Chapter IX: A Waiting Game

The Chinese boy was not in evidence anywhere about the camp. After a search in all directions, Matt, McGlory, and Carl, reasoning that Ping's trail had led him to other places outside the show grounds, returned to the calliope tent. There, to their overwhelming surprise, they came upon Dhondaram, sitting nonchalantly on his square of scarlet cloth and smoking a cigarette.

The Hindoo's face lighted up genially at sight of the three boys.

"_Salaam_, sahibs!" said he in a friendly tone. "I come here to rest. It is permitted? I thought so. Rajah takes work to manage--_jee_, yes, much work. It tires me. Do you use the little smokes? Take one, sahibs."

Dhondaram offered his little red box of rolled paper poison, only to have his courtesy declined.

Matt was looking around. He was hoping to see the basket, but it was not in sight.

McGlory had something at the end of his tongue, and Carl was all agog with a desire to talk, but Matt silenced each of them with a look.

"Where's the cobra, Dhondaram?" asked Matt. "I'd like to see you juggle with the snake again."

The Hindoo smiled and showed his white teeth.

"_Maskee!_" he exclaimed, "that is my sorrow. My little snake is gone. Now that I am taking care of elephants, sahib, I have not the time to charm serpents. I sold the cobra an hour ago."

"Sufferin' tarantulas!" murmured McGlory. "What fool would want to buy a thing like that?"

"The cobra, sahib," said the Hindoo, turning to the cowboy, "is a curiosity. Many _feringhis_ like curiosities and pay for them. 'Tis well. I like the elephants better than the serpents."

"What did you do with the snake basket?" asked Matt.

"That must be sold with the cobra, sahib. What would the new owner do with the serpent unless he had the place to keep him? _Dekke!_ He take the snake, also he take the basket. I throw in the basket, as you call--give it as boot."

With eyes narrowly watching Dhondaram's face, Matt produced the peg and tossed it on the red cloth.

"What did the new owner do," the king of the motor boys inquired, "without the peg to keep the basket shut?"

Not a tremor crossed the Hindoo's face.

"Ah, ha!" said he. "I lose the peg and Motor Matt Sahib find it. But it is nothing. There are many things that can be used as pegs--a splinter, a bit of wood, almost anything. Where you pick it up, sahib?"

"Oh, out on the grounds," answered Matt indefinitely.

"Sahib recognize the peg when he find him? You have much observation, Mattrao Sahib."

The suffix "rao" is added to a name as a sign of great respect. Probably Dhondaram felt that he was paying Matt a high compliment, although, naturally, Matt knew nothing about that.

Dhondaram got up slowly and lifted the red cloth from the ground.

"I will now go," said he, "and find how my bad Rajah is conducting himself. He must be watched carefully, and spoken to."

With a courteous nod the Hindoo left the tent. As soon as he was gone Matt rolled over and lifted one side of the canvas wall.

The Hindoo, with never a look behind, walked in his easy way around the calliope "lean-to" and into the "animal top," by the front entrance.

"Nerve!" sputtered McGlory, "he's got a square mile of it. Never turned a hair. Even the sight of that peg didn't phase him."

Matt was still peering from under the canvas.

"There's something here I can't understand," said he, a few moments later, and he dropped the canvas and faced his friends.

"Vat it iss?" asked Carl.

"Why, we set Ping to watching Dhondaram, and by all the rules of the game the Chinaman ought to be on the fellow's track. But he isn't, so far as I can see. What's become of Ping, McGlory?"

"Dhondaram has shaken him," hazarded the cowboy. "The chink wasn't sharp enough for the turban boy."

"That may be," mused Matt, "although I doubt it. Ping is about as smart a Chinaman as you'll find in a month's travel. It's mysterious."

"Then again," went on McGlory, "maybe Ping is on Dhondaram's trail and you don't know it. He's either too wise for us, or else not wise enough for the Hindoo. Pick out whichever conclusion you want."

But Matt shook his head, puzzled.

"He don'd vas mooch goot, dot chink feller," spoke up Carl gloomily. "Vone oof dose days you will findt him oudt."

