CHAPTER V.
SOMETHING WRONG.
McGlory, Carl, and Twomley waited in the calliope tent until theirpatience was exhausted.
"Py shiminy," fluttered Carl, "I bed you somet'ing for nodding dot VilyPill don'd vas by der site show yet."
"I reckon you've dropped a bean on the right number," agreed thecowboy. "What's our next jump, your highness?"
The question was put to the Englishman.
"Aw, I say," said the latter, in remonstrance, "I'm not that, don'tyou know. I'm not of the peerage. An uncle and three cousins, alldistressingly healthy, stand between me and an earldom."
"I want to know!" murmured McGlory, in mock surprise. "Why, I didn'tthink any one this side a lord could wear one of those little windowpanes in the right eye."
"You jest," said Twomley, with a faint smile. "Fancy!"
"Well, anyhow, what are we going to do? Sit here and wait, or hit thetrail ourselves and find out what's doing?"
"Hit the trail?" echoed Twomley, lifting his brows. "Deuced odd, that.Why should we hit it, and what shall we hit it with?"
"Vat a ignorance!" murmured Carl.
"We'll hit it with our feet, excellency," went on McGlory.
He had a hearty contempt for the monocle, and took it out on the wearer.
"I don't know whether I rise to that," returned Twomley, "but if itmeans to go forth and look into the cause of our friends' delay inreturning with Wily Bill, then, it's ay, ay, with a will."
"Come on, then, and we'll vamose."
McGlory led the way to the side-show tent, and Twomley and Carlfollowed him closely.
The crowds had long since entered the big tents, and the performancein the "circus top" was in full blast. With the beginning of the "bigshow" there was no business left for the annex, and the ticket sellerwas withdrawn under the lee of a canvas wall, hobnobbing with the manon the door. These two informed McGlory, Twomley, and Carl that WilyBill had left for town on the street car, and that Motor Matt andBurton had started for the car line in the hope of overhauling him. Butthat had been all of half an hour before.
The three searchers immediately departed for the car-line loop. Therethey found Burton and a young fellow kicking their heels impatientlyand keeping their eyes down the track.
"Where's Matt?" asked McGlory.
"Ask us something easy," replied Burton. "Wily has hiked for town. Whenwe got here the car he was on was too far down the track to stop. Thisyoung man"--the showman indicated his companion--"came along on a motorcycle. Matt borrowed the machine with the intention of overtakingthe car and bringing Wily back, but neither has shown up yet. Must besomething wrong."
"Vell, I bed you!" said Carl anxiously. "On some modor cyclesMile-a-minid Matt alvays geds vere he iss going pefore he shtarts.Somet'ing has gone crossvays alretty, und dot's no tream."
"I'm doing a century to-day," remarked the motor cycle owner, "and thisis cutting into my time."
"Don't fret about your wheel, neighbor," spoke up McGlory. "You'll getit back, all right."
"I'm not fretting. Motor Matt's welcome to a dozen of the gasolinebikes if I had 'em. But I'd like to be moving on."
Burton looked at his watch.
"Matt's been gone thirty-five minutes," he announced.
"If he was running all the time," observed the lad from the motor-carworks, "he could be thirty-five miles from here."
"Perhaps," ventured Twomley, "he has mucked the play, somehow."
"Mucked the play!" exclaimed the exasperated McGlory. "That's not hisstyle, your lordship."
"We'll wait twenty-five minutes longer," announced Burton. "If Mattisn't back by then, this young man and I will start along the car trackin my runabout and we'll see what we can find."
"Dake me along," clamored Carl. "I vas afraidt somet'ing iss wrong mitMatt."
"If there are any extra passengers in the runabout," said McGloryresolutely, "I'm the one."
"My word!" muttered Twomley. "I hope everything's all serene, I do,indeed. I'm a juggins at waiting when there's so much excitement goingon."
"Juggins is good," grunted McGlory. "You can retire somewhere, Mr.Twomley, and hold onto your nerves while the rest of us hunt up the'barker.' You'll not shine much till we find Wily Bill, anyhow."
