Half opening his eyes he saw that Moriarity was standing up, nonplussed at something, and instantly he drew his revolver, and as Moriarity turned around covered him and ordered him to hold out his hands.

Staggered again the second time by seeing a ragged tramp, who a few seconds before was stretched at his feet in a drunken slumber, now erect, perfectly sober, and having the drop on him, Moriarity became more bewildered, and passively held out his hands.

The sharp click of steel handcuffs brought the dazed man to his senses, but too late.

He opened his mouth to cry for aid, but a strong hand was laid on his wind-pipe and the cry died before it was born.

The cold barrel of the revolver against his ear, and the detective’s “shut up or I’ll shoot,” was too strong an argument to combat, and Moriarity submitted to being pushed hurriedly from the room into the open air and dark night.

Chip was beginning to congratulate himself on the important capture he had made, and with his hand on his captive’s collar, and his revolver to his ear, was moving towards the center of the street, when a whistling “swish” was heard, the dull thud of a slung shot on the detective’s head followed, and, every muscle relaxed, he sank a senseless man in the dust of the road.

“Help me pick him up,” said Cummings, “and be quick about it, there’s another beak around.”

“I can’t.  I’ve got his darbies on.”

Cummings stooped down, and lifting Chip in his arms, walked rapidly down the road toward the river.

“What are you going to do with him, Jim?”

“Chuck him through the ice.  He knows too much.”

With the senseless man in his arms, Cummings hurried forward, nor paused until he reached the river bank.

The weather had been piercingly cold for a week, although no snow had fallen, and the river was frozen solid from bank to bank.

To this fact Chip owed his life.  When the train robber came to the ice, he sounded it with his heel.  It was solid and firm, not even an air hole to be seen.

Baffled in his murderous designs, he debated for a second whether it would not be the best thing to leave the detective on the ice, and let him freeze to death, but the publicity of the place, its proximity to the city, and the risk of having been shadowed by the man whom he had caught gazing through the window, caused him to think of some secure place wherein to put the senseless Chip.  He first searched the wounded man’s pockets, and, finding the key, released the handcuffs from Moriarity.

The latter, seeing Cummings hesitate, and divining the cause, said in a questioning voice: 

“Why not take him to the widow’s, Jim?”

“I would a damned sight rather put him through the ice, but its too thick for me.  Do you think we can carry him between us?”

“It would never do to let people see us two with a dead man between us.”