Chapter VII: "pocketed."

For the cowboy pleasant fancies were cropping out of this surprising turn of events. He reflected that Grattan did not know Sam Wing had stolen the ruby from Tsan Ti. By entrapping Tsan Ti, Grattan was undoubtedly counting upon getting hold of the Eye of Buddha.

If Bunce had known how little love McGlory had for the mandarin, he would not have been at so much pains to keep a hand over his lips. Just at that moment nothing could have induced the cowboy to shout a warning to the approaching Chinaman.

Kneeling behind the bowlder, Grattan lifted his voice for Tsan Ti's benefit. Presently the mandarin was decoyed around the side of the bowlder, and his capture expeditiously effected.

He was a badly demoralized Chinaman. His usually immaculate person had been eclipsed by recent hardships, and he was tattered and torn and liberally sprinkled with dust. His flabby cheeks were covered with red splotches where thorny undergrowth had left its mark. He was so fagged, too, that he could hardly stand. At the merest touch from Grattan he tumbled over. A most melancholy spectacle he presented as he sat on the ground and stared at Grattan with jaws agape.

"Oh, friend of my friend," wheezed Tsan Ti, passing his gaze to McGlory, "was it you who shouted?"

"First off it was," answered McGlory; "after that, Grattan took it up."

"And you are a prisoner?"

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."

"I'm the man for you to talk to, Tsan Ti," put in Grattan grimly. "It's me you're to reckon with."

"Evil individual," answered the mandarin, "my capture will not help you in your rascally purposes. Is not my present distress sufficient, without any of your unwelcome attentions? Behold my plight! What more can you do to make me miserable?"

"I can take the ruby away from you, for one thing."

A mirthless smile crossed the mandarin's fat face. A chuckle escaped McGlory.

Grattan stared hard at the Chinaman, and then flashed a quick glance at the cowboy.

"What are you thinking of, McGlory?" he demanded.

"I'm thinking that you're fooled again, Grattan," answered McGlory. "You know so much that I wonder you haven't heard that the mandarin has lost the ruby."

"Lost it?" A look of consternation crossed Grattan's face. "I'll never believe that," he went on. "Tsan Ti knows where the Eye of Buddha is, and there are ways to make him tell me."

"Ay, ay," flared Bunce, with a fierce look, "we'll make him tell if we have to lash him to a tree and flog the truth out o' him."

"Wretches," said the mandarin, "no matter what your hard thoughts may counsel, or your wicked hands contrive, you cannot make me tell what I do not know."

Grattan would not trust Bunce to search the mandarin, but proceeded about the work himself. Two chopsticks, a silver cigarette box, an ivory case with matches, a bone-handled back scratcher, a handkerchief, a fan, and a yellow cord some three feet long were the results of the search.

There was no ruby. Grattan prodded a knife blade into Tsan Ti's thick queue in his search for the gem, and even ripped out the lining of his sandals, but uselessly.

"You know where the ruby is," scowled Grattan, giving way to more wrath than McGlory had ever seen him show before; "and, by Heaven, I'll make you tell before I'm done with you."

Tossing the yellow cord to Bunce, Grattan drew back and ordered the sailor to secure the mandarin's hands in the same way he had lashed the cowboy's.

Tsan Ti seemed to accept the situation philosophically. But that he was in desperate straits and hopeless was evidenced by his remark when Bunce was done with the tying:

"Despicable person, I had rather you put the yellow cord about my throat than around my wrists."

"You'll get it around the throat when we get back to the pocket," said Grattan brutally. "Take charge of McGlory, Bunce," he added, "and come with me."

Tsan Ti was ordered to his feet. Thereupon, Grattan seized his arm and pulled him along through the woods.

McGlory would have given something handsome if he could have had the use of his hands for about a minute. Bunce would have been an easy problem for him to solve if he had not been hampered by the knife laniard. As it was, however, the cowboy was forced to get to his feet and, with the sailor as guard, follow after Grattan and Tsan Ti.

Captors and captives traveled for nearly a mile through uneven country, thick with timber, then descended into a ravine, followed it a little way beyond a point where it was crossed by a wagon road, and came to a niche in the gully wall.

Perhaps the term "cavern" would better describe the place where Grattan, Pardo, and Bunce had pitched their temporary camp. The hole was an ancient washout, its face covered with a screen of brush and creepers.

