SOMETHING WRONG.
McGlory, Carl, and Twomley waited in the calliope tent until their
patience was exhausted.
"Py shiminy," fluttered Carl, "I bed you somet'ing for nodding dot Vily
Pill don'd vas by der site show yet."
"I reckon you've dropped a bean on the right number," agreed the
cowboy. "What's our next jump, your highness?"
The question was put to the Englishman.
"Aw, I say," said the latter, in remonstrance, "I'm not that, don't
you know. I'm not of the peerage. An uncle and three cousins, all
distressingly healthy, stand between me and an earldom."
"I want to know!" murmured McGlory, in mock surprise. "Why, I didn't
think any one this side a lord could wear one of those little window
panes in the right eye."
"You jest," said Twomley, with a faint smile. "Fancy!"
"Well, anyhow, what are we going to do? Sit here and wait, or hit the
trail ourselves and find out what's doing?"
"Hit the trail?" echoed Twomley, lifting his brows. "Deuced odd, that.
Why should we hit it, and what shall we hit it with?"
"Vat a ignorance!" murmured Carl.
"We'll hit it with our feet, excellency," went on McGlory.
He had a hearty contempt for the monocle, and took it out on the wearer.
"I don't know whether I rise to that," returned Twomley, "but if it
means to go forth and look into the cause of our friends' delay in
returning with Wily Bill, then, it's ay, ay, with a will."
"Come on, then, and we'll vamose."
McGlory led the way to the side-show tent, and Twomley and Carl
followed him closely.
The crowds had long since entered the big tents, and the performance
in the "circus top" was in full blast. With the beginning of the "big
show" there was no business left for the annex, and the ticket seller
was withdrawn under the lee of a canvas wall, hobnobbing with the man
on the door. These two informed McGlory, Twomley, and Carl that Wily
Bill had left for town on the street car, and that Motor Matt and
Burton had started for the car line in the hope of overhauling him. But
that had been all of half an hour before.
The three searchers immediately departed for the car-line loop. There
they found Burton and a young fellow kicking their heels impatiently
and keeping their eyes down the track.
"Where's Matt?" asked McGlory.
"Ask us something easy," replied Burton. "Wily has hiked for town. When
we got here the car he was on was too far down the track to stop. This
young man"--the showman indicated his companion--"came along on a motor
cycle. Matt borrowed the machine with the intention of overtaking
the car and bringing Wily back, but neither has shown up yet. Must be
something wrong."
"Vell, I bed you!" said Carl anxiously. "On some modor cycles
Mile-a-minid Matt alvays geds vere he iss going pefore he shtarts.
Somet'ing has gone crossvays alretty, und dot's no tream."
"I'm doing a century to-day," remarked the motor cycle owner, "and this
is cutting into my time."
"Don't fret about your wheel, neighbor," spoke up McGlory. "You'll get
it back, all right."
"I'm not fretting. Motor Matt's welcome to a dozen of the gasoline
bikes if I had 'em. But I'd like to be moving on."
Burton looked at his watch.
"Matt's been gone thirty-five minutes," he announced.
"If he was running all the time," observed the lad from the motor-car
works, "he could be thirty-five miles from here."
"Perhaps," ventured Twomley, "he has mucked the play, somehow."
"Mucked the play!" exclaimed the exasperated McGlory. "That's not his
style, your lordship."
"We'll wait twenty-five minutes longer," announced Burton. "If Matt
isn't back by then, this young man and I will start along the car track
in my runabout and we'll see what we can find."
"Dake me along," clamored Carl. "I vas afraidt somet'ing iss wrong mit
Matt."
"If there are any extra passengers in the runabout," said McGlory
resolutely, "I'm the one."
"My word!" muttered Twomley. "I hope everything's all serene, I do,
indeed. I'm a juggins at waiting when there's so much excitement going
on."
"Juggins is good," grunted McGlory. "You can retire somewhere, Mr.
Twomley, and hold onto your nerves while the rest of us hunt up the
'barker.' You'll not shine much till we find Wily Bill, anyhow."
