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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Motor Matt's
Mandarin; or, Turning a Trick for Tsan Ti
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Title: Motor Matt's Mandarin; or, Turning a Trick for Tsan Ti

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTOR MATT'S

MANDARIN; OR, TURNING A TRICK FOR TSAN TI ***
 MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING MOTOR
ADVENTURE FICTION
No. 30 FIVE
SEPT. 18, 1909. CENTS

or TURNING A
MOTOR MATT'S
TRICK
MANDARIN
FOR TSAN TI
By THE AUTHOR OF
MOTOR MATT
Street & Smith
Publishers
New York

MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING MOTOR
ADVENTURE FICTION
Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Copyright, 1909, by
Street & Smith, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.
 NEW YORK,
No. 30. Price Five Cents.
September 18, 1909.

MOTOR MATT'S MANDARIN;

OR,

TURNING A TRICK FOR TSAN TI.

By the author of "MOTOR MATT."

 CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE.
CHAPTER II. THE YELLOW CORD.
CHAPTER III. THE GLASS BALLS.
CHAPTER IV. THE PAPER CLUE.
CHAPTER V. PUTTING TWO AND TWO TOGETHER.
CHAPTER VI. A SMASH.
CHAPTER VII. NIP AND TUCK.
CHAPTER VIII. TSAN TI VANISHES AGAIN.
CHAPTER IX. TRICKED ONCE MORE.
CHAPTER X. THE DIAMOND MERCHANT.
CHAPTER XI. THE OLD SUGAR CAMP.
CHAPTER XII. A TIGHT CORNER.
CHAPTER XIII. A MASTER ROGUE.
CHAPTER XIV. THE GLASS SPHERES.
CHAPTER XV. THE EYE OF BUDDHA.
CHAPTER XVI. THE BROKEN HOODOO.
A REAL PIRATE.
SOME QUEER PHILIPPINE CUSTOMS.
HIGH LEAPS BY DEER.
 CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN
THIS STORY.
Matt King, otherwise Motor Matt.
Joe McGlory, a young cowboy who proves himself a lad of
worth and character, and whose eccentricities are all on the
humorous side. A good chum to tie to—a point Motor Matt is
quick to perceive.
Tsan Ti, Mandarin of the Red Button, who appeals to Motor
Matt for help in a very peculiar undertaking.
Sam Wing, a San Francisco Chinaman, member of a tong that
is amiably disposed toward Tsan Ti.
Kien Lung, courier of the Chinese Regent, who respectfully
delivers the yellow cord to Tsan Ti.
Grattan, a masterful rogue who consummates one of the
cleverest robberies in the annals of crime.
Bunce, a sailor who assists Grattan and makes considerable
trouble for the motor boys and the mandarin.
Goldstein, a diamond broker with a penchant for dealing in
stolen goods.
Pryne, a brother-in-law of Grattan, who plays a short but
important part in the events of the story.
 CHAPTER I.
ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE.
"Sufferin' treadmills! Say, pard, here's where I drop down in the
shade and catch my breath. How much farther have we got to go?"
"Not more than a mile, Joe."
"We must have gone a couple of hundred miles already."
"We've traveled about six miles, all told."
"Speak to me about that! A mile up and down is a heap longer than
a mile on the straightaway. We've been hanging to this sidehill like a
couple of flies to a wall. What do you say to a rest?"
"I'm willing, Joe; and here's a good place. Look out for that tree
root. It's a bad one, and runs straight across the road."
Motor Matt and his cowboy pard, Joe McGlory, were pop-popping
their way up a steep mountainside on a couple of motor cycles. They
were bound for the Mountain House, a hotel on the very crest of the
uplift.
A day boat had brought them down the Hudson River from Albany,
and they had disembarked at Catskill Landing, hired the two
machines, and started for the big hotel.
The motor cycles were making hard work of the climb—such hard
work, in fact, that the boys, time and time again, had been
compelled to get out of their saddles and lead the heavy wheels up
a particularly steep place in the trail. This was trying labor, and
McGlory's enthusiasm over the adventure had been on the wane for
some time.
The big root of a tree, lying across the road like a half-buried
railroad tie, was safely dodged, and under the shade of the tree to
which the root belonged Matt and McGlory threw themselves down.
The cowboy mopped his dripping face with a handkerchief, pulled off
his hat, and began fanning himself with it.
"One of these two-wheeled buzz carts is all right," he remarked,
"where the motor does the work for you; but I'll be gad-hooked if
there's any fun doin' the work for the motor. And what's it all about?
You don't know, and I don't. We made this jump from the middle
West to the effete East on the strength of a few lines of 'con' talk. I
wish people would leave you alone when they get into trouble. Every
stranger knows, though, that all he's got to do is to send you a
hurry-up call whenever anything goes crosswise, and that you'll
break your neck to boil out on his part of the map and share his
hard luck."
McGlory finished with a grunt of disgust.
"I've got a hunch, Joe," answered Matt, "that there's a whole lot to
that letter."
"A whole lot of fake and false alarm. Read it again, if you've got
breath enough."
"I've read it to you a dozen times already," protested Matt.
"Then make it thirteen times, pard. The more you read it, the more I
realize what easy marks we are for paying any attention to it. It's
fine discipline, pard, to keep thinking where you've made a fool of
yourself."
Matt laughed as he drew an envelope out of his coat pocket. The
envelope was addressed, in a queer hand, to "His Excellency, Motor
Matt, Engaged in aëroplane performances with Burton's Big
Consolidated Shows, Grand Rapids, Michigan." Drawing out the
enclosed sheet, Matt unfolded it. There was a humorous gleam in his
gray eyes as he read aloud the following:

