Doom On The Hill

CHAPTER XXII THE BIG SHOT

“LINE up,” ordered Nubin, with a grim laugh. “Keep them covered, you fellows. We’ve got five guns now — that’s enough to hold seven.”

Sullenly, Spike and his crew lined along the edge of the platform. Perry Nubin chuckled. This was the kind of triumph that he liked. He shot a glance toward Zach Hoyler and laughed at the stupefied look upon the agent’s face. Then, as he again glared toward Spike and the mobsmen, Nubin indulged in another bit of glory.

“Bagged you, did they, Hoyler?” he chuckled, to the agent. “Well, if this boy Vincent hadn’t been groggy, we’d have popped in sooner. I had two guns on me, but I didn’t like chancing it alone. We were over in that empty freight car, Vincent and I. He wasn’t capable of helping until just before the train came in.

“Then I slipped him one of my guns. The two of us came through the cab. Just a little surprise for these hyenas that were going to swipe one of the company’s locomotives. That’s right — keep your dukes up. When I say stick them up, I mean it—”

“All right,” came an interrupting growl. “Stick them up. All of you.”

Nubin turned his head. So did Harry and the train crew. They saw Zach Hoyler, glaring with eyes that meant business. The station agent had pulled two forty-fives from his hips. He was using the weapons to cover the train crew as well as the rescuers.

The placid station agent had become a man of fury. He looked more dangerous than Spike Balgo and all the mobsmen. Train men faltered; their revolvers clattered. Helpless by this sudden treachery, Perry Nubin and Harry Vincent were forced to drop their revolvers also.

“O.K., mugs,” barked Spike Balgo, as his henchmen hesitated. “Grab those gats. He’s the big shot.”

WHEN the gangsters gained the guns, Zach Hoyler smiled. With Nubin’s two revolvers added to the collection, only one mobster — Dingbat — was unequipped. Hoyler handed one of his smoke-wagons to the unarmed mobster.

“Them Lugers was duds, Zach,” growled Spike. “That’s why some of the mob is missing. We’d better take it on the lam, with the swag—”

“Don’t worry about that sap, Tim Forey,” interrupted the big shot. “Maybe he heard the shooting, like I did. He’d be headed for the hill.”

“But it ain’t just him. The Shadow was—”

“The Shadow?”

“Yeah. He was up there. I clipped him, though. Listen, Zach—”

The big shot made an impatient gesture. He climbed into the cab. He glared at the prisoners; then gave a brisk order to Spike Balgo.

“I’m starting this load of iron,” he informed. “We’re pulling out — in a hurry — with the swag. Get ready, Spike. Rub out these fellows; then bring the mob aboard.”

“You mean—”

“Rub them all out!” snarled Hoyler, indicating Harry, the detective and the train crew. “Do you think I want Tim Forey to know I was the brains of our outfit? He’ll think I got mine, too. Go to it. Rub them out.”

Spike Balgo grinned. His mobsters were steady — six men, holding five covered. The gorillas recognized that Zach Hoyler was the boss; but they awaited Spike’s order. The mobleader turned to his crew.

“Ready, mugs—”

Spike got no further. A startling sound had come to his ears. It was an interruption from up ahead, just beyond the platform, yet off from the glare of the locomotive’s headlight. As clearly as they had heard it on the hill, Spike and his gorillas recognized the shudder of The Shadow’s laugh!

INSTINCTIVELY, Spike turned. Others followed his example. They aimed for the source of that strident taunt. It was not the mockery itself that told them where to aim. The Shadow delivered a visible sign of his presence. It came in the form of flashes from an automatic.

Spike Balgo fired, snarling, as a mobster fell. His shot sped wide of that spurting flame in the darkness. A second gorilla sprawled. Spike aimed again. Then a winging bullet clipped the mobleader. Spike Balgo crumpled to the platform and rolled beside the wheels of the locomotive.

With single automatic, The Shadow had dispatched his shots straight into the group of mobsmen. His laugh had swung them from their prisoners; his bullets were riddling the massed thugs without mercy.

While the falling mobsters spattered hasty, hopeless shots toward their unseen foe, Harry Vincent led the flank attack. The Shadow’s withering shots had sent revolvers clattering. Harry grabbed the first gun that he found. One second later, Perry Nubin had dived for a revolver. The Shadow’s volley ended as the train crew piled upon crippled and dying mobsters. A laugh echoed from up ahead.

Just as the volley ended, the wheels of the big locomotive revolved. Snorting, the big Mogul responded to a hand that had opened the throttle. Released from the restraining train, starting from the top of a slight grade, the engine started forward with a jolt.

