FROM THE OPEN PORT!
Motor Matt made no move to give the ruby into the possession of Grattan. Thief though he was, yet Philo Grattan had a remarkable personality. Matt had listened to him with deepest interest, but one hand had been busy in his pocket. McGlory was so deeply absorbed in what the master rogue was saying that his jaws gaped, and he hung breathlessly upon his words.
Near Matt's left hand, with only the width of the side seat between, was an open port.
"What!" exclaimed Grattan, as though intensely surprised, "you hesitate? I dislike to treat you with any more roughness, Motor Matt. It seems to me you might understand how hopeless it is for you to try to keep the ruby. What is this Tsan Ti to you that you will risk so much for him? Is it the money he pays you? I can't believe that. You have made a good deal of money in your work, I have been told, and you are not in need.
"Is it because you desire to help an unfortunate Chinamanwho must use the yellow cord in case he cannot return to China with the Eye of Buddha? Foolish sentiment! What would this fat mandarin of the red button do for you if your positions were reversed? Take the present case. What has Tsan Ti done? He is a coward. Instead of facing his risks like a man, he turns the ruby over to you, thereby unloading the danger and responsibility. After you have me safely jailed"—and Grattan's voice throbbed with contempt and scorn—"then this mandarin will hunt you up, take the ruby, which is worth a fortune, and pay you a thousand dollars! Why are you the friend of such a coward? Tell me, will you? Here is where I should like a frank expression of your views."
"I don't think Tsan Ti is a coward," Matt answered.
"You have the proof."
"I have your side of the question, not his."
"My side of the question! Is there any other side?"
"There may be."
"I am disappointed in you, Motor Matt. Such talk is foolish—almost worthy of Bunce, here."
"There is something else, too, Grattan," went on Matt, "something, I suppose, you will appreciate even less than what I have just said."
"I don't think there can be anything I would appreciate less. However, let's hear what it is."
"Being true to a trust," answered Matt sturdily. "Even if a Chinaman trusts you, standing fast and not betraying his confidence."
Bunce snickered, and Pardo laughed outright. Only Grattan kept a serious face and peered steadily at Matt.
"Yes," murmured Grattan, "there is something in that. It is not for me—I have turned my back on such principles—but you are young and quite likely you have started right. That, however, does not affect our present situation. It is impossible for you to remain true to the trust the cowardly Tsan Ti reposes in you. I have you in my power. It is night, and theIrisis in the middle of the Hudson River. The ruby is tied up in a handkerchief in your coat pocket. I tell you I want it."
The voice was imperious, compelling. Motor Matt still passively faced Grattan.
"Oh, shiver me!" grunted Bunce. "Let's lay hold of him an' take it."
Pardo pushed a hand toward the revolver on the table.
With one movement, Grattan, although still with his eyes on Matt, dropped his own hand to the revolver and another hand on Bunce's shoulder.
"You'll speak when you're spoken to, Bunce," said he savagely, "and Pardo, you'll leave the revolver alone. I've managed this matter with fair success, up to now, and I believe I can wind it up. The ruby, Motor Matt!"
"There it is!" said Matt.
His hand darted toward the open port. A knotted handkerchief, weighted with some small object, flashed through the port and vanished downward.
A yell escaped Bunce, and he flung himself across the table in a frantic attempt to lay hold of Matt. Pardo leaped for him, and the door leading into the stateroom opened and the man who was waiting stepped into the room.
McGlory had jumped to help Matt against Pardo. The man who had just entered grabbed the cowboy and flung him roughly on the seat at the side of the room; then he and Pardo hurled Matt to the floor.
"Search him!" ordered Grattan calmly.
"By the seven holy spritsails!" bellowed Bunce, "what's the use o' searchin' him? Didn't he just throw the Eye o' Buddha into the river?"
"He ought to be strangled for that!" cried Pardo, in a temper.
"Search him, I tell you!" roared Grattan. "Are you all a pack of fools? He didn't throw the ruby into the river."
"But we saw him," insisted Pardo.
"You saw his handkerchief go into the river, but it was only a trick. Do you think he would sacrifice the ruby, even to prevent me from getting it? Search him, I tell you."
The search was made, and thoroughly. Motor Matt's pockets were turned inside out, but without result. Garment by garment his clothes were stripped away and crushed in eager hands, but still without result.
The ruby was as large as a small hen's egg, and not easily to be hidden.
McGlory had gone into a trance again. As he lay on the seat and stared, he wondered if Matt had really tossed the priceless gem into the Hudson.
"He hasn't got it, Grattan," announced Pardo.
"Then his friend has it," answered Grattan confidently. "Search him."
Thereupon the cowboy came in for his share of the rough handling. Matt once more got into his clothes. Just as the search of McGlory was finished, Motor Matt was reaching for his cap, which had tumbled off in the scuffle in the other room, and had been thrown into the saloon after the boys had entered it.
"Nothing here," announced Pardo, as he turned from McGlory.
"Nary, there ain't," fumed McGlory. "Motor Matt's not the lad to shift his responsibilities like Tsan Ti. Sufferin' hornets! You're a fine outfit of tinhorns, I must say."
Stepping quickly out from behind the table, Grattan passed to Matt and snatched off his cap. He weighed the cap for a moment in his hand, felt of the crown with his fingers, and then, still holding the cap, returned quietly to his seat.
"Sit down, Bunce, you and Pardo," ordered Grattan. "Pierson, go out and close the door."
When the two men were seated, and after Pierson hadleft the saloon, Grattan leaned his elbows on the table, Matt's cap between them.
"This Motor Matt," said he, "is a lad whom I greatly admire. He takes precautions. His first precaution was removing the ruby from the box and depositing the box with the hotel clerk before he went out into the hills with Bunce. In running away from the ravine with Bunce to carry out my plan for securing the box, I ran directly away from Motor Matt and the ruby. Motor Matt had the ruby tied up in his handkerchief, then. He was seen, on the hotel veranda, to untie his handkerchief and show the ruby to his friend. When he came aboard theIrishe had taken another precaution. Something else was tied up in the handkerchief, and the ruby was in the lining of his cap."
Swiftly Grattan's hands descended, tore at the cap lining, and brought out the imperial stone. He laid it on the table, turning and turning it so the light might catch its fiery flash.