"Honorable and Most Excellent Sir: It is necessary that I have of

your wonderful aid in matters exceedingly great and important.
 I, a mandarin of the red button, with some store of English
knowledge, and much trouble, appeal to king of motor boys
with overwhelming desire that he come to me at Mountain
House, near town named Catskill Landing, in State of New York.
Noble and affluent sir, will it be insult should I offer one
thousand dollars and expenses if I get my wish for your most
remarkable help? Not so, for I promise with much goodness of
heart. Let it be immediately that you come, and sooner if
convenient. May your days be fragrant as the blossoms of
paradise, your joys like the countless stars, and your years
many and many.
"'Tsan Ti, of the Red Button.'"

"Sounds like a skin game," grumbled McGlory, as Matt returned the

letter to its envelope, and the latter to his pocket.
"It's the first time a stranger in trouble ever sent me a letter like
that," remarked Matt.
"Regular josh. Button, button, who's got the button? Not us, pard,
and we're It. There'll be no mandarin at the end of this blooming
trail we're running out. You take it from me. Now——" McGlory broke
off suddenly, his eyes fastened on the pitch of the road above.
"Great hocus-pocus!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "See what's
coming!"
Matt, turning his eyes in the direction of his pard's pointing finger,
was likewise brought up standing by the spectacle that met his gaze.
A bicycle was coasting down the steep path, coming with the speed
of a limited express train; and some fifty feet behind this bicycle
came another, moving at a rate equally swift.
In the saddle of the leading machine was a fat Chinaman—a
Chinaman of consequence, to judge by his looks. He wore a black
cap, yellow blouse and trousers and embroidered sandals. His thin,
baggy garments fluttered and snapped about him as he shot down
the road, and his pigtail, fully a yard long, and bound at the end with
a ribbon, stood out straight behind him.
The Celestial behind was leaner and dressed in garments more
subdued. It was exceedingly plain to the two boys that his heart was
in his work, and that the end and aim of his labors was the
overhauling of the man ahead.
"Wow!" wheezed the fat fugitive. "Wow! wow! wow!"
For about two seconds this stirring situation was before the eyes of
Matt and McGlory. Then the tree root insinuated itself into
proceedings.
The fugitive saw the root heaving across his path with a promise of
disaster, but going around it was out of the question, and stopping
the speeding wheel an impossibility.
The inevitable happened. Matt and McGlory saw the bicycle bound
into the air and turn a half somersault. The fat Chinaman landed on
his back with the wheel on top of him; then machine and Chinaman
rolled over and over until the impetus of the flight was spent.
The two boys ran to the unfortunate bicyclist, gathered him up, and
separated him from the broken wheel. The Celestial refused to be
lifted to his feet, but contented himself with sitting up.
"My cap, excellent friend," he requested, pointing to where the cap
was lying.
"Gee, but that was a jolt!" commiserated McGlory. "How do you feel
about now?"
"Kindest regards for your inquiry," said the Chinaman, extracting a
small stone from the collar of his blouse, and then emptying a pint
of dust from one of his flowing sleeves. "I am variously shaken,
thank you, but the terrible part is yet to come. Kindly recede until it
is over, and add further to my obligations."
Matt had picked up the black cap. As he handed it to the Chinaman,
he observed that there was a red button in the centre of the flat top.
He was astonished at the Chinaman's manner, no less than at his
use of English. His clothes were all awry, and soiled with dust, but
he seemed to mind that as little as he did his bruises.
Putting the cap on his head, he took a fan from somewhere about
his person, waved the boys aside with it, then opened it with a
"snap," and proceeded methodically to fan himself. His eyes were
turned up the road.
Matt and McGlory exchanged wondering glances as they stepped
apart.
The other Chinaman, having a greater space in which to manœuvre,
had managed to avoid the tree root. By means of the brake he had
caused his machine to slow down, and had then leaped off. After
