TRAPPED.
Matt saw that McGlory had managed, like himself, to stay with the
car, then both motor boys had a flash-light glimpse of the mariner
ricochetting through the atmosphere and striking earth right side up by
the track. But Bunce did not remain in an upright position. The force
with which he had been thrown launched him into a series of eccentric
cartwheels, and when he finally stopped turning he was in a sitting
posture, with his back against a bowlder.
Apparently he had escaped serious injury, which was a remarkable fact,
in view of the circumstances. A broken neck might easily have resulted,
or, at the least, a fractured arm or leg.
"Shiver me!" gasped Bunce, dazed and bewildered by the suddenness of it
all.
Then Motor Matt's and McGlory's shocked senses laid hold of another
detail of the situation which was most astounding.
The green patch had been shaken from the mariner's head, and he was
peering around him with two good eyes!
"Tell me about that!" roared McGlory, pointing. "Look at his lamps,
Matt! He's got two!"
"I see," answered Matt grimly. "Suppose we approach closer, Joe, and
find out about this."
Bunce watched the boys descend from the speeder and advance upon him,
but there was still a dazed gleam in his eyes which proved that he was
slow in recovering his wits.
"Are you all right, Bunce?" asked Matt, reaching the mariner's side and
bending down.
"That--that craft must have--have turned a handspring," mumbled Bunce.
"Purty tolerable blow we had, mates, an' I was snatched away from
the bench, an' tossed overboard. It was done so quick I--I hardly
knowed what was goin' on. By the seven holy spritsails! it's a wonder
I'm shipshape an' all together." He got up slowly and began feeling
gingerly of his arms and legs. "Nothin' busted, I guess," he added.
The ground where he had landed was cushioned with sand. To this fact,
more than to anything else, he owed his escape from injury.
McGlory picked up the green patch.
"Here's an ornament you dropped during that ground-and-lofty tumbling,
you old tinhorn," said he. "What did you wear it for, anyhow?"
"Blow me tight!" exclaimed Bunce, staring at the patch with falling
jaw. "Ain't that reedic'lous?" he added, with a feeble attempt to treat
the matter lightly.
"It is rather ridiculous, Bunce, and that's a fact," answered Matt.
"You've a pair of very good eyes, it seems to me, and what's the good
of that patch?"
The mariner grabbed the bit of green cloth and pulled the string over
his head.
"I never said I'd lost one o' my lamps," he averred, settling the patch
in place. "Off Table Mountain, South Africy, a cable parted on the ole
_Hottentot_, an' I was hit in the eye with a loose rope's end. For a
while, I thought I was goin' blind. But I didn't, only the eye has been
weak ever sence, an' needs purtection. That's why I wear the patch."
"You've got it over the wrong eye, Bunce," observed McGlory. "You've
been wearing it over the left eye, and now it's over the right. Have
you got any clear notion which eye was hit with that rope's end?"
Bunce hastily changed the position of the patch.
"I'm that rattled," said he, "that I'm all ahoo, an' don't rightly know
what I'm about. I----"
For an instant he stared up the track, breaking off his words abruptly;
then, without any further explanation, he whirled and rushed for the
timber.
With a yell of anger, McGlory started after him.
"Come back, Joe!" shouted Matt. "Here come some men who seem to have
business with us."
The cowboy whirled to an about face, and followed with his eyes the
direction of his chum's pointing finger.
Four men in flannel shirts and overalls, and carrying spades, picks,
and tamping irons, were hurrying up the track in the direction of the
curve.
"The section gang!" muttered McGlory.
"A good guess," laughed Matt. "We've been trapped."
"Trapped?"
"That's the way it looks to me. We were seen coming down the mountain
and those men, recognizing the speeder, laid the tie across the rails
to catch the thieves."
"Sufferin' kiboshes, but here's a go! This comes of trying to fill the
bill for an old tinhorn like Bunce."
"Ketched!" yelled one of the approaching men, flourishing a tamping
iron; "we've ketched the robbers that run off with Mulvaney's speeder!
Don't you make no trouble," he added, slowing his pace and coming more
warily.
The other three men spread out and then closed in, barring escape for
the motor boys in every direction.
"You've made a mistake," said Matt.
"Oh, sure!" jeered the section boss, "but I reckon we'll take ye to
Catskill, an' let ye tell the superintendent all about the mistake."
"Don't be in a rush about taking us to Catskill," threatened McGlory.
"You listen to what Motor Matt says, and I reckon he'll make the layout
clear to you."
