Gallegher and Other Stories | Page 6

the
sporting editor's cigar shone in the darkness, and watched it as it
gradually burnt more dimly and went out. The lights in the shop
windows threw a broad glare across the ice on the pavements, and the

lights from the lamp-posts tossed the distorted shadow of the cab, and
the horse, and the motionless driver, sometimes before and sometimes
behind them.
After half an hour Gallegher slipped down to the bottom of the cab and
dragged out a lap-robe, in which he wrapped himself. It was growing
colder, and the damp, keen wind swept in through the cracks until the
window-frames and woodwork were cold to the touch.
An hour passed, and the cab was still moving more slowly over the
rough surface of partly paved streets, and by single rows of new houses
standing at different angles to each other in fields covered with
ash-heaps and brick-kilns. Here and there the gaudy lights of a
drug-store, and the forerunner of suburban civilization, shone from the
end of a new block of houses, and the rubber cape of an occasional
policeman showed in the light of the lamp-post that he hugged for
comfort.
Then even the houses disappeared, and the cab dragged its way
between truck farms, with desolate-looking glass-covered beds, and
pools of water, half-caked with ice, and bare trees, and interminable
fences.
Once or twice the cab stopped altogether, and Gallegher could hear the
driver swearing to himself, or at the horse, or the roads. At last they
drew up before the station at Torresdale. It was quite deserted, and only
a single light cut a swath in the darkness and showed a portion of the
platform, the ties, and the rails glistening in the rain. They walked
twice past the light before a figure stepped out of the shadow and
greeted them cautiously.
"I am Mr. Dwyer, of the Press," said the sporting editor, briskly.
"You've heard of me, perhaps. Well, there shouldn't be any difficulty in
our making a deal, should there? This boy here has found Hade, and we
have reason to believe he will be among the spectators at the fight
to-night. We want you to arrest him quietly, and as secretly as possible.
You can do it with your papers and your badge easily enough. We want
you to pretend that you believe he is this burglar you came over after. If

you will do this, and take him away without any one so much as
suspecting who he really is, and on the train that passes here at 1.20 for
New York, we will give you $500 out of the $5,000 reward. If,
however, one other paper, either in New York or Philadelphia, or
anywhere else, knows of the arrest, you won't get a cent. Now, what do
you say?"
The detective had a great deal to say. He wasn't at all sure the man
Gallegher suspected was Hade; he feared he might get himself into
trouble by making a false arrest, and if it should be the man, he was
afraid the local police would interfere.
"We've no time to argue or debate this matter," said Dwyer, warmly.
"We agree to point Hade out to you in the crowd. After the fight is over
you arrest him as we have directed, and you get the money and the
credit of the arrest. If you don't like this, I will arrest the man myself,
and have him driven to town, with a pistol for a warrant."
Hefflefinger considered in silence and then agreed unconditionally. "As
you say, Mr. Dwyer," he returned. "I've heard of you for a
thoroughbred sport. I know you'll do what you say you'll do; and as for
me I'll do what you say and just as you say, and it's a very pretty piece
of work as it stands."
They all stepped back into the cab, and then it was that they were met
by a fresh difficulty, how to get the detective into the barn where the
fight was to take place, for neither of the two men had $250 to pay for
his admittance.
But this was overcome when Gallegher remembered the window of
which young Keppler had told him.
In the event of Hade's losing courage and not daring to show himself in
the crowd around the ring, it was agreed that Dwyer should come to the
barn and warn Hefflefinger; but if he should come, Dwyer was merely
to keep near him and to signify by a prearranged gesture which one of
the crowd he was.

They drew up before a great black shadow of a house, dark, forbidding,
and apparently deserted. But at the sound of the wheels on the gravel
the door opened, letting out a stream of warm, cheerful light, and a
man's