ANOTHER SURPRISE.
Bunce was accepting his hard luck with all the complaisance he could muster. His pursuit of the mandarin had led him into difficulties undreamed of, but he still indulged a hope that the resourceful Grattan might come to his aid. He went into the barn, and recoiled a little as a savage growl struck on his ears. Tige was still guarding Sam Wing.
"Sit down," said Matt, to Bunce, nodding toward some bags of ground feed lying on the barn floor. "The dog won't molest you; he's looking after Sam Wing."
Bunce, plainly uncomfortable, seated himself, watching Tige warily.
The instant Tsan Ti came through the barn door and saw Sam Wing, a cry of rage burst from his lips, and he flew at his treacherous servant. Matt grabbed the angry mandarin and held him back.
"That won't do, Tsan Ti," said Matt. "Sit down and take things calmly. There's your money," and he pointed to the alligator-skin pouch which lay by the wagon tongue. "Sam Wing turned it over to me. You'd better count it and make sure it's all there. Hereafter, it would be wise for you to take care of your money yourself."
Tsan Ti glared at Sam Wing, then stooped down, and recovered the pouch. The receptacle was filled with soggy banknotes, and, while the mandarin was fingering them over, he kept up a running fire of talk in Chinese. The condemnation must have been of the most scathing sort, for the wretched Sam Wing shivered as he listened.
Presently Sam Wing himself began to talk. He spoke at length, and must have been acquainting the mandarin with the dread fact that the Eye of Buddha was lost, for, suddenly, Tsan Ti dropped the alligator-skin pouch and the wet bills and reeled back against the barn wall. His eyes became glassy and his face turned white.
Presently he sank down on the barn floor, listless and staring.
"Has he told you about the ruby, Tsan Ti?" asked Matt, his pity for the mandarin rising paramount to any other feeling he may have cherished against him.
Tsan Ti did not answer; in fact, he did not seem to hear. He had suffered a blow that paralyzed his faculties.
"Blow me tight!" breathed Bunce, astonished. "Hasn't he got the ruby?"
"Didn't Grattan search him?" returned Matt.
"Ah, he looked through his pockets and his sandals, and even tried to find the Eye of Buddha in his queue, but it wasn't there. For all that, we thought the chink knowed where the stone was an' could be made to tell."
"He knew where it was—Sam Wing had it."
"Hocused it?"
"Stole it—then lost it!"
"Shiver me!" exclaimed Bunce, aghast. "Then Tsan Ti ain't got the ruby, an' Grattan won't never be able to put hands on it!"
"It's gone for good," answered Matt. "Now you can see, Bunce, just how much good Grattan's trickery and double-dealing has benefited him. You and he stole the ruby from the Honam joss house and brought it to America; Tsan Ti followed you, under orders from the regent of China to recover the idol's eye or else to strangle himself with the yellow cord; the ruby was recovered for Tsan Ti here in the Catskills, but Grattan kept up his wild scheming and committed one piece of lawless villainy after another in his attempts to get the ruby away from Tsan Ti; now we're at the end of the whole business, and neither Grattan nor Tsan Ti has the ruby, or will ever have it."
Just at that moment the farmer came into the barn.
"I got them machines where they'll be safe," he announced, "an'—— Gosh all Whittaker! What's the fat Chinaman doin'?"
Matt turned to look at Tsan Ti. He had the yellow cord around his throat, rove into a running bowline, and was pulling at the loose end.
The king of the motor boys hurried to him and jerked his hands from the cord with a quick movement.
"That will do, Tsan Ti!" cried Matt sternly. "Can't you be a man? You're not going to strangle yourself while I'm around!"
"There is no hope for Tsan Ti," mumbled the mandarin. "The august decree of my regent—may his years be many and glorious!—calls for my quick dispatch."
Matt pulled the cord from the mandarin's neck.
"Listen, Tsan Ti," said he; "don't give up until you know the case is really hopeless. We can go back over the ground Sam Wing covered while I was chasing him, and it is possible we can find the ruby."
"Not possible, deluded friend," answered the mandarin. "The contemptible Canton dog says the gem may be in the water, or in many other places where its recovery is out of the question. The blandishments of hope pale into the heavy darkness of my certain destruction. Present me with the cord, I beg of you. Tsan Ti, mandarin of the red button, is not afraid to join his exalted ancestors in the country dear to true believers."
"Wrong in the upper story, ain't he?" put in the farmer.
"In a way," replied Matt.
"He sure had himself goin' with that piece o' yellow string. Them heathens is queer, anyway."
"I'll not give you this cord, Tsan Ti," declared Matt, "until I can look over the course followed by Sam Wing and make an attempt to find the ruby."
"There are other means for performing the quick dispatch," said Tsan Ti calmly. "I prefer the cord; it is an honor to use an instrument direct from the regent's hands; but, if the cord is not at hand, other means will avail me, ungenerous youth."
Matt studied the mandarin for a few moments. In his eyes he read determination. Matt, matter-of-fact American lad that he was, could not understand the Oriental custom now exemplified by Tsan Ti—he could not understand the thousands of years' usage which had made the custom part of a Chinaman's faith, and he had nothing but contempt for the exhibition the mandarin was making of himself.
"Get the rope, please," said Matt to the farmer. "I think we'll use it."
The farmer brought the rope, and Matt, with his assistance, tied Tsan Ti's hands and feet. The mandarin yielded passively.
"This will not serve," was all he said; "the time for my dispatch will arrive, in spite of you."
"If you keep on acting in this foolish way, Tsan Ti," answered Matt, "I'll lose all the respect I ever had for you. Face the music, can't you? There's no merit in throwing up your hands and quitting just because you have run into a streak of hard luck."
"You don't understand, ignorant one."
"I understand, fast enough, that you can't hurt yourself while you're tied up."
He turned away.
"Do you think Tige can watch two prisoners?" he asked of the farmer.
"Yew bet he can," answered the farmer enthusiastically, "two 'r a dozen. Why, that dorg's quicker'n chain lightnin'."
"Then," went on Matt, "just give Tige to understand that he's to watch the sailor, as well as that other Chinaman."
