Dillon pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew a short blast sharply. Far down the road, we could hear faintly an answering bark. It came nearer.
"They're taught to obey a police whistle and nothing else," remarked Dillon, with satisfaction. "I wonder which one of the dogs that was. By the way, just keep out of sight as much as you can--get back up in our car. They are trained to worry anyone who hasn't a uniform. I'll take this dog in charge. I hope it's Cherry. She ought to be around here, if the men obeyed my orders. The others aren't keen on a scent even when it is fresh, but Cherry is a dandy and I had the man bring her up purposely."
We got back into our car and waited impatiently. Across the hills now and then we could catch the sounds of dogs scouting around here and there. It seemed as if every dog in the valley had been aroused. On the other slope of the hill from the main road we could see lights in the scattered houses.
"I doubt whether they have gone that way," commented Garrick following my gaze. "It looks less settled over here to the right of the road, in the direction of New York."
The low baying of the dog which had answered Dillon's call was growing nearer every moment. At last we could hear it quite close, at the deserted car ahead.
Cherry seemed to have many of the characteristics of the wild, prehistoric animal, among them the full, upright ears of the wild dog, which are such a great help to it. She was a fine, alert, up- standing dog, hardy, fierce, and literally untiring, of a tawny light brown like a lioness, about the same size and somewhat of the type of the smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a full brush of tail. Untamed though she seemed, she was perfectly under Dillon's control, and rendered him absolute and unreasoning obedience.
"Now, Cherry, nice dog," we heard Dillon encouraging, "Here, up here. And here."
He was giving the dog the scent from the deserted car. His voice rang out sharply in the night air, "Come on Garrick and Marshall. She's got it. I've got her on leash. Follow along, now, just a few feet behind."
Cherry was on the trail and it was a hot one. We could just see her magnificent head, narrow and dome-like, between the keen ears. She was working like a regular sleuthhound, now, too, slowly, picking up the trail and following it, baying as she went.
She was now going without a halt or falter. Nose to the ground, she had leaped from the bandit's car and made straight across a field in the direction that Garrick had suspected they would take, only a little to the west.
"This is a regular, old-fashioned man hunt," called back Dillon, as we followed the dog and himself, as best we could.
It was pitch dark, but we plunged ahead over fields and through little clumps of trees, around hedges, and over fences.
There was no stopping, no cessation of the deep baying of the dog. Cherry was one of the best and most versatile that the police had ever acquired and trained.
We came to the next crossroad, and the dog started up in the direction of the main road, questing carefully.
We had gone not a hundred feet when a dark object darted out of the bushes at the side of the road, and I felt myself unceremoniously tumbled off my feet. Garrick leaped aside, with a laugh.
"Dillon," he shouted ahead at the top of his voice, "one of the Airedales has discovered Marshall. Come back here. Lie still, Tom. The dog is trained to run between the legs and trip up anyone without a police uniform. By Jupiter--here's another one--after me. Dillon--I say--Dillon!"
The commissioner came back, laughing at our plight, and called off the dogs, who were now barking furiously. We let him get a little ahead, calling the Airedales to follow him. They were not much good on the scent, but keen and intelligent along the lines of their training, and perfectly willing to follow Dillon, who was trusting to the keen sense of Cherry.
A little further down, the fugitives had evidently left the road after getting their bearings.
"They must have heard the dogs," commented Garrick. "They are doubling on their tracks, now, and making for the Ramapo River in the hope of throwing the dogs off the scent. That's the game. It's an old trick."
We came, sure enough, in a few minutes to the river. That had indeed been their objective point. Cherry was baffled. We stuck close to Dillon, after our previous experience, as we stopped to talk over hastily what to do.
Had they gone up or down, or had they crossed? There was not much time that we could afford to lose here in speculation if we were going to catch them.
Cherry was casting backward in an instinctive endeavour to pick up the trail. Dillon had taken her across and she had not succeeded in finding the scent on the opposite bank for several hundred yards on either side.
"They started off toward the southwest," reasoned Garrick quickly. "Then they turned in this direction. The railroads are over there. Yes, that is what they would make for. Dillon," he called, "let us follow the right bank of the river down this way, and see if we can't pick them up again."
The river was shallow at this point, but full of rocks, which made it extremely hard, if not dangerous, to walk even close to the bank in the darkness. "I don't think they'd stand for much of this sort of going," remarked Garrick. "A little of it would satisfy them, and they'd strike out again."
He was right. Perhaps five minutes later, after wading in the cold water, clinging as close to the bank as we could, we came to a sort of rapids. Cherry, who had been urged on by Dillon, gave a jerk at her leash, as she sniffed along the bank.