"Blow me tight!" mumbled Bunce. "Say, mates," he added, drawing a sleeve across his forehead, "that was a scare I don't want ever to go through ag'in. We've risked so much for that bloomin' Eye o' Buddha that I near went wrong in the head with the thought that it was in the bottom o' the river!"
"It's comparatively easy for you to go wrong in the head, Bunce," taunted Grattan.
"So that's the thing!" murmured Pardo, his fascinated eyes on the gleaming stone.
"Did you ever see anything more beautiful?" asked Grattan. "It's a true pigeon-blood ruby, and worth ten times the value of a diamond the same size."
Then, drawing out his own handkerchief, he wrapped the ruby carefully, and as carefully stowed it away in his pocket.
"So," said he, "after a number of startling adventures in the Catskills, the ruby is finally where it ought to be."
"It ought to be in the head of that idol, in Canton," said Matt.
The king of the motor boys was calm, and, while he may have had regrets, he had nothing to reproach himself for. He had done his best to keep the ruby—and he had failed.
"Motor Matt," returned Grattan, "a heathen temple is no place for such a jewel as this. In the Honan joss house it benefits no one. When I sell it, it will benefit me a great deal, and Bunce a little."
"And me," put in Pardo. "Don't forget that I stand in on the divvy."
"And Pardo," added Grattan.
"And Tsan Ti must strangle himself with the yellow cord," said Matt.
"If that is his will, yes. I have no patience with these pagan superstitions. A heathen, who lives by them, cannot let them shuffle him out of the world too quickly. As for you, Motor Matt, you have nothing to be sorry for. You did your best to keep the ruby out of my hands—no one else could have done so much."
"It's not the ruby I care for so much as saving Tsan Ti," answered Matt.
"Find out if there's a landing near this point, Pardo," said Grattan.
Pardo stepped out of the room and could be heard talking with the man at the steering wheel.
"No," he reported, coming back, "there's no safe landing for theIrisanywhere near here."
"Then put over the tender," ordered Grattan; "Motor Matt and his friend are going ashore."
LANDED—AND STUNG.
Pardo left the saloon to give the necessary orders to the man outside. There was a splash in the water as the tender was put over, and theIrisslowed until she had no more than steerage way.
"Get into your clothes, McGlory," said Grattan to the cowboy. "I'm about ready to send you ashore."
"The quicker the better!" exclaimed McGlory wrathfully. "We don't want to lose a minute getting to some place where we can send the officers after you."
Grattan laughed.
"You will have your trouble for your pains," said he. "After you are landed, theIrisand those aboard her will vanish as completely as though they had gone to the bottom. I have planned for this. Do what you please, and as soon as you please. Philo Grattan and his friends will never be captured."
"Ten thousand demons of misfortune pester a man who has anything to do with the Eye of Buddha," snarled McGlory, stamping into his shoes. "My pard and I know that. Sufferin' hoodoos! Haven't we been tangled up with all sorts of backsets since we met Tsan Ti? If it ain't one thing, it's two. You never know what minute's going to be the next."
"I'll risk the ten thousand demons," smiled Grattan.
"Something'll hit you," declared McGlory. "You take that from me, and spread your blankets on it."
"You forget that I have carried the ruby for a good many thousands of miles."
"I'm gloomed up more to think we ever saw that Eye of Buddha," scowled McGlory, getting up from the seat and jamming on his hat, "than to know that we lost it."
"Are you ready?" asked Grattan.
"I've been ready to leave this boat ever since we came aboard! You're a fine bunch of outlaws, the lot of you, and you'll all get hung, one of these days. I'd like to be around when it happens."
Matt left his wrathful chum to do the talking. So far as he was concerned, he had nothing to say.
"We're going to put you ashore near a place where you can catch a train north, to Catskill," said Grattan, after a brief, whispered conversation with Pardo. "There doesn't happen to be any telegraph station at the place, but the train will stop on signal."
"There are other telegraph stations," fumed McGlory. "I reckon we can find 'em."
"I hope, Motor Matt," went on Grattan, "that you don't cherish any hard feelings?"
"No matter how I feel, Grattan," returned Matt, "I think you've made a big mistake."
"How?"
"Why, in your choice of a career. Half the energy you put into your criminal work would make you a power in the world."
"I used to talk like that," said Grattan, with a tinge of bitterness, "when I was young. Good-by."
Matt did not answer, but went out of the saloon and through the stateroom to the steps leading to the after deck. McGlory came close behind him. When they gained the deck, Pierson was in the tender, and another man stood ready to help them over the side.
Silently Pierson rowed them ashore through the moonlight. When the boys had debarked, Pierson rowed swiftly back to theIris, and the lads on shore could hear the noise as the tender was taken aboard.
"Landed," muttered Matt.
"And stung," finished McGlory. "Wasn't it neat? Say, I take off my hat to Grattan. He's the king bee of all the tinhorns. Let's watch and see which way theIrisgoes."
The boys watched, but under their staring eyes the lights vanished one by one from forward and aft, and from starboard and port. The cabin windows winked out in darkness, and the gloom of the river swallowed up the motor yacht. Her disappearance was helped by a cloud which floated across the face of the moon and threw the river into deepest shadow.
"Speak to me about that, pard!" exclaimed McGlory. "I wonder if it would do any good to send out telegrams?"
"I don't think it would, Joe," Matt answered, "but if there was a telegraph office handy, we'd try it."
"Let's find the place where the trains stop. If a train comes along pretty soon, we can get to a telegraph office."
When the cloud had swept on, and the moon shone out again, a survey of the place showed the boys a dark building at the top of the bank. They climbed up to the structure and found that it was an open shed, with benches. There was no light, and the cowboy struck a match and hunted for a time card. He could find none.
"Oh, hang such a place!" grumbled McGlory. "If we knew how far it was to the next station, pard, we could set out and hoof it."
"Haven't you done enough walking for one day, Joe?" asked Matt. "I believe I have. I'm going to sit down here and wait for a train to come along."
Suiting his action to the word, Matt dropped down on one of the benches. His chum took a place beside him.
"You're as full of surprises, pard," remarked McGlory, "as a cocoanut is of milk. There's no guessing what you're going to do next. You didn't tell me anything about taking the Eye of Buddha from that empty box when you left it with the clerk, and you never let out a yip about removing the ruby from the handkerchief and putting it in your cap. Regular greaser trick—carrying things in your hat."
