Page:McCulley--Black Star's camapign.djvu/88

88 terror kept them dumb until the automobiles had disappeared, and then they gave the alarm. They knew that there was but one thing in that section that would attract the master crook—and that was the vault of the old First National. The alarm went to police headquarters.

A few blocks down the street, the automobiles scattered, and one by one made their way to dark parts of the town, where the men in them took off their robes and masks, and, one by one, left the machines and darted away.

The band was scattered fifteen minutes after the vault had been looted, and one machine, a closed one, was running out along the river road toward the resort. The chauffeur drove in a leisurely manner, and the car attracted no undue attention.

At the end of the lane running to the old farmhouse, where it was pitch dark, the door of the closed car was opened, and a man sprang out. The automobile went on along the river road. The man who had jumped from it carried two canvas bags stuffed with currency. He was Landers, the Black Star's trusted lieutenant.

Landers hurried along the lane, entered the grove about the house, and took a telephone from its hiding place behind a clump of brush. He called the house, and the servant who remained on guard at the headquarters answered.

Landers gave a password, then put the telephone away and sprang to his feet. He came to the wire fence that ran around the house, but he did not touch it. He knew that it was charged with a deadly current. A light flashed in a window, and Landers