CHAPTER VIII.
THE PILE OF SOOT.
Ping was not many minutes recovering the use of his tongue. McGlorygrabbed him and shook his powers of speech back into their normalcondition.
"Where's Motor Matt?" cried McGlory.
"My no savvy!"
"How did you happen to be here?"
"Stleet cal."
"What're you making a run from the show grounds for without saying aword to Matt?"
That was a point which Ping did not care to reveal. He was not abovebeing careless with the truth in a pinch, having been raised that way.But, while he might resort to a little harmless fiction with McGlory,he would have cut his tongue out before he would have fibbed to MotorMatt.
"Makee see Wily Bill ketchee cal," Ping explained; "my ketchee samecal. Follow Wily Bill. Wily Bill jump from cal. My jump, too. Tumbleall ovel load. Wily Bill lun fo' top-side bank. Motol Matt chasee.Motol Matt leavee gas hlorsee by bank. My follow, no findee."
Out of this pigeon English McGlory captured a few germs of sense.
"What the nation was he following Wily for?" demanded Burton. "How didhe know we wanted Wily?"
Ping was still equal to the emergency.
"Dutchy boy havee low with Wily Bill," he explained.
"That's right," went on Burton; "you _were_ around during the row. I'dforgotten that. That may have been enough to put you on Wily's trail,although I can't figure it out exactly. But you followed him, and thenyou followed Matt when he ran after Wily. They went up the bank andinto the woods, you say?"
"Allee same."
"Then where did they go?" demanded McGlory.
"Makee tlacks fo' house with green blinds."
"They made tracks for a house with green blinds? Now we're getting atit. Where's this house?"
"Othel side woods. My findee, you savvy; makee sit down, do heap bigthink. Bymby, 'long come Wily Bill, unlock do', go in house. Plentysoon, 'long come Motol Matt, go in house, too." Ping became oppressedwith the awe aroused by the event next to be described, and his voicesank into a husky whisper. "My makee tlacks inside, hunt evel place, nocan find. House allee same empty. Motol Matt disappeal, vanish, makeego up in smoke. Woosh! My plenty 'flaid."
"What's he givin' us?" snorted Burton. "He's talking through his hat,seems like, to me."
"He's run into something that he can't cumtux," returned McGlory. "It'splain enough, though, that a house with green shutters is at the end ofour trail. Ping can take us there, and it will be up to us to do therest."
"Say, young feller!" cried Burton, standing up in the runabout andaddressing the lad from the motor-car works.
The latter was pulling his motor cycle out of the bushes and makingready to forge away on the rest of his "century" run.
"Well?" returned the youth, one leg over the saddle and ready to pedaloff.
"Load that machine into the runabout and drive this rig back to theshow grounds for me, will you?" requested Burton. "I'm hungry to seethis game through, and I can't leave the horse hitched in the road."
"Couldn't get the motor cycle into the buggy," was the answer. "Anyhow,I guess I've helped you about as much as you could reasonably expect."
"There's twenty coming to you," went on Burton. "Take the rig back andI'll make it thirty."
"There's nothing coming to me. I told Motor Matt he could use themachine, and welcome. Now that he's done with it, I'll go on with myrun."
The motor began to pop, and presently settled into a steady hum. Aminute later the motor cycle and its rider were out of sight.
Just then, when it looked as though Burton was to be permanentlyretired from the rest of the pursuit, a street car from the lakerattled to a halt, and Carl and Twomley dropped from the steps.
"Here's the Englishman," muttered McGlory, without much enthusiasm.
"And Carl!" added Burton. "He'll take the rig back for me, and the restof us will start for the house with the green shutters."
"Vat's to pay?" clamored Carl, running toward McGlory and Ping.
Ping's confidence in Carl, like Carl's confidence in Ping, was badly"shook." The Chinese boy backed away.
"Here, Carl," cried Burton. "Jump into the runabout and take it back tothe grounds for me. I've got business with McGlory."
"Meppy I don'd got some pitzness mit McGlory, same as you," demurredCarl. "Vere iss Modor Matt?"