"I thought I had to do something, Joe. When I was at work in the engine room, I had planned to take off the cap and put it in my pocket."
"What did you have in that handkerchief?"
"My pocketknife."
"Great guns! Was the knife in the handkerchief when we left Catskill?"
"No. The knife and the handkerchief were both in the same pocket. I managed to tie the knife up in the handkerchief, after a fashion, while we were facing Grattan, and he was talking."
"Well, glory to glory and all sashay! And Grattan never saw you!"
"I'm inclined to think he did, from the way the thing turned out."
"You didn't think you could fool Grattan so he wouldn't search you, did you?"
"It was a desperate chance to keep him from looking into my cap. But I might have known I couldn't fool him."
Just at that moment a lantern could be seen coming from down the track. A man reached the shed and began lighting a lamp at each end of it.
"Hello, neighbor!" called McGlory. "Do you belong around here?"
The man turned and looked toward the boys. Evidently he had not seen them before, and the call startled him.
"I live down the track a ways," he answered.
"Do you take care of this palatial depot?"
"I put out the lights," was the reply.
"A little late getting them out to-night, aren't you?"
"Well, no. There's no use putting them out before, 'cause the first train to stop hasn't come along yet."
"How far is it to Catskill?"
"Twenty mile."
"Where's the nearest telegraph office?"
"Three miles below. You fellers waitin' to ketch a train for Catskill?"
"Yes. When will it be along?"
"It's due now."
"Does it stop here?"
"Yes, if it's signaled."
"How'll we flag it?"
"I'll do that for ye with the lantern. That's what I come up here for—to put out the lights an' do the flaggin'."
"Here's a piece of luck, anyhow, Matt," said McGlory. "We can go on to Catskill and do our telegraphing from there."
"We might just as well," said Matt.
Matt's failure to keep the ruby was preying on his spirits. He couldn't help what had happened, but the sting of failure, when he always prided himself on "making good," was hard to bear.
"Buck up, pardy!" cried McGlory. "Old Tsan Ti can't find any fault with you."
"I know that. I'm thinking, though, we weren't cautious enough in going aboard that boat."
"Cautious? Tell me about that! Who wouldn't have been fooled, when the game was worked like Grattan worked it? I don't know how any one could have helped what happened."
"Anyhow," said Matt, "we fell down. It might have been just as well if I had disobeyed Tsan Ti's instructions and placed the ruby in some bank vault."
"But the mandarin said no. You carried out orders to the letter, and that's what lost us the ruby."
"We were to stay in the Catskills, and we didn't. Because we broke over our instructions, we fell into the hands of Grattan."
"He'd have got at you somehow even if we'd stayed in Catskill. I never saw such a man to keep after a thing he's set his mind on. Now, if we——"
"Train's comin'," called the man, stepping upon the track and waving the lantern.
The rumble of the passenger could be heard, growing rapidly in volume.
"Well," remarked McGlory, as he and Matt got up, "we've shuffled off the hoodoo and nothing more will go crossways with us. That's worth a whole lot. And if Tsan Ti is fool enough to choke himself with that yellow cord, well, let him do it. Grattan was more than half right in what he said about that."
The train, with its row of dimly lighted windows, came to a halt. Matt and McGlory climbed aboard, and the train started on again.
The boys walked from one car into another trying to find a vacant seat which they could share together. At last Matt, who was in the lead, came to a halt in the aisle at the rear of the second coach.
"Move on, pard," said McGlory. "We'll try the next car. It can't be that all the coaches are as full as this one."
But Matt did not move on. He turned, amazement shining in his gray eyes, and pointed to a seat ahead of him, and on the right.
Two drowsy Chinamen occupied the seat. One of them was fleshy, and took up two-thirds of the space. This man wore a black silk cap with a red button. His chin was sunk on his breast and he was snoring loudly.
"Tsan Ti!" murmured McGlory, wondering if his eyes were playing him a trick.
"And Sam Wing," added Matt. "The mandarin is going to Catskill to get the ruby. Here's where I have to tell him the truth."
With that, Motor Matt leaned over and touched Tsan Ti on the shoulder.
A CRAFTY ORIENTAL.
Meeting Tsan Ti in this peculiar fashion was a seven-day wonder to the motor boys. The workings of chance, in connection with various matters appertaining to the stolen ruby, could not have been better exemplified.
Tsan Ti roused himself under Matt's touch, and blinked up at him through sleepy eyes. By degrees the lad's face took form before him, and he gave an incredulous grunt and floundered to his feet.
"Estimable, never-to-be-forgotten friend!" the mandarin wheezed, his flabby face beaming as he reached for Motor Matt's hand. "Also the notable McGlory, friend of my friend! This is a delight, all the more joyful because not expected until Catskill. Why is it I have the great honor to see you here?"
"That's quite a yarn, Tsan Ti," replied Matt.
"Let me hear it forthwith, I beseech!" and Tsan Ti ordered Sam Wing out of the seat and motioned for Matt to take his place.
The mandarin had been educated at one of the most famous colleges in the United States, and seemed, as McGlory expressed it, to have spent most of his time corralling adjectives.
Sam Wing, apparently not in the least excited by the sudden appearance of the motor boys, got a seat across the aisle and continued his doze. McGlory managed to secure a place behind Matt.
"I, most devoted youth," said Tsan Ti, as soon as Matt was seated, "am on my way to Catskill of a purpose to talk with you. No longer am I followed by the suspicious person whom I know to have been in the service of Grattan. So soon as I discovered this, I started immediately to find you. The five hundred gods of good luck must have decreed this meeting."
"Rather," answered Matt, "the ten thousand demons of misfortune. I suppose, Tsan Ti, you are after the Eye of Buddha?"
"Quite true, honorable youth."
"Well," said Matt, "I haven't got it."
Tsan Ti started, then slumped back into his seat.
"It has escaped you, vigilant one?" he inquired, his puffy eyelids half closing as he regarded Matt.
"It has escaped me, all right."
"And who has it now?"
"Grattan."
The mandarin turned his face away and looked out of the car window into the night. Motor Matt felt miserable enough. His words, just uttered, might have sealed the doom of the mandarin.
