CHAPTER XI.
A DOUBLE CAPTURE.
Matt was bewildered by the strange turn events were taking.Encountering Sam Wing at the spring was odd enough, in all truth, andthe weird happenings during his pursuit had been as novel as they werethrilling; but here, in a most inexplicable way, came the mandarin andthe mariner on motor cycles, wabbling down the road, Tsan Ti in a panicand Bunce aggressive and determined.
Matt shouted, but the two on the motor cycles were so deeply immersedin their own efforts that they paid no attention to the call.
To stop the motor cycles was the first step, and the young motoristwent about it in his usual resourceful way. Swiftly he secured one endof the rope to a telegraph pole at the side of the road; then, boundingback, he took a turn with the free end of the rope around a convenienttree. Hanging to the cable that was to form a blockade for the chargingwheels, Matt once more gave his attention to Bunce and Tsan Ti.
The pursuit of the mandarin had reached a crisis. The sailor had comeclose enough to reach out and grab the Chinaman's flying queue, and hewas hauling rearward, pulling the mandarin back until his hands hadleft the handle bars.
"Stop!" shouted Motor Matt, laying back on the end of the rope.
The command was useless, for pursuer and pursued were obliged to haltin spite of it.
The mandarin's swaying motor cycle was first to hit the rope. Beforethe machine could topple over, Bunce crashed into it. There followed arasping volley of gasoline explosions, a roar from the sailor, and achattering yell from the mandarin. The two were on the ground, tangledup with each other and with the motor cycles.
Dropping the rope, Matt rushed at the struggling pair, seized Bunce bythe shoulders, and hauled him out of the mix-up.
A revolver had fallen from the sailor's pocket. Matt sprang to secureit, and then faced Bunce, who was on his knees and staring about himdazedly.
"Noble friend!" cried the mandarin, carefully extricating his head fromthe frame of one of the motor cycles, "you have again preserved thewretched Tsan Ti! The evil personage yonder would presently have caughtme!"
Bunce, having finally decided that the situation was one that boded himno good, started to get up and remove himself from the scene.
"I don't believe you'd better leave us just yet, Bunce," called Matt,waving the revolver. "Stay right where you are. This is a complicationwhich you can help the mandarin explain."
"By the seven holy spritsails!" muttered Bunce, falling back in hisoriginal position and looking at Matt and then at the farmer. "How, inthe name o' Davy Jones," he cried, his gaze returning to Matt, "do youhappen to be cruisin' in these waters?"
"Never mind that, for the present. What I want to know is, where haveyou and the mandarin come from? And why were you chasing him?"
"I have escaped, highly appreciated friend whose kindness is muchreciprocated," babbled the mandarin, coming blithely to Matt's side andcarefully knocking the dust out of his little black cap. "I have made anever-to-be-forgotten escape from the hands of evil-minded enemies. Itwas your friend from the cattle districts who helped me."
So far, all that Matt had heard and seen had merely bogged him the moredeeply in a mire of misunderstanding. At the mandarin's mention ofMcGlory, his speculations went off at a wild tangent.
"Did Grattan and Bunce capture the other car?" he demanded. "Where didyou find Joe and Martin? Where are they now? What's happened to them?"
"Peace, distinguished youth," said the mandarin, putting on his cap andfluttering his hand reassuringly. "I know nothing about any car exceptthe blue one by the pocket."
"Blue car? Did you see a blue car?"
"Even so, my amazed friend. And beside the blue car leaned thosego-devil bicycles. McGlory--faithful assistant in my time ofneed--helped me beguile Grattan, Pardo, and Bunce into the pocket,whereupon I secured one of the go-devil machines and fled swiftly. Theone-eyed sailor followed. Which way we came I do not know. Wherever Isaw another road I turned into it. How long we raced is too much for mydisturbed faculties to understand. We went, and went, and at last wewere here, and I found you! Oh, loyal defender of the most wretched ofmandarins, to you I owe my peace, my happiness, and my life! May thesix thousand peri of the land of enchantment afford you joy in the lifeto come!"
"Well, by gum!" muttered the wide-eyed farmer, shifting his rake tothe other hand and rubbing a palm against his forehead. "I never seena heathen that could talk like that before. Some remarkable now, ain'tit?"
Matt was too deeply concerned with what Tsan Ti had said to pay muchattention to the farmer. He kept his watchful eyes on Bunce, however,while seeking to get deeper into the perplexing situation that sosuddenly confronted him.
"Let's begin at the beginning, Tsan Ti," said he, "and try and smoothout the knots of this amazing tangle with some sort of system. McGloryand I received your telegram. What happened to you after Sam Wing stolethe ruby?"
