eir hands,
while they watched the looting of their bank and post office. And there
had been other occasions as bad as that one.

Sometimes the yeggmen traveled in small groups; sometimes they worked
in twos or threes, but often they went about in large bands which had
been known to include as many as fifty or even more.

Had the outrages been confined to one community the inhabitants would
have risen in their might and, by organizing vigilance committees, could
have driven them out--possibly. But they were not confined to
communities at all; they extended all along the line of the railroad,
and the descent of the robbers seemed always to have been arranged far
ahead--and perfectly planned by a master mind at that.

These descents always happened when it was known that there were large
sums of money, either in the banks that were robbed, or when the post
offices that were broken open were better provided than usual with cash.

At every place where there was a siding along the line of the railroad,
freight cars had been broken open, and denuded of their contents; and
this often happened when there was one or more night watchmen on hand
for the purpose of preventing that very thing.

But in each case the watchman had been overpowered, and either beaten
into insensibility or maimed--and in at least one instance--killed.

And hence it was that the railroad company was willing to pay well for
the apprehension of the chief of these marauders.

All of this information Nick Carter gleaned before he formed any
definite plans for his campaign.

Roughly speaking, there was a stretch of main line of the railroad over
which, or rather along which, the yeggmen seemed to be most active. This
principal thoroughfare for their nefarious trade was approximately five
hundred miles long; and it was here where the greatest and the most
persistent outrages were committed.

There were branches of the line, too, along which they worked; but off
the main line the organization seemed to lose some of its power for
concentration of force.

After Nick had pieced together all the information that could be gleaned
without being actually at the scene of the trouble, he called his three
assistants together in consultation with him. For he had determined to
make use of all of them in this case. Indeed, that was the only method
by which he believed that he could entirely succeed at it.

To them he related the circumstance of his connection with