TRICKED ONCE MORE.
Matt and McGlory were bruised and sore. They were also pretty tired.
From the moment they had met Tsan Ti on the mountainside that morning,
they had been knocked about from pillar to post.
"If trouble will please hold off for a couple of hours," said McGlory,
"I'll give a good imitation of a fellow snatching his forty winks
and getting ready for another round. What do you say, Matt? The
mandarin isn't here. He may come, but I wouldn't bet on it, as I'm
sort of losing faith in the yellow boy with the red button. He has a
disagreeable habit of getting out from under whenever anything goes
wrong, and we find ourselves stalled. I reckon, though, you'll want to
stay here and give him a chance to blow in?"
"We can hold on here for two or three hours," answered Matt, "take a
bath, and a rub down, and a bit of a rest, then fasten our clothes
together with a supply of safety pins and motor back to Catskill and
get another outfit of clothes from our grips. Then, after a good
night's sleep, we'll go to Purling."
"No matter whether the mandarin shows up or not?"
"No matter what the mandarin does, Joe. I've worked up a big interest
in that Eye of Buddha, and I'm going to find out whether it's a fair
shake or a myth."
"I'll bet all my share of the aëroplane money against two bits that we
never see the old hatchet boy again, and also that something hits us
before we can get back to Catskill."
"You're guessing, Joe."
"Well, that's my chirp, in anything from doughnuts to double eagles.
That Jackson party might as well hang that wrecked bubble in a tree as
a memento--the man with the rice fields and the tea plantations, and so
on, has started for the high timber just to dodge paying for that pile
of scrap down the trail."
"You're wrong," said Matt confidently.
"Wait till the cards are all on the table, pard, and then we'll see."
They had a most refreshing bath and a long rest in a couple of
lazy-back chairs on an upper veranda. Orders had been left with the
clerk that word should be brought to them at once if Tsan Ti put in an
appearance.
McGlory awoke from a drowse to unbosom himself of a subject which had
not, as yet, claimed its proper share of attention.
"The fellow who came up the mountain and told Jackson there was a
burning car piled by the roadside," said he, "said there were two
Chinamen watching the conflagration. Think chink number two was Kien
Lung with another yellow cord, Matt?"
"No."
"Then who was he?"
"I've been thinking that it was Sam Wing, the San Francisco Chinaman,
who has been keeping track of the two thieves for the mandarin."
"That's you!" exclaimed McGlory. "Why, I never thought of that dark
horse. Have you any notion he coaxed the mandarin away on important
business?"
"That's likely."
"Anything's likely. For instance, it's quite likely the fat Chinaman is
a washee-washee boy from 'Frisco with a fine, large imagination, and
that he's stringing us."
"Why should he want to do that?"
"No _sabe_, but there's a lot of things we can't _sabe_ concerning this
layout."
"Tsan Ti has money----"
"He showed us all of a hundred in double eagles. But did he let us get
our hands on the coin? Not any. He allows, in his large and offhand
way, that he has millions of taels--but that may be one of his tales,"
and McGlory grinned.
"Anyhow," said Matt doggedly, "we ride to Purling to-morrow and see the
man at the general store."
Matt fell into a drowse again. No one from the office came to announce
the arrival of Tsan Ti, and when the hour arrived for the evening meal
the boys had their supper sent to their room. They were not arrayed
properly for "dining out."
Following the meal they patched up their garments with safety pins,
settled their bill, and walked over to the Mountain House garage. Dusk
was falling as they trundled their machines into the road and lighted
their lamps.
"We'll have an easier time of it going down the mountain," said Matt,
"than we had coming up."
"Don't be so sure, pard," answered McGlory. "There are a number of
things to trouble us besides the road."
"Don't cross any trouble bridges until you come to them, Joe," advised
Matt.
The motor boys were feeling a little stiff and sore, but their engines
were humming cheerfully, and there was a joy for them in the downward
spin through the woods.