"Converse with me at length upon the subject," said Tsan Ti, again turning toward Matt. "What you say is of vast importance, excellent friend."
Matt had twenty miles of slow traveling in which to make his disclosures, and he made them in detail, with now and then an explanatory word from McGlory.
He began at the point where he had received the ruby, and set forth the manner in which Bunce had presented himself. Bunce's cock-and-bull story was gone into, and Tsan Ti's eyes twinkled humorously—Matt wondered at the humor—as he heard how he had been lured into a basement by a beach comber and was being held a prisoner. The leaving of the box with the hotel clerk, the flight into the hills, and the disappearance of Bunce, all dropped into the recital in chronological form; then came the tracking to the "pocket" under the ledge, and the following of the motorcycle trails in the direction of Catskill, the arrival of the boys in town, and the report of the clerk concerning the forged letter and the removal of the box.
"So there," put in the mandarin, "is where my ruby escaped from your unfortunate hands."
"Don't be so quick in your snap judgments, Tsan," spoke up McGlory. "The ruby wasn't in the box, but in Motor Matt's pocket. My pard had left the empty box with the clerk for a bluff."
The mandarin chuckled, and his body shook with his suppressed mirth.
"Remarkably well planned!" approved Tsan Ti. "Who could have done better? You have a brain of great power, my renowned friend, and your talk gives me much amusement and instruction. Grattan had the empty box and you had the ruby. What then?"
Then followed the call at the hotel of the man from theIris, and Matt's agreement to take charge of the yacht's motor on the down-river trip, Matt to return to Catskill on the following morning. The treachery aboard the boat was listened to by the mandarin with flashing eyes.
"Grattan is possessed of a demon," declared Tsan Ti. "His wits are as keen as a sword's edge, and he knows how to use them. I do not wonder, estimable friend, that you fell into his power. Even I, had I been in your place, could not have saved the jewel."
"What's to be done now, Tsan Ti?" asked Matt anxiously.
"Nothing," was the answer.
"But—but—the yellow cord!"
"It shall not be used by me."
Here was a mystery. If Tsan Ti could not bear the Eye of Buddha back to the Canton temple, it was the august decree of the regent that he should perish by the yellow cord. The ruby had been recovered, and lost again, but Tsan Ti had no intention of strangling himself by invitation of his ruler.
Failing to understand this point, Matt shifted the subject.
"Did you know, Tsan Ti," he queried, "that while you were in New York you had a Chinese spy around with you? A man who was carrying news of everything you did to an agent of Grattan's?"
"You refer to Charley Foo, honorable one?"
"Yes."
"Grattan can plan, my son, and so can the mandarin. This agent of Grattan paid Charley Foo ten silver dollars to betray me, and Charley Foo told me of it, showed the money, and asked what it was I would have him tell this hireling of Grattan's. Charley Foo was of much help to me."
Tsan Ti folded his hands complacently over his capacious stomach.
"Well, sufferin' bluffs!" murmured McGlory. "Charley Foo was the kind of a dark horse they were playing both ways. He told Grattan's man only what Tsan Ti wanted him to know; then why, in the name of all that's hard to figure out, did Tsan tell Charley to let it be known that the ruby was being sent to Motor Matt?"
"It was my wish that Grattan should know about the sending of the ruby," said this most amazing Chinaman.
"Then," went on McGlory, "you expected that Grattan would get on Motor Matt's trail and make a dead set to get back the Eye of Buddha."
"I thought it most likely, sagacious youth."
"Then," averred McGlory warmly, "you can't blame Motor Matt for losing the ruby."
"Am I blaming him, inconsiderate one?" returned Tsan Ti. "Have I said one scolding word, or emitted anything but praise? Motor Matt has done excellently well, and I shall engrave his deeds on the tablets of my memory."
"But the ruby is gone!" said Matt.
"Not so, highly esteemed but most deceived friend. Observe!"
With that, Tsan Ti opened his yellow silk blouse and revealed a small bag suspended by a chain from his neck. Opening the bag, he gave Matt and McGlory a swift glimpse of a shining, blood-red jewel.
"Behold the Eye of Buddha," smiled the mandarin. "Not Grattan, with all his evil work, has it, but I."
This, as might be expected, heaped up the measure of astonishing events and topped off the motor boys' bewilderment.
"But the ruby—the Eye of Buddha Grattan took from me——"
"That, generous youth," answered the mandarin, dropping the bag on his breast and rearranging his blouse, "was not a ruby, but a base replica of the true gem. It is worth, possibly, five dollars. I secured it from a stonecutter in New York."
By degrees the mandarin's crafty performance dawned on the motor boys. They were awed by the scope and audacious success of the design—completely fooling Grattan as it had done. As a specimen of Oriental craft, it was a revelation to Matt and McGlory.
THE MANDARIN WINS.
"Listen, honorable friends," said Tsan Ti, "while I talk to you instructively. In the words of the great Confucius, 'the cautious man seldom errs.' When I departed from you, amiable ones, on recovering the Eye of Buddha, I said that I was returning to my country by way of San Francisco. Such was my intention, of the moment, but further reflection dissuaded me. I decided to go to New York and proceed to China by the longer, but perhaps the safer, way.
"In the great city I discovered that I was being pursued and spied upon, and a great fear overcame me. Immediately I thought of Motor Matt. Should I visit him with possible dangers, I besought of myself, in order that I might preserve the precious relic from the temple at Honam? I thought of your bravery, never sufficiently to be praised, and I decided to make the risk. The cutter of precious stones was sent for, and I showed my ruby and asked that he make a counterfeit of it that would deceive any but a dealer in jewels. This was done, and quickly. I sent this comparatively valueless replica to you, Motor Matt, and told Charley Foo to let Grattan's man know what I had done. Also, the man was to be informed of my desire that Motor Matt should carry the stone about with him continually.
"What would happen? I inquired of myself. Most certainly, reflection made answer. Grattan will be upon the brave youth's track, and he will never rest until he secures the gem. This is as I desired, although I dared not so express myself in my letter which accompanied the false gem.
"After the package had left me, my heart failed. I feared I had exposed you to dangers which might cause your undoing. Hence, without lingering further, Sam Wing and I took this train for Catskill, I being of the intention to tell you what I had planned, and to let it be known, through Charley Foo, that the real gem was in my hands and not yours.