"You're an odd stick," answered Twomley, whose good nature was not a
thing to be ruffled.
He was sharp enough to see that the cowboy had a pique at him, and he
had sufficient good sense to take it calmly.
"Py shinks," said Carl, after ten more weary minutes had passed, "Matt
has hat time to do some centuries himseluf, und I can't guess it oudt
for vy he don'd get pack. Oof you don'd dake me in der runaboudt, den,
so helup me, I vill valk. Anydink is pedder to shtand as uncerdainties."
Carl constantly watched the road that paralleled the car track. And so,
for the most part, did the Englishman.
"My word, but it is trying!" murmured Twomley. "If we could only see a
bit of dust, then we'd know Motor Matt was coming, and my relief would
be profound."
"Dust! _Ach, himmelblitzen!_ Vy, Matt vill go so fast on dot machine
der dust vill be a mile pehindt und you don'd see dot."
"Here's something," came from McGlory. "Speak to me about it, will
you? Where's Ping? Little Slant-eyes is always around when anything is
doing, but I haven't seen him since he finished watering the calliope."
Carl knew why Ping wasn't around. Ping was afraid Carl would do
something to him to play even for the Roman-candle business. Oh, yes,
that was an easy one for Carl to guess. There was secret satisfaction
for the Dutch boy in the reflection. And he gloated over it and kept it
to himself.
"Time's up," announced Burton, snapping his watch, "and here's where
I go for the runabout. My thoroughbred is hitched to the buggy, so be
ready to go with me," he added to the owner of the motor cycle.
"I'm not worrying about the wheel, understand," said the lad, "but
about the century I'm to turn. I'm making it right in the teeth of this
wind."
Inside of five minutes Burton came with the runabout, his Kentucky
thoroughbred stamping off the ground at a record pace.
The runabout seat was narrow, and Burton and the lad from the motor-car
factory filled it comfortably. But they took McGlory on their knees and
whipped away, leaving Twomley and Carl gazing after them disconsolately.
Hardly were the runabout and its passengers out of sight when a car
rounded the loop and deposited its passengers on the platform.
"Led's ged on der car, Misder Dumley," suggested Carl. "Ve vill vatch
der road as ve go, und oof ve see somet'ing ve vill trop off. I peen a
tedectif feller, und oof dere iss any clues dey von't ged avay from me."
"Go you!" answered Twomley heartily.
Any sort of action was a relief for his impatience, and he and Carl
scrambled aboard the car.
Meanwhile the pedigreed Kentucky cob was pounding off the distance.
In the horse's performance the proud showman lost sight of the main
business in hand--temporarily.
"See that knee action!" he exulted. "Did either of you ever see a
prettier bit of traveling? We're doing a mile in two-thirty!"
"Bother the horse!" growled McGlory. "Keep your eyes on the road for
clues."
"Clues! I'll bet money the 'barker' wouldn't get off the car. How could
Matt make him? He couldn't, of course. Nothing short of a cop and a
warrant could make Wily Bill leave the car if he was set for reaching
Grand Rapids. I might have known that, if I had stopped to think. We'll
have to keep right on into town--and, then, like as not, we won't find
either Matt or Wily. Now----"
"Whoa!" cried McGlory. "You're shy a few, Burton. Here's where we stop."
"What's up?" returned Burton, reining in his spirited roadster.
"Look there!"
McGlory pointed to the left-hand side of the road. Close to a steep
bank, against a clump of bushes, stood the motor cycle.
"Jupiter!" exclaimed Burton.
"Great Scott!" cried the owner of the machine.
McGlory tumbled clear of the runabout and started toward the bushes.
He had not taken half a dozen steps, however, before he came to a dead
stop.
A form fluttered out of the bushes and approached him excitedly.
"Ping!" gasped the cowboy. "Speak to me about this! Where'd you come
from, Ping? And where's Pard Matt?"
The Chinese boy's feelings apparently defied expression. He tried to
speak, but his lips moved soundlessly. Hopping up and down in his
sandals, he waved his arms and pointed--not toward Grand Rapids, but
off across a piece of rough woodland.