_ CHAPTER XXIV. A RACE FOR LIFE
As may be supposed, Professor Ruggles was deeply stunned at the coup de main that had deprived him of his fair charge.
Who had robbed him? This was the question that at once suggested itself to his mind, and he found it not difficult to frame an answer, although, until this moment, he had supposed that Madge Scarlet was still in prison.
"It must be her," he muttered, as he gazed madly at the vacant seat.
"I'm sure it was HER," said the old man who had first spoken. "A queer, wrinkled old woman, too, she was."
"Did she say anything?"
"Not a word."
Mr. Ruggles passed into the next car, hoping to find Nell and the strange old woman there.
He went the whole length of the swift-moving train, only to learn that his fair captive had been spirited away completely.
At first rage consumed the man's senses, and he scarcely realized the dangers of his position.
"I will not give up to such a sneak game," he muttered at length. "Madge Scarlet has shadowed me for this very purpose, it seems. Can it be possible that the friends of Nell Darrel have employed this hag to rob me of my prize? I will not believe it, for it isn't in the nature of Madge Scarlet to do a good action, not even for pay. No; it is to gratify her own petty scheme of vengeance that she has stolen a march on me; but she will not succeed. I will get on her track and wrest the girl from her hands."
A minute later Professor Ruggles stood before the conductor.
"When does the next train pass going west?"
"It passes Galien in an hour."
"Galien? Do you stop there?"
"Yes."
"Soon?"
"Within five minutes."
When the train slowed in at the station, Professor Ruggles left the car and entered the depot. Here he would have to wait nearly an hour before the New York train west would pass. It was a tedious wait; but he could do no better. With his hand satchel clutched tightly he paced up and down like a ghost of the night.
He was glad indeed when the train came at length thundering up to the station, He had purchased a ticket for the station from which the abductress had boarded the cars and stolen Nell.
With feverish blood the scheming villain sat by the window and watched the fleeting landscape by the light of the moon. The score of miles that intervened between the station seemed like a hundred to the anxious man who sat and glared at the trees and hills without.
He was in extreme doubt as to his ability to cope with the cunning hag who had ventured so many miles to thwart him, and indulge her own morbid desire for revenge.
At length the whistle sounded announcing the station.
As the train bolted beside another train, bound in the opposite direction, Ruggles glanced into the car not ten feet distant, to make a startling discovery.
He looked squarely into the face of Dyke Darrel, the railroad detective!
Turning his head, the Professor sat quiet. The other train was moving, and Ruggles felt paralyzed at his discovery. Perhaps the detective had not noticed him. He could not understand how the detective had escaped death from the beating he had received in the basement of that building of sin on Clark street.
His own train was moving now, and if he would get off he must be quick about it.
Springing from his seat, he hastened down the aisle.
At the open door he met Dyke Darrel face to face! The recognition was mutual.
The train was moving rapidly out of the station. Soon it would be going at full speed.
Professor Ruggles had two incentives for leaving the train now--one to escape the detective, the other to find Nell and Madge Scarlet.
At first he thought of dashing upon Dyke Darrel and risking all in a swift rush. Second thought, induced by the gleam of a six-shooter in the hand of his enemy, concluded the Professor to seek another course. Turning, he dashed down the length of the car, with Darrel in hot pursuit.
"Halt, or I fire!"
But the detective's cry had no effect.
The half-sleeping passengers were roused by the wonderful movements of the two men.
"Madmen!"
"What IS the trouble?"
Such were the exclamations, as doors slammed, and the two men swept into the next car. From coach to coach sped the pursued and the pursuer. It was a flight for life, on the part of Professor Ruggles.
His plug hat flew off in the chase, and a brakeman who confronted him in the aisle was knocked flat with terrific force.
"Murder!"
And then both men disappeared from the rear platform.
Dyke Darrel believed he had his man in a corner, when he saw him dash through the door at the rear of the long train.
Not so, however.
The desperate Ruggles was ready to do anything rather than come in contact with his relentless foe. He bounded clear of the train, landing in a soft bit of sand, sinking almost to his knees, without harming him in the least.
The detective did not hesitate to follow, but he made a miscalculation, owing to his bodily weakness, and instead of landing on his feet, he came down with stunning force across one of the rails.
Dyke Darrel lay insensible, like one dead.
Had his enemy come upon him then he might have finished the career of the daring man-hunter, without the least danger to himself. For once, Professor Ruggles missed it woefully.
As the detective was ten yards behind the Professor, and the car was going at good speed, there was quite twenty rods difference between the two men when they landed. Dyke Darrel was completely hidden from the sight of Ruggles by a clump of trees.
Ruggles gazed up the track, but saw nothing of his pursuer. He surmised that Dyke Darrel did not leap from the train, but it was likely he would ring the bell and stop the cars at once, so that it would not do to for him to remain in the vicinity unless he wished to collide with the detective.
Another supposition also came to the brain of the villain, preventing his search along the track. If Dyke Darrel had leaped after him, what more natural than his hiding in the clump of timber for the purpose of pouncing upon him when he came up the road.
"I'll not risk it," muttered Ruggles. "I've other fish to fry just now than looking after detectives. I must find that hag, Madge Scarlet, and get my hands once more on Nell Darrel."
Then Mr. Ruggles turned his steps in the direction of the station. Already daylight was dawning, and Professor Ruggles was almost beside himself with anxiety. He cursed the woman who had made it necessary for him to leave the train so many miles outside of Gotham. Such a change in the programme might result fatally to himself. Dyke Darrel was hot on the trail now, and it would require the best efforts of a desperate man to throw him off the scent.
The man with the sunset hair was desperate enough. With hurried steps he made his way to the depot. The agent was just shutting up.
"No train, save a way-freight, will be along till night," he said, in answer to a question from the gentleman with the red locks. Ruggles had taken the precaution to provide himself with a cap from his satchel before presenting himself to the man on duty at the depot.
"One question," said Ruggles, as the man was about to walk away.
"Well?"
"Did any passengers get off here some hours since from the New York train east?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"None came into the depot, at any rate," said the man.
"Any passengers get on?"
"Several."
"Among them an old woman?"
"I saw no woman."
"You are sure?"
"Of course I am."
Ruggles was disappointed. Could it be possible that he had been led on a fool's errand after all, and that Madge Scarlet, with her prize, had been concealed on the train, and continued on to New York? The thought was intolerable.
In the meantime, how fared it with Dyke Darrel, who lay stunned and bleeding across the railroad track.
It was almost sun-up before he opened his eyes and groaned. His bed was a hard one, and it seemed as though every bone in his body was broken. The fact was, he was yet sore from his serious fall through the trap into the basement on Clark street, consequently it is little wonder he was badly demoralized, both in mind and body, at his last mishap.
Presently a strange rumbling jar filled his ears. A bend in the road to the west hid the track, but the dazed brain of Dyke Darrel took in the situation nevertheless--a train was thundering down upon him.
A minute more and he would be doomed!
He tried to move--to roll from the track. He could not. His limbs seemed paralyzed. Another second and the train would be upon him! _