“The Secret Service isn't a police force,” said Lanson tersely. “The only excuse they would have for acting at all would be if your pet theory were correct—that the Hawk and his gang, apart from their systematised murders and robberies, were also the ones who have been flooding the country with those counterfeit ten-dollar notes. You had no actual proof to offer, and Washington evidently hasn't felt quite so sure about it as you have. However, there's no use discussing that to-night. If Birks shows up, all right; if he doesn't—well, I don't see that he could make any difference one way or the other now.”
There was silence for a moment, then Lanson spoke again.
“What worries me as much as anything,” he said slowly, “is the express company making a shipment of money at the same time—forty thousand dollars in the car's safe. Of course, it's logical enough with a half million to guard anyway, but it's an added incentive to those, devils, that's all. A half million In raw gold isn't any easy thing to pick up and walk off with, and there's more than an even chance that the Wire Devils might pass it up on that account; but with banknotes alone in so large an amount——”
“If they know about it!” interrupted MacVightie brusquely. “And it's not likely they do! You can't send a heavily guarded express car on from the coast and keep it mum that gold is going through, especially when the papers print pictures of the cases being swung out of the steamer's hold on arrival from Alaska—but the other's different. I'm not banking on them passing up the gold on any account, though they may, at that; but in any case they'll be welcome to open the safe now, won't they?”
Again there was an instant's silence; and the Hawk now, as though fearful of losing a word that might be spoken, strained forward closer still to the side of the window.
“Yes, that's right!” Lanson laughed now in a grimly humorous way. “It's in the biggest case of all! Yes, I guess it's all right, MacVightie; anyway, another hour or two will tell the story. The shift should have been made at Mornleigh without any trouble, and the Limited will come through here without a thing in the express car except the guards! If they hold her up anywhere on the division, that's all they'll find—the guards, and one of your posses. Yes, it ought to work.” Lanson's voice took on a curiously monotonous drone, as though he were checking over the details in his own mind, and unconsciously doing so audibly. “The Limited takes water at Mornleigh, and No. 18 always takes the siding there to let the Limited pass, so there's nothing in that to arouse suspicion. In the darkness, with the door of the Limited's express car only a foot or so away from the door of No. 18'. baggage car, and a picked crew to transfer the gold, I don't see how there could be any 'leak.' The Limited pulls in here with its guarded express car—everything looks just as those Wire Devils would expect it to look—and they know the gold left the coast on that train, and in that car. Yes, I think we win to-night. If they hold up the Limited they'll catch a Tartar, and without any risk on our part as far as the gold is concerned. How many men in the posse scattered through the cars on that train?”