The farmer spoke to the dog, and the animal took up a position between Sam Wing and Bunce. The sailor tried to draw back, but Tige stopped the movement with a savage snarl and a half move as though he would bite.
"Keelhaul me!" cried Bunce. "Is this what ye call treatin' a feller white? Why, I wouldn't treat a Hottentot swab like this!"
"I've got you, Bunce," said Matt grimly, "and, no matter what becomes of Grattan and Pardo, the law won't be cheated entirely."
"What've I done that ye can send me to the brig for? Tell me that!"
"Isn't the theft of the ruby enough to send you to jail?"
"That happened in Chiny, an' we're in America now."
"Well, putting that aside, there remains the criminal work you did at the Catskill garage last night. You can be sent to the penitentiary for that, Bunce."
That was a blow that left Bunce gasping.
"Grattan done that," he cried; "it wasn't me planned it."
"You helped Grattan, Bunce, and you were recognized by the night man. There's a clear case against you, and you'll deserve all the punishment you receive."
"Say," said Bunce, with a sudden inspiration, "if ye'll let me go, I'll take ye to that pocket where McGlory is! I'll do more'n that, sink me if I won't! You let me slip my hawse and slant away clear o' these hills, an' I'll help ye git McGlory away from Grattan an' Pardo. What d'ye say, mate? It ain't a job ye could do alone, an' it ain't a place ye can find onless I show the way. What's the word?"
"I've had enough experience with you, Bunce," returned Matt, "to know that you're not to be depended on. You'd play some treacherous trick that would——"
Here a voice—a very familiar voice—came floating through the open barn door.
"Whoop-ya! Any one around? Show up, somebody, and tell me where I am and how to go to get to the spring on the trail from Catskill to Gardenville! Whoo-ee!"
"Woods is full o' strangers to-day, seems like!" exclaimed the farmer.
Matt bolted past him through the door, then halted, and gazed spellbound at a blue automobile with Joe McGlory in the driver's seat.
This might have been considered the culminating surprise of the day's events. And it was a mutual surprise, too, judging by the way McGlory acted.
Leaning over the steering wheel, the cowboy gazed like one in a trance.
"Matt!" he shouted at last, "is this a dream, or the real thing? Say something, you old hardshell. Sufferin' tenterhooks! I can't tell how nervous you make me."
BAITING A TRAP.
"Is that the New York man's automobile, Joe?" asked Matt, "the one that was stolen from Martin's garage last night?'
"It's the one, pard," jubilated the cowboy. "I've come through a-smoking with it from that place where Grattan had me pocketed with the mandarin. It's queer I stopped here, although I'm off my bearings, haven't the least notion where I am, and this is the first farmhouse I've seen for a dozen miles; but it won't seem quite so queer when I tell you that I saw those machines leaning against the corncrib, and that the familiar look of 'em brought me in to stir up the natives and ask a few questions."
McGlory pointed toward a corncrib off at the rear of the barn. The two motor cycles were leaning against the structure, just where the farmer had left them.
"I see," said Matt.
"Are those motor cycles the ones that belong to Martin, that were stolen from us and that we bled a hundred and fifty apiece for?"
"They're the ones."
"Well, now!" chuckled McGlory, "what sort of a day's work would you call this, pard? We get back the stolen automobile and both motor cycles. I'm ready to hear the whistle blow."
"There's something else to be done before we finish this piece of work, Joe."
"Tell me about it."
"Sam Wing is in the barn, there——"
"Whoop! Then youdidget the kibosh on him, after all!"
"And Tsan Ti," proceeded Matt, "and Bunce."
"Better and better; but I'd almost guessed that just from seeing the motor cycles. What have you been doing since we went two different ways from the spring?"
The king of the motor boys sketched rapidly the main points of Sam Wing's flight and the pursuit, following with the blockade of the road and the capture of Bunce.
"And Tsan Ti is in the barn this minute," finished Matt, "roped hand and foot to keep him from taking his own life on account of the lost ruby. If possible, I'd like to go over the course of Wing's flight and look for the Eye of Buddha."
"Might as well look for a nickel in the Pacific Ocean," scowled McGlory.
"It looks like a hopeless case, I'll admit, but I can't leave the poor old mandarin without trying to do something for him."
"You're too easy with the crafty old heathen."
"You'd be sorry for him, too, Joe, if you could see what a plight he's in."
"He was as hard-looking a sight as I ever saw when he fell into Grattan's clutches a few hours ago. If you're bound to go rainbow-chasing after the Eye of Buddha, why, of course I'm in on the deal. We'll have to be about it, I reckon, while we've got daylight to help."
"We can use this car for a part of the work. Wing came along the road from that direction."
Matt pointed as he spoke.
"Why," said McGlory, "I came from that direction myself. I don't reckon it's safe to go back that way."
"Not safe?" echoed Matt. "Why isn't it safe?"
"Mainly for the reason, pard, that Grattan and Pardo are trailing this car. They didn't like to lose it. That hole through the back"—and McGlory turned to point it out—"was made by a bullet that Grattan sent after me. I've been traveling roads that automobiles never took before, and the marks this car left would make easy trailing."
"Do you know positively that Grattan and Pardo are following the car?"
"Well, yes, if you want to pin me down. One of the electric terminals got loose when I was a short distance away from the pocket, and I had a time finding out what was wrong. While I was groping around, I saw Grattan and Pardo chasing toward me. They were a good ways off, but if you want a picture of a chap in a hurry you ought to've had a snapshot of me! I was lucky enough to find the loose wire just in time to screw it to the post, crank up, and fly. The tinhorns were within a hundred feet of the blue car when we jumped away on the high speed. And that's how I know Grattan and Pardo are after me. Besides, now that the motor cycles are gone, those fellows need the blue car to help them make a dash out of the hills. Jump in, though, if you want to take chances, and we'll go looking for that hoodoo ruby."
But Matt was not in so much of a hurry now. Leaning against the side of the car, he fell into a brown study.
"What's to pay?" asked McGlory. "Something else on your mind?"
"Well, yes," laughed Matt; "I'd like to use you and the blue car in baiting a trap."
"Oh, well, I don't mind. Grattan used me for bait in trapping Tsan Ti, so I'm getting used to it. But what sort of a trap is it?"
