The Treasure-Train | Page 7

Swiftly now they hurried to the nearest
of the gold-laden cars. We could hear them, breaking in where the
guards had either been rendered unconscious or had fled.
I looked around at Maude Euston. She was the calmest of us all as she
whispered:
"They are in the car. Can't we DO something?"
"Lane," whispered Kennedy, "crawl through under the trucks with me.
Walter, and you, Dugan," he added, to the guard, "go down the other
side. We must rush them--in the car."
As Kennedy crawled under the train again I saw Maude Euston follow
Lane closely.
How it happened I cannot describe, for the simple reason that I don't
remember. I know that it was a short, sharp dash, that the fight was a
fight of fists in which guns were discharged wildly in the air against the
will of the gunner. But from the moment when Kennedy's voice rang
out in the door, "Hands up!" to the time that I saw that we had the
robbers lined up with their backs against the heavy cases of the
precious metal for which they had planned and risked so much, it is a
blank of grim death-struggle.
I remember my surprise at seeing one of them a woman, and I thought I
must be mistaken. I looked about. No; there was Maude Euston
standing just beside Lane.

I think it must have been that which recalled me and made me realize
that it was a reality and not a dream. The two women stood glaring at
each other.
"The woman in the tea-room!" exclaimed Miss Euston. "It was about
this--robbery--then, that I heard you talking the other afternoon."
I looked at the face before me. It was, had been, a handsome face. But
now it was cold and hard, with that heartless expression of the
adventuress. The men seemed to take their plight hard. But, as she
looked into the clear, gray eyes of the other woman, the adventuress
seemed to gain rather than lose in defiance.
"Robbery?" she repeated, bitterly. "This is only a beginning."
"A beginning. What do you mean?"
It was Lane who spoke. Slowly she turned toward him.
"You know well enough what I mean."
The implication that she intended was clear. She had addressed the
remark to him, but it was a stab at Maude Euston.
"I know only what you wanted me to do--and I refused. Is there more
still?"
I wondered whether Lane could really have been involved.
"Quick--what DO you mean?" demanded Kennedy, authoritatively.
The woman turned to him:
"Suppose this news of the robbery is out? What will happen? Do you
want me to tell you, young lady?" she added, turning again to Maude
Euston. "I'll tell you. The stock of the Continental Express Company
will fall like a house of cards. And then? Those who have sold it at the
top price will buy it back again at the bottom. The company is sound.
The depression will not last--perhaps will be over in a day, a week, a

month. Then the operators can send it up again. Don't you see? It is the
old method of manipulation in a new form. It is a war-stock gamble.
Other stocks will be affected the same way. This is our reward--what
we can get out of it by playing this game for which the materials are
furnished free. We have played it--and lost. The manipulators will get
their reward on the stock-market this morning. But they must still
reckon with us--even if we have lost." She said it with a sort of grim
humor.
"And you have put Granville Barnes out of the way, first?" I asked,
remembering the chlorin. She laughed shrilly.
"That was an accident--his own carelessness. He was carrying a tank of
it for us. Only his chauffeur's presence of mind in throwing it into the
shrubbery by the road saved his life and reputation. No, young man; he
was one of the manipulators, too. But the chief of them was--" She
paused as if to enjoy one brief moment of triumph at least. "The
president of the company," she added.
"No, no, no!" cried Maude Euston.
"Yes, yes, yes! He does not dare deny it. They were all in it."
"Mrs. Labret--you lie!" towered Lane, in a surging passion, as he
stepped forward and shook his finger at her. "You lie and you know it.
There is an old saying about the fury of a woman scorned." She paid no
attention to him whatever.
"Maude Euston," she hissed, as though Lane had been as inarticulate as
the boxes of gold about, "you have saved your lover's
reputation--perhaps. At least the shipment is safe. But you have ruined
your father. The deal will go through. Already that has been arranged.
You may