DACE SHOWS HIS HAND.
"First off, Bricktop," said Matt, after he had taken a comfortable seat
on a boulder, "you've got to stop messing around with high explosives.
Smokeless powder has been on the market for some time, and you're
wasting your energies."
"Shucks!" grinned Chub, "sis has been talkin' to you. That's what I
told her we were after, but that was only part of it. Perk gave me the
idea. If we could take a grain of powder and make it drive a bullet a
mile, or ten grains and make it drive a bullet ten miles, we'd have the
biggest thing that ever happened. Three men with gatling guns could
kill off an army before it got in sight. It's a whale of a notion!"
"You bet it's a whale," agreed Matt. "You'd have so much power back
of that bullet, Chub, it would blow the thing that fired it into
smithereens--and I reckon the three men who were laying for the enemy
would go along with the scraps, all right."
"You're a jim-dandy, Matt. Say, I didn't think of that," gasped Chub.
"Well, old chum, sit up and take notice of these things, and you'll
save yourself a lot of trouble. I've been thinking over that wireless
proposition of yours, and I've got a hunch that your ground-wire isn't
anchored right. There's an old wire meat-broiler out back of your
wood-shed--I saw it there the other day when you were poking around
looking for scrap-iron. Hitch your ground-wire to the handle and bury
the broiler about six feet down; then, if everything is in shape at the
Bluebell, I'll bet something handsome you get all kinds of sparks."
Chub stared at his chum in open-mouthed admiration.
"You're the wise boy!" he chirped; "if I had your head along with my
knack of corralling stuff and getting it together I'd have Edison,
Marconi and all that bunch lashed to the mast. King & McReady,
Inventions to Order and While You Wait. Oh, gee!"
Carried away by his fancies, Chub lay back on the ground and stared
upward into the cottonwood branches above him, dreaming things
Munchausen would never have dared to mention.
"Come back," said Matt dryly, "come back to earth, Chub. This is a
practical old world, and I'm right up against it. That's why I'm
thinking of Denver."
Chub sat up in a hurry at that. "Now what are you trying to string me
about Denver for?" he demanded. "What's the matter with Phoenix as a
place to stay? It ain't so wild and woolly as a whole lot of other
places in the West and Southwest; but since you arrived here you've
been mighty spry about catching on."
"Phoenix is all right," said Matt. "Wherever I hang up my hat"--and
just a shade of wistfulness drifted into his voice as he said it--"is
home for me; but the fact of the matter is, Chub, I've got to knock off
schooling and get to work--and I've got to do it _now_."
"You're crazy!" gasped Chub. "Why, you'll graduate in June, and you
can't think of leaving school before that."
"I've got to," returned Matt firmly. "I've been rubbing the lamp too
long for my own good."
"What do you mean by 'rubbing the lamp'?"
"I've got to bat that up to you, Chub, and when I'm done you'll be
the first person I ever told about it. In the first place, I'm a
stray--what they call a 'maverick' out here on the cattle-ranges.
Everybody calls me King, and I came by the name fairly enough, but for
all I know Brown, Jones or Robinson would hit me just as close."
"You're King, all right," declared Chub, with a touch of admiration and
feeling, "king of the diamond, the gridiron, the cinder path, the wheel
and"--Chub paused "the king of good fellows, with more friends in a
minute than I've got in a year."
"And more enemies," added Matt, gripping hard the eager hand Chub
reached out to him.
"A chap that don't make enemies is a dub," said Chub. "We've got to be
hated a little by somebody in order to keep us gingered up. But go on,
Matt. I'll turn down the lights and pull out the tremolo-stop while you
tell me the history of your past life."
"I'm going to cut it mighty short, Chub," returned Matt, "and just
give you enough of it so you'll understand how I'm fixed. As long as I
can remember, and up to a year ago, I was living with a good old man
named Jonas King, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I called him
Uncle Jonas, although he told me he wasn't a relative of mine in any
way; that so far as he knew I didn't have any relatives, and that he'd
given me his name of King as the shortest cut out of a big difficulty.
He sent me to school--to a technical school part of the time--but
never breathed a word as to who I was or where I had come from. When
he died"--Matt paused and looked toward the canal for a moment--"when
he died he went suddenly, leaving me by will a fortune of a hundred
thousand dollars----"
"Bully for Uncle Jonas!" ejaculated Chub joyously.
