Chapter XII: Another Surprise

Bunce was accepting his hard luck with all the complaisance he could muster. His pursuit of the mandarin had led him into difficulties undreamed of, but he still indulged a hope that the resourceful Grattan might come to his aid. He went into the barn, and recoiled a little as a savage growl struck on his ears. Tige was still guarding Sam Wing.

"Sit down," said Matt, to Bunce, nodding toward some bags of ground feed lying on the barn floor. "The dog won't molest you; he's looking after Sam Wing."

Bunce, plainly uncomfortable, seated himself, watching Tige warily.

The instant Tsan Ti came through the barn door and saw Sam Wing, a cry of rage burst from his lips, and he flew at his treacherous servant. Matt grabbed the angry mandarin and held him back.

"That won't do, Tsan Ti," said Matt. "Sit down and take things calmly. There's your money," and he pointed to the alligator-skin pouch which lay by the wagon tongue. "Sam Wing turned it over to me. You'd better count it and make sure it's all there. Hereafter, it would be wise for you to take care of your money yourself."

Tsan Ti glared at Sam Wing, then stooped down, and recovered the pouch. The receptacle was filled with soggy banknotes, and, while the mandarin was fingering them over, he kept up a running fire of talk in Chinese. The condemnation must have been of the most scathing sort, for the wretched Sam Wing shivered as he listened.

Presently Sam Wing himself began to talk. He spoke at length, and must have been acquainting the mandarin with the dread fact that the Eye of Buddha was lost, for, suddenly, Tsan Ti dropped the alligator-skin pouch and the wet bills and reeled back against the barn wall. His eyes became glassy and his face turned white.

Presently he sank down on the barn floor, listless and staring.

"Has he told you about the ruby, Tsan Ti?" asked Matt, his pity for the mandarin rising paramount to any other feeling he may have cherished against him.

Tsan Ti did not answer; in fact, he did not seem to hear. He had suffered a blow that paralyzed his faculties.

"Blow me tight!" breathed Bunce, astonished. "Hasn't he got the ruby?"

"Didn't Grattan search him?" returned Matt.

"Ah, he looked through his pockets and his sandals, and even tried to find the Eye of Buddha in his queue, but it wasn't there. For all that, we thought the chink knowed where the stone was an' could be made to tell."

"He knew where it was--Sam Wing had it."

"Hocused it?"

"Stole it--then lost it!"

"Shiver me!" exclaimed Bunce, aghast. "Then Tsan Ti ain't got the ruby, an' Grattan won't never be able to put hands on it!"

"It's gone for good," answered Matt. "Now you can see, Bunce, just how much good Grattan's trickery and double-dealing has benefited him. You and he stole the ruby from the Honam joss house and brought it to America; Tsan Ti followed you, under orders from the regent of China to recover the idol's eye or else to strangle himself with the yellow cord; the ruby was recovered for Tsan Ti here in the Catskills, but Grattan kept up his wild scheming and committed one piece of lawless villainy after another in his attempts to get the ruby away from Tsan Ti; now we're at the end of the whole business, and neither Grattan nor Tsan Ti has the ruby, or will ever have it."

Just at that moment the farmer came into the barn.

"I got them machines where they'll be safe," he announced, "an'---- Gosh all Whittaker! What's the fat Chinaman doin'?"

Matt turned to look at Tsan Ti. He had the yellow cord around his throat, rove into a running bowline, and was pulling at the loose end.

The king of the motor boys hurried to him and jerked his hands from the cord with a quick movement.

"That will do, Tsan Ti!" cried Matt sternly. "Can't you be a man? You're not going to strangle yourself while I'm around!"

"There is no hope for Tsan Ti," mumbled the mandarin. "The august decree of my regent--may his years be many and glorious!--calls for my quick dispatch."

Matt pulled the cord from the mandarin's neck.

"Listen, Tsan Ti," said he; "don't give up until you know the case is really hopeless. We can go back over the ground Sam Wing covered while I was chasing him, and it is possible we can find the ruby."

"Not possible, deluded friend," answered the mandarin. "The contemptible Canton dog says the gem may be in the water, or in many other places where its recovery is out of the question. The blandishments of hope pale into the heavy darkness of my certain destruction. Present me with the cord, I beg of you. Tsan Ti, mandarin of the red button, is not afraid to join his exalted ancestors in the country dear to true believers."

