CHAPTER VIII.
TSAN TI VANISHES AGAIN.
There was wisdom in the cowboy's words, and Matt gave over his attackon the door and turned to his chum with a disappointed laugh.
"We can get out of here easy enough," said he, "but the sailor gainsso much time while we're doing it that he wins out in the race. Greatspark plugs, but we're having a time! I'm almost tempted to thinkthat those ten thousand demons, the mandarin talks about, are reallypestering us."
"Ten thousand horned toads," scoffed McGlory. "This is what wenaturally get for trying to turn an impossible trick for a heathen.What was the good of paying any attention to that letter, in the firstplace?"
"Well," answered Matt, "we've discussed that point a good many timesalready, Joe. I wanted to go to New York, anyway, and it was only alittle out of our road to come down the river and drop off at CatskillLanding."
"Suppose we get our wheels, go back to Catskill, and then take the nextboat down the river? What's the good of all this strain we've takenupon ourselves? If we don't let well enough alone, something is suregoing to snap, and like as not it'll be mighty serious. It's a wonderwe ever came through that smash-up with our scalps."
There was one window in the room. Matt had passed to it and was makingan examination. The glass was broken out of the sash, and the boardsnailed to the outside of the casing were loose. He pushed two of theboards off, leaving a gap through which he and his chum could easilycrawl.
"If we'd done this in the first place, Joe," said he, "we might havepicked up the mariner's trail before he had got too far away."
"Too late now. It was our luck to get into the only room in the 'dobe,I reckon, that had a good door and a usable lock."
"Well," returned Matt, "let's get out and hunt up the mandarin. I hopehe won't make 'way with himself while we're moseying around in thispart of the woods."
The boys climbed through the window and the gap in the boards, and Mattmade a casual survey of the house's vicinity. Of course the sailor wasgone, and had left no clue as to the direction of his flight.
Setting their faces in the direction of the road, the boys started offbriskly on their return to the wrecked car.
"There's one thing you didn't do, pard," remarked McGlory, while theywere on their way through the timber.
"What's that?"
"Why, you didn't lisp a word to the mandarin about that note you tookfrom the Hottentot's cap. Maybe, if the Chinaman knew about that, he'dquit thinking of doing the polite and courteous thing for the regent."
"I had intended telling Tsan Ti about the note," returned Matt, struckby the illuminating suggestion, "but I hadn't time. I'll put it up toTsan Ti, though, the first thing after we meet him again."
"I've got the yellow string. If he has to make the happy dispatch withthat, then I've blocked his game for a while. I don't know much aboutthe etiquette of this yellow-cord _game_. Do you?"
"No."
"Well, leaving that out of the discussion for now, here's anotherpoint. Do you reckon old One Eye has found out, yet, how you juggledthe notes on him?"
"I can't see as that makes much difference," answered Matt.
"He left us in a hurry, there at that stone house. If he'd known we hadthe note, why didn't he stop and palaver about it?"
"We were two against him, and he was in too much of a hurry."
"Why didn't he use the glass balls and take the note away from us whilewe were down and out?"
"Probably his supply of glass balls is running low."
"That note is to be shown to the man in Purling, and the man inPurling is then to show the bearer of the note where this Grattan is.Now----"
"That's a chance for us to find Grattan," cut in Matt.
"You're planning on that, are you? Sufferin' trouble! If it wouldn't beactin' more like a hired man than a pard, I'd go on a strike."
"We're onto this mandarin's business now, Joe," said Matt, "and weought to see it through to a finish."
"It'll be our finish, I reckon."
At this moment they stepped out onto the road close to the car. Themachine was a charred and twisted wreck, and fit only for the junkheap. Matt looked around for Tsan Ti, but he was nowhere in evidence.
"Vanished again!" exclaimed McGlory.
Matt threw back his head and shouted the mandarin's name at the topof his voice. No answer was returned, but the echoes of the call hadhardly died away before they were taken up by the humming of anothermotor, and a little runabout came whirling down the road and brought upat the side of the wrecked car.
Two men were in the runabout, and one of the men was in a tremendouslybad humor. The angry individual jumped from the runabout and peered atthe number on the smoking board at the rear of the chassis.
"It was my car, all right!" he cried. "And look at it! Great Scott,just look at it! Total loss, and only a fat chink to look to fordamages. Oh, I'm s, t, u, n, g to the queen's taste, all right. Who'reyou?" he demanded, whirling suddenly on the boys.