"Don't try any slams on Ping," said McGlory. "He's the clear quill, he is, even though he's a rat-eater and a heathen. Ping has turned some pretty fine tricks for Matt and me, and like as not he's busy coming across with another. You've got too much of a grouch at the slant-eyed brother, Carl."

"I say vat I t'ink, und dot's all," replied Carl. "I can lick him mit vone handt tied aroundt my pack."

"Cut it out, Carl," said Matt. "Ping's a good fellow, and has always stood by me. I don't want any hostile feelings between two of my pards."

"Py shinks," cried Carl, "he iss more hosdyle at me as I am at him. Aber he's a shink, und he hides vat he t'inks pedder as I can do. Somedime you findt it oudt, den you know."

"Go and look for Ping, Carl," said Matt. "Find him, if you can, and bring him where I can talk with him. It's more than likely that your innocence of that hold-up will have to be proven by the Chinaman, so it will stand you in hand to be friendly with him."

"Honest," fumed Carl, getting up, "I hat radder go to chail mit meinseluf as to led der shink prove dot I ditn't took der money."

"Well, you go and find him. You and Ping must be friends if you're both to stay with me."

Carl was far from being in love with the task assigned to him, but nevertheless he went off to do what he could toward performing it.

"Those two boys don't mix worth a cent," remarked Matt, when Carl had left. "They're like oil and water."

"They mix too much," grinned McGlory. "When they got acquainted with each other it was a 'knock-down' in more than one sense of the word. They've been hungry to mix it up with each other ever since."

Matt had no answer for this. He was well acquainted with the dispositions of both boys.

"When I first got acquainted with Carl," said Matt reminiscently, "he was having trouble with a Chinese laundryman. That was 'way off in Arizona."

For a time there was silence between the friends, broken at last by the cowboy.

"What can we do now, pard?"

"It's a waiting game for us, and if Ping doesn't know something that will help Carl out of the hole he is in, we'll have to hunt for some other clues."

"Dhondaram is a smooth article, and no mistake. If he really stole the money, who helped him? And why is he staying with the show?"

"I don't know, pard," returned Matt. "We'll have to let the thing work itself out, somehow."

"You don't intend presenting Burton with our wages for a month, do you?"

"That's the very last thing I'd ever do!" declared Matt.

"Then, if that's the case, we can't keep up this waiting game too long."

The afternoon performance was over, and the crowd of people began filing out of the tents. Only the "grand concert" remained, and that would soon be at an end, and the time would arrive for another ascension with the aëroplane.

"I wish," remarked Matt thoughtfully, "that we could work out this robbery business before we leave Jackson. Some town crook may be mixed up in it with Dhondaram, and when the show leaves the place we may all be leaving the money behind."

"Burton isn't worrying," said McGlory. "He's positive Carl is guilty, and that you can't prove anything else. In other words, Boss Burton is planning to have us work four weeks for nothing."

"He'll be disappointed," said Matt. "Let's go and get supper, Joe. It won't be long before the evening crowd begins to arrive, and I want to put the _Comet_ in shape."

While they were eating at the long table in the mess tent Carl came in.

"I don'd find nodding," said he, dropping wearily into a chair. "Der shink is harter to find as a hayshtack mit some neetles in it. Meppy he iss over in der town, or else gone oop in a palloon, or else"--and here Carl leaned closer to Matt and spoke in a whisper--"meppy he took der money himseluf und has gone pack py Shina."

"That will do, Carl," said Matt sternly. "Ping is as honest as you are."

"Anyhow," spoke up McGlory sarcastically, "he didn't ask Carter to go between the wagons, and we didn't find a bag in his pocket."

"Dot's righdt, rup id in," glowered Carl. "Oof I could ged dot money from Inchia I vould fly der coop und I vouldn't come pack any more. All der tedectif vat iss in me say der shink is gone mit der show money. I say vat I t'ink."

"Well," said Matt, "don't say it to anybody else."

When he and McGlory left the mess tent and moved off toward the aëroplane, Carl was still eating.

Matt was counting upon having as successful a flight that afternoon as he had made in the morning. The repaired aëroplane was in better trim for flying than it had been when new, and there was not even the small breeze which had accompanied the first flight of the day.

But, if Matt could have known it, he was destined to meet with one of the most desperate and hair-raising exploits of his aëroplane career during that second flight from the Jackson show grounds.