carefully leaning the bicycle against a tree, he approached his fat
countryman in a most deferential manner. The latter nodded gravely
from his seat on the ground.
The pursuer thereupon flung himself to his knees, and beat his
forehead three times in the dust.
After that, the fat Chinaman said something. Presumably it was in
his native tongue, for it sounded like heathen gibberish, and the
boys could make nothing out of it.
But the lean Chinaman seemed to understand. Lifting himself and
sitting back on his heels, he pushed a hand into the breast of his
coat, and brought out a little black box about the size of a cigarette
case. This, with every sign of respect and veneration, he offered to
the other Celestial.
The fat man took the box, waved his fan, and eased himself of a few
more remarks. The lean fellow once more kotowed, then arose
silently, regained his wheel, and vanished from sight down the road.
The fat Mongolian was left balancing the black box in his hand and
eying it with pensive interest.
"Well, speak to me about this!" breathed McGlory. "What do you
make out of it, Matt?"
"Not a thing," whispered Matt. "That fellow has a red button in his
cap."
McGlory showed traces of excitement.
"Glory, and all hands round!" he gasped. "Have you any notion that
the chink we're looking for has lammed into us in this violent
fashion, right here on the mountainside?"
"Give it up. Watch; see what he's up to."
The fat Chinaman, laying aside his fan, took the box in his left palm,
and, with the fingers of his right hand, pressed a spring.
The lid flew open. On top of something in the box lay a white card
covered with Chinese hieroglyphics. The Chinaman lifted the card
and read the written words. His yellow face turned to the color of old
cheese, his eyes closed spasmodically, and his breath came quick
and raspingly. McGlory grabbed Matt's arm.
"There's something on that card, Matt," said he, "that's got our fat
friend on the run."
While the boys continued to look, the Chinaman laid aside the card,
and drew from the box a pliable yellow cord, a yard in length.
That was all there was in the box, just the card and the cord.
Feeling that there was a deep mystery here, and a mystery in which
he and his chum were concerned, the king of the motor boys
stepped forward.
"Tsan Ti?" he queried.
Box and cord fell from the fat Chinaman's hands, and he turned an
eagerly inquiring look in Matt's direction.
 CHAPTER II.
THE YELLOW CORD.
"Excellent youth," said the Chinaman, "you pronounce my name.
How is this?"
"I'm Motor Matt," answered the king of the motor boys, "and this is
my chum, Joe McGlory. You asked us to come, and here we are.
There's your letter to me."
Matt opened the written sheet and held it in front of Tsan Ti's face.
The Celestial's face underwent a change. A flicker of hope ran
through the fear and consternation.
"Omito fuh!" he muttered, rising slowly to his feet. "The five hundred
gods have covered me with much disgrace, this last hour, but now
they bring me a gleam of hope from the clouds of despair. By the
plumes of the sacred peacock, I bow before you with much
gratefulness."
He bowed—or tried to. His ponderous stomach interfered with the
manœuvre, and he caught a crick in his back—the direct result,
probably, of his recent spill.
"You are here to be of aid to the unfortunate mandarin, are you not,
illustrious sirs?" went on Tsan Ti, leaning against a tree, and rubbing
his right sandal up and down his left shin. Quite likely the left shin
was barked, and the right sandal was affording it consolation.
"First aid to the injured, Tsan," grinned McGlory, getting a good deal
of fun out of this novel encounter.
The cowboy had met many Chinamen, but never before one of this
sort. The experience was mildly exciting.
"Wit," chanted Tsan Ti, "is the weapon of the wise, the idol of the
fool; a runaway knock at laughter's door; arrows from the quiver of
genius; intellectual lightning from the thunder clouds of talent; the
lever of——"
"Sufferin' cats!" exploded McGlory. "What is he talking about? In that
letter, Tsan, you speak about insulting us with a thousand plunks and
expenses. Was that a rhinecaboo or the real thing?"
Without changing his countenance by so much as a line, Tsan Ti
lifted the bottom of his blouse, and unbuttoned the pocket of a
leather belt around his huge girth. From the pocket he took five gold
double eagles in good American money.