"Wrong in the upper story, ain't he?" put in the farmer.

"In a way," replied Matt.

"He sure had himself goin' with that piece o' yellow string. Them heathens is queer, anyway."

"I'll not give you this cord, Tsan Ti," declared Matt, "until I can look over the course followed by Sam Wing and make an attempt to find the ruby."

"There are other means for performing the quick dispatch," said Tsan Ti calmly. "I prefer the cord; it is an honor to use an instrument direct from the regent's hands; but, if the cord is not at hand, other means will avail me, ungenerous youth."

Matt studied the mandarin for a few moments. In his eyes he read determination. Matt, matter-of-fact American lad that he was, could not understand the Oriental custom now exemplified by Tsan Ti--he could not understand the thousands of years' usage which had made the custom part of a Chinaman's faith, and he had nothing but contempt for the exhibition the mandarin was making of himself.

"Get the rope, please," said Matt to the farmer. "I think we'll use it."

The farmer brought the rope, and Matt, with his assistance, tied Tsan Ti's hands and feet. The mandarin yielded passively.

"This will not serve," was all he said; "the time for my dispatch will arrive, in spite of you."

"If you keep on acting in this foolish way, Tsan Ti," answered Matt, "I'll lose all the respect I ever had for you. Face the music, can't you? There's no merit in throwing up your hands and quitting just because you have run into a streak of hard luck."

"You don't understand, ignorant one."

"I understand, fast enough, that you can't hurt yourself while you're tied up."

He turned away.

"Do you think Tige can watch two prisoners?" he asked of the farmer.

"Yew bet he can," answered the farmer enthusiastically, "two 'r a dozen. Why, that dorg's quicker'n chain lightnin'."

"Then," went on Matt, "just give Tige to understand that he's to watch the sailor, as well as that other Chinaman."

The farmer spoke to the dog, and the animal took up a position between Sam Wing and Bunce. The sailor tried to draw back, but Tige stopped the movement with a savage snarl and a half move as though he would bite.

"Keelhaul me!" cried Bunce. "Is this what ye call treatin' a feller white? Why, I wouldn't treat a Hottentot swab like this!"

"I've got you, Bunce," said Matt grimly, "and, no matter what becomes of Grattan and Pardo, the law won't be cheated entirely."

"What've I done that ye can send me to the brig for? Tell me that!"

"Isn't the theft of the ruby enough to send you to jail?"

"That happened in Chiny, an' we're in America now."

"Well, putting that aside, there remains the criminal work you did at the Catskill garage last night. You can be sent to the penitentiary for that, Bunce."

That was a blow that left Bunce gasping.

"Grattan done that," he cried; "it wasn't me planned it."

"You helped Grattan, Bunce, and you were recognized by the night man. There's a clear case against you, and you'll deserve all the punishment you receive."

"Say," said Bunce, with a sudden inspiration, "if ye'll let me go, I'll take ye to that pocket where McGlory is! I'll do more'n that, sink me if I won't! You let me slip my hawse and slant away clear o' these hills, an' I'll help ye git McGlory away from Grattan an' Pardo. What d'ye say, mate? It ain't a job ye could do alone, an' it ain't a place ye can find onless I show the way. What's the word?"

"I've had enough experience with you, Bunce," returned Matt, "to know that you're not to be depended on. You'd play some treacherous trick that would----"

Here a voice--a very familiar voice--came floating through the open barn door.

"Whoop-ya! Any one around? Show up, somebody, and tell me where I am and how to go to get to the spring on the trail from Catskill to Gardenville! Whoo-ee!"

"Woods is full o' strangers to-day, seems like!" exclaimed the farmer.

Matt bolted past him through the door, then halted, and gazed spellbound at a blue automobile with Joe McGlory in the driver's seat.

This might have been considered the culminating surprise of the day's events. And it was a mutual surprise, too, judging by the way McGlory acted.

Leaning over the steering wheel, the cowboy gazed like one in a trance.

"Matt!" he shouted at last, "is this a dream, or the real thing? Say something, you old hardshell. Sufferin' tenterhooks! I can't tell how nervous you make me."