Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective; Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express

by A. Frank Pinkerton

  CHAPTER XII.

  A BURNING TRAP.

  For some moments Dyke Darrel stared at the face in the window withoutmoving. How came Harper Elliston in the woods at Black Hollow, when heought to have been in Chicago, according to his expressed intentionsof the previous day?

  With a sudden, wild scream the crazed Sibyl darted across the floor,and thrust her hands against the window with such violence as to burstthe glass, cutting her hands severely in the operation.

  "Hubert! Hubert! come at last!" The girl staggered back and sank in aparoxysm to the floor.

  It was indeed a startling affair, yet Dyke Darrel did not lose hispresence of mind. He hurried to the door and opened it, springingoutside quickly.

  "Elliston, I want you."

  Dyke Darrel stood by the broken window now, but the man he hadexpected to find was not there. The apparition had vanished as thoughfleeing into the upper air.

  Again the detective called the name of his friend, but withoutreceiving a reply.

  Here was a mystery indeed.

  Had that face at the window been an optical delusion, after all?

  Dyke Darrel was not superstitious, yet in the present case a queerfeeling oppressed him, and an awful misgiving entered his mind.

  "I cannot believe that the face at the window was other than that ofElliston's; and yet she called him Hubert. It must be that there is amistake somewhere, and it seems to me that the mad girl is more apt tobe deceived than I."

  Once more Dyke Darrel returned to the house.

  Sibyl Osborne lay in a dead faint on the floor. The detective beganchafing her hands at once, and loosened her corsage.

  A morocco case fell to the floor.

  It was the one containing the alleged picture of Hubert Vander. Underthe circumstances Dyke Darrel believed he was justified in examiningit.

  He opened the case, and was soon gazing at the face of a handsome man.

  Although smoothly shaved, the face of the photograph was that ofHarper Elliston!

  A horrid suspicion now took possession of the detective's brain.

  Securing case and photograph on his own person, Dyke Darrel proceededin his efforts to bring the girl back to life.

  He was soon rewarded.

  "It was Hubert."

  These were the first words uttered by the girl when she opened hereyes. Her hands were stained with blood from cuts made by the glass.

  She gazed at the blood, and grew suddenly deathly pale.

  "My God! he has tried to murder me!"

  Then she came to her feet, flinging her tangled golden hair aboutwildly, and shrank to the far corner of the room.

  "You have nothing to fear from me, Miss Osborne," said Dyke. "I amyour friend."

  "And Hubert's friend?"

  "Yes, Hubert's friend, too."

  "Who did this, then?"

  She held up her bleeding hands.

  He tried to explain, and she seemed to understand partially, so muchso as to lose her fear of the detective.

  She began to laugh soon, and the late adventure seemed to passentirely from her mind. Dyke was glad to have it so.

  "Will you not lie down and rest?" he said presently. "We have a longjourney to go in the morning."

  "Where? To Hubert?"

  "Yes, to Hubert."

  Her great blue eyes regarded him wistfully, and a throb of painentered his heart at thought of the beautiful girl's misfortune. Therewas growing in his heart a dangerous feeling, one that boded no goodto Harper Elliston, should that man prove to be as he now believed,the Hubert Vander of the mad girl's dreams.

  "Take me to Hubert now, kind sir. I know you can do so, and I shalldie if he does not keep his word with me. He will never betray a poorgirl--such a gentleman, and so good? Yes, I will do anything to pleaseyou, for it will bring dear Hubert back."

  She went up and laid both hands on the shoulders of the detective, andlooked so mournfully into his face as to touch the tenderness in hisnature deeply. His heart bled for the girl who had been the victim ofa villain's wiles.

  "Sit down and rest, Miss Osborne; we will try and find Hubert in themorning."

  "You are very kind."

  She seemed gentle and subdued now. It was the calm after the storm.Dyke saw that he was not recognized, however, and the madness was notgone from the poor girl's brain.

  It was a very sad case, indeed.

  Several stools were in the room, and some blankets hung against thefurther wall, proving that some one had lately occupied the cabin.Undoubtedly it had been used as a hiding-place for outlaws, and it wasa question in the mind of the detective as to how soon the cabin wouldbe revisited. The presence of the insane girl necessarily altered hisplans somewhat. He could not leave her to perish in the woods.

  Removing the blankets from the wall, Dyke Darrel improvised a bed forthe poor girl, and induced her to lie thereon. He then replenished thefire with some dry sticks that lay beside the stove, since the nightair was chill, and sat himself upon the floor, with his head recliningagainst the logs. Before doing this, however, he had taken theprecaution to secure the only door with a wooden latch that had beenmade for the purpose.

  The window, of course, he was unable to secure.

  It did not seem hardly safe to sleep under the circumstances, but DykeDarrel was very tired, having been without much rest for severalnights, and he was on the present occasion extremely drowsy.

  Resolving not to fall into a deep slumber, the detective sat with hisrevolver at his side, and went off into the land of dreams before hewas aware of it.

  Dyke Darrel slept heavily.

  A crackling sound outside did not reach his ear with sufficient forceto waken him. A face peered in at the window, dark and sinister, butthe sleeping detective heeded it not.

  Another face, girded about with bristling red hair, appeared for amoment, and then receded. Dark forms moved about the cabin without,and engaged in a whispered conversation.

  Presently the trees and bushes became visible, and there was a smellof burning wood in the air.

  "It is well," uttered a voice. "They will both perish like rats in atrap. Dyke Darrel, the famous detective, will never be heard of more,and that girl--well, she will be better dead than living. Come, Nick,let us go!"

  "You're sure the door's tightly fastened?" "I fixed it so Satanhimself could not open it."

  "Good."

  "Let us go!"

  "Wait. I'd like to see the curse roast."

  "No, no; that won't do. We'll come in the day time and look at thebones. This old log hut has had its day, and we could not put it to abetter use than to make a mausoleum for the man-tracker of the West."

  There was no hesitating after this.

  The two men moved swiftly away in the gloom that surrounded theburning cabin.

  A choking sensation caused the reclining man in the cabin to stiruneasily.

  Presently he opened his eyes.

  The room was full of smoke, and red tongues of flame were licking atthe logs from every side.

  Quickly Dyke Darrel came to his feet. A smell of burning garmentsfilled his nostrils. The bed on which Sibyl Osborne rested was onfire!

  "My soul! this is unfortunate," cried the detective. He was equal tothe emergency, however. Springing to the side of the still sleepinggirl, Dyke lifted her in his arms and strode to the door.

  Quickly he slipped the rude bolt and grasped the latch. It refused toyield.

  The door was firmly secured on the outside.