"You're an odd stick," answered Twomley, whose good nature was not athing to be ruffled.
He was sharp enough to see that the cowboy had a pique at him, and hehad sufficient good sense to take it calmly.
"Py shinks," said Carl, after ten more weary minutes had passed, "Matthas hat time to do some centuries himseluf, und I can't guess it oudtfor vy he don'd get pack. Oof you don'd dake me in der runaboudt, den,so helup me, I vill valk. Anydink is pedder to shtand as uncerdainties."
Carl constantly watched the road that paralleled the car track. And so,for the most part, did the Englishman.
"My word, but it is trying!" murmured Twomley. "If we could only see abit of dust, then we'd know Motor Matt was coming, and my relief wouldbe profound."
"Dust! _Ach, himmelblitzen!_ Vy, Matt vill go so fast on dot machineder dust vill be a mile pehindt und you don'd see dot."
"Here's something," came from McGlory. "Speak to me about it, willyou? Where's Ping? Little Slant-eyes is always around when anything isdoing, but I haven't seen him since he finished watering the calliope."
Carl knew why Ping wasn't around. Ping was afraid Carl would dosomething to him to play even for the Roman-candle business. Oh, yes,that was an easy one for Carl to guess. There was secret satisfactionfor the Dutch boy in the reflection. And he gloated over it and kept itto himself.
"Time's up," announced Burton, snapping his watch, "and here's whereI go for the runabout. My thoroughbred is hitched to the buggy, so beready to go with me," he added to the owner of the motor cycle.
"I'm not worrying about the wheel, understand," said the lad, "butabout the century I'm to turn. I'm making it right in the teeth of thiswind."
Inside of five minutes Burton came with the runabout, his Kentuckythoroughbred stamping off the ground at a record pace.
The runabout seat was narrow, and Burton and the lad from the motor-carfactory filled it comfortably. But they took McGlory on their knees andwhipped away, leaving Twomley and Carl gazing after them disconsolately.
Hardly were the runabout and its passengers out of sight when a carrounded the loop and deposited its passengers on the platform.
"Led's ged on der car, Misder Dumley," suggested Carl. "Ve vill vatchder road as ve go, und oof ve see somet'ing ve vill trop off. I peen atedectif feller, und oof dere iss any clues dey von't ged avay from me."
"Go you!" answered Twomley heartily.
Any sort of action was a relief for his impatience, and he and Carlscrambled aboard the car.
Meanwhile the pedigreed Kentucky cob was pounding off the distance.In the horse's performance the proud showman lost sight of the mainbusiness in hand--temporarily.
"See that knee action!" he exulted. "Did either of you ever see aprettier bit of traveling? We're doing a mile in two-thirty!"
"Bother the horse!" growled McGlory. "Keep your eyes on the road forclues."
"Clues! I'll bet money the 'barker' wouldn't get off the car. How couldMatt make him? He couldn't, of course. Nothing short of a cop and awarrant could make Wily Bill leave the car if he was set for reachingGrand Rapids. I might have known that, if I had stopped to think. We'llhave to keep right on into town--and, then, like as not, we won't findeither Matt or Wily. Now----"
"Whoa!" cried McGlory. "You're shy a few, Burton. Here's where we stop."
"What's up?" returned Burton, reining in his spirited roadster.
"Look there!"
McGlory pointed to the left-hand side of the road. Close to a steepbank, against a clump of bushes, stood the motor cycle.
"Jupiter!" exclaimed Burton.
"Great Scott!" cried the owner of the machine.
McGlory tumbled clear of the runabout and started toward the bushes.He had
not taken half a dozen steps, however, before he came to a deadstop.
A form fluttered out of the bushes and approached him excitedly.
"Ping!" gasped the cowboy. "Speak to me about this! Where'd you comefrom, Ping? And where's Pard Matt?"
The Chinese boy's feelings apparently defied expression. He tried tospeak, but his lips moved soundlessly. Hopping up and down in hissandals, he waved his arms and pointed--not toward Grand Rapids, butoff across a piece of rough woodland.