THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS.
While making his slow and painful way among the scrub oaks that grew
out of the stony earth, Ping was looking in all directions for Matt and
Wily. He was listening, too, with all his ears. But he could neither
see nor hear anything of the two for whom he was searching.
"My findee!" he said, with dogged determination. "Motol Matt no chasee
China boy, him chasee Wily Bill," and again he exulted.
Action was perhaps the best tonic he could have had. As he swung
onward, the leg which did not seem to belong to him began to remind
him, in no uncertain manner, that it was really his, and that he was
responsible for its condition.
A slow pain made itself manifest, running up the member like a streak
of lightning and giving Ping a "gone" feeling in the pit of his
stomach. But he was "game." Shutting his teeth on more than one groan,
he kept resolutely on through the bleak timber, looking and listening.
Finally he came out on a rough crossroad, which he followed. Five
minutes of wabbling along this road brought him to the end of it--and
across the end squatted a dingy white house with green shutters.
The shutters were closed, and the house had the appearance of being
deserted.
Here, Ping felt, was the end of his trail. He was on the wrong track,
and the question that pressed upon him was what he should do next.
Withdrawing to a clump of bushes, he sat down and gave the matter
extended thought.
Who lived in the house? And was there any one at home? If there was any
one in the place, would they talk with him and tell him whether they
had seen Matt or the side-show man?
Ping, unlike Carl, made no boasts of being a "tedectif." He could
blunder around and, maybe, stumble upon something worth while, but it
would be purely a hit-and-miss performance.
Yes, he decided, he had better go to the house and see whether there
was anybody there.
Barely had he made up his mind when, with amazing suddenness, Bill Wily
rushed around the corner of the house, jammed a key into the door, and
disappeared.
He did not close the door behind him, being, as it seemed, in too much
of a hurry to attend to such trifling matters.
While Ping was still wrenched with this startling exhibition, an even
more astounding spectacle was wafted his way.
Motor Matt followed Wily around the house corner, paused an instant in
front of the open door, then was swallowed up in the dark interior.
Ping had not called out, for amazement had held him speechless.
The Chinese boy had blundered in leaping from the street car, but, as
it had chanced, that had been a blunder in the right direction. All the
heathen gods of luck had been ranged on his side, too, when he followed
the crossroad and went into communion with himself in the clump of
bushes facing the green-shuttered house.
In about two minutes, Ping figured, Matt would have Bill Wily by the
heels. So it followed, if Ping was to have any part in the capture, he
would have to hurry.
In the excitement of the moment he forgot his bruises, emerged from the
undergrowth, and made his way rapidly toward the house.
At the open door he stopped, thrust his head into the hallway, and used
his ears.
The silence was intense, and not the faintest sound was to be heard.
There was something weirdly mysterious about this. With Matt and Wily
both in the house, and each more or less hostile toward the other,
there should have been a good deal of noise.
A qualm raced through Ping's nerves.
There was something ominous about mysteries, and he had made it a rule
to fight shy of ominous things. He did not consider them at all good
for a Chinaman's health, or his peace of mind.
And a Melican house, too, deserted and with closed shutters, offered
dangers not lightly to be reckoned with.
But Ping, as yet, was Motor Matt's pard; and whereever Motor Matt led
the way, then Ping would be more of a hired man than a pard if he did
not follow. Shutting his teeth hard, and breathing only when necessary,
the Chinese boy crossed the threshold of the house with the green
shutters.
He was in a narrow hall that extended through the house from front to
rear. A stairway led to the second floor, and two doors opened off to
left and right.
Throttling his fears, Ping moved toward the door on the right, his
sandals scuffling over the uncarpeted floor. There was no furniture in
the house, and the floor was bare.
The swish of the sandals sent vague fears cantering through the little
Celestial, and he curled up his toes in order to wedge the soles of his
footgear closer to the bottoms of his feet.
The room he entered was dark. With a trembling hand he groped in his
blouse for matches. Had he lost his matches in taking that header from
the street car? His fears in that respect were short-lived, for he
quickly found half a dozen of the small fire-sticks.
