Chapter XLVI: A Trust Well Kept

He heard hurried movements and low mutterings, probably in their frenzy to open the safe. Then an exclamation as if it finally yielded.

“Ah,” Baptiste exclaimed. “That’s why I look at Meester Mitchell open the safe. Now I open it, see?”

“The leetle tin box,” the other Mexican exclaimed; “it’s locked!”

Then he heard the heavy safe door swing shut and the sound of footsteps toward the hall.

“We weel open it at my house then!”

They went out of the room and, as they padded down the stairs, Westy jumped up quietly and followed. As he got to the head of the stairs the other Mexican went on out, while Baptiste was extinguishing the lights, leaving only a dim night light burning in the hall.

As Westy got halfway down the stairs Baptiste went out also, so he hurried out after him quietly and hid behind some shrubbery in the driveway. The other Mexican was leaning over a rickety-looking Ford touring car and he put the precious tin box in the back seat, while Baptiste climbed in behind the wheel.

Westy’s mind was working fast. The Mexican got in the front seat also and as Baptiste turned on his tail light the scout’s heart leaped with joy as he saw young Mitchell’s motorcycle parked back in the driveway.

With the usual trembling of tin the Ford drove out into the roadway headed for the outskirts of the city. Before it had gone a block and a half, however, Westy was out of the driveway on the motorcycle and like a shot went after them.

Whether it was a guilty conscience or not, something prompted Baptiste to step on his gas and go the limit.

“Well, I’ll go the limit, too,” Westy said, “whether it’s my motorcycle or not.”

As he passed the corner on one wheel he saw a policeman standing talking to some people in another Ford and Westy shouted for them to follow.

Looking back, he saw they had started and so he went on. He knew Baptiste couldn’t keep it up with the exception that he might slip into some dark road and lose him.

So he crawled up easy just as young Mitchell had showed him and got alongside of the Ford. He raised himself then, just in a half standing position and reached over in the back seat of the touring car.

The handle of the little tin box was upright and it was the will of Providence that this was so or Westy could never have grasped it with one hand.

Indeed, it all happened so quickly that neither Baptiste nor his companion realized what had happened.

With one hand grasping the tin box close to his breast and the other on the steering gear, Westy proved to Baptiste that he could do almost as good as young Mitchell when it came to stunts.

He slowed down again--and then rushed forward with a lurch and a roar, cutting in front of the ramshackle Ford.

But Westy forgot one thing that young Mitchell had taught him. He forgot that the feat required both hands on the steering gear, for as he cut in front of it he held more tightly to the tin box than he did to the motorcycle, and as it lurched it hit a deep rut in the road and threw him bodily--into the field beyond.

The policeman picked him up a few seconds later--unconscious--but against his breast the tin box was tightly clasped.