“That man was so mad he was locoed,” observed the cowboy.
“Certainly he was, Joe,” agreed Matt. “If he hadn’t been, he’d never
have given away that machine. It’s a powerful car and worth twenty-five
hundred of any man’s money.”
“Don’t tamper with it, Matt,” implored Billy. “When that fellow gets
over his mad spell he’ll want the runabout back. Let him have it--and
let him find it right where he left it.”
“If he hadn’t been worked up like he was,” said Matt, “he wouldn’t have
given the car to me. I won’t take it, of course, but Joe and I will use
it to take us to the Malvern Country Club, and then back to Manhattan.
By to-morrow that fellow will be looking for me and wanting his car
back.”
“You wouldn’t think of such a thing as wanting to bother with that
runabout!” gasped Billy, from his seat in the touring car.
“Yes, I would,” answered Matt. “Why not?”
“The number--thirteen thirteen!”
“Bosh!”
“It’s a hoodoo car.”
“Never mind about that, Billy. You go on to Krug’s Corner and get a
stout rope. If you overtake the owner of the runabout you can give him
a lift. See him, anyhow, and tell him we’ll take the runabout to New
York and that he can have it whenever he wants it.”
“Don’t do it!” begged Billy. “I’ve seen enough of these hoodoo cars to
know they’ll prove the death of somebody. Don’t let that runabout prove
the death of you!”
“Go get the rope, Billy,” said Matt sharply, “and hustle back with it.”
There was that in the voice of Matt King which proved that he had made
up his mind, and that there was no shaking his determination. With an
ominous movement of the head, Billy started for Krug’s Corner.
“Pard,” remarked McGlory earnestly, “I reckon the runabout is heap bad
medicine. Do you think you ought to mix up with it?”
“Are you going back on me, Joe?” asked Matt.
“Not so you can notice. I’d get on a streak of greased lightning with
you, if you said the word, and help you ride it to the end of the
One-way Trail, but I think this is too big an order for us. Sufferin’
thunderbolts! Why, pard, that car won’t mind the helm or do the thing
it ought to do even when you pull the right thing. When it began to
crawfish around the road, the reverse wasn’t on.”
“I don’t know about that. It’s on now,” and he looked down at
the runabout. “I guess the man must have thrown on the reverse
instinctively when the tire blew up. Think of rinsing the chalk from
the outer tube with gasoline!” Matt laughed. “There was good cause for
the tire going wrong, and there may be other good and sufficient causes
for the machine’s sizzling around like it did. Anyhow, we’ll try it,
and see how it will behave for us.”
“But how can we lay a course for the Malvern Country Club? Billy will
have to show us.”
“Billy can tell us how to go, and we’ll get to the Country Club all
right. Hello! What’s this?”
Matt began slipping and sliding down the slope at the side of the
runabout. Just at the point where the driver of the car had taken his
header, the young motorist picked up a long manila envelope, unsealed.
“I reckon that dropped out of the man’s clothes while he was upside
down,” ventured McGlory.
“That’s a cinch,” said Matt. “There’s no address on the envelope, and
no printed card in the corner, but it may be we can find the man’s name
and address on the papers inside. If he won’t come for his car, we’ll
take it to him.”
“I’m a Piute,” mumbled McGlory, “if I feel right about this runabout
business.”
“Billy’s talk about hoodoo cars has got you on the run,” grinned Matt.
“You’ll feel different when we’re slamming along the pike with the
runabout under perfect control. It’s my opinion that man doesn’t know a
whole lot about running a car.”
While Matt was moving here and there about the steep bank, making a few
investigations of the “hoodoo” machine, Billy came racing back.
“There’s your rope, Matt,” said he, tossing a coiled cable into the
road.
Matt crept warily up the bank to the front of the runabout.
“Did you see the man, Billy?” he asked.
“Sure I did. Let him ride with me for half a mile.”
“You told him what we were going to do?”
“I did. He says that if you get that car back to the city, and try to
turn it over to him, he’ll have you arrested for assault with intent
to do great bodily damage. He says the runabout is a powder mine, and
liable to blow up at any minute. ‘Tell Matt King to keep it,’ he said,
‘providing he’s got the nerve.’ That’s the way he handed it to me. Take
my advice,” Billy clamored desperately, “and leave it alone!”