"Have I the understanding," he asked, "that you will be of help to
my distress?"
"Tell us, first," answered Matt, a little bewildered by the mandarin's
queer talk and actions, "what it is you want."
"What I want, notable friend, is the Eye of Buddha, the great ruby
which was stolen from the forehead of the idol in temple of Hai-
chwang-sze, in the city named Canton. I, even I, now the most
miserable of creatures, was guardian of the temple when this theft
occurred. I fled to find the thief, and Kien Lung, by order of the Son
of the Morning, our imperial regent, fled after me with that invitation
to death, the yellow cord."
Tsan Ti pointed to the ground where the cord was lying. His flabby
cheeks grew hueless, and he caught his breath.
"An invitation to death?" repeated Matt, staring at the yellow cord.
"It is so, gracious youth," explained Tsan Ti. "When our regent
wishes one of his officials to efface himself, he sends the yellow
cord. It is the death warrant. The card tells me that I have two
weeks before it is necessary that I should strangle myself. This
happy dispatch must be performed unless, through you, I can
recover the Eye of Buddha. So runs the scroll."
"Speak to me about this!" muttered McGlory. "But look here, old
man, you don't have to strangle yourself because some High Mucky
Muck, a few thousand miles off, sends you the thing to do it with, do
you?"
"Unless it is done," was the calm response, "I shall be disgraced for
all time, and my memory reviled."
"Oh, blazes! I'd rather be a live Chinaman in disgrace, than a dead
one with a monument a mile high."
"You converse without knowledge," said Tsan Ti.
"That's horse sense, anyhow."
"Let's get at the nub of this thing, Tsan Ti," said Matt, feeling a deep
interest in the strange Chinaman in spite of himself. "You were in
charge of a Canton temple in which was an image of Buddha. That
image had a ruby set in the forehead. The ruby was stolen. You ran
away from China to find the thief, and this Kien Lung, as you call
him, trailed after you with the yellow cord from the regent. The cord
was accompanied by a written order to the effect that, if you did not
succeed in recovering the ruby in two weeks, you must strangle
yourself. Before the cord was delivered to you, you sent that letter to
me."
"What you say is true," answered Tsan Ti. "I have been for a long
period endeavoring to keep away from Kien Lung. I knew what he
had to give me, and I did not want it. Now that I have the cord, you
can understand, out of courtesy I must slay myself—unless, through
you, I regain the Eye of Buddha."
"How did you come to pick me out for an assistant?" went on Matt.
"What you ought to have is a detective. This part of the country is
full of detectives."
"I cannot trust the detectives. The ruby is valuable, and I am a
discredited mandarin in a far country. The detectives would keep the
ruby, and then there would be for me only death by the cord. I read
in the public prints generous and never-to-be-forgotten things about
Motor Matt, and my heart assures me that you are the one, and the
only one, to come to my aid."
"You tune up like a professor," remarked McGlory. "Where'd you
corral so much good pidgin, Tsan?"
"I was educated in one of your institutions of learning," was the
reply. "But, illustrious sirs, shall we return to the hotel on the
mountain top? I have this go-devil machine to pay for. It did not
belong to me. A dozen of the machines were near the porch of the
hotel, where I was drinking tea. I saw Kien Lung coming toward me
along the porch, and I left my tea and sprang to one of the
machines. I learned to ride while I was educating myself in this
country. Kien Lung was also able to ride, but that I did not know
until I saw him later. Shall we go on to the hotel? I am bruised and
in much distress."
"We might just as well find out all you can tell us about the Eye of
Buddha before we go to the hotel," returned Matt. "We are by
ourselves, here, and I'd like to get all the information possible."
Tsan Ti picked up the card and the yellow cord. Thoughtfully he
twisted the cord around and around his fat palm and tucked it into
the black box. On the cord he placed the card, and over all closed
the box lid. With a rumbling sigh, he dropped the black box into the
breast of his blouse.
"Foreign devils," said he, once more bracing himself against the tree