They remembered the tree root, and slowed down for it as it came under
their headlights; and they also remembered the location of the wrecked
automobile and gave it a wide berth.
At about the place where they had encountered the one-eyed sailor, with
everything going smoothly and a fair prospect of reaching Catskill in
record time, the crack of a firearm suddenly split the still air to the
left of the road. Startled, they clamped on the brakes and came to a
halt in time to hear a shrill cry of "Help! help!" ringing out weirdly
from the dark woods.
"Sufferin' hold-ups!" murmured McGlory. "And here we are with nothing
more than a couple of jack-knives to our names."
"What do you suppose it can be?" asked Matt, dropping the bracket from
his rear wheel and letting the motor cycle stand in the road.
He moved off toward the left and listened.
"There's a row on in there," declared McGlory. "I can hear some one
pounding around in the timber."
"So can I," said Matt. "We've got to do what we can, Joe. That may mean
robbery--or worse. Come on!"
The generous instincts of the motor boys prompted them to go at once to
the assistance of a possible victim, and they hurried into the timber.
The sounds of scuffling which they had heard died out suddenly, and
while they were moving around through the gloom, trying to locate the
scene of the trouble, there reached their ears the chug-chugging of
motors getting under way.
"Our motor cycles!" exclaimed Matt, darting back toward the road.
"Gad-hook it all!" cried McGlory; "it was a frame-up! A trick to run
off our wheels!"
Although they were only a few moments regaining the road, the lamps of
the two motor cycles were gleaming more than a hundred feet away.
"Stop!" yelled Matt, racing down the road.
His answer was a raucous laugh--such a laugh as they had heard before.
And then came the words, bellowed hoarsely:
"Leave the Eye o' Buddha alone!"
After that silence, during which the gleaming lamps turned an angle in
the road and were blotted from sight.
"Seems to me," said McGlory grimly, "I've heard that voice before."
Motor Matt did not reply at once. Perhaps his feelings were too deep
for words.
"And I was expecting something, too!" said the cowboy, in a spasm of
self-reproach. "Sufferin' easy marks! Matt, some of the stuff from
those glass balls must still be playing hob with our brains. Otherwise,
how is it these backsets keep happening in one, two, three order? There
go a pair of motor bikes that'll stand us in four hundred good big
cart wheels. That was right, what you said before we left those wheels
and flocked into the timber. That shot and those sounds of a scuffle
_did_ mean robbery. That's a lesson for us never to help a person in
distress. Likewise it's a hint that we'd better pull out and leave the
mandarin to manage his own troubles."
"It's a hint that we'd better go to Purling to-morrow and look for
Grattan," and there was an unwonted sharpness in Motor Matt's voice
that caused McGlory to straighten up and take notice.
"When you tune up that way," said the cowboy, "it means mischief. There
was another man with the Hottentot. Do you think the _hombre_ was this
Grattan sharp?"
"No. Grattan is expecting the sailor at Purling to-morrow. This was
some one else."
"The ruby thieves have quite an extensive gang. It's walk for us, from
here to Catskill."
"From here to the first farmhouse," corrected Matt. "We'll get some one
to take us to Catskill with a horse and buggy."
He bit off his words crisp and sharp, which, to McGlory, proved how
deeply he resented the scurvy trick by which they had been lured away
from the motor cycles.
"How easy it is to understand things when you look back at' em,"
philosophized the cowboy, swinging along at Matt's side, down the dark
road. "The webfoot and his pal fired that shot and raised a yell for
help, then they jumped up and down in the bushes, and the result had
all the effect of a knock-down and drag-out. One-Eye must have had us
spotted, and he and his pal were lingering in the trailside brush,
watching for our headlights. Oh, yes, it was easy. The 'illustrious
ones' tumbled over themselves to fall into the trap. If I had that----"
"There's a farmhouse," said Matt, and indicated a point of light close
to the foot of the mountain. "Nearly every house in these parts is
either a boarding house or a hotel. We can get a rig, all right, I'm
pretty sure."