"If Grattan and Pardo are really following you," said Matt, "why couldn't you go back down the road, stop the car, and pretend you had a breakdown?"
"Bee-yu-ti-ful!" rapped out McGlory. "I could do all that, pard, and Grattan and Pardo could show up and gobble me, blue car and all. Fine! Say, you're most as good a hand at planning as the mandarin."
"But suppose," supplemented Matt, "that two or three fellows were hid in the tonneau of the car and that they jumped out at the right moment and made things interesting for Grattan and Pardo?"
McGlory lifted his clinched fist and brought it down emphatically on the steering wheel.
"Speak to me about that! I might have known you had something up your sleeve. I think it would work, pard, but who's to hide in the tonneau? You, for one, of course, but who else?"
"The farmer who lives here seems to be rather handy and to have plenty of courage, and he's got a bulldog that's a whole team and something to spare. I guess the farmer, and I, and the dog will be enough."
"Keno! Trot out the Rube and the kyoodle and we'll slide back down the road with a chip on our shoulder."
Matt went into the barn for a talk with the farmer. He listened attentively while Matt gave him a résumé of events and a synopsis of the plan he had evolved.
"I'm with yew," cried the farmer, slapping his hands, "but yew'll have to wait till I tell Josi' where I'm goin'. If we take the dorg away from the barn, Josi' ought to watch these fellers till we git back."
"We'll put ropes on the sailor and that other Chinaman," said Matt, "but it will be a good idea to have them watched, just the same."
The farmer got some spare halters and helped with the tying. When it was finished, he hurried away to find "Josi'" and to tell him what he was to do. In ten minutes he was back, bringing a long, spare individual clad in a "wamus" and overalls.
"Here's the fellers yew're to watch, Josi'," said thefarmer, waving a hand toward Tsan Ti, Bunce, and Sam Wing. "Don't yew let 'em git away, nuther."
"If they git away, by jing," answered Josi', pushing up the sleeves of his wamus, "they'll have to walk over me to do it. You be kerful, Zeke Boggs. 'Pears mighty like you had the hot end o' this job."
"Don't yew fret none about me," answered Boggs. "I wasn't born yestiddy."
He called the dog, and he, and Matt, and Tige left the barn and crawled into the tonneau of the blue car.
"How far down the road am I to go, pard?" queried McGlory, getting out to turn over the engine.
"Oh, a mile or two," answered Matt.
"Maybe there'll not be anything doing," said Joe, as he climbed back to his seat. "Grattan and Pardo may have become discouraged, and given up the trail. Even if they hung to it, we'll have to wait some time for them."
"They'll come," said Matt. "I never had a day pan out so much excitement as this one has given us. Events have been crowding our way so thick and fast that they're not going to stop until we have a chance at Grattan and Pardo."
"I'm agreeable," expanded McGlory. "Anything from a fight to a foot race goes withme. After the way I starred myself by getting lost in this little bunch of toy mountains, I'm hungry to square myself by doing something worth while."
"You've squared yourself already by getting back the blue car," returned Matt.
"Not so you could notice. Tsan Ti helped me along with that move. The chance jumped up when I wasn't expecting it, and hit me square between the eyes. Anyone could have turned that trick."
McGlory was pushing the blue car back along the road at a lively clip. Matt stood up to look ahead, in the vain hope of getting track of the red jewel.
"I know what you're looking for, pard," remarked the cowboy, "and you're not going to find it. A good many peculiar things have happened to-day, and no mistake; but picking that red stone out of a couple of square miles of country would be too uncommon. Good luck won't strain itself to that extent. Think we're far enough?"
"This will do," answered Matt, and McGlory halted the blue car in about the loneliest spot in the Catskills.
There was a marsh on one side of the road, bordered with stunted trees and matted bushes. On the other side was the timber.
"Maybe," suggested McGlory, "I'd better head the car t'other way? That's how I was going when Grattan and Pardo saw me last, and——"
He cut short his remarks abruptly and peered off along the road.
"What's the matter, Joe?" asked Matt.
"Car coming," was the reply. "I don't reckon many cars take this road, and it's possible Grattan and Pardo borrowed one from somebody who wasn't looking and are using it to hunt for the blue automobile. Lie low, Matt, you, and Boggs, and the dog. Here's where I begin to pretend—listen while I tinker."
"If we have a fight," said Boggs, as he and Matt crouched down in the tonneau, "by gum, I want yew to let me do my share."
"We'll all have plenty to do, Mr. Boggs," answered Matt, well pleased with the farmer's spirit, "if those fellows who are coming are the ones we're after. Don't make a move, though, and don't let Tige loose until I give the word."
Silence fell over those in the tonneau. McGlory could be heard pottering around with a wrench, and presently the hum of the approaching car could be heard.
"I don't like the looks of things," called the cowboy, in a guarded tone, from the front of the blue car.
"Why not?" asked Matt.
"Can't tell yet. You fellows stay where you are and keep mum."
The noise of the other automobile had grown to proportions which proved that it was almost at hand. McGlory said something, but it was impossible for Matt or Boggs to hear what it was.
The other car stopped so close to the blue automobile that the mud guards almost scraped. Matt, from the depths of the tonneau, caught sight of a high-powered roadster with two business-like appearing men on the seats. But they were not Grattan and Pardo.
"That's the car, sure as shooting!" declared one.
"Get out, Gridly," said the second man, "and look at the number."
Gridly jumped down from the roadster and hurried to the rear of the touring car.
"We've won out, Banks!" he called. "The number's eighty-one-two-sixty-three."
"What's the matter?" inquired Matt, rising in the tonneau and looking out from under the top.
"Matter?" grinned Banks. "Nothin' much, only I'm the sheriff and all you fellows are arrested. You stole this car from Martin's garage in Catskill last night. Jest be peaceable, and everythin' 'll be fine: but try to make trouble and there'll be warm doings."
"Sufferin' Jonah!" laughed McGlory. "Wouldn't this rattle your spurs, Matt?"
HOW THE TRAP WAS SPRUNG.
Matt remembered that Martin had said the New York man who owned the stolen car had sent telegrams and telephone messages all through the hills. Perhaps, ifthere was any wonderment to be indulged in, it should have been because McGlory had escaped the officers as long as he had.