"There's no time to palaver, Carl," interposed McGlory. "Take the rigback."
When Matt was away, McGlory was the boss. Carl could not very welldisobey such a pointblank order. Much against his will, he climbed intothe runabout.
"My word!" cried Twomley. "You seem to have discovered a clue of somesort. Who's the Chinaman?"
"Never mind that, now," returned Barton. "Come with us, Twomley, andwe'll tell you as we go along."
"Lead off, Ping," ordered McGlory.
Carl, very much out of temper, shook his fist at Burton, and then atPing. Following this, he turned the rig the other way and rode moodilyback toward the show grounds.
Ping, meanwhile, had climbed the bank, and was leading the party ofinvestigators through the woods in the direction of the crossroad. Asthey went along, Burton was telling Twomley what Ping had discovered.
The information given by the Chinaman was lacking in many importantpoints, but its very incompleteness added to the tensity of thesituation.
When they came to the end of the crossroad, Ping halted and indicatedthe house with the green shutters.
"You say," remarked McGlory, giving the house a swift sizing, "thatWily Bill ran into the house?"
"All same," answered Ping.
"And that Pard Matt trailed after him?"
"All same."
"Then you went in, looked around, and couldn't see anything of eitherof them?"
"My no findee." Ping shivered. "When my makee come out, my lockee do'."
He dug up the key and handed it to McGlory.
"Well," declared McGlory, "if Motor Matt and Wily Bill went in there,and didn't come out again, we'll find them."
"If the Chinaman didn't find them," struck in Twomley, "they must havecome out."
"We'll soon know what's what," and the cowboy made his way to the door,thrust the key into the lock, and pushed the door ajar.
The same dark, funereal silence that had greeted Ping stared McGlory,Burton, and Twomley in the face.
"My no findee," chattered Ping, drawing back; "you no findee."
McGlory pressed into the hall.
"I'll take the rooms on the left," said he, "and the rest of you takethe ones on the right. Do your bushwhacking, and then, if you don'tfind anything, meet me at the foot of the stairs for a look overhead."
Nothing was found. The back door was securely bolted on the inside, andall the windows and blinds of the various lower windows firmly fastened.
The situation upstairs was exactly the same. Puzzled and bewildered,the party returned to the lower hall.
"If Ping's giving it to us straight," said McGlory, "neither Matt norWily got out of here. They couldn't have gone through the rear door orany of the windows, without leaving them open. And they couldn't haveleft by the front door because it was locked, and Ping had the key."
"They might have slipped out while Ping was nosing around upstairs,"suggested Burton.
"They'd have made some noise," objected the cowboy. "Matt didn't haveany call to keep quiet, and Ping would surely have heard him. Let's goback to the rear rooms again."
Burton and Twomley had examined the kitchen. McGlory now looked thatroom over for himself.
He was no more than two minutes in picking up a clue. The lighted matchwhich he held close to the floor showed footprints outlined in black.He traced them to the pile of soot under the chimney.
"Here's where we find something!" he cried. "Open those shutters, youfellows! We want light while we run out this trail of soot."
Twomley and Burton unfastened the windows and pushed back the blinds ontheir screeching hinges. The sunlight, d
rifting into the room, broughtout the trail with weird distinctness.
"Maybe the Chinaman blundered into the soot and left the trail,"hazarded Burton.
"My no makee tlail," declared Ping. "No touchee soot."
"There's only one of the chink, anyhow, pards," said McGlory, "and atleast two pairs of feet walked through that pile of black stuff. Oneman wore shoes, and the other wore slippers. The slippers left marksa good deal like Ping's sandals, but the marks are too big for Ping.We'll find out a few things now, I reckon."
With eyes bent sharply on the floor, the cowboy crossed the kitcheninto the hall, and then moved along the hall to a spot under the stairs.
The stairs were not enclosed, but sprang directly from the hall floor.In the angle formed by the flight and the floor the sooty trailvanished.
"Now what?" queried Burton. "It looks like we were up in the air asmuch as ever."
Without replying, McGlory drew his knife from his pocket, opened it,and went down on his knees.