trunk, "call the temple of Hai-chwang-sze the Honam Joss House. It
is by the beautiful river, in the suburb named Honam. Around the
temple there is a wall. The avenue of a thousand delights leads from
the great gate to the temple courts, and noble banyan trees shade
the avenue. At vespers, some weeks ago, two foreign devils were
present. The hour was five in the afternoon. One of the foreign
devils was English, and wore a tourist hat with a pugree; the other
had but a single eye. Lob Loo, a priest, told me what happened.
"The Englishman threw a shimmering ball upon the temple floor.
Odors came from it, quick as an eyeflash. Quick as another eyeflash,
the priests reeled where they stood, their senses leaving them. Lob
Loo tells me the foreign devils had covered their faces suddenly with
white masks. Then, after seeing that much, Lob Loo lost his five
senses, and wandered in fields of darkness.
"When Lob Loo opened his eyes, he saw glass fragments on the
floor, and a ladder of silk swinging from the neck of the god. The
image, renowned sirs, is twenty feet in height, and to reach the ruby
eye the foreign devils had to climb. The eye was gone. When Lob
Loo told me these things, I was seized of a mighty fear, and fled to
Hongkong. There the five hundred gods favored me, and I learned
that a man in a tourist hat with a pugree, and another with a single
eye, had sailed for San Francisco. Quickly I caught the next steamer,
after sending cable messages to the leaders of a San Francisco tong
who are Cantonese, and friends of mine. When the ship brought the
thieves through the Golden Gate, some of the tong watched the
landing. The thieves were in San Francisco three days, and Sam
Wing followed them when they left for Chicago, then for New York,
and then for these Catskill Mountains. When I reached San
Francisco, the leading men of the tong had telegrams from Sam
Wing. By use of the telegrams, I followed, and arrived here. Wing
had left a writing for me at the hotel, telling me to wait. I waited,
but Wing had disappeared. I kept on waiting, and out of my
discouragement, remarkable sir, I wrote to you. That is all, until this
morning, when Kien Lung came with the yellow cord. Two weeks are
left me. If the Eye of Buddha is not found in that time, then"—and
Tsan Ti tapped the breast of his sagging blouse—"all that remains is
the quick dispatch."
Both Matt and McGlory had listened with intense interest to this odd
yarn. Although a heathen, and lately keeper of a heathen temple,
the mandarin was nevertheless a person of culture and of
considerable importance. The sending of the yellow cord was a
custom of his country, and it was evident that he intended to abide
by the custom in case the Eye of Buddha was not recovered within
two weeks.
"Shall we turn the trick for him, pard?" asked McGlory. "This palaver
of his makes a bit of a hit with me. I'd hate like Sam Hill to have him
shut off his breath with that yellow cord. If——"
The hum of an approaching automobile reached the ears of those at
the roadside. The machine was coming from above, and Matt pulled
the broken bicycle out of the road.
The boys and the mandarin stood in a group while waiting for the
car to pass. Tsan Ti, seemingly wrapped up in his own miseries,
gave no attention to the car, at first.
There were two passengers in the car—the driver, and another in the
tonneau.
The car, on the down grade, was coming at a terrific clip, and the
man in the tonneau was hanging on for dear life and yelling at the
top of his voice:
"Avast there, mate, or you'll have me overboard! By the seven holy
spritsails——"
The voice broke off and gave vent to a frantic yell. Although the
driver had shut off the power and applied a brake, the car had
leaped into the air when it struck the root.
The man in the tonneau shot straight up into the air for two or three
feet, and Matt and McGlory had a glimpse of a grizzled red face with
a patch over one eye, a fringe of "mutton-chop" whiskers, and a
blue sailor cap.
"The mariner!" came in a clamoring wheeze, from Tsan Ti.
As the automobile whirled past, the mandarin flung himself crazily at
the rear of the tonneau, only to be knocked head over heels for his
pains.
As he floundered in the dust, Matt rushed for his motor cycle.
"Is that one of the two men who stole the ruby?" cried Matt.
"What fortune!" puffed Tsan Ti. "Pursue and capture the villain! If he