The king of the motor boys opened the tonneau door and stood on the footboard, facing Banks.
"You've made a slight mistake, Mr. Banks," said Matt.
"From your point of view," answered the sheriff, "I guess maybe I have. There happens to be five hundred dollars in this for me an' Gridly, though, and we ain't takin' your word for it that there's a mistake. This car answers the description of the one that was stolen, right down to the number."
"This is the car, all right," proceeded Matt, "but we're not the fellows who stole it."
"Caught with the goods," jeered Gridly, "an' then deny the hull job! Nervy, but it won't wash."
"Where'd the car fall into your hands if you ain't the ones that stole it?" asked Banks.
"My chum, there, got it away from the thieves."
"Oh, that's what your chum did, eh?"
"You're to get five hundred dollars for recovering the car?" said Matt.
"Andcapturin' the thieves," returned Banks.
"Was one of the thieves supposed to be a sailor with a green patch over one eye?"
Gridly and Banks must have experienced something of a shock. For a moment they gazed at each other.
"Somethin'wassaid in that telegraft about a sailor with a green patch over one eye, Banks," observed Gridly.
"That's a fact," admitted Banks reflectively. "But we've got the car and there ain't no sailor with it. I guess that part of the telegram must have been a mistake."
"There's no mistake about it," said Matt. "We have captured the sailor, and he's at the farm of Mr. Boggs, here."
Matt drew to one side so the officers could see the farmer.
"Well, if it ain't Boggs!" exclaimed Banks, startled.
"Zeke Boggs an' his brindled bulldog!" added Gridly.
"What the young feller says is straight goods, Banks," declared the farmer. "The sailor with the patch over his eye is up to my place in the barn. Josi's watchin' 'im."
"What're you doin' here? That's what I want to know,' said Banks.
"Come out to help these young fellers spring a trap."
"What sort of a trap?"
"Why," put in Matt, "a trap to catch two pals of the sailor—one of them is the man who helped the sailor take this car from Martin's garage."
Banks helped himself to a chew of tobacco.
"Jest for the sake of bein' sociable, an' gettin' at the nub of this thing," he remarked, "you might tell us who you are, young feller, an' what you happen to be doing in this part of the hills?"
"My name's King, Matt King——"
"Otherwise," cut in McGlory, "Motor Matt. Maybe you've heard of Motor Matt?"
"I have," said Banks; "he's been doing things around Catskill for the last few days."
The sheriff passed his shrewd eyes over the king of the motor boys as he balanced himself on the footboard. There was nothing in the lad's appearance to indicate that he was not telling the truth.
"I'm not doubting your word at all, young feller," remarked Banks, "but I'll feel a lot more like believing you if you tell me about this trap you're arrangin' to spring."
Matt told how McGlory had run away from the pocket, and how Grattan and Pardo had followed him. He finished by describing the manner in which Grattan and Pardo were to be lured into the vicinity of the blue automobile and captured.
"That sounds like a play of Motor Matt's, right enough," said Gridly.
"Anyhow, I don't think it'll work," announced Banks.
"Why not?" asked Matt.
"You can't be sure Grattan and Pardo are follerin' the car; an', if theyarefollerin', maybe they've got off the track."
"That's possible, of course; but the chances for success, though slight, are worth waiting and working for, don't you think? If the plan fails, we'll be out nothing but our time."
"Two boys, a farmer, an' a dog ain't enough to make the play if it should come to a showdown," declared Banks. "Gridly and I will be in on it, I guess. I'll take this machine up the road and tuck it away in the bushes, then I'll come back, an' Gridly an' I will crowd into the tonneau with the rest of you. If the game works, I'll be capturin' one of the men I'm arter; if it don't work, then, as you say, all we'll be out is a little time. I'll be back in a minute. Pull the crank, Gridly."
The roadster flashed up the road, and Matt could see Banks forcing the machine into the bushes at the roadside. In a little while the sheriff was back at the touring car.
"The back part of that machine will be a little crowded," said he, "but we'll have to stand it if we make the play you've laid out, Motor Matt."
"Suppose you and Gridly get into the tonneau," suggested Matt, "and leave Boggs, and me, and the dog to hide in the bushes at the edge of the marsh? We'll be close enough to help if anything happens, and won't interfere with you if you should have to work in a hurry."
There remained in the sheriff's mind a lingering suspicion that this idea was launched with some ulterior purpose in view, but a look into Motor Matt's face dispelled the unworthy thought.
"That's a good suggestion," said Banks. "Get in here with me, Gridly."
"You'd better turn the car around, Joe," went on Matt, as soon as the officers were in the car.
McGlory started the engine and threw on the reverse, backing the blue car until he had it headed the other way.
"Now we're ready for whatever's to come," said Banks.
"And it can't come too quick, either," supplemented Gridly.
Matt, Boggs, and the dog retired to the edge of the marsh and made themselves comfortable among the bushes.
The king of the motor boys was well pleased with the way the encounter with the sheriff had turned out. There had been, for a few moments, the promise of a serious complication, but Banks had proved reasonable and there was nothing more to worry about.
Matt's hope now was that Grattan and Pardo would fall into the trap that was laid for them. If they did, the motor boys' account with the unscrupulous Grattan would be settled for all time. They would always have some regrets on account of the poor old mandarin, but after they had looked carefully over the course of Sam Wing's flight, they would have done everything possible to help Tsan Ti.
"By gum," remarked Boggs, while he and Matt were waiting, "I never knowed yew was Motor Matt!"
"I didn't suppose you'd ever heard of Motor Matt, Mr. Boggs," answered the young motorist.
"I take a Gardenville paper, and that had a lot to say about what yew been doin' down to Catskill. Yew've given things quite a stirrin' up in that town. Is that fat chink the one that come from Chiny to get holt of the idol's eye?"
"He's the one."
"Well, I'm s'prised; I am, for a fact! Jest to think all this took place right on my farm! Josi' won't hardly know what to think, and the——"
"Quiet in there, pard!" came the low voice of McGlory. "They're coming."
"Grattan and Pardo?" returned Matt.
