CHAPTER XIV.
ON HARLEM BRIDGE.
"Upstairs with you!" gasped Harry. "We can't get out the front door."
Old King Brady saw that the girl had collided with the four smugglers andthey all fell in a heap upon the parlor floor.
The detective rushed up the stairs.
On the top landing Old King Brady panted:
"Unlock these handcuffs!"
Harry obeyed in an instant.
Just then the gang came rushing from the parlor, and were about to ascendthe stairs when Harry opened fire on them.
Bang! Bang! Bang! went three shots.
He was a dead shot and could have killed those desperadoes had he beeninclined to. But he merely shot to wound them.
The yells of pain that followed showed how true his aim was.
Two of the Canadians were hit.
A stampede among them ensued.
Back to the parlor they rushed, swearing and groaning, and the detectiveslaughed at them, for the tables were now turned.
The Bradys had the advantage.
At the head of those stairs they could have held an army at bay.
Old King Brady got his handcuffs from his wrists, put them in his pocketand withdrew his own revolver.
"By thunder!" he muttered. "I'm glad you made that dash, Harry."
"We would now be helpless prisoners if I hadn't."
Just then several lodgers stuck their heads out of the doors of theirrooms, alarmed at the shots and yells.
Seeing the two armed detectives, they shouted with alarm, withdrew into therooms, banged their doors shut and some rushed to the windows, flung themopen and screamed:
"Murder! Murder! Help! Police!"
The cries startled the neighborhood.
For a moment everyone was in an uproar. A big crowd gathered before thehouse and several policemen came running to the scene from differentdirections, looking for trouble.
A suspicious silence ensued down on the parlor floor.
"Do you suppose they've skipped?" asked Harry.
"I'm going to venture down and see," replied his partner.
They dashed down the stairs, holding their pistols in readiness for use,and ran into the parlor.
It was empty.
Passing back into Clara's room, they found it vacant.
"Gone!" exclaimed Harry.
"Not by the front," replied his partner. "The door and windows are locked."
"Let's try the basement."
Down they ran, nervous over the disappearance of the smugglers and in thedining-room found the mulatto girl Hattie.
She sat in terror, with her face buried in her hands, and when she saw themrush in with drawn pistols, she shrieked:
"Oh, don't kill me! Don't kill me!"
"Where did that Savoy girl and the four men go?" sternly asked Old KingBrady, glancing around the room.
"Out the back door."
"Into the yard?"
"Yes, sir."
The police began pounding on the front doors just as the Bradys rushed outinto the rear yard.
Just as they emerged. Harry saw the figure of Jean disappearing over theback fence and pointing at it, he cried excitedly:
"There they go!"
"After them!" roared Old King Brady.
They rushed across the yard.
Over the fence they climbed like a couple of cats, and leaping into theyard of an adjoining tenement, they ran for the hall.
Blood spots on the flags left a plain trail.
The wounded men had dropped it in their flight, and the detectives easilytraced the stains through the hall into the street.
Hearing wild yells, they saw a baker's wagon dashing along at a furiousgallop, and saw Clara and her friends in it.
The owner of the wagon was racing out of his store.
A small boy had told him that a gang had stolen his horse and wagon and itwas his yells the detectives heard.
He was a fat German and he paused in the middle of the street, wildlywaving his arms and crying in despairing tones:
"_Ach Gott!_ I vos robbed! Dey shtole mein horse und vagon!"
The Bradys started off on a run after the vehicle.
Block after block was covered until the wagon, far in advance of thedetectives, swung around the corner into West Broadway.
Here, panting and foam-covered, the horse was reined in.
The fugitives alighted.
"We are going to lose them now," groaned Old King Brady.
"I don't see why," returned Harry, breathlessly.
"Don't you see they're going for the elevated?"
"Oh, gee, so they are!"
The five rushed up the stairs on the downtown side, just as a train pulledinto the station.
After them ran the Bradys, hoping fervently that they would miss the train.But they were doomed to disappointment.
When the detectives reached the platform, the train was steaming away andthey saw their enemies in the last car.
"That's the end of them!" said Old King Brady.
"Can't we have them headed off by telephoning down to the Battery station?"eagerly asked the boy.
"Might try."
Down the street they went and as there was a public telephone near by, theysent the message down.
Then they took the next train down.
The train on which the fugitives stopped was yet at the Battery station andthey found the gateman of the last car and Harry asked him:
"Did you notice where the four men in black, and a hatless girl of sixteenwho got on at the Bleecker street station alighted?"
"Oh, yes. I remember them. They only rode one station and got off at Grandstreet."
This reply gave the Bradys a shock.
"We are baffled!" exclaimed Old King Brady in disgust.
"They're a shrewd set," Harry added.
They spoke to the stationmaster too, but he said they had not come down tothe Battery and repeated what the gateman said.
The Bradys rode back to Grand street.
Here they made careful and endless inquiries.
All the information they could get came from the boy who had the news-standon the corner.
He had seen the fugitives.
They had boarded a Grand street car going eastward.
He did not notice the number of the car, but thought the officers wouldfind it down at the ferry.
Hiring a cab they were driven fast.
Reaching the ferry, several blue cars were found.
Inquiry among the conductors followed, and they presently discovered theone on whose car Clara and the spies had ridden.
He informed them that the fugitives alighted at the Bowery with transfertickets on the uptown side.
Back went the Bradys to the Bowery.
"If we stick to their trail long enough," commented Harry, "we may finallylocate them. But it's going to be a hard job."
"We'll beat the car they're in by taking the elevated," said the olddetective as he dismissed the cab. "Up at the stables we may learn whichcar passed Grand street quarter of an hour ago."
"It's worth while trying."
So up they went.
When they reached the stable, they were disgusted to find that the carswhich passed the corner of Grand and the Bowery about the time thesmugglers boarded one, were all gone ten minutes before.
But one more course was open to the detectives.
That was to proceed to Harlem bridge on the elevated and make anothereffort to head off the fugitives at the terminal of the road.
Once more they started.
Each defeat whetted their appetite more to capture the fugitives.
The elevated cars passed many of the surface cars, and when the 129thstreet station was reached, they went down to the street.
Just as they were about to start for the surface cars, to begin makinginquiries, Harry glanced over at the Harlem bridge.
To his surprise and joy he saw Clara and the four spies hurrying over thestruc
ture on foot.
"There they are at last!" he cried, pointing at the party.
Old King Brady was startled.
He saw them the next moment.
"Come on!" he cried.
Off on a run they went, and passed out on the bridge.
The fugitives were half way over the structure and two of the men who werewounded in the legs were limping painfully.
Rushing up behind them noiselessly, Harry and his partner each grasped aman by the neck.
The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler; Or, Working for the Custom House Page 14