Motor Matt's Double Trouble; or, The Last of the Hoodoo

by Stanley R. Matthews

  CHAPTER VI.

  M'GLORY IS LOST--AND FOUND.

  This unexpected encounter with Sam Wing was certainly a "hot starter"in the matter of the stolen ruby, although of apparently smallconsequence in the matter of the stolen car. But Motor Matt was notparticular as to which end of the double thread fortune wafted his way.He followed Sam Wing just as zealously as he would have followed PhiloGrattan, had it been the white thief instead of the yellow who had fledfrom the spring.

  The cold spring water had run down the cowboy's face, under his collar,and had glued his shirt to his wet skin.

  "Speak to me about that!" he breathed angrily, as he labored on. "Ifthe rat-eater hadn't slammed that water into my face, I'd have had himby his yellow throat in a brace of shakes! Wow, but it's cold! I feelas though I was hugging an iceberg. Where's Matt?"

  McGlory had not seen his chum since he had plunged into the bushes,but had followed blindly in a course he believed to be the right one,trying only to see how much ground he could cover.

  Now, realizing suddenly that he might be on the wrong track, the cowboyhalted, peered around him, and listened intently. The timber wasthick and the bushes dense on every side. There were no sounds in anydirection even remotely suggesting the Chinaman's flight and Matt'spursuit.

  "I'm off my bearings and no mistake," reflected the cowboy, searchingthe ground in vain for some signs of the course taken by Sam Wing andMatt. "Matt will have a time overhauling the chink in this chaparral,and the two of us are needed. But which way am I to go?"

  McGlory had been hurrying along the side hill that edged the valley andthe road. He swept his eyes across the narrow valley, and then up theslope toward the top of the hill.

  "It's a cinch," he ruminated, "that Sam Wing wouldn't go near thetrail, but would do his level best to get as far away from it as hecould. That means, if I'm any guesser, that he climbed the hill andtried to lose himself beyond. Me for the other side," and the cowboybegan pawing and scrambling up the steep slope.

  Ten minutes of hard work brought him to the crest, and here again hehalted to peer anxiously around and to listen. He could neither hearnor see anything that gave him a line on Matt and the Chinaman.

  "Whoop-ya!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Matt! Where are you,pard?"

  A jaybird mocked him from somewhere in the timber, and a frightenedhawk took wing and soared skyward.

  "Blamed if this ain't real excitin'!" growled the cowboy. "I'm goingto do something to help lay that yellow tinhorn by the heels, though,and you can paste that in your hat. If Matt came over the hill, thenit stands to reason he went down on this other side. I'll keep on, byguess and by gosh, and maybe something will happen."

  McGlory kept on for half an hour, floundering through the bushes,making splendid time in his slide to the foot of the hill, and fromthere striking out on an erratic course that carried him toward allpoints of the compass. He climbed rocky hills and descended them, hefollowed ravines, and he sprinted across narrow levels, yelling forMatt from time to time, but receiving no answer. Then he discoveredthat something had happened--and that he was lost.

  Trying to locate himself by the position of the sun, he endeavored toreturn to the road. Instead of calling for Matt, he now began whoopingit up for Martin. The sun appeared to be in the wrong place, and theroad and the spring had vanished. The farther McGlory went, the moreconfused and bewildered he became. At last he dropped down on a bowlderand panted out his chagrin and disgust.

  "Lost! Me, Joseph Easy Mark McGlory, Arizona puncher and boss trailerof the deserts and the foothills! Lost, plumb tangled up in mybearings, clean gone off the jump--and in this two-by-twice range oftoy mountains where Rip Van Winkle snoozed for twenty years. I wonderif Rip was as tired as I am when he laid down to snatch his fortywinks. Sufferin' tenderfoot! I've walked far enough to carry me plumbto Albany, if it had all been in a straight line. Matt!" and again helifted his voice. "Martin!"

  The lusty yell echoed and reverberated through the surrounding woods,but brought no answer.

  Then, suddenly, the cowboy was seized from behind by a pair of stoutarms, pulled backward off the bowlder, and flattened out on the groundby a heavy knee on his chest.

  It had all happened so quickly that McGlory was dazed. He was a momentor two in recovering his wits and in recognizing the sinister face andmocking eyes that bent down over him.

  "Grattan!" he gasped.

  "Ay, messmate," gibed a voice from near at hand; "Grattan and Bunce.Don't forget Bunce."

  The cowboy turned his head and saw the sailor. The green patchdecorated one of the sailor's eyes, but the other eye taunted theluckless prisoner with an exultant gleam.

  McGlory struggled desperately under Grattan's hands.

  "Stop it!" ordered Grattan.

  As McGlory had made no headway with his frantic struggles, he decidedto obey the command.

  "What are you doing out here in the woods?" inquired Grattan.

  "Ease up on that throat a little," wheezed the cowboy. "Want to takethe breath all out of me?" The thief's fingers relaxed slightly. "Ileft the road a spell ago," proceeded McGlory, "and went wide of mybearings somewhere--I don't know just where."