“Joe and I are going to use it,” answered Matt. “Hand me an end of
that rope, pard,” he added to the cowboy.
McGlory passed him the rope, and Matt made it secure to the front of
the runabout.
“Back up, Billy,” called Matt, “and tie the other end of the rope to
the touring car. You’ve got to give us a lift into the road.”
“What if something should happen?” demurred Billy.
“Nonsense!” said Matt impatiently.
“You can’t give the car back to that fellow if he won’t take it.”
“We’ll make him take it. He’s a very foolish man, and he’s going to
feel differently when his temper cools.”
Billy, not in a very comfortable frame of mind, backed the touring car
close to the edge of the bank. The rope was made fast, and Matt and
McGlory went to the foot of the bank to push while the big machine
pulled.
The attempt was successful. The runabout sputtered--perhaps
defiantly--as it yielded to the tugging and rolled up the slope. Matt
looked the machine over and could not find that it had suffered any by
the slide down the slope.
“It’ll hang together till it gets you, Motor Matt,” observed Billy
grewsomely. “That’s the way with these hoodoo cars. They never go to
pieces till they kill somebody.”
“You’re too good a driver, Billy, to talk such foolishness,” returned
Matt. “Now, tell us how to get to the Malvern Country Club.”
“Ain’t I going with you?”
“Three of us couldn’t ride very comfortably in the runabout.”
“But hadn’t I better go along in the touring car so as to be handy in
case of accidents?”
“Oh, Joe and I will get along. We’re not going to have any accidents if
we can help it--and I feel pretty sure we can.”
Billy laid out the course the boys were to take with considerable
detail. When he was through, Matt felt that he had the route clearly
fixed in his mind.
“If the runabout’s too much for you,” Billy finished, “all you’ve got
to do is to phone the garage, and I’ll come a-runnin’.”
“Where did you get the rope?” asked Matt.
Billy told him he had borrowed it at Krug’s.
“We’ll leave it there,” said Matt, “on our way past the Corner.”
“You may never get to Krug’s,” answered Billy, in extreme dejection.
“Pile in, Joe,” said Matt, “and we’ll throw in the clutch and scoot.”
McGlory, it must be admitted, climbed into the runabout in a way that
proved his lack of confidence. Matt cranked up, listening with deep
satisfaction to the smooth singing of the engine, and then got into the
driver’s seat.
Billy, in the touring car, watched tremulously and waited. From his
appearance, he was plainly expecting that the white car would turn a
few cartwheels and perhaps land upside down in the middle of the road
with Matt and McGlory underneath.
But nothing of the sort happened. Car No. 1313 moved off in the
direction of Krug’s as nice as you please--moved on a hair line, with
none of the distressing wabbling which characterized its previous
performance with its owner at the wheel.
The cowboy gathered confidence. Looking behind, he waved his hat at
Billy.
“Don’t whistle till you’re out of the woods!” yelled Billy.
He shouted something else, but his words faded out in the increasing
distance.
“Speak to me concerning this!” laughed McGlory, straightening around in
his seat. “This little old chug cart is a false alarm, after all. It
seems to understand that there’s a fellow in charge who knows the ropes
up and down and across. Fine!”
“We’ll see the owner of the machine at Krug’s,” said Matt, “and get his
address.”
“But he can’t have the runabout till we’re done with it,” protested
McGlory.
“I should say not! We’ve sent Billy home, and that leaves us only this
car to take us back. Ah, there’s Krug’s! We’ll stop for a few minutes.”
Matt tried to stop, but he couldn’t. He went through all the motions
for cutting off the flow of gasoline and switching off the spark.
The clutch was out, but the engine still had the car, and the engine
wouldn’t stop.
An automobile was just coming out of the sheds. The runabout came
within an ace of a head-on collision. Fortunately the steering gear
still worked, and Matt scraped mud guards with the other car and he and
his cowboy chum bounded on along the road.
McGlory yelled frantically. “Jump!” he cried; “let the old contraption
run its blooming head off!”
But Matt wouldn’t jump, and he wouldn’t let his chum go over the flying
wheels. Dazed and bewildered, he bore down on the brake.
The speed slackened, but they were half a mile beyond Krug’s before the
car made up its mind to stop. Then McGlory tumbled out, while Matt sat
astounded, his arms folded over the steering wheel and such a look on
his face as the cowboy had never seen there before.