of Bald Creek station, tore
all three into small fragments, opened
the window little, and let the pie ces
flutter out into the night. He closed
the window, returned the notebook
innocent of everything now but it's
blank pages, to his pocket-and, pull
ing his SLOUGH hat down over his eyes,
appeared to doze.
CHAPTER v.
Twenty minutes later, as No. II
pulled into Selkirk, the Hawk, his
/ arSf while