"Sure, and they walk as though they were tired. Now I've got to rustle around and pretend to be so busy I don't see 'em."
The cowboy opened the hood and fell to tinkering with the wrench. All was quiet in the tonneau, but there was a load of danger for Grattan and Pardo in that blue car had they but known it!
Peering from the bushes, Matt and Boggs saw the two men come swiftly and silently along the road. McGlory, with steady nerves, kept at his work.
Pardo crept up behind the cowboy and caught him suddenly about the shoulders.
"I guess that puts the boot on the other leg!" exulted Pardo, drawing McGlory roughly away from the machine.
"The fellow that laughs last," cried Grattan, "laughs best. You've given us a good hard run of it, McGlory, but we justhadto have this car. It means everything to Pardo and me. What's the trouble with it?"
"Loose burr," answered the cowboy, with feigned sullenness. "It's been bothering me ever since I left the pocket. If it hadn't been for that, you'd never have caught me."
"Probably not," said Grattan. "Small things sometimes lead to big results. Show me the loose burr and I'll tighten it. After that, McGlory, we'll bid you an affectionate farewell and show these mountains our heels."
"The wrench I've got isn't large enough," went on McGlory. "You'll have to get another out of the tool box."
This was a clever ruse on the cowboy's part to draw the thief to the footboard of the car—placing him handily for Banks and Gridly.
The tool box was open. Grattan, entirely unsuspicious, went back around the side of the car and stooped over to get the wrench.
The next moment Banks had thrown himself on top of him, Gridly had dropped out the other side of the car, McGlory had whirled on Pardo, and Matt, Boggs, and Tige were rushing out of the bushes.
The trap had been sprung, and sprung so neatly that neither Grattan nor Pardo had the slightest chance of getting out of it or of using their firearms.
BACK TO THE FARM.
The skirmish—for it amounted to little more than that—was over with in short order.
Grattan resisted stoutly, but Boggs went to Banks' assistance, while Matt and Gridly went to McGlory's. In almost less time than it takes to tell it, handcuffs were snapped on the wrists of the prisoners and they were loaded into the tonneau with the two officers.
"It worked as slick as greased lightning, Motor Matt!" cried the delighted sheriff. "Those two crooks never suspected a thing!"
Pardo was exceedingly bitter.
"Now, see what your confounded plans have done for me, Grattan!" he cried angrily. "I was a fool to ever tie up with you."
"If we'd been successful," returned Grattan coolly "and secured the ruby, you'd have talked the other way. Where's your nerve, Pardo?"
Pardo, still dazed by the suddenness of the capture, sank back into the corner of the tonneau, muttering.
"This is your work, is it, Motor Matt?" inquired Grattan, leaning over the side of the car and fixing his gaze on the young motorist.
"I helped plan it," said Matt.
"He was the whole works," spoke up McGlory. "Maybe it wasn'tquiteso clever as the way you played it on me and Tsan Ti, Grattan," and a tantalizing grin accompanied the words; "but I reckon it'll do."
"The more I see and learn about Motor Matt," declared Grattan, "the more I admire his shining abilities. He's a wonder. We've matched wits several times, and he's always had a shade the best of it. Will you answer a civil question, my lad?"
"What is it?"
"Where's Tsan Ti and the ruby?"
"Tsan Ti and Bunce are at a farm near here, but——"
"So that old idiot has got tangled in the net, too!"
"But the ruby," finished Matt, "has been lost."
"Lost?" Grattan showed considerable excitement. "How was it lost?"
"Sam Wing stole the ruby from Tsan Ti, on the train, and jumped off at Gardenville. The mandarin discovered his loss in time to leave the train at the same station."
"Oh, thunder!" exclaimed Grattan disgustedly. "Sothatwas why Tsan Ti followed Sam Wing out of Gardenville!"
"And you thought the mandarin was afraid of you, and that that was his reason for hot-footing it into the hills," derided Pardo.
"Where and how was the ruby lost?" went on Grattan, paying no attention to Pardo.
"I started out with Martin to look for this automobile," said Matt, "and we found Sam Wing at the watering place on the Gardenville road. McGlory and I followed him, but my chum got lost and I was left to keep up the chase alone. It was somewhere along the course Sam Wing led me that the ruby was lost."
"Sam Wing is fooling you!"
"I think he's telling the truth, Grattan."
"Bosh! The chink has hidden the ruby and is trying to make you believe he lost it. If you let him go, he'll find the stone and get away with it."
"Why not turn him loose, an' then follow him?" suggested Banks.
Matt shook his head.
"I'm positive Sam Wing is giving the straight of it," he declared.
"Well," laughed Grattan, but with an undernote of regret, "I hope he is. If I can't have the ruby that I've worked for so long, I'm glad to think that no one else will have it. Where are we bound for, gentlemen?" and Grattan turned to Banks and Gridly.
"To the Boggs farm to pick up the sailor," Banks replied, "then for the Catskill jail."
"Very pleasant outlook," observed Grattan.
"Can you drive a motor car, Matt?" asked Gridly.
"Canhe?" exploded McGlory. "Say, pard," he added, turning to Matt, "do you know a spark-plug from the carburetor?"
"No offense," proceeded Gridly hastily. "I was only going to ask Matt if he would bring our roadster along."
"Boggs and I will come in the roadster," said Matt. "You take the blue car to the farm, Joe."
"On the jump, pard!" came heartily from McGlory.
"You motor boys are a great team!" exclaimed Banks.
"They're hard to beat," put in Grattan. "If it hadn't been for them, I should have been in Paris about now, in very comfortable circumstances."
Matt waited for no more, but, accompanied by Boggs and Tige, hurried along the road to the place where Banks had left the roadster. Matt was cranking when McGlory whirled past on his way to the farm. Two minutes later the roadster was crowding the touring car hard, and Matt was honking for the cowboy to make better time.
"Everybody seems to be your friend, Motor Matt," said Boggs, "even that there thief."
"Grattan is a strange fellow, Boggs," answered Matt. "He's as talented a chap as you'll find anywhere, but he'd rather steal for a living than work honestly."
