Page:Weird Tales v01n02 (1923-04).djvu/188

Rh by the robbers. When Hunky and I came up be was a puzzled man.

"Turnips!" he exploded. "A whole carload of 'em! Must be something else in here."

The three of us tugged and hauled for a quarter of an hour, while a brakeman held a lantern for us to see by. Our efforts were finally rewarded by something which we were not surprised to find by that time.

Yes, indeed. Case after case of whisky! That was the cargo those birds were after.

T WAS plain enough now. The gang was part of an organized whisky-ring engaged in smuggling whisky from Canada into the United States. They had, through the connivance of confederates, secreted the liquor at the point of embarkation beneath a larger load of turnips. The car would have reached its destination and been secretly unloaded by members of the gang waiting for it, possibly in the big train yards at night.

Then had come the wreck. Perhaps someone in the employ of the road had wired the gang. Anyway, they had learned of it and hustled to the scene desperate on getting the liquor.

The connection must have been between the old deserted house, which we had stumbled on by mistake, and the wreck. Evidently they had planned to carry the stuff in cases to the deserted house and thence over

Rh

BRINGS YOU THIS FINE GUN! ORDER No. 3713