"Not so fast, Chub," went on Matt. "A brother of Jonas King's stepped
in and broke the will, and I was kicked out without a cent in my
pockets. I got a job in a motor factory in Albany, but I hadn't held it
down more than a month before I received a letter enclosing a draft for
three hundred dollars. The letter told me to come to Phoenix, Arizona,
go to school, and wait for further word from the writer, which I should
receive inside of six months."
Chub's eyes were wide with interest and curiosity.
"That sounds like you'd copped it out of the Arabian Nights, Matt,"
said he. "Who sent you that letter? Some uncle in India?"
"It wasn't signed, and the letter was postmarked in San Francisco. The
six months went by and I never heard anything more; and now it's nearly
a year since I reached Phoenix and I'm"--Matt laughed--"well, I'm about
dead broke, and I've got to get to work."
"Three hundred dollars can't last a fellow forever," commented Chub
sagely. "I always knew there was a mystery about you, but I didn't
think it was anything like that. You don't have to knock off your
schooling now, though. Just come out to our joint and stay with us.
It's worth the price just to trail around with Perk. What do you say?"
Chub was enthusiastic. His eyes glowed as he hung breathlessly upon
Matt's answer.
"You know I couldn't do that," said Matt. "I've rubbed the lamp for
the last time, and what I get from now on I'm going to _earn_." He
leaned over and laid a hand on his chum's arm. "It isn't that I don't
appreciate your offer, Chub, but a principle is mixed up in this thing
and I can't afford to turn my back on it."
Chub was silent for a space. When Matt King used that tone of voice he
knew there was no arguing with him.
"You can't break away from Phoenix right away, anyhow," said Chub
gloomily. "There's the Phoenix-Prescott athletic meet, and Major
Woolford wants you to champion his club in the bike-race. You'll not
turn that down. Why, it means as much as two hundred and fifty dollars
if you win the race--and the try-out's this afternoon."
"I'll not ride in the try-out," answered Matt, "because I can't afford
to hang on here until the meet. I've sold my wheel, and riding out
here to see you is the last time I'll use it. With the money I get
for that, and a little I have in my clothes, I can reach Denver and
find something to do among the motors. I'll be at the try-out this
afternoon, but I'm going there to tell the major he'll have to count me
out."
Chub picked up a pebble and flipped it disconsolately into the canal.
"Oh, gee!" he muttered, "this is too blamed bad! Ain't there any way
you can get around it, Matt, without tramping rough-shod on that
principle of yours?"
Before Matt could answer a muffled sound caused him and Chub to look
up. Both were startled and jumped to their feet. Dace Perry and his
cross-country squad were in front of them. There were seven in the
lot, and they carried a hostile air that threw Matt and Chub at once on
their guard.
Matt was quick to comprehend the situation. Perry, full of wrath
because of the rough treatment young King had given him, had waited
beyond the bridge for his runners to come up; then, after giving the
lads his side of the story, Perry had led them quietly back across the
bridge and along the canal to the place where Matt and Chub were having
their confidential talk.
There were only one or two boys in the squad who were not completely
dominated by Perry. One of these was Ambrose Tuohy, a lengthy youth,
who rejoiced in the nickname of "Splinters," and Tom Clipperton,
a quarter-blood Indian, and the best long-distance runner in the
school. Clipperton was shunned by most of the students on account of
his blood--a proceeding he felt keenly, and which made him moody and
reserved, although sometimes stirring him into violent fits of temper.
Clipperton had never given Matt a chance either to like or dislike him.
With his black eyes narrowed threateningly, Clipperton stood beside
Dace Perry as the seven boys faced Matt and Chub.
Chub had not heard about the affair that had taken place at the gate,
and naturally could not understand the hostility evinced by Perry and
his squad; but the evidences of enmity was too plain to be mistaken,
and when Chub got up he had a stone hidden in his fist.
"Surprised, eh?" sneered Perry, advancing a step toward Matt. "I never
forget my debts, King, and right here and now is where I settle the
score I owe you. I tipped off my hand at the gate, and here's where I'm
going to show it."