"And see, I have come too late. Grattan, the wise and unscrupulous, has taken the counterfeit ruby and is pleased to think he has cheated me, and that I shall pass by means of the yellow cord. All is well, and my plans are maturing most successfully. The five hundred gods of good fortune are smiling upon me. While Grattan goes his course, firmly believing he has the Eye of Buddha, I travel mine, knowing he has been justly deceived."
There was a little resentment in Matt's heart as he listened to the mandarin's explanation of his crafty ways and means for circumventing Grattan. Tsan Ti had thrown upon Matt the weight of the whole proceeding, and had not taken means to inform him of the true state of affairs. The king of the motor boys, had he understood the nature of the mandarin's scheme, could have worked out his part of it even more successfully than he had done while being kept in ignorance.
"You're a keen one, Tsan," grunted McGlory, "but I'm a Piute if I admire the free-and-easy fashion you have of making dupes of your friends."
"It is that which has pained me," admitted the mandarin, "and it is my regret which was carrying me speedily to Catskill to tell my widely known friend the exact truth. Fate was quicker in the race than I. Events have come swiftly to pass, and out of them rises Grattan with the false ruby. I have been fortunate, and while he goes to parts unknown, I shall hope to reach China before he discovers his error."
"Queer that Grattan, who knows the great ruby so well," said Matt, "could be fooled with a piece of glass of the same shape and size."
"And likewise of the exact color," returned Tsan Ti. "The color was most important of all. That Grattan was fooled shows how admirably the cutter of precious stones has done his work."
"You're really going to China this time, are you, Tsan Ti?"
"Of a certainty," declared the mandarin. "Now that you have been met most wonderfully on this train, I shall not get off at Catskill, but will accompany the cars to Buffalo. From there, without delay, I shall go on to Chicago, from there to Denver, and so to San Francisco, where I will embark on the first ship that will carry me across the Pacific."
Tsan Ti leaned over in front of Matt and called out something in Chinese to Sam Wing. Sam Wing lifted his nodding head with a start, and from his blouse produced a small sack of alligator skin, which he handed to his master.
The sack was stuffed with banknotes, and from the lot the mandarin extracted three five-hundred-dollar bills.
"Will you consider it of an insulting nature if I offer you these?" inquired the mandarin of Matt.
"I won't, if he does," chimed in McGlory.
"I think I'm entitled to the money, Tsan Ti," saidMatt. "The way you Chinamen do business doesn't make much of a hit with me. Your little plot wouldn't have been hurt in the least if you had just mentioned in the letter you sent with that supposed ruby that the gem was false, and that you sent it to me hoping Grattan would get it and keep off your trail. I could have helped you even more in achieving your purpose."
"It is to be regretted deeply that I did not," answered the mandarin humbly. "In my own country I would not have given two thoughts to the troubles I caused another, so long as my aim was just and wise; but here, in America, different standards rule, and that I brought dangers upon your head I shall never forget."
The door of the coach opened and a brakeman thrust in his head to call out the station of Catskill.
"That means us, pard," said McGlory. "Grab your money and let's hike."
Matt took the money and slowly placed it in his pocket.
"You bear no ill will, worthy one, and friend whose memory will always blossom in the gardens of my recollections?" asked Tsan Ti.
"It's all right, Tsan Ti," returned Matt, getting up. "You win, and are off for the Flowery Kingdom with the Eye of Buddha. Grattan loses, and he'll find it out sooner or later. As for Joe and me, we'll call accounts square. Good-by, and good luck to you." He took the mandarin's hand cordially.
"May the five hundred gods of good luck smile continually upon you," said Tsan Ti.
With that, Motor Matt and McGlory left the coach and dropped off the train.
"Back in Catskill!" said the cowboy, "and after being fooled by Bunce, and Grattan, and Tsan Ti!"
"We've fooled Grattan twice where he has fooled us once, Joe," returned Matt.
"Right you are, pard; and there's plenty of chance for Tsan Ti to run into a snag between here and China."
"I'm hoping he makes the trip without any trouble."
"I don't know but I hope the same thing, although I get a trifle hot under the collar every time I think of the way we fretted over a piece of colored glass."
They stood on the platform until the tail lights of the train had vanished from sight up the track.
"The mandarin is getting a good start on the home trail, anyhow," remarked McGlory, as he and Matt turned away to climb the slope that led to their hotel. "He's bound west by train, while Grattan is fooling around, somewhere on the Hudson, with theIris. I wouldn't turn over my hand, after what Tsan Ti told us, to put the kibosh on Grattan, or even Bunce."
"Grattan and Bunce have got their deserts," asserted Matt. "They'll be punished enough when they discover that they've had all their trouble and taken so many chances for nothing more than a bogus ruby."
"Fine business," chuckled McGlory; "and yet," he added, with a perceptible change in his voice, "there's something about that Philo Grattan that makes a hit with me. Maybe I've got a yellow streak in my make-up, somewhere, and that it's wrong for me to own up to such a notion, but it's the truth."
"If Grattan was honest," said Matt, "he'd be a fellow any one could like. But his ideas are all wrong. He can't see where the harm comes in removing a valuable ruby from an idol in a heathen temple, but if he'd step into Tiffany's, in New York, and extract a gem like that from the show case and make off with it, his crime wouldn't be any the less."
"A heathen has got property rights," agreed the cowboy, "just the same as you or me—or Grattan, himself. Where do you suppose Grattan, and that choice assortment of tinhorns he has with him on theIris, are going?"
"I don't know, pard, and what happens to them now doesn't bother me much. We're rid of them all, and I'm thankful for it. We've had too much of Tsan Ti, as well as of Grattan and Bunce."
"That's what you say now, but just let the mandarin write you one of those embroidered letters of his, asking for help, and you'll head in his direction just a-smoking."
"Not again, Joe. I know what the Yellow Peril is, now, and I'm going to fight shy of it."
"Amen to that, pard, and I hope you stick to it."
"I will."
"And there's nothing more between us and a high old time in Manhattan?"
"Nothing but a stretch of river—or of railroad track, Joe, if you'd rather go by train."
"Hooray!" jubilated McGlory.
THE END.
THE NEXT NUMBER (32) WILL CONTAIN
Motor Matt's Double-trouble;
OR,
THE LAST OF THE HOODOO.