"Motor Matt!" returned the boss ironically. "Why don't ye say ye're the
governor o' the State, or somethin' like that? Ye might jest as well.
Motor Matt ain't stealin' speeders an' runnin' off with 'em."
The king of the motor boys had become pretty well known in the
Catskills through his previous work in recovering the ruby for Tsan
Ti. Even these section men had heard of his exploits. Matt, seeing the
impression his cowboy pard's words had made, resolved to prove his
identity in the hope of avoiding trouble.
"What my chum says is true, men," he declared. "I am Motor Matt. We
didn't steal the railroad speeder. That was done by the man who was
with us--the fellow who ran away. You saw him, didn't you?"
"Sure we saw him," answered the section boss, "but I wouldn't try to
put it all off onto him, if I was you."
"Sufferin' blockheads!" rumbled McGlory. "Use your brains, if you've
got any, can't you? Do we look like thieves?"
"Can't most always tell from a feller's looks what he is," returned the
boss skeptically. "And this other chap can't be Motor Matt, nuther, or
he wouldn't have stole the speeder. That there speeder has been missin'
for three days, an' orders has gone out, up an' down the line, for all
hands to watch out for it. When I seen it comin' down the grade, I
knowed we had ye. All we done was to throw that tie acrost the track,
an' the trick was done. Ye'll have to go to Catskill, that's all about
it."
"Are you men from Catskill?" inquired Matt.
"No, Tannersville, but Catskill's the place you're wanted. We'll put ye
on the passenger, when it comes along."
"But we don't want to go back to Catskill just yet," Matt demurred.
"We've got business here, and it can't be put off."
Matt believed that Bunce had run to get away from the section men, who,
he must have realized, had caused the speeder's mishap in the hope of
catching the ones who had stolen the car. There was yet a chance, Matt
thought, to overhaul Bunce and find Grattan. To go back to Catskill,
just then, would have been disastrous to the work he and McGlory were
trying to do under the mariner's leadership.
"Sure ye don't want to go to Catskill," went on the section boss,
"right now, or any other time. But ye're goin', all the same. Grab 'em,
you men," and the boss shouted the order to the three who had grouped
themselves around Matt and McGlory.
"Hands off!" shouted the cowboy.
Matt saw him jerk the revolver from his pocket, and aim it at the man
who was reaching to lay hold of him. The man fell back with an oath of
consternation.
"Don't do that, Joe!" cried Matt.
"Oh, no," sneered the boss, "you fellers ain't thieves, I guess!
What're you pullin' a gun on us for, if ye ain't?"
"I'm not going to argue the case with you any further," Matt answered
shortly. "We're going back to Catskill after a while, but not now. When
we get there we'll report to your superintendent and explain how we
happened to be aboard the stolen speeder. I was intending to return the
car to the railroad company as soon as we had got through with it, and
then----"
"Sure ye was!" mocked the boss. "Ye wasn't intendin' to do anythin' but
what was right an' lawful--to hear ye tell it. We got ye trapped, an'
I ain't goin' to fool with ye any longer. Put down that gun, you!" and
he whirled savagely upon McGlory. "We're goin' to take ye, an' if you
do any shootin' ye'll find yerselves in a deeper hole than what ye are
now."
"You keep away from me," scowled McGlory, still holding the weapon
leveled, "and keep your men away from me. Try to touch either of
us, and this gun will begin to talk. We're not thieves, but that's
something we can't pound into your thick head, so we're going to attend
to our business in spite of you."
The section boss was a man of courage, and was resolute in his
intention to take the boys to Catskill. Certainly, so far as
appearances went, he had the right of the matter, and Matt didn't feel
that he could explain the exact situation with any chance of having his
words believed.
"Here's where I'm comin' for ye," proceeded the section boss, "an' if
you shoot, you'll be tagged with more kinds o' trouble than you can
take care of. Now----"
The section boss got no farther. Just at that moment the rumble of a
train coming up the grade could be heard. Instantly the attention of
the section boss was called to another matter.
"The passenger!" he cried, jumping around and staring at the speeder
and the tie. "There'll be a wreck if we don't clear the track. Come on,
men! Hustle!"
The peril threatening the passenger train banished from the minds of
the section men all thought of the boys. All four of the gang ran to
remove the obstructions from the rails.
"Come on, pard!" said McGlory; "now's our chance."
Matt, with a feeling of intense relief, bounded after his chum, and
they were soon well away in the timber.