"Some folks is that way," ruminated Boggs. "They'll waste more brains an' elbow grease pullin' off a robb'ry that'll bring 'em in a thousand dollars than they'd need for makin' ten thousand honestly. Look at me, scrubbin' along on a stony farm, raisin' garden truck for the hotels, when I might go out with a drill an' a jimmy, an'——"
"Make a nice comfortable home for yourself in a stone house with iron doors and barred windows," laughed Matt. "There are lots of worse places than a stony truck farm, Boggs."
"I guess yew're right."
At that moment the touring car turned in at the farmyard and came to a halt near the barn. The roadster followed and stopped alongside.
Leaving Gridly to take care of Grattan and Pardo, Banks accompanied Matt and Boggs into the barn. Josi' met them at the door.
"What luck, Zeke?" he asked.
"Best kind, Josi'," replied Boggs. "Got our men, too easy for any use. The sheriff, here, and his deputy, Gridly, come along jest in time to help. They want one o' the prisoners we left yew to take keer of."
"They're all here, you bet," said Josi', with laudablepride. "The' wa'n't any of 'em could git away fromme."
Banks cast his eyes over the three men.
"What's to be done with the two Chinamen?" he asked.
"I think they ought to go to Catskill, too," said Matt.
"We can carry the sailor in the tonneau of the big car, and there's room for one of the Chinamen on the seat alongside McGlory. T'other chink could go with you, in the roadster. Which is the mandarin that got robbed of the ruby?"
Matt pointed to the dejected figure of Tsan Ti.
"What is he roped for?" asked Banks.
"So he can't put himself out of the way," said Matt. "The regent of China sent him a yellow cord, and told him that if he did not recover the ruby in two weeks he was please to strangle himself. I had to tie the mandarin in that way to keep him from obeying orders."
Banks was not a hard-hearted man, and something in the mandarin's plight touched him. Perhaps it was the Celestial's hopeless air, coupled with his torn and dusty garments.
The sheriff stood for a few minutes in front of Tsan Ti, looking down at him and shaking his head.
"They're a queer lot, these chinks," he commented finally. "Their ideas are not ours, by a long shot, but I don't know as that's anything against them. Do you want to take the mandarin with you in the roadster, Matt?"
"I think I'd better."
Matt bent down and removed the rope from Tsan Ti's ankles. The mandarin did not want to get up or make a move, but Matt and Banks lifted him to his feet and succeeded in getting him out of the barn.
As they stood beside the roadster, the mandarin slumping limply in their supporting hands, a cry came from the road.
"Well, by golly! If dar ain't de man whut got ole Gin'ral Jackson back fo' me. Ah's monsus 'bliged tuh yo', boss, Ah is, fer er fac'."
Matt looked around and saw the old darky ambling toward the barn on his mule.
"That's Neb Hogan," spoke up Boggs. "He's got a cabin down beyond about half a mile. Do you know him, Motor Matt?"
Although old Neb Hogan did not look it, yet he was, at that moment, engaged upon one of the most important missions of his life.
CONCLUSION.
"What can I do for you, Neb?" asked Matt, facing the darky as he pulled his mule to a halt.
"Ah dunno as yo' can do nuffin' fo' me, boss," answered Neb. "Ah reckons yo's done about all fo' dis moke dat he can expec'. Yo' done got Gin'ral Jackson back fo' me, an' dat odder feller found his bicycle, too. Ah 'lows yo' must hab been in er hurry, 'case yo' didn't wait fo' me to tell yo' Ah was obliged fo' whut yo' done. Lucky Ah seed yo' while Ah was passin' Mars Boggs' place. Close tuh where dat white boy found his bicycle dar was somefin' right on de aidge o' de bridge. Ah gaddered it in, en Ah thought mebby yo' was de one whut drapped hit. Ah was wonderin' en mah ole head how Ah was gwine tuh diskibber whedder what Ah found belonged tuh you—en heah, right when Ah was gittin' clost tuh home, Ah done sees yuh! Ain't dat fine? Somefin' strodinary 'bout dat."
A faint hope was rising in Motor Matt's breast, but it was very faint. The foundation of it was almost too preposterous for belief.
"What did you find, Neb?" he asked.
"Ah don't know whedder hit amounts to nuffin' er not, but Ah reckons yo' kin tell."
Thereupon Neb shoved one hand into a pocket of his tattered coat and brought out, mixed in his yellow palm with two nails, a fishline, and a piece of chewing tobacco——
The Eye of Buddha!
It was almost sunset, and the early shadows were beginning to fly over the eastern borders of the Catskills, but there was enough light to strike sparkling crimson gleams from the fateful gem that lay in the old darky's hand.
"Does dat 'ar thing b'long tuh yo', boss?" said Neb Hogan.
"Hold it just that way for a minute, Neb," returned Matt.
Then quickly he slipped the cords from the mandarin's wrists.
"Look up, Tsan Ti," went on Matt. "See here a minute."
Apathetically the mandarin raised his head. His gaze fell on the red gem, glittering amid the poor treasures which the old negro "toted" in his pocket.
The mandarin's body stiffened, his hands flew to his forehead, and he gazed spellbound; then, with a hoarse cry, he caught the ruby from Neb's hand, pushed it against his breast, and fell to his knees, muttering wildly in his native tongue.
"Well, by thunder!" exclaimed Banks. "Is that the idol's eye, Matt?"
Matt nodded.
"You found that red jewel at the edge of the bridge, you say, Neb?"
"Dat's whar Ah done picked it up. What is dat thing, anyhow? By golly, dat Chinymum ack lak he done gone crazy."
"It's a ruby, Neb," explained Matt, "and very valuable. The Chinaman who stole your mule had taken the ruby away from this other Chinaman, and was trying to escape with it. General Jackson wouldn't take the bridge, and the Chinaman on his back kicked and pounded him so that the mule bucked and tossed him to the edge of the bridge. Before the Chinaman could save himself he fell into the creek. The ruby must have dropped out of his pocket upon the planks of the bridge. I didn't see it, though, and it remained for you to pick it up."
"By golly!" breathed Neb. "Ain't dat a mos' 'sprisin' purceedin'? Ah done finds de ruby fo' de feller whut got mah mu-el back fo' me. Is we squar' now, boss?"
"Square?" laughed Matt. "Why, Neb, we're a whole lot more than square. How much do you think that ruby's worth?"