The Red Jewel—Another End of the Yarn—Shock Number One—Shocks Two and Three—A Hot Starter—McGlory is Lost, and Found—"Pocketed"—Springing a Coup—Motor Matt's Chase—The Chase Concluded—A Double Capture—Another Surprise—Baiting a Trap—How the Trap was Sprung—Back to the Farm—Conclusion.
The Red Jewel—Another End of the Yarn—Shock Number One—Shocks Two and Three—A Hot Starter—McGlory is Lost, and Found—"Pocketed"—Springing a Coup—Motor Matt's Chase—The Chase Concluded—A Double Capture—Another Surprise—Baiting a Trap—How the Trap was Sprung—Back to the Farm—Conclusion.
NEW YORK, September 25, 1909.
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At a recent interview with one Jeremiah Stebbins, he freed his mind in the following choice language:
"Everybody I've saw lately has ben a-winking and a-smirking, and a-laughing, and a-saying, 'How de dew, Jerry? how's the hoss trade?' and sich like, and I've got tired on't; and I'm a going to tell the hull story to you newspaper fellers, and let you print it and done with it.
"You see, the way on't was this. I live up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and once in a while I takes a trip down to Philadelphia to see the sights, do some dickering, buy some store things, and so on.
"I've al'ays considered myself pooty cute, and have gi'n lots o' advice to them that's around me, telling 'em about the city, and its big shows, and its cheating scamps, and what to do when they goes there, and how not to get took in, and all sich; and I 'spect it's jest because I've done all this ere that the laugh comes in agin me pooty rough-like.
"You see there's a feller living right nigh me, named Jim Smithers, who's been down to Philadelphia four times, and every time so'thing's happened to him in the way o' getting fooled by some o' them confounded scamps what don't 'pear to do nothing for a living but lay around, like nasty spiders, watching for flies, to ketch some o' us country chaps by some dirty trick or other, and git hold o' some o' our hard-earned dollars to loaf around on. I ain't afeared to speak my mind about 'em, and I don't keer a goll darn if you print it, nuther, and let 'em know that I think they're just about as mean as mean kin be.
"Waal, about Jim Smithers. He's pooty green yit; but the first time he went down to the big city he was as raw as a new cabbage, and he got took in fifteen dollars' worth on what you newspaper fellers calls the drap game.
"In course you know all about that ere. A feller comes up behind the country chap, and, all unbeknown to him, drops a pocketbook, picks it up, and tells him it's hisn. But it ain't, you know, and the country feller says so. Then the city scamp opens it a lettle, and it 'pears to be stuffed full o' bank bills; and he says it's a pity that some honest man has got to lose it, 'cause he hisself's a stranger in town, and is jest a-going out ag'in, and he can't stop to advertise it, and git the big reward that's sartin to be offered for it; but if the country feller's a mind to take it, give him fifteen or twenty dollars or so, he'll let him have his chance, and so on.
"Waal, Jim Smithers was ketched in this way, and he gin the other feller fifteen dollars—nigh all the money he had—and when he went to put so'thing into thePublic Ledgerabout it, and handed over one o' the bills to pay for 't, the grinning clerk told him as how he'd ben 'sold,' and the money wa'n't wo'th as much as white paper. Wa'n't Jim mad, then? and didn't us fellers plague him peskily about it arter he got home?
"Waal, the next time Jim went to the city he got ketched in some keerd trick, and lost a twenty-dollar bill afore he knowed it. The third time he spent five dollars, a-buying prize packages that didn't have no prizes in 'em 'cept brass rings; and the last time some scamp ketched him ag'in on a hoss affair.
"'Jim Smithers,' says I, arter he'd told me all about it, 'if I's you I wouldn't go down to Philadelphia ag'in alone—I swon I wouldn't. Jest as like as not some critter, a-running loose in the streets, will take you fer a green pumpkin, and eat you all right up, so's you won't never git back to your mar any more,' says I.
"'Oh, you think your darn smart, Jerry Stebbins, don't ye?' says Jim back ag'in. 'Jest you look out that you don't git ketched some day your own self.'
"'They've all tried me, and found me too smart for 'em,' says I.
"'We'll see in the end,' says Jim.
"'Bout a week or so arter that, I went down ag'in to Philadelphia. I had some arrants to do for some o' my neighbors; and I'd a notion to tend a auction sale of hosses, and if I could see any going right cheap, I thought mebbe I might buy one on a spec—for, though I says it myself, I'm pooty cute in a hoss trade, and have made a good many dollars afore now in fatting up some old critter and then swapping him off and gitting boot.
"Waal, I went to town, and, arter gitting through with my other business, I started right over to the bazaar, where they sells hosses—for I'd been there afore and knowed exactly where it was.
"Jest as I was a-going in, I met a dressy-looking chap a-coming out; and he says to me, says he:
"'Mister, kin you tell me where I kin buy a right good hoss pooty cheap?'
"'I couldn't, less it's in here,' says I 'for that's jest what I wants to do myself.'
"'Waal, I shan't buy in this here cheating place,' says he, 'for I done that once afore, and paid a hundred dollars for a critter that I arterward had to sell for thirty-five; and right glad I was to git that much, and only lose sixty-five on the trade. If I's you I wouldn't risk no money in here.'
"'I knows a hoss when I sees him,' says I, pooty proud, feeling my oats, 'and if anybody makes anything off o' Jerry Stebbins in a hoss trade, I hope they'll let me know.'
"'S'pose you could pick out a good nice critter for me, Mr. Stebbins, and not get cheated in the price?' says he.
"'I s'pose I could if I'd try,' says I.
"'And would five dollars make you try?' says he.
"'I guess it would,' says I.
"'Wal, then,' says he, 'I'll give you a five-dollar bill to do it,' says he.
"He rammed his hand into his pocket to git the money; but afore he'd drawed it out, a slick-looking feller comes riding up on hossback, and says to my chap, says he:
"'Do you know anybody what wants to buy a right good hoss dirt cheap?'
"'I dew,' says my man.
"'How high be you willing to go?' says the hossback chap.
"'I don't keer a darn, so's the critter's wo'th the money,' says t'other, and he gin me a sly wink.
"'Then I'll take you to a place where I know you'll be suited,' says the hossback chap.
"'Fur from here?' axes t'other.