"I awoke from my dreams in great fright, inquiring friend," respondedthe mandarin, "and found the ruby gone, and Sam Wing gone. There wasbut one thing for me to think, and I thought it. The train was at astation, and I jumped from the steps. I looked for Sam Wing, but he hadvanished; then I sent my telegram and waited until you might arrive.In the gray dawn that came into the east, I saw Sam Wing suddenly flashby the open door of the railroad station. I shouted and ran after him,but he evaded me. Ah, the dreary heart-sickness in my breast as Ipursued the traitor!" The mandarin clutched at his frayed yellow blouseand wrung a fold of it in his fat fingers. "Who can tell of that? Ifollowed the wagon road through the mountains, looking and listening.Then I heard some one, afar off, shouting the name of Motor Matt.Hope leaped high within me, for that name, notable sir, has a magicof its own. I turned from the road, climbed many rocks, and crushedthrough thick growths of prickly bushes, striving to reach the one whohad shouted. Also, I shouted myself, and presently, to my great butmistaken delight, other shoutings were returned to me. I went on, inmy deceived state, and came to a place where I was captured--made aprisoner by Grattan and that contemptible mariner of the single eye!Your friend of the cattle districts was likewise a prisoner."
"McGlory--captured by Grattan!" gasped Matt. "How did that happen? Why,I thought he was with Martin."
"Not so, deceived friend. He had tried to follow you in the pursuit ofSam Wing, and he had lost knowledge of his location, and was shoutingto hear some speak and tell him where he was. That is what I heard.Before I could reach your friend, Grattan and Bunce had also heard him,and made him a prisoner. Then they heard me, and made _me_ a captive.Verily, the ten thousand demons have had me under the ban."
"I'm beginning to get at this," said Matt grimly. "Where did youand Grattan come from, Bunce, that you were placed so handily forentrapping McGlory and the mandarin?"
"We'd made port in the hills," replied Bunce, "an' was out lookin' forTsan Ti an' the ruby."
"They, miserable creatures," resumed the mandarin, with a glance ofcontempt at Bunce, "had the blue car and the go-devil bicycles in agashed-out spot among the mountains. A cavern, named by them a pocket,was in the wall of the rough valley. There were McGlory and I takenand bound. While Grattan, Bunce, and Pardo, birds of evil feather,were plotting in the blue car, I gnawed the cord that secured yourunfortunate friend's hands, and he freed himself and me. After thatMcGlory raised a great clamor. Grattan, Bunce, and Pardo came hastilyto observe what might be the trouble, and I went out of the pocket asthey came in. Then I took the motor cycle, as I have said, and movedaway, followed by the mariner. Is the matter clear, esteemed friend?"
"I'm beginning to understand it," answered Matt. "It's the queerestmix-up I ever heard of. Strange that you and Joe should fall into thehands of Grattan and Bunce, as you did, and that you should happen tolead Bunce this way when you fled on the motor cycle."
"Matter-of-fact youth," remarked the mandarin earnestly, "do you notrealize how strange events happen swiftly in the wake of the Eye ofBuddha? The ten thousand demons are doing their worst continually,
andtheir powers for evil are vast beyond imagining!"
"We'll pass over that phase of the matter," said Matt dryly, "and tryto get at something that will benefit McGlory. Can you take me to this'pocket,' as you call it?"
"Not so," replied the mandarin. "I have no recollection how I came fromit, or what roads I took. The roads were many, and the way was long,and my mind was too greatly disturbed to pay attention."
"Where's the pocket, Bunce?" asked Matt, addressing the sailor.
"I know, messmate," scowled Bunce, "but I'm not showin' ye the course."
Matt was in a quandary. He could not understand why Grattan hadcaptured McGlory, but he was not intending to let his chum remain anylonger in the hands of the thieves than was absolutely necessary. A waywould be found to make Bunce lead him to the pocket.
"Generous and agreeable friend," spoke up Tsan Ti, "did you succeed incapturing Sam Wing?"
"I did," replied Matt.
"Then may I request of you the Eye of Buddha?"
"I'll take you to Sam Wing and you can request it of him," said Matt."Get up, Bunce," he ordered, "and start yourself for the barn. Willyou," and Matt shot a glance at the farmer, "kindly remove that ropefrom the road and set the motor cycles upright in a place where theywill be safe?"
"Glad to do anythin' fer yew that I can," answered the farmer, droppinghis rake and getting busy with the rope.
Matt, face to face with the ordeal of acquainting Tsan Ti with the factthat the ruby was irretrievably lost, was wondering, as he drove Buncetoward the barn, what the result of the catastrophe was to be.