"Kain't be hit's worf mo' dan ten dollahs, I reckons," he guessed.
"It's worth thousands of dollars, Neb!"
"Go 'long wif yo' foolishness! Dat red thing kain't be worf all dat money, nohow. Yo's foolin' de pore ole moke."
"It's the truth, Neb."
Tsan Ti, jabbering wildly, arose from his bended knees and pulled his alligator-skin pouch from his blouse.
"Excellent stranger of the dusky race," said he, "I gather from what I hear that I am in your debt for the recovery of the Eye of Buddha. Will it insult you if I offer, of my goodness of heart, five hundred dollars?"
Neb Hogan nearly fell from General Jackson's back.
"Whut's dat he's er-sayin' tuh me?" he asked, rolling up the whites of his eyes. "Talkin' 'bout five—five hunnerd dollahs, en 'bout insultin' me wif it. By golly, Ah's brack, but Ah don't 'low no yalluh trash tuh mek spo't ob me. Somebody hole mah mu-el twill Ah climb down. Five hunnerd dollahs! Ah won't 'low no Chinymun tuh say no such thing. Ah—Ah——"
Words died on the old negro's lips. Tsan Ti had pushed a bundle of money up in front of his face, and Neb was gazing at the bills like one demented.
"Accept of my gratitude, illustrious one," chanted the mandarin. "You are worthy—it is little enough."
The darky tried to talk, but the words stuck in his throat. Mechanically he took the bills, smoothed them out in his hands, and finally pushed them into his pocket.
"Ah reckons dishyer's a dream," he managed to gasp finally. "Ah reckons Ah'll wake up tuh heah Mandy buildin' de fiah fo' breakfus. Eider dat, or Ah's suah gone crazy."
Then, turning General Jackson, Neb Hogan rode out of the gate, looking back fearfully as long as he was in sight, wondering, no doubt, if those he had left were not the phantoms of his disordered imagination.
This little scene had been enacted under the eyes of McGlory and the prisoners in the blue touring car. Grattan's feelings, perhaps, may be imagined better than described. McGlory was "stumped," as he would have expressed it.
"Now that Tsan Ti has got the ruby again, pard," called the cowboy, "I move we pack him in a box, idol's eye and all, and turn him over to the express company for safe transportation to Canton. If we don't, something is sure going to happen to him."
"Nothing will happen to him now," said Matt. "The men he had to fear are in the custody of the law, and from now on Tsan Ti will experience no more trouble."
"Esteemed friend," palpitated the overjoyed mandarin, "I shall yet deposit the ruby in the express company's care as soon as I get to Catskill. The lessons I have had are sufficient."
"That's the talk!" approved the cowboy.
"What shall we do with Sam Wing?" asked Matt.
For an instant a flash of rage drove the happiness from the mandarin's eyes. But the flash died as swiftly as it came.
"Have you a knife, illustrious youth?" inquired the mandarin.
"Better keep it, pard!" warned McGlory. "Tsan Ti's going to do for Wing!"
But Matt believed otherwise. Taking his knife from his pocket, he handed it to Tsan Ti and the latter went into the barn. He reappeared in a few moments, and Sam Wing, freed of his ropes, accompanied him.
Harsh words in Chinese broke from Tsan Ti's lips. He talked for perhaps two minutes steadily, the harshness leaving his voice as the torrent of speech flowed on. When he had finished, he reached into his alligator-skin pouch, brought out some money, and placed it in Sam Wing's hand; then, sternly, he pointed toward the road.
"What a fool!" growled Grattan.
"Why didn't he send the thief over the road?" muttered Pardo.
"Speak to me about this!" cried McGlory.
"Looks like there was a few things we could learn from the chinks," pondered Banks.
"You're right, Mr. Banks," said Matt. "Tsan Ti is the right sort, and I'm glad I did what I could to help him. Let's start for Catskill—I suppose Martin is back there, by this time, and wondering what has become of Joe and me. Ready for New York in the morning, Joe?"
"I'm ready," was the prompt response, "but will we go?"
"I believe we will," said Matt, climbing into the roadster. "We've seen the last of the hoodoo. Get in, Tsan Ti, and we'll hit it up between here and Catskill. You're to ride with me."
THE END.
NEW YORK, October 2, 1909.
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A short time ago the newspapers announced that a feat which for four hundred years stout ships and bold crews have been attempting had been accomplished by a little Norwegian vessel of forty tons and seven men.
Long ago, the news would have thrilled the harbors of England and Holland with joy and keen expectancy. Coming in the twentieth century, it has created little sensation. Perhaps, of all those who read the announcement, only the few to whom "the Northwest Passage" was a name full of history and heroism and romance realized what an interesting achievement had been made. For the practical value of the discovery had long since been discounted, and no "merchant adventurer" of the present day would have sunk half his fortune in equipping an expedition to solve the riddle that puzzled the brains of the men of long ago.
For the search for the Northwest Passage was from the first a business affair. It was a mercantile question. The whole inquiry arose out of a trade competition between the northern and southern seafaring nations.
This was the situation: Spain and Portugal had been first in the field, as regards over-sea discovery; they had found the way to the treasure house of Asia, and the unspoiled riches of the New World. The Portuguese held the monopoly of maritime trade with India—the Venetians had long governed the overland route, and grown wealthy thereby—and the Spaniards looked upon South America as their private property.
Of the two, the Spanish settlements on the American coasts with the mines behind them drew the eyes of the adventurer, who secured his prizes at the sword's point, but Asia was the more tempting to the trader. The former dreamed of the sack of opulent cities; the latter dreamed of bustling wharves, and barter, and English ships coming home laden with spices and silks, the peaceful spoils of the market place and the tropical forest and the shark-haunted seas.
How to reach India "by a quick route, without crossing the sea paths of the Portuguese and the Spaniards," this, in a word, was the origin of the long and arduous search for the Northwest Passage.
It was the general belief that America was an island, but the size and shape of it was still only imperfectly known. That there was a water way round the southern end of the great continent had been proved by Magellan, who, in his voyage round the world, had passed through the straits that bear his name. The question now was, did a similar waterway exist at the northern end?
