THE PILE OF SOOT.
Ping was not many minutes recovering the use of his tongue. McGlory
grabbed him and shook his powers of speech back into their normal
condition.
"Where's Motor Matt?" cried McGlory.
"My no savvy!"
"How did you happen to be here?"
"Stleet cal."
"What're you making a run from the show grounds for without saying a
word to Matt?"
That was a point which Ping did not care to reveal. He was not above
being careless with the truth in a pinch, having been raised that way.
But, while he might resort to a little harmless fiction with McGlory,
he would have cut his tongue out before he would have fibbed to Motor
Matt.
"Makee see Wily Bill ketchee cal," Ping explained; "my ketchee same
cal. Follow Wily Bill. Wily Bill jump from cal. My jump, too. Tumble
all ovel load. Wily Bill lun fo' top-side bank. Motol Matt chasee.
Motol Matt leavee gas hlorsee by bank. My follow, no findee."
Out of this pigeon English McGlory captured a few germs of sense.
"What the nation was he following Wily for?" demanded Burton. "How did
he know we wanted Wily?"
Ping was still equal to the emergency.
"Dutchy boy havee low with Wily Bill," he explained.
"That's right," went on Burton; "you _were_ around during the row. I'd
forgotten that. That may have been enough to put you on Wily's trail,
although I can't figure it out exactly. But you followed him, and then
you followed Matt when he ran after Wily. They went up the bank and
into the woods, you say?"
"Allee same."
"Then where did they go?" demanded McGlory.
"Makee tlacks fo' house with green blinds."
"They made tracks for a house with green blinds? Now we're getting at
it. Where's this house?"
"Othel side woods. My findee, you savvy; makee sit down, do heap big
think. Bymby, 'long come Wily Bill, unlock do', go in house. Plenty
soon, 'long come Motol Matt, go in house, too." Ping became oppressed
with the awe aroused by the event next to be described, and his voice
sank into a husky whisper. "My makee tlacks inside, hunt evel place, no
can find. House allee same empty. Motol Matt disappeal, vanish, makee
go up in smoke. Woosh! My plenty 'flaid."
"What's he givin' us?" snorted Burton. "He's talking through his hat,
seems like, to me."
"He's run into something that he can't cumtux," returned McGlory. "It's
plain enough, though, that a house with green shutters is at the end of
our trail. Ping can take us there, and it will be up to us to do the
rest."
"Say, young feller!" cried Burton, standing up in the runabout and
addressing the lad from the motor-car works.
The latter was pulling his motor cycle out of the bushes and making
ready to forge away on the rest of his "century" run.
"Well?" returned the youth, one leg over the saddle and ready to pedal
off.
"Load that machine into the runabout and drive this rig back to the
show grounds for me, will you?" requested Burton. "I'm hungry to see
this game through, and I can't leave the horse hitched in the road."
"Couldn't get the motor cycle into the buggy," was the answer. "Anyhow,
I guess I've helped you about as much as you could reasonably expect."
"There's twenty coming to you," went on Burton. "Take the rig back and
I'll make it thirty."
"There's nothing coming to me. I told Motor Matt he could use the
machine, and welcome. Now that he's done with it, I'll go on with my
run."
The motor began to pop, and presently settled into a steady hum. A
minute later the motor cycle and its rider were out of sight.
Just then, when it looked as though Burton was to be permanently
retired from the rest of the pursuit, a street car from the lake
rattled to a halt, and Carl and Twomley dropped from the steps.
"Here's the Englishman," muttered McGlory, without much enthusiasm.
"And Carl!" added Burton. "He'll take the rig back for me, and the rest
of us will start for the house with the green shutters."
"Vat's to pay?" clamored Carl, running toward McGlory and Ping.
Ping's confidence in Carl, like Carl's confidence in Ping, was badly
"shook." The Chinese boy backed away.
"Here, Carl," cried Burton. "Jump into the runabout and take it back to
the grounds for me. I've got business with McGlory."
"Meppy I don'd got some pitzness mit McGlory, same as you," demurred
Carl. "Vere iss Modor Matt?"