has the Eye of Buddha——"
But the rest of it was lost. Matt, followed by McGlory, was tearing
away on the track of the automobile.
 CHAPTER III.
THE GLASS BALLS.
Turning the trick for Tsan Ti—as McGlory had termed it—was
destined to entangle the motor boys in a whirl of the most
astounding events; and these events, as novel as they were
mysterious, followed each other like the reports of a Gatling gun.
The journey to Albany, and down the river to Catskill Landing, and
thence by motor cycle part way up the mountain, had been
monotonous; but from the moment the mandarin and the bicycle
went sprawling into the air over the tree root, and the lads had
made the Chinaman's acquaintance, Fate began whirling the wheel
of amazing events.
Matt and McGlory had had no time to discuss the weird tale
recounted for their benefit by the mandarin. There was no
opportunity to view the theft of the Eye of Buddha from any angle
save that offered by the philosophical Tsan Ti. No sooner had the
ostensible facts connected with the stolen ruby been retailed, than
one of the thieves flashed down the mountain road, leaving the boys
no choice but to fling away after him.
The two motor cycles had absolutely no chance to go wrong on that
downhill trail. Had either motor "bucked," the weight of the heavy
machine would have hurled its rider onward in a breakneck coast
toward the foot of the hill.
"Sufferin' streaks!" cried the cowboy. "If we were to meet anybody
coming up, there'd be nothing left but the pieces!"
"I'm keeping a lookout ahead, Joe!" Matt called back, over his
shoulder.
He was in the lead, and his rear wheel was firing a stream of dust
and sand into McGlory's eyes. But the cowboy was too excited to
pay much attention to that.
"We're goin' off half-cocked, seems to me!" he yelled. "We've known
that fat chink for about ten minutes, and here we are, lamming into
his game like a couple of wolves. What's the use of brains, pard, if
you don't use 'em?"
"While we were thinking matters over," Matt answered, ripping
around a sharp turn, "the one-eyed man would be getting away."
"What're we going to do when we overhaul him? Make an offhand
demand for the Eye of Buddha? It sounds flat enough, and if the
webfoot tells us we're crazy, and gives us the laugh, what're we
going to do?"
"Brakes! brakes!" cried Matt, and his motor cycle began to stagger
and buck-jump as he angled for a halt.
McGlory was startled by the command, but instantly he obeyed it. In
order to avoid running his chum down, he not only bore down with
the brakes but also swerved toward the roadside. He came to a
sudden stop in a thicket of bushes, and extricated himself with some
difficulty.
Matt was in the road, his motor cycle leaning against a tree. A yard
in front of him lay a flat cap. He pointed to it.
"What's that to do with a breakneck stop like we just made?"
snorted the cowboy. "It's not the headgear we want, pard, but the
man that owns it."
"Sure," returned Matt. "Look farther down the road, Joe, and then
you'll understand."
A straight drop in the road stretched ahead of the boys for a quarter
of a mile. Halfway along the stretch was the automobile. The
machine was at a stop, and the driver and the one-eyed man were
leaning over the motor. The hood had been opened, and the driver
was tinkering.
"Something has gone wrong," said Matt, "and it happened soon after
the sailor had lost his cap. Our one-eyed friend, I think, will come
back after his property. If he does, we'll talk with him. We can't go
too far in this business, you know. I have considerable confidence in
Tsan Ti, but still we're not absolutely sure of our ground."
"The poor old duck is bound to snuff himself out with the yellow
cord if he don't recover the ruby," returned the cowboy. "That's what
hits me close to home. We're going it blind"—and here McGlory dug
some of the sand out of his eyes—"and we jumped into this with a
touch-and-go that don't seem reasonable; still, I've got a sneaking
notion we're on the right track. What's that on the hat ribbon?"
Matt had picked up the hat, and was turning it over in his hand.
"It's the name of a boat, I suppose," answered Matt, taking a look at
the gilt letters. "'Hottentot,'" he added, reading the name.
"Oh, tell me!" exclaimed McGlory. "Hottentot! That's a warm label for
a boat. But, say! Suppose One-Eye don't think enough of his cap to