Matt told him.
"You're from up the mountain, are you?" inquired Matt.
"Where else?" replied the other crossly. "What's become of the chinkthat hired this car? Do you know?"
"Probably he's gone back to the hotel."
"Oh, probably," was the sarcastic retort; "yes, probably! I've gotmoney that says he's sloped for good. Look here. They say there weretwo fellows in the car with the chink when it left the Mountain House.Are you the fellows?"
"Yes."
"Then, by jing, I'll hold _you_. Twenty-five hundred is what I want,and I want it quick."
"Oh, rats!" grunted the man in the runabout. "I'll bet those fellowscouldn't rake up twenty-five hundred cents. Quit foolin', Jackson, andlet's go back."
Matt and McGlory, after their recent experiences in the collision andwhile chasing the sailor, were most assuredly not looking their best.But they could have drawn a draft on Chicago for twenty-five hundreddollars and had it honored--had they been so minded.
"Oh, say moo and chase yourself!" cried McGlory. "You rented the car tothe Chinaman; you didn't rent it to us."
"I'm going to hold you, anyhow," declared the man called Jackson.
"You'll have a good time trying it," retorted the cowboy truculently.
Jackson stepped toward McGlory.
"Don't you get gay with me," he shouted. "I'm not going to lose atwenty-five hundred dollar car and not make somebody smart for it. Itold the chink that was what the car was worth."
"I know something about cars," put in Matt mildly, "and this one is outof date--four years old, if it's a day. If it had been a modern car,with the gasoline tank in the right place, it would never have caughtfire, and you could have saved something out of the wreck. The properfeed is by gravity, and the right place for the tank is under theseat----"
"Oh, you!" sneered Jackson, "what do you know about cars?"
"He can forget more in a minute about these chug wagons," bristledMcGlory, "than you know in a year. Put that in your brier and whiffit. This fellow's Motor Matt, motor expert, late of Burton's BigConsolidated Shows, where he's been exhibiting the Traquair a?roplane.Now bear down on your soft pedal, will you?"
"Thunder!" breathed the man in the runabout.
"Is--is that a fact?" queried Jackson, visibly impressed.
"It's a fact," said Matt, "but it needn't make any difference in thiscase. That car of yours, Jackson, would have been dear at a thousanddollars. You'll get every cent the car is worth, too. The Chinaman whohired it is a mandarin. He's in this country on private business. Hehas tea plantations, rice fields, and money in the bank till you can'trest. Now, stop worrying about the damages and give my chum and me alift up the hill. We'll find Tsan Ti at the Kaaterskill. That's wherehe's been staying for a week or two."
Jackson was mollified.
"Of course," said he, "I don't want to be rough with anybody, but youunderstand how it is. This country is hard on cars, and I have tocharge good prices and be sure the cars are hired by men
who can putup for them if they go over a cliff or meet with any other kind of awreck. I'm obliged to you for your information about Tsan Ti. He's beena good deal of a conundrum at the Kaaterskill since he's put up there.A man, riding up from below, passed a couple of Chinamen chin-chinningbeside this wreck, and he brought word to me. That's how Jim and Ihappened to come down."
"You say the man from below passed _two_ Chinamen talking near thecar?" queried Matt, with a surprised glance at McGlory.
"That's what he said."
"There was only the mandarin in the car when we had the smash," saidMatt. "Where could that other one have come from?"
McGlory said nothing, but his face was full of things he might havesaid--doubts of the mandarin, of course, and vague suspicions of doubledealing.
Jim backed the runabout around, and Matt and McGlory crowded into it.There was a hard climb up the hill, overloaded as the runabout was, butfinally the Mountain House was passed and the other hotel reached.
The boys, in their tattered garments, aroused considerable curiosityamong the hotel guests as they crossed the colonnaded porches and madetheir way into the office. They inquired for Tsan Ti, and bellboys weresent to the Chinaman's room and around the porches and grounds, callinghis name.
But he wasn't to be found.
"Up a stump some more," growled McGlory, "and all because thatjade-stone amulet got overheated and caused the mandarin to look fortrouble. Oh, blazes! _When_ will we ever acquire a proper amount ofhorse sense for a couple of our size? You couldn't expect much more ofme, Matt, but--well, pard, I'm surprised at _you_."