A QUEER TANGLE.
"Waal, I'm stumped!" snorted Welcome. "Matt stops his race ter save
Dirk Hawley's gal, an' Dirk Hawley wins a bonanzer mine bekase o' it.
Looks to me like a put-up job. Mebby the gal was bein' run away with
a-purpose."
"Welcome!" reproved Susie sharply.
"That's right," whimpered the old man. "Jump onter me. Anyways, you
know Dirk Hawley wouldn't be above doin' of a thing like that."
"They say Edith Hawley is a fine girl," said Susie, "and just as
different from her father as can be. I've heard that Hawley fairly
worships her, and it's nonsense to think he'd let her risk her life to
keep Matt from beating Perry to the recorder's office. But it's a queer
tangle, isn't it, Matt?" she added, turning to her brother's chum.
"Mighty queer," answered Matt. "I'd have stopped and helped the girl,
just the same, even if I had known who she was."
"Of course you would!" declared Susie.
"You must have made a fast ride into town, Clip," said Matt.
"Hit a high place, now and then," answered Clip. "You didn't hit any."
"Why did you leave town?"
"Saw Perry's chum, Ratty Spangler. He told me where Perry had gone.
Then I got a horse and started out early this morning. Didn't know what
I could do, but I wanted to do something. After you passed me on the
road I tore in behind you. A good ways behind," Clip added. "Left my
horse at the corral and hustled straight for here. It was the corral
boss who told me what you'd done."
"Susie an' me hev been waitin' fer quite a spell to hear what Matt
done," complained Welcome. "We got a right to know, seems like."
"Wait till I get dinner," said Susie, "then we can talk while we eat."
"Prime idea," agreed Matt. "I was too busy to eat breakfast, and Chub
and I had a mighty slim supper last night."
"I'll hurry as fast as I can," said Susie, starting into the house.
"You're to stay, Clip."
The loss of a fortune hadn't seemed to make much of an impression on
Susie. On the contrary, she seemed pleased to think that Matt had
turned aside from the race with Perry to stop the runaway horse and
save Edith Hawley.
Clip went into the house after a bandage and a bottle of arnica, and
proceeded to take care of one of Matt's shins, which had been badly
skinned when he was jerked from the motor-cycle.
Clip was a master-hand at anything of this sort, and, besides,
inherited from his Indian forefathers the keen eye and subtle sense
that go to make a born tracker, whether in the woods, or on mountain
and plain.
"Hawley an' Perry hev been purty thick," mused Welcome, while the
bandaging was going on, "an' I'm kinder sorter wonderin' what Hawley'll
say when he l'arns it was Perry as skeered his darter's hoss."
"Perry did a big thing for Hawley by winning that race," said Clip.
"Hawley's all for money, no matter how it's made. He'll forget about
Perry's scaring the horse."
"An' only to think it was Hawley's gal got between the McReadys an' a
fortun'," groaned Welcome. "I shore won't sleep nights thinkin' about
it. It's goin' to ha'nt me. Mebey it'll drive me into the hills fer
good an' all."
"If Delray hadn't come out of the house to talk with me," said Clip,
"Perry wouldn't have got away from the Bluebell. He went like a streak
when he came. Couldn't either of us stop him."
"Funny how things turn out sometimes," mused Matt.
"Why don't you come back to school, Matt?" asked Clip, with his usual
abruptness in jumping from one subject to another. "Finish out the
term, I mean, before you go to Denver. You've got ten friends there to
Perry's one."
A tinge of sadness crossed Matt's face.
"I haven't any folks that I know of, Clip," said he, "and I'm up
against a financial stringency. I'm going to Denver and get something
to do."
"Short on folks myself," grunted Clip. "And about as short on money.
What you going to do there?"
"I think I'll get into the automobile business--driving a car, or
something like that. I've got to be among the motors, Clip, in order to
be happy."
"I'll buy Perry's motor-cycle and go with you. Never had a friend like
Motor Matt. Don't want to let you get away."
Clipperton was as sudden in his resolutions as he was in his talk. Matt
lifted his eyes quickly, and there was that in Clipperton's look which
led him to reach over and grip his hand.
"We'd hook up like a house afire, Clip," said Matt heartily, "but you'd
better think it over."
"I've got my way to make, same as you. Let me hitch my string to your
kite. Maybe I can help. Don't have to think it over. You know they
haven't ever made it very happy for me here," said Clipperton, his eyes
flashing and chest heaving with the indignation that filled his soul.
At that moment, Susie came to the door and announced dinner. While
they were eating, Matt struck into the experiences that had fallen
to him and Chub. Beginning with the trouble caused by the freighter
at the Bluebell Mine, he followed on down to the point where he had
stopped the runaway horse. That incident he glided over, and finished
by telling of his encounter with Hawley and Perry on the court-house
steps. As he very well knew would be the case, Susie began at once to
worry about her father. Welcome pushed away from the table, leaving his
dinner half-eaten.
"It's up to me," said he excitedly. "I knowed it u'd come. I'll git out
ole Lucretia Borgia an' hike fer the mountings immediate. Jim McReady's
my pard, an' if a hair o' his head has been teched, I'll mow down
Jacks, an' Bisbee, an' Hawley an' everybody else that's had a hand in
his undoin'. Everybody listen to me! It's Eagle-eye Perkins, the Terror
o' the Plains, what's talkin'. Don't grieve, gal," he added, turning to
Susie, "I'll go out there an' I'll bring Jim back, or I'll leave my ole
carkiss among the rocks."
Welcome thumped his chest--and immediately began to cough.
"Where's Lucretia Borgia, gal?" he demanded. "I been missin' 'er fer a
day or two."
"Lucretia Borgia" was the high-sounding and significant name Welcome
had bestowed upon an ancient revolver. The weapon had not been
discharged in a dozen years, and owing to its rusty condition firing it
had apparently ceased to become a possibility.
"I--I threw it down the cistern, Welcome," said Susie. "The old trinket
was harmless enough, but I was afraid it would get you into trouble."
Welcome stared.
"Trinket!" he mumbled. "Throwed it down the cistern! Lucretia Borgia,
with all them tur'ble recordin' notches on the handle! This here's the
last straw! I'm goin', right now, an' with nothin' on me no more'n a
jack-knife with a busted blade! But I'll git Jim. He's my pard, he is,
an' he's allers treated me _white_."
Welcome grabbed his hat and started for the door. Just as he reached
it, a tall man with grayish hair and beard stepped through and collided
with him.
"Father!" screamed Susie.
"Jim!" whooped Welcome. "Waal, snakes alive! We was jest thinkin' ye'd
never git back till ole Welcome went out an' brought ye in!"
"Don't overlook me," piped the voice of Chub, as he pushed through the
door behind his father. "Howdy, Matt! I knew you were here when I saw
the _Comet_ out in front. Clip, too! Well, well, here's a gatherin' of
the faithful, an' no mistake."