"She has it," cried Garrick, springing up the bank after Dillon.
I followed and we three men and three dogs struck out again in earnest across country.
We had come upon a long stretch of woods, and the brambles and thick growth made the going exceedingly difficult. Still, if it was hard for us now, it must have been equally hard for them as they broke through in the first place.
At last we came to the end of the woods. The trail was now fresher than ever, and Dillon had difficulty in holding Cherry back so that the rest of us could follow. As we emerged from the shadow of the trees into the open field, it seemed as if guns were blazing on all sides of us.
We were almost up with them. They had separated and were not half a mile away, firing at random in our direction, as they heard the dogs. Dillon drew up, Cherry tugging ahead. He turned to the Airedales. They had already taken in the situation, and were now darting ahead at what they could see, if not scent.
I felt a "ping!" on my chest. I scarcely realized what it was until I heard something drop the next instant in the stubble at my feet, and felt a smarting sensation as if a sharp blow had struck me. I bent down and from the stubble picked up a distorted bullet.
"These bullet-proof coats are some good, anyhow, at a distance," remarked Garrick, close beside me, as he took the bullet from my fingers. "Duck! Back among the trees--until we get our bearings!"
Another bullet had whizzed just past his arm as he spoke.
We dodged back among the trees, and slowly skirted the edge of the wood, where it bent around a little on the flank of the position from which the continuous firing was coming.
At the edge we stopped again. We could go no further without coming out into the open, and the moon, just rising, above the trees, made us an excellent mark under such conditions. Garrick peered out to determine from just where they were firing.
"Lucky for us that we had these coats," he muttered, "or they would have croaked us, before we knew it. These are our old friends, the anaesthetic bullets, too. Even a little scratch from one of them and we should be hors de combat for an hour or two."
"Shall we take a chance?" urged Dillon.
"Just a minute," cautioned Garrick, listening.
The barking of the Airedales had ceased suddenly. Cherry was straining at her leash to go.
"They have winged the two dogs," exclaimed Garrick. "Yes--we must try it now-at any cost."
We broke from the cover, taking a chance, separating as much as we could, and pushing ahead rapidly, Dillon under his breath keeping Cherry from baying as much as possible.
I had expected a sharp fusillade to greet us as we advanced and wondered whether the coats would stand it at closer range. Instead, the firing seemed to have ceased altogether.
A quick dash and we had crossed the stretch of open field that separated us from a dark object which now loomed up, and from behind which it seemed had come the firing. As we approached, I saw it was a shed beside the railroad, which was depressed at this point some twelve or fifteen feet.
"They kept us off just long enough," exclaimed Garrick, glancing up at the lights of the block signals down the road. "They must be desperate, all right. Why, they must have jumped a freight as it slowed down for the curve, or perhaps one of them flagged it and held it up. See? The red signal shows that a train has just gone through toward New York. There is no chance to wire ahead, either, from this Ducktown siding. Here's where they stood--look!"
Garrick had picked up a handful of exploded cartridge shells, while he was speaking. They told a mute story of the last desperate stand of the gunmen.
"I'll keep these," he said, shoving them into his pocket. "They may be of some use later on in connecting to-night's doings with what has gone before."
We looked at each other blankly. There was nothing more to do that night but to return to the now deserted house in the valley where we had left Forbes in charge of Dillon's man.
Toilsomely and disgusted, we trudged back in silence.
Garrick, however, refused to be discouraged. Late as it was, he insisted on making a thorough search of the captured house. It proved to be a veritable arsenal. Here it seemed that all the new and deadly weapons of the scientific gunman had been made. The barn, turned into half garage and half workshop, was a mine of interest.
We found it unlocked and entered, Garrick flashing a light about.
"There's a sight that would do McBirney's eyes good," he exclaimed as he bent the rays of the light before us.
Before us, in the back of the barn, stood Warrington's stolen car- -at last.
"They won't plot anything more--at least not up here," remarked Garrick, bending over it.
In the house, we found Jim still with Forbes, who was now completely recovered. In the possession of his senses, Forbes' tongue which the anaesthetic gases seemed to have loosened, now became suddenly silent again. But he stuck doggedly to his story of kidnapping, although he would not or could not add anything to it. Who the kidnapper was he swore he did not know, except that he had known his face well, by sight, at the gambling joint.
I could make nothing of Forbes. But of one thing I was sure. Even if we had not captured the scientific gunman, we had dealt him a severe and crushing blow. Like Garrick, I had begun to look upon the escape philosophically.