"There's no time to palaver, Carl," interposed McGlory. "Take the rig
back."
When Matt was away, McGlory was the boss. Carl could not very well
disobey such a pointblank order. Much against his will, he climbed into
the runabout.
"My word!" cried Twomley. "You seem to have discovered a clue of some
sort. Who's the Chinaman?"
"Never mind that, now," returned Barton. "Come with us, Twomley, and
we'll tell you as we go along."
"Lead off, Ping," ordered McGlory.
Carl, very much out of temper, shook his fist at Burton, and then at
Ping. Following this, he turned the rig the other way and rode moodily
back toward the show grounds.
Ping, meanwhile, had climbed the bank, and was leading the party of
investigators through the woods in the direction of the crossroad. As
they went along, Burton was telling Twomley what Ping had discovered.
The information given by the Chinaman was lacking in many important
points, but its very incompleteness added to the tensity of the
situation.
When they came to the end of the crossroad, Ping halted and indicated
the house with the green shutters.
"You say," remarked McGlory, giving the house a swift sizing, "that
Wily Bill ran into the house?"
"All same," answered Ping.
"And that Pard Matt trailed after him?"
"All same."
"Then you went in, looked around, and couldn't see anything of either
of them?"
"My no findee." Ping shivered. "When my makee come out, my lockee do'."
He dug up the key and handed it to McGlory.
"Well," declared McGlory, "if Motor Matt and Wily Bill went in there,
and didn't come out again, we'll find them."
"If the Chinaman didn't find them," struck in Twomley, "they must have
come out."
"We'll soon know what's what," and the cowboy made his way to the door,
thrust the key into the lock, and pushed the door ajar.
The same dark, funereal silence that had greeted Ping stared McGlory,
Burton, and Twomley in the face.
"My no findee," chattered Ping, drawing back; "you no findee."
McGlory pressed into the hall.
"I'll take the rooms on the left," said he, "and the rest of you take
the ones on the right. Do your bushwhacking, and then, if you don't
find anything, meet me at the foot of the stairs for a look overhead."
Nothing was found. The back door was securely bolted on the inside, and
all the windows and blinds of the various lower windows firmly fastened.
The situation upstairs was exactly the same. Puzzled and bewildered,
the party returned to the lower hall.
"If Ping's giving it to us straight," said McGlory, "neither Matt nor
Wily got out of here. They couldn't have gone through the rear door or
any of the windows, without leaving them open. And they couldn't have
left by the front door because it was locked, and Ping had the key."
"They might have slipped out while Ping was nosing around upstairs,"
suggested Burton.
"They'd have made some noise," objected the cowboy. "Matt didn't have
any call to keep quiet, and Ping would surely have heard him. Let's go
back to the rear rooms again."
Burton and Twomley had examined the kitchen. McGlory now looked that
room over for himself.
He was no more than two minutes in picking up a clue. The lighted match
which he held close to the floor showed footprints outlined in black.
He traced them to the pile of soot under the chimney.
"Here's where we find something!" he cried. "Open those shutters, you
fellows! We want light while we run out this trail of soot."
Twomley and Burton unfastened the windows and pushed back the blinds on
their screeching hinges. The sunlight, drifting into the room, brought
out the trail with weird distinctness.
"Maybe the Chinaman blundered into the soot and left the trail,"
hazarded Burton.
"My no makee tlail," declared Ping. "No touchee soot."
"There's only one of the chink, anyhow, pards," said McGlory, "and at
least two pairs of feet walked through that pile of black stuff. One
man wore shoes, and the other wore slippers. The slippers left marks
a good deal like Ping's sandals, but the marks are too big for Ping.
We'll find out a few things now, I reckon."
With eyes bent sharply on the floor, the cowboy crossed the kitchen
into the hall, and then moved along the hall to a spot under the stairs.
The stairs were not enclosed, but sprang directly from the hall floor.
In the angle formed by the flight and the floor the sooty trail
vanished.
"Now what?" queried Burton. "It looks like we were up in the air as
much as ever."
Without replying, McGlory drew his knife from his pocket, opened it,
and went down on his knees.