Wounded mobsters, half rising, were grappling with the men who had attacked them. They were trying to regain their guns. A hand caught Perry Nubin’s weapon. Harry Vincent swung his revolver to settle the fighting crook. Then he swung to see the back of the tender rolling from the platform.

“Zach Hoyler!” roared Nubin, as the train crew came free of the silenced gorillas. “He’s the big shot! Making a get-away—”

It was too late. The big shot had made his break. In the far cab, protected by boiler and tender, he was safe from bullets. He was escaping in the locomotive, carrying the box of swag. Furious, futile cries came from the balked men who would have pursued him. They could not see what was happening in the darkness up ahead.

A figure was sweeping along the embankment. The Shadow had foreseen Zach Hoyler’s move. His fusillade ended, he had sprung for the right of way, out beyond the platform. He was beside the tracks, sweeping forward, just as the cab came by. His gloved hand clutched the bar.

The big locomotive hit the bend. Its speed was sweeping as Zach Hoyler arose quickly from the seat in the cab. The big shot’s face was leering as his eyes turned toward the box that the crooks had loaded aboard. The big shot pulled the coffer toward him. He was taking no chances of losing it. Hoyler had pocketed his revolver. He was raising his hands from the iron box when he spied an unexpected form.

Swinging in from the swift-passing darkness was The Shadow. Stern eyes glinted above the muzzle of an automatic. The Shadow held the weapon in his right hand. His left arm was limp. But Zach Hoyler did not notice that. He cowered at sight of the deadly threat before him.

THE big shot deserved death. A murderer, he had used killers to aid him in his quest. Amid the madness of that jolting, swerving cab, the cowering crook saw but one chance for life. He faltered, quavering; then, with a wild cry, hurled himself into the face of death.

An attack upon The Shadow. A suicidal attempt — under almost any circumstances. But luck, for the moment, was with Zach Hoyler. He flung himself forward just as the locomotive whizzed around a bend. The steel giant straightened at the instant The Shadow was ready to press the trigger.

The Shadow’s limp left hand was clutching a bar beside the fireman’s cab. Gloved fingers yielded to the strain. As the right forefinger sought to deliver its shot, The Shadow’s form went plunging toward the tender. The automatic barked. Its hot bullet singed Zach Hoyler’s ear. Then the big shot landed on his crippled foe.

The Shadow was forced to drop the automatic. Only the clutch of his right hand saved him from destruction. Otherwise, he would have hurtled to the road bed. As Hoyler fell upon him, The Shadow grasped the crook’s throat with that lone hand.

Hoyler snapped backward, dragging The Shadow with him. The unmasked station agent was wiry; but his fingers could not loose that grip. Hoyler sprawled into the cab, The Shadow with him. Then, in desperation, the crook swung toward the steps. Catching The Shadow beneath the arms, he tried to hurl the cloaked fighter from the cab.

Two figures wavered back between cab and tender. One instant both seemed on the brink of destruction; a jolt of the Mogul hurled them into the cab; another jounce brought them out again. Freakishly, they fought this furious battle. Hoyler was frenzied; The Shadow, wounded, relied wholly upon that clutch that he would not yield.

The big shot’s eyes were bulging. He saw nothing — not even the burning gaze before him. He twisted; his body swung wide. It overbalanced at the steps. Wavering, the choking crook toppled backward into space.

Until that instant, Hoyler had clutched The Shadow with the wild strength of a drowning man. But in the instant that he was swinging clear, a sudden pressure on his wind-pipe made him shoot his hands upward for a last clutch at those throttling fingers. Then the weight of Hoyler’s body did what his hands had failed to do. It wrenched him clear of The Shadow’s deadly grasp.

As Hoyler hurtled backward, The Shadow pitched forward. The cloaked right arm swung with split-second speed. The gloved hand clutched a bar; The Shadow’s figure poised. Keen eyes, staring downward, saw Zach Hoyler’s body twisting toylike into the depths beneath a trestle.

While The Shadow clung hopelessly upon the edge of similar fate, the pounding locomotive hit the solid roadbed. One side of the big engine seemed to leap in the air as the monster took a curve at terrific speed. With that jolt, The Shadow’s body twisted helplessly. Fingers lost their grip. The black-clad form went sprawling back into the tender. Where a curve to the left would have meant The Shadow’s doom, this curve — to the right — had saved him.

Rising as the Mogul thundered on the straightaway, The Shadow pitched forward to the cab. His fingers gripped the throttle. The speed of the locomotive slackened. When the pounding wheels came to a stop, the engine was near the B and R junction.

It was then that a whispered laugh came hollow in the cab. Wounded — wearied — the master fighter had won his victory. There was triumph in the final note of mirth.