CHAPTER VII.
NOTHING DOING IN SYKESTOWN.
Cameron, by a happy blunder, finally located the trouble, and repairedit. McGlory had a little knowledge of motors and he might have helped,but his dejection was so profound that all he could do was to sit inthe car, muttering to himself.
"Buck up, McGlory," said Cameron, jerking the crank and noting that themotor took up its humming tune as well as ever. "While there's lifethere's hope, you know. We'll be able to do something yet."
"Oh, yes," gibed McGlory. "With a car going fifty miles we'll be ableto overhaul a flying machine doing sixty."
"Of course," went on Cameron, getting into the car and starting, "wecan't expect to overtake Matt unless something should go wrong with thea?roplane, but----"
"If anything goes wrong with the a?roplane then Matt breaks his neck.That won't do."
"I was going to say," proceeded the lieutenant as he teased the car toits best pace, "that we're to meet Matt at Sykestown in the morning. Ifanything is to happen to him, McGlory, it will be on the other side ofSykestown. Calm down a little, can't you? We'll reach the meeting pointby morning, all right, and then we can tell Matt about the message fromMrs. Traquair."
The cowboy had not thought of this point, and yet it was so simple thatit should have occurred to him before. Instantly his worry and alarmgave way to hope.
"Right you are, Cameron," said he. "When I go into a taking I alwayslose my head and slip a cog. We can't catch up with Matt. That's outof the question. As you say, though, we can sure find him in Sykestown."
The car swung into Minnewaukon, and there was a momentary pause forcounsel.
"If Matt's taking the air line, as he said he was going to do,"remarked Cameron, "then he'll be cutting the corner between hereand Sykestown. There are poor roads and bad hills on that lap, andwe'll make better time by taking the longer way round and going byCarrington."
"Maybe he didn't go that way," said McGlory. "If he has to come downfor anything he'll have to have a fairly good stretch of trail in whichto get a start before the flying machine can climb into the air. Likeas not he went by way of Carrington, himself."
"We'll soon settle that," and Cameron made inquiries of a man who wasstanding beside the car.
Yes, the man had seen the a?roplane. It had passed over the town andwent southwest.
"That settles it, McGlory," said Cameron. "Matt cut the corner. If he'dgone by way of Carrington he'd have started south."
"He's taking a big chance on his machine going wrong," muttered thecowboy, "but Matt can take more chances and come out right side up thanany fellow you ever saw. It's Carrington for us, though."
Cameron headed the machine southward and they flickered out ofMinnewaukon like a brown streak. Nothing went wrong, and they hit asteady, forty-mile-an-hour gait and kept it up through Lallie, Oberon,Sheyenne, Divide, and New Rockford. Here and there was an occasionalslough which they were obliged to go around, but the delay wasunavoidable.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they reached Carrington, andthey congratulated themselves on the ease with which they had coveredso much of their journey.
They halted for an hour in Carrington, Cameron and McGlory going overthe machine and replