Part 7 (1/2)
”Robbed! Robbed!” murmured Ned, blankly.
”Exactly,” answered Frank. ”Why, see, they twisted the end right off your chain! That's a regular pickpocket's trick. And as for my wallet-well, I ought to be kicked for letting them get away with it!”
”But who took it?” asked Ned.
”Those two men, of course. They were working together!”
”But they didn't know each other, Frank. Why, they were going to fight!”
”That was only their trick, Ned, to take our attention off what they were doing to us. It is an old trick. I ought to have known it. But they were good actors, and they got away with it. Oh, hang it all! How stupid I've been!”
”Not any more than I was, Frank. But it doesn't seem possible that those men were friends, after the way they talked to one another. They were so-”
”Look!” suddenly exclaimed Frank. ”Doesn't that look as if they were friends?”
He pointed across Battery Park, where, walking rapidly toward the station of the elevated, were the same two men who had so nearly, apparently, come to blows in the aquarium. The men were walking along close together.
”They don't seem very unfriendly now,” said Frank, bitterly.
Ned set off on the run toward them.
”Where are you going?” asked Frank.
”After those fellows! They shan't get away with my watch and your money without a fight.”
”I'm with you!” cried Frank. ”It's as much your money as mine, though. I had it all together. Come on, we'll see if we can catch 'em, but they've got the start of us.”
The two clever pickpockets had indeed an advantage. But Frank and Ned set off on the run, the younger lad crying loudly:
”Stop those fellows! Stop those men! They robbed us!”
His cry attracted considerable attention, and a crowd was soon following our heroes, for it does not take even such an exciting cry as ”Stop thief!” to collect a throng in busy New York.
”Stop those fellows! Stop 'em!” yelled Ned.
”They've got our money!” added Frank.
By this time the thieves were aware of the commotion behind them. They had evidently antic.i.p.ated pursuit, for at the sound of their victims'
cries, and at the sight of the crowd that had gathered to help in the chase, the two men separated.
Where one went Frank and Ned could not see, as a pillar of the elevated structure hid him from sight. But the other ran up the stairway, and Frank noticed, with despair, that a train was just pulling into the station.
”He'll get away on that,” thought Frank, ”and the other will be lost in the crowd.”
And that was exactly what happened. When Frank and Ned, somewhat out of breath, reached the elevated structure neither of the men was in sight.
But a policeman, attracted by the throng and the sight of the two excited boys, ran over from where he was standing in front of a steam-s.h.i.+p ticket office.
”What's up?” he demanded, sharply.
”Pickpockets,” explained Frank briefly. ”Two of 'em-they robbed my brother of his watch, and took my pocketbook-”