They believed that America tapered to a point northward, as it did southward. They little realized how the northern continent spread itself out into the cold Arctic seas, and with what a network of islands and ice floes it ended.
And so they sent out ships to search for a water way through those inhospitable seas, and the first to go was an Englishman, Martin Frobisher.
Greatly did he dare. We in these days of perfectly appointed ships, built of steel and driven by steam, can appreciate the hardihood of this hero and his crews, setting forth in two tiny craft of twenty-five and twenty tons burden, respectively, to solve the riddle of the northern seas! They sailed away—Queen Elizabeth herself waving them adieu from the windows of her palace at Greenwich—on June 12th, 1576, and a month later they were off the coast of Greenland.
Then came stormy weather. A pinnace with her crew of four was sunk, and Frobisher found himself alone—one ship among the never-ending ice. For his consort had gone home, discouraged by the forbidding outlook.
But almost immediately after this disappointment there came a gleam of hope. He beheld what appeared to be a passageway trending westward. It seems that this is still called Frobisher Bay. As he sailed through he thought that he had Asia on one side and America on the other. It was but a happy delusion. The projecting corner of Asia was far away; he was only abreast of what has since been named Baffin's Land.
Frobisher's second voyage, made in 1577, was rather a gold quest than a journey of discovery. A lump of stone (probably iron pyrites) had been brought home by one of the sailors as a souvenir of the first voyage. The particles of gold in it fired the fancies of some Londoners with the idea that Eldorado might perhaps, after all, be among the northern ice.
So Frobisher's ships went out again, and brought home something like 200 tons of the black stone. A third time they made the voyage, no less than fifteen ships taking part in the expedition, the object of which was to establish a sort of settlement for the working of the supposed "gold mine." But nothing came of the attempt. Bewildering fogs and perilous storms and threatening icebergs beset the puny fleet; sickness followed hard upon the exposure and privations long endured by the poor fellows who manned it, and at last the scheme was abandoned.
Yet in this disappointing third voyage Frobisher had unknowingly come very near the discovery which originally he had in view! For, in the words of the writer before quoted, "the truth was that Frobisher's foremost ships had got farther to the south than was realized, and unwittingly he had discovered what is now known as Hudson's Strait—the sea gate of that very Northwest Passage on which his waking and sleeping thoughts so long had brooded."
He had been carried some sixty leagues up the strait, but as he knew nothing as to whither it led he reaped no advantage.
Several years went by without another attempt being made to solve the problem, of the Northwest Passage, butat last, in the summer of 1585, some English merchants planned a fresh expedition.
Two ships were fitted out—one theSunshine, of London, fifty tons; the other theMoonshine, of Dartmouth, thirty-five tons. The command was intrusted to a young Devonshire sailor, Captain John Davis, whose name is familiar to all schoolboys who have drawn maps of the northern parts of North America.
Though the records of the voyage abound with incidents relating to the various encounters that Davis' men had with spouting whales and basking seals, uncouth Eskimos, and Polar bears, the actual achievements of this expedition were not great. The ships traversed part of what is now called Davis Strait, and went some way up Cumberland Gulf, but by the end of September they were back in Dartmouth.
Davis set forth again, next summer, with three ships and a pinnace. The latter and one of the ships were dispatched up the east coast of Greenland, while the commander, with the two other vessels, sailed northwest. He got as far as Hudson Strait and farther. And in a third voyage he reached a headland not far from Upernavik. The hardihood and pluck displayed in these attempts to penetrate the ice-encumbered seas were splendid, but the results did not throw much light on the question of how to get northwest by sea to the Indies.
Soon after this the kindred question of a Northeast Passage forced itself upon the seafaring people of Holland, and the city of Amsterdam fitted out four ships, and sent them forth under William Barents, in the June of 1594. The story of this and subsequent expeditions cannot, however, be told here, though it is full of heroism and strange adventures.
It was the idea of a Northeast route which first laid hold of Henry Hudson, the intrepid Englishman whose name figures so prominently on the map of North America. Like Barents, he made his way to Nova Zembla, but, baffled by the seemingly insuperable difficulties to the eastward, he turned westward in his third voyage, and again when he set forth on his fourth and last voyage.
Some of his men were evidently less stout of heart than their commander, and when there began to be real prospects of being caught in the ice, the spirit of mutiny got the upper hand. On June 21st, 1610, with a cowardice that was happily in strange contrast to the usual behavior of English crews, it was decided to get rid of the captain. Next morning he and his little son, a loyal-hearted sailor (the ship's carpenter), and half a dozen sick and helpless members of the crew, were put over the ship's side into one of the boats, and left to their fate.
The years went by. Other expeditions were fitted out and sent northward, but the old reasons for finding out the Northwest Passage were fast disappearing. The Portuguese monopoly of the sea-borne trade with India and the supremacy of Spain on the ocean highways were things of the past. The ships of other nations had no longer to skulk past these aforetime kings of the sea.
Arctic exploration went on, but the idea of reaching the North Pole was beginning to take the place of the idea of "making" the Northwest Passage. That old problem, however, was in prospect of being solved by the attempts made to solve the former. So that by the year 1853 Collinson was able to sail so far that he came within fifty-seven miles—a mere pin prick on the map—of accomplishing the Northwest Passage.
Finally, in 1906, the Passage, which, like a mountain tunnel, had been worked at from both ends, was penetrated from one opening to the other by the littleGjöa, a Norwegian sloop of forty tons, which sailed from Christiania on June 1st, 1903.
She was under the command of Captain Roald Amundsen, of that city, and his right-hand man was Lieutenant Godfred Hansen, of the Danish navy; the crew numbered seven. She had not been built with a view to Arctic work, so that before she went north into the realm of the ice king she had to be fortified somewhat. An ice sheathing of two-inch oak planks added greatly to her resisting power, and her petroleum motor of 13 horse power enabled her, when she put to sea, to attain a traveling speed of three knots in smooth water. But theGjöatrusted chiefly, like the stout little barks of other days, to the skillful handling of her sails.
The winters of 1903 and 1904 were spent in harbor on the shores of King William's Land. Only the premature closing in of the ice prevented the little vessel from achieving the Passage in 1905.