"'Not more'n a mile at the outside,' says him on the hoss.
"'Will you jest go along, 'arn the five, and see that I ain'tcheated?' says the foot feller to me, in a tone so low that t'other couldn't hear.
"I said I would; and then my man axed the man on the hoss for his keerd, which he gin him and rid away.
"While we was a-going to the place, my feller told me that his name was John Jenkins; that he'd got as much money as he keerd about having, and if he could only git a hoss to suit him, and not pay more for't than 'twas wo'th, he'd be mighty pleased.
"''Tain't 'cause I ker a darn for the money, Mr. Stebbins,' says he to me, confiding-like; 'but it's 'cause I knows as how all these racehoss-jockey fellers takes a pride in gitting the best of everybody they deals with, and I hates to be beat in that are way. Now I sees by your eyes, Mr. Stebbins, that you ain't a chap to be took in in a hoss trade, and I wants you to use 'em for me; and if things comes out all right, I won't stop to put another ten or twenty a-top of the five, you know.'
"'I'll do my best, Mr. Jenkins,' says I; 'and I guess you'll find my best right up to the handle.'
"When we got to the place we seen a stable, in a little, back, dirty street, and in it was two men and three hosses.
"Two of these 'ere hosses wan't o' no great account, but t'other one was a pooty slick smart-looking critter.
"'How much for this 'ere one?' says Mr. Jenkins, putting his hand onto the beast.
"Waal, really,' says the dealer, 'we don't keer about selling that are critter.'
"'I was recommended to come here for a place where I could buy a good hoss cheap,' says Mr. Jenkins.
"'We really hain't got nothing to sell 'cept the other two critters,' says the jockey. 'We'll sell you them cheap.'
"'I don't want 'em,' says Jenkins, 'but only this 'ere one. Hey, Stebbins! what d'you say?' he says, speaking to me.
"'Waal, the critter you've picked out is pooty likely,' says I, 'but I don't think much of t'others.'
"He called me out one side, and axed me what the best hoss was really wo'th.
"'A good hundred and twenty-five,' says I.
"'How about a hundred and fifty?' says he.
"'I wouldn't go a mite over a hundred and forty,' says I.
"'I'll have him, though, at some price, for I've sot my mind on't,' says he, in a determined way.
"Then he went back to the jockey, and offered him a hundred dollars for that critter.
"The jockey chap laughed right in his face at fust, and then he 'peared to get mad, and said, says he:
"'You're either a dealer yourself, or else you wants to insult me; and no matter which it are, I ain't a-going to trade with you at no price.'
"'I'll give you a hundred and twenty-five,' says Jenkins.
"'Pshaw!' says jockey.
"'A hundred and fifty,' says Jenkins.
"'No,' says t'other.
"'A hundred and seventy-five, then.'
"'No.'
"'I'll give you two hundred.'
"'You can't buy him at no price,' says the hoss dealer, looking awful mad.
"'Then let us go to a more decenter place, Mr. Stebbins,' says Jenkins to me.
"We started off together, and as soon as we'd got out of sight of the stable, Jenkins says to me, says he:
"'Friend Stebbins, I wants that are hoss right bad, 'cause he's jest the critter to suit me. I wonder if you couldn't buy him for me?'
"'I don't 'spect I could,' says I, 'for the feller that owns him has got his Dutch up, and won't sell him to neither of us.'
"'Would you mind going back by yourself and trying?' says he.
"'To obleege you I'll dew it,' says I. 'But the hoss ain't wo'th what you offered, and nothink like it.'
"'I don't keer for that, Mr. Stebbins,' says he; 'it a'nt making a spec' I'm arter; I wants the hoss for hisself, 'cause I've sot my mind on't, and money ain't no object with me. I'll tell ye what I'll dew. If you'll buy that are hoss and fetch him round to my stable, I'll jest plank down two hundred and fifty dollars cash for him, and you may make what profit you kin. I don't keer what you give for him, but I'll give you two hundred and fifty dollars jest the minute he reaches my stable, and I'll go right down there now and wait for you.'
"I told him I'd try my luck, and he writ down the direction for me to come to.
"Waal, I went back and found the two hoss fellers talking with the chap that had fust told us about the place.
"The minute this chap seen me, he come for'ard and said he was right down sorry that his pardners had got mad at my friend—and if he'd been there it wouldn't have turned out so—though it was a insult for him to offer only a hundred dollars for a hoss like that are, which nobody could find his match nowhere for a cent less than three hundred dollars in gold.
"'Tell you what 'tis, mister,' he says, 'I know your friend, John Jenkins—though he don't recollect me—and I know he's mighty rich, and a right down good customer where he likes to deal, and I hate like fury that he went away disapp'inted. Now if you'll find him, and fetch him back, and git him to trade with us, I'll give you a five-dollar bill.'
"I thought I'd got a good chance for a spec, so I says, says I:
"'I don't think I could git him back; but if you folks here wants to sell that are hoss, and will take what he's wo'th, I don't mind buying him for my own self.'
"'You kin have him for two hundred and twenty-five dollars, and not a cent short,' says he.
"'That's more'n I'd give my old daddy for him,' says I.
"Then we began to talk, and palaver, and hile, and at last I got him down to two hundred and ten, and him to give in a old saddle and bridle, so's I could ride him off.
"Waal, I paid down the money, and then rode off for Jenkins' stable feeling pooty proud and happy that I'd made a clean forty dollars by my barg'in.
"But, somehow or other, I couldn't find Jenkins' stable, nor Jenkins nuther, and I hain't found 'em since.
"To git right down to the gist on't, I'd been awfully fooled, and tricked into paying two hundred and ten dollars for a hoss that I didn't want myself, and that I's glad to git rid on, arterwards for one hundred and five, jest one-half the critter cost me.
"Waal, mister, that's the story that all the folks round my way is a-grinning and a-snickering over, and I s'pose I've got to grin and bear it till the hull darned thing dies out and be darned to it.
"It's l'arned me for one thing, that them slick-looking, slick-talking city fellers kin lie and cheat like thunder; and for another thing, that it don't dew for a country chap to butt his brains ag'in them city scamps and al'ays 'spect to git the best on't."