come back for it?"
"But he will," answered Matt. "This will bring him, I'll bet something
handsome."
As he spoke. Matt pulled a square of folded paper out of the crown
of the cap.
"Cowboy trick!" grinned McGlory. "Carryin' letters under the
sweatband of a Stetson reminds me of home."
Matt had stepped to the roadside, the folded paper to one hand and
the cap in the other.
"Had we better?" he pondered, voicing his thoughts.
"Better what?" queried McGlory.
"Why, keep this paper. It may prove important."
"Sure, keep it! What're you side-stepping for about a little thing like
that? We're after the Eye of Buddha, and if that paper has anything
to do with it, the thing's ours by rights."
"But suppose Tsan Ti is working some game of his own? That was a
fearsome yarn he gave us, Joe."
"Sufferin' tenderfeet! Say, didn't we come all the way from Michigan
to help him? Think of that yellow cord, and what it means to—— Oh,
Moses!" the cowboy broke off. "Here comes the webfoot, now."
Matt, taking a chance that the sailor was a thief, that he had guilty
knowledge of the whereabouts of the Eye of Buddha, and that the
paper might furnish valuable information, thrust the note into his
pocket, and hastily replaced it with a bit of paper quickly drawn from
his coat. Then, tossing the hat into the road, he stepped out and
waited.
The sailor was scrambling up the steep ascent with the agility of an
A. B. making for the maintop. At sight of Matt, appearing suddenly
above him, he hesitated, only to come on again at redoubled speed.
"Ahoy, shipmates!" bellowed the old salt, as soon as he had come
close enough for a hail. "Seen anythin' of a bit of headgear
hereabouts?"
"There it is," Matt answered, pointing.
"Blow me tight if there it ain't!" He jumped for the hat, and gathered
it in with a sweep of one hand. "Obliged to ye," he added, looking
into the crown, and then placing the hat on his head with visible
satisfaction.
He would have turned and made off down the road, had not Matt
stepped toward him and lifted his hand.
"Just a minute, my friend," said Matt.
The sailor flashed a look toward the automobile. The driver had
closed the hood, and was waving his arms.
"Nary a minute have I got to spare, shipmate," the sailor answered.
"The skipper of that craft has plugged the hole in her bow, and
we're ready to trip anchor and bear away."
"Wait!" and a sternness crept into Matt's voice. "We must have a talk
with you. Perhaps you'll save yourself trouble if you give us a few
minutes of your time."
At the word "trouble," the sailor squared around.
"Now, shiver me," he cried, "I'm just beginning to take the cut of
your jib. Trouble, says you. Are ye sailin' in company with that chink
we passed a ways back on our course?"
"What do you know about the Eye of Buddha?" demanded Matt.
"Oh, ho," roared the other, "so that's yer lay, my hearty? Well, you
take my advice, and keep your finger out o' that pie. I'm not sayin' a
word about the Eye o' Buddha. Mayhap I know somethin' consarnin'
the same, an' mayhap I don't. But I wouldn't give the fag end o'
nothin' mixed in a kittle o' hot water for your chances if you stick an
oar in that little matter."
There was that about the sailor which convinced Matt that he knew
more concerning the ruby than he cared to tell.
"Stop!" cried the king of the motor boys.
"Not me," was the gruff answer, and both of the sailor's hands
dropped into his pockets.
"If he won't stop," cried McGlory, "then here's where we make him!"
He and Matt started on a run toward the sailor. The latter whirled
around, his arms drew back, and his hands shot forward. Two round,
glimmering objects left his palms and tinkled into fragments at the
feet of the two boys. An overpowering odor arose in the still air—
wafted upward in a cloud of strangling fumes that caught at the
throats of Matt and McGlory, blinded their eyes, and sapped at their
strength.
McGlory fell to his knees.
"The—glass—balls——" he gasped, and flattened out helplessly, the
last word fading into a gurgle.
"Leave the Eye o' Buddha alone!" were the hoarse words that
echoed in Matt's ears.
And they were the last sounds of which he was cognizant for some
time. He crumpled down at the side of his chum, made one last
desperate struggle to recover his strength, and then the darkness
closed him in.
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