In front of the niche, standing in a place where it had been backed from the road on the "reverse," was the blue automobile. Leaning against the automobile were the two motor cycles; and from the tonneau of the car, as Grattan and Bunce approached with their prisoners, arose the form of Pardo.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Pardo, thrusting his head out from under the top. "If we haven't got visitors! Where did you pick up the mandarin, Grattan?"

"Between here and the Gardenville road," answered Grattan. "It was easy work. Both the chink and the cowboy were kind enough to yell and tell us where they were."

Pardo, understanding little of what had really occurred, opened his eyes wide.

"Tell me more about it," said he.

"After I get the prisoners in the pocket. Bunce, bring a rope. Hold McGlory, Pardo, while he's doing it."

Pardo jumped down from the automobile and caught the cowboy's arm.

"I guess you're a heap easier to deal with than your friend, Motor Matt," was his comment.

"No guess about it," said McGlory, "it's a cinch. But I'm not fretting any."

The cowboy's eyes were on the stolen car. What a pleasure it would have been to snatch that automobile out of Grattan's clutches, leaving him and his rascally companions stranded in the hills! But that was a dream--and McGlory had already had too many dreams for his peace of mind.

Tsan Ti was shoved by Grattan through the bushes, under the trailing vines and into the washout. Pardo dragged McGlory through, close on their heels.

"Sit down, both of you," ordered Grattan, when the prisoners were in the gloomy confines of the niche.

Tsan Ti and McGlory lowered themselves to the bare earthen floor. Bunce came with the rope, and it was coiled around the cowboy's ankles, and then around the mandarin's.

"I've taken you in, McGlory," observed Grattan, to the cowboy, "for the purpose of finding out what Motor Matt is doing; and I've captured the mandarin with the idea of getting the ruby. I'm a man who hews steadily to the line, once he marks it out. I'll have my way with both of you before I am done. Mark that. You can't get away from here. Even if you were not bound hand and foot, you'd have to pass the automobile in order to reach the road--and Pardo, Bunce, and I will be in the automobile. We're all heeled, which is a point you will do well to remember."

Having eased his mind in this manner, Grattan went out of the niche, Bunce and Pardo following him. They could be heard climbing into the automobile, and then their low voices came in a mumble to the ears of the prisoners.

"Fated friend," gulped the mandarin, "the ten thousand demons of misfortune are working sad havoc with Tsan Ti."

"Buck up!" returned McGlory. "We're pocketed, all right, but matters might be worse."

"What cheering thoughts can I possibly have?" mourned the mandarin. "The Eye of Buddha has escaped me, gone I do not know where, in the possession of that Canton dog, Sam Wing, who----"

"Hist!" breathed McGlory, in a warning voice. "Grattan doesn't know who has the ruby, and it may be a good thing if we keep it to ourselves. Don't lose your nerve. Motor Matt is around, and you can count on him to do something."

"Motor Matt is both notable and energetic," droned the mandarin, "but for him to secure the ruby from Sam Wing is too much to hope for."

"There you're shy a few, Tsan Ti. I'll bet my scalp against that queue of yours that Matt has already captured Sam Wing and recovered the Eye of Buddha."

Tsan Ti stirred restlessly.

"Do not deceive me with hope, honorable friend," he begged.

"Well, listen," and McGlory proceeded to tell Tsan Ti what had happened at the spring.

Tsan Ti's hopes arose. He had been ready to grasp at anything, and here McGlory had offered him undreamed-of encouragement.

"There are many brilliant eyes in the plumage of the sacred peacock," he murmured, "but by them all, I vow to you that there is no other youth of such accomplishments as Motor Matt. And, by the five hundred gods of the temple at----"

"Cut it out," grunted McGlory. "You've got Matt and me into no end of trouble with your foolishness. When you get that ruby into your hands again, stop fumbling with it. Pass it over to some one who knows how to look after it, but don't try the job yourself. This is first-chop pidgin I'm giving you, Tsan Ti, and I don't know why I'm handing it out, after the way you hocused my pard and me with that piece of red glass. But it's good advice, for all that, and you'd better keep it under your little black cap."

Tsan Ti relapsed into thoughtful silence. The mumble of voices continued to creep in through the swinging vines and the bush tops, but otherwise the quiet that filled the "pocket" was intense.

The mandarin was first to speak. Leaning toward the cowboy, he whispered:

"There's a chance, companion of my distress, that we may be able to make our escape."

"What's the number?" queried the cowboy.

Thereupon the mandarin began revealing the plan that had formed in his mind. It was the fruit of considerable reflection and promised well.