"Whenever I tell the story," said Alf Whitney, throwing away his half-smoked cigar, and putting his long legs on the top of the table, in a way some men have when a story is to be forthcoming, "everybody winks at everybody else, as much as to say, 'Alf had taken too much whisky that time,' or 'Alf was asleep and dreamed the whole thing.' But I tell you, comrades, though you are at liberty to disbelieve what I tell you, it is true; and that's all I know about it. I'm no long-headed metaphysician to reason it all out—I only know what happened, and it's that I'm going to tell."
We gathered closer around the red-hot stove in the bar-roomof the Anderson House, for it was a biting cold night, and the snow was too much for our train, destitute as we were of a snowplow, and we had given up the attempt to push through to C—— that night, and retaken ourselves to the hospitalities of the Arlington.
It had often been whispered among the railway employees that Alf Whitney had once had something strange happen to him. He was a young man yet, though the oldest and most skillful engineer on the road—noted for his skill and judgment, no less than for his sturdy endurance and his bravery, which nothing ever overcame.
I suppose you people who ride in Pullman cars, rocked in velvet cushions, and look at the scenery rushing past, through plate glass windows, heavy with gilt and rosewood mouldings, never think much of the man upon whom your safety depends—the man who, with his hand upon the lever which controls the monster that is bearing you along, stands tireless at his post, through cold and heat, through storm and sunshine, smutty, grimy with smoke, greasy and weather-hardened, but oftentimes the bravest and noblest man among you all. But this is a digression.
We all hastened to assure Alf that we were ready to believe whatever he might say; and he, smiling a little, as if he doubted the sincerity of our assurances, began his story. I give it in his own words, which are much better than mine would be.
"Six years ago, one dark stormy night, Jack Horton lost his life in a smash-up at Rowley's Bend. Jack was an engineer, and as fine a fellow as ever trod the ground. He was handsome, too, and notwithstanding his dirty occupation, a great favorite with the ladies; for when he was off the machine long enough to get the oil and cinders washed off, and his other clothes on, he was the best-looking, as well as the best-mannered, young man anywhere in this vicinity.
"He was engaged to marry Esther Clay; and Esther was a beauty without anything by way of art to help her—a sound-looking, wholesome, healthy young girl—none of your die-away kind, fainting at the sight of a spider, and going into tantrums over a cow a mile off. She was just the kind of woman I could worship, and not put myself out any to do it, either!"
"Why didn't you go for her after Jack was dead?" asked Tom Barnard carelessly.
"Hush! she is dead!" said Alf, in a subdued voice; and the unwonted pallor that settled round his mouth gave me a slight clue to the reason he had never married. And afterward I knew that Esther Clay, dead, and pledged through all eternity to another, was more to him than any living woman!
After a little he went on.
"When Jack was killed, it was the breaking of an axle that caused the mischief; and, of course, this axle broke on just the worst part of the road. They always do. You all know Rowley's Bend? You all know just how high the grade is there, and just how rough and jagged the rocks lie all along the embankment, clear down to the river. No need to dwell on this. The train pitched down into the dark, head first, and Jack, true to his duty, never stirred from his post. It was a good while before we could get to him, the broken timbers of the piled-up cars so completely caged him in. She came there before we had taken his body out, and I shall never forget how she went down into the ruins where even the bravest of us hardly dared to venture, so insecure was the footing, and worked with her white, slender hands, until the blood ran from their wounds. She never minded it a particle, but worked on, with a face as pale and rigid as marble. But I am making a long story, and dwelling too much on details. Jack was dead when they found him, and she lived just a month afterward. And, though everybody lamented at her funeral, and said it was 'so sad,' I do not think it was sad, for when two people love each other, truly and loyally, and one of them dies, it seems to me Heaven's special mercy if the other is suffered to go along.
"Jack and I had always been great friends; and once when we were talking about the supernatural nonsense that so many believe in, Jack said to me laughingly:
"'If I die first, I'll keep a watch over you, old fellow; and when I see you running into danger, I'll whistle the brakes down. Now remember!' After he died these careless words of his kept coming back to me, and try as I would not to remember them, the more they were present to my mind.
"It was nearly two years after Jack's death that I was taking the ten-fifty accommodation out to L——. It was a dark, drizzly night, and the headlight on the front of the engine pierced but a short distance into the gloom and fog ahead of us. I was running carefully, as I always run on such nights, and had nearly reached Carney's Ford when I saw something on the track before us. I whistled to down brakes, and reversed the lever. The train slackened, and I could see distinctly ahead of us the tall figure of a man. But we got no nearer to him, for though he seemed to be only walking, his speed was fully equal to ours. We should never overtake him. A cold shiver ran through me as I noted this fact. No mortal man could walk like that.
"'Richards,' said I to the fireman, who, ghastly and trembling with fear, was gazing at the strange apparition, 'it must be Old Nick himself, with the seven-league boots on!'
"As I spoke, the figure turned toward us, and then I saw that in his hand he carried a red lantern, the well-known signal of danger. He lifted it, swung it slowly round his head once, and, as he did so, the blood-red light fell full on his face—the face of Jack Horton. For a moment he stood motionless, then he was enveloped in a pale, azure flame, which died out instantly, and left—nothing!
"All this, which it has taken me so long to describe, took place in an instant of time, and by the time the phantom had vanished Richards and I had managed to stop the train. We got off and went ahead. The red lantern had not signaled 'danger' for nothing. A heavy stick of timber was spiked across the track, and, had we gone on at full speed, it would have sent us to swift destruction.
"The company ferreted out the rascal who had done this vile thing, and he is serving out a long term in the State prison now. I have seen him and talked with him, and he swore to me, with a voice that trembled even then with horror, that after he had spiked down the timber and had hidden in some bushes near by to watch the result, he had seen a tall man, with a red lantern in his hand, start up in front of the engine and walk, as nothing human could walk, until he reached the very spot where the danger lay.
"'And then,' said the miscreant, 'he changed into a blue flame, and vanished, and I knew that my plan was upset, and that for once Satan had gone back on them as he'd set to work.'"
"Well," said Tom Barnard, "what else?"
"That is all," said Alf, lighting another cigar.
"But what was the fellow's object in seeking to disable the train?"
"Plunder. He had ascertained that a carrying company would have a large sum of money on board that night, and he was not averse to turning an honest penny."
"But the phantom—how do you explain it?" persisted Tom.
"I don't explain it," said Alf quietly.