Scratching one, he held it up and peered around. The room was
empty--bare as a last year's bird's nest. Going back into the hall, he
examined a room on the opposite side. That one also was empty, and over
all the emptiness arose a musty odor as of a building long untenanted.
Two more rooms remained to be examined on the first floor.
One of these was the kitchen, and a quantity of soot had drifted down
and lay in a heap on the floor. Ping kept away from the soot, and was
glad afterward that he had done so. Across the hall was the last of
the four rooms comprising the lower part of the house--dark, deserted,
and musty as were the other three.
Failure to encounter danger of any visible sort had heartened Ping
wonderfully.
"My makee go up stlails," he thought. "Mebby my ketchee something
top-side."
He moved softly, but the stairs creaked and rasped under his sandals in
spite of his wariness.
There were four rooms upstairs, just as there were below, and in none
of the dark chambers did he discover any trace of Motor Matt or of Wily
Bill.
Ping was "stumped." The longer he thought of the mystery the more
terrified he became.
He believed in demons. Ben Ali, he knew, was possessed of them, for he
had heard how the Hindoo, with his eyes alone, had put people to sleep
and made them do strange things while they dreamed.
Ping, naturally, had no idea that Ben Ali was in any way concerned with
Matt's pursuit of Wily Bill, but the Chinaman's mind reverted to Ben
Ali, and Aurung Zeeb, and Dhondaram, three Hindoos, all of whom, at
various times, had formed a part of the Big Consolidated.
Had he dared, Ping would have shouted Matt's name at the top of his
voice. But he was afraid. A dragon, spouting fire from its red mouth,
and with a hundred claw-armed feet, might materialize and attack him,
did he dare awake the echoes of that sombre house.
Turning swiftly away from the last room, Ping got astride the
banisters, slid to the bottom of the stairs, and ducked through the
front door.
The bright sunshine was never pleasanter to him than at that moment. He
gulped down a few draughts of pure outside air and started off toward
the bushes, bent upon a little solitary reflection.
By a sudden thought, he whirled abruptly, softly drew the door shut,
turned the key in the lock, and then slipped the key into his pocket.
He had locked the door on the mysteries, and he hoped the fiends of
darkness would respect the barrier until he could think of some way to
exorcise them.
Once more in his original place among the bushes, Ping watched the
house warily and tried to approach the problem in a reasonable way.
But it was not a question of reason. His investigation had developed
facts that defied every logical process.
What had become of Motor Matt?
This was the point that disturbed the Chinese boy most. If he could
find Motor Matt, he would be content to leave the question of Wily's
whereabouts out of the count.
Abruptly Ping had an idea. Perhaps Wily had rushed out of a rear door,
and Matt had followed him? During his investigations, Ping had tried no
doors or windows.
Getting to his feet, he made a circle around the house. There was one
door in the rear, and only one. Cautiously he approached and tried the
knob. The door was locked.
As for the windows, every one was tightly closed in with the green
shutters.
These discoveries left Ping in a daze. After several minutes of
bewilderment, he finally made up his mind to return to the show
grounds, find McGlory, and acquaint him with the situation. McGlory
would know what to do!
Then, there was the two-wheeled devil wagon Motor Matt had left at the
foot of the bank, by the roadside. A hazy idea of riding the machine
back to the show grounds passed through the Chinaman's mind.
To regain the road by the street-car track took time, but the distance
was covered much more rapidly than Ping had covered it coming the other
way.
Strange to relate, the Chinese boy's bruises caused him little concern.
All his aches and pains were lost in the details of the inexplicable
situation connected with the deserted house.
While he was in the brush, at the foot of the bank, eying the motor
cycle a bit dubiously, he heard a patter of hoofs, a grind of wheels,
and a sound of voices.
Looking up, he saw Burton's runabout at a stop. Burton was in the
buggy, and so was a young fellow Ping had never seen before--and
McGlory. The cowboy was just scrambling out of the vehicle and starting
in the direction of the motor cycle.
The sight of reinforcements caused all Ping's wonder, and doubt, and
apprehension to revive with redoubled force. He attempted to shout, but
no words escaped his lips. Rushing forth to meet McGlory, he waved his
arms and pointed in the direction of the house with the green shutters.