  "Lost, eh?" laughed Grattan. "Well, my lad, you've been found."

  "How did you happen to find me?"

  "How?" jeered Bunce. "You was makin' more noise than a foghorn. The wayyou was askin' Motor Matt for help, it's a wonder they didn't hear youin Catskill."

  "Tie his hands with something, Bunce," said Grattan.

  Bunce looked taken aback for a space, then whipped his knife laniardfrom about his neck, removed the knife, doubled the cord, and contriveda lashing that was strong enough to answer the purpose.

  Grattan heaved the cowboy over upon his face and pulled his wristsbehind him. In less than a minute the cord was in place, and theprisoner was freed of Grattan's gripping hands and allowed to sit up,his back against the bowlder.

  "This meeting," grinned Grattan, "was entirely unexpected, and apleasant surprise."

  "A pleasant surprise for you, I reckon," grunted McGlory. "What did youjump onto me for like this? What good is it going to do you?"

  "What benefit I am to derive from this encounter," replied Grattan,"remains to be seen. Tell me, my lad, are you and Motor Matt lookingfor Tsan Ti?"

  An angry denial was on the cowboy's lips, but he thought better of thewords before they were spoken.

  "Never you mind who we're looking for, Grattan," said he.

  "It's for Tsan Ti, I am sure," went on Grattan. "He's somewhere in thissection, for he left Gardenville on foot, early this morning, precededby his man, Sam Wing. I don't know exactly what's up, but I'm ratherinclined to think that the mandarin is afraid of me, and is trying toget back to Catskill and place himself under the wing of his estimableprotector, Motor Matt. You and Matt heard he was coming and advanced tomeet him. The same man who told me the fat Chinaman was in the hillsmust have given you boys the same information."

  "Who was the _hombre_, Grattan?" queried McGlory, secretly delighted tothink Grattan's speculations were so wide of the mark.

  "A man in a white runabout with a red torpedo beard."

  "I wouldn't know a red torpedo beard from a Piute's scalplock, but I dorecollect a shuffer in a white car."

  This white runabout was one of the cars Matt, Martin, and McGlory hadpassed on the road, and the driver was one of those of whom they hadmade inquiries. The inquiries, of course, had been all about the stolenautomobile and not about the fat Chinaman. If Grattan had been in thestolen car when asking the man in the white runabout for news of TsanTi, then why hadn't the runabout driver remembered the blue car andtold Matt something about it?

  "Where were you," went on the cowboy, "when you hailed the man in thewhite car?"

  "On foot, by the spring," answered Grattan genially.

  He was an educated man and usually good-natured--sometimes under themost adverse circumstances. That was his way, perhaps on the principlethat an easy mann
er is best calculated to disarm suspicion.

  "Where was the car you and Bunce stole from the Catskill garage?" askedthe cowboy.

  "We tucked it away in a pocket of the hills that my friend Pardo knewabout," explained Grattan, tacitly admitting the theft and, in hiscustomary fashion, not hesitating to go elaborately into details. "Wefailed to finish the work that took us to Gardenville last night. Whenwe learned at the railroad station in that town that the fat Chinamanhad started south on foot, about break of day, following another of hiscountrymen, we rushed the car back into an obscure place. It is notadvisable, you understand, to make that car too prominent. We shallhave to use it by night. Bunce and I rode to the spring on our motorcycles for the purpose of watching the road. The white runabout camealong, and the driver told us, he had passed Tsan Ti, walking thisway. We waited for him to pass the spring, but he did not. Thinking hehad taken to the rough country, Bunce and I returned our wheels to theplace where we have pitched temporary camp and began prowling around inthe hope of finding the mandarin. Then, quite unexpectedly, I assureyou, we heard you calling. We came to this place, guided by the soundof your voice. You know the rest, and----"

  Grattan bit off his words abruptly. From a distance came a hail, so faroff as to be almost indistinguishable.

  "Motor Matt!" exclaimed Grattan, with a laugh. "He's looking for you,McGlory. If this keeps up, we're going to have quite a reunion. Put ahand over his lips, Bunce," he added to the sailor.

  McGlory tried to give a desperate yell before the hand closed overhis mouth, but he was not quick enough. Grattan, leaning against thebowlder, threw back his head and answered the distant call.

  The voice in the woods drew closer and closer.

  "Call again, excellent one!" came the weary voice from the scrub. "Iheard you shouting some time ago, and you were calling the name of anesteemed friend for whom I am looking. Speak loudly to me, so that Imay come where you are."

  The three by the bowlder were astounded.

  "Tsan Ti," muttered Grattan, "or I don't know the voice. Luck, Bunce!Whoever thought this could happen? The mandarin heard McGlory callingfor Motor Matt--and now the mandarin is looking for McGlory and isgoing to find _us_." A chuckle came with the words. "Lie low, Bunce,and watch McGlory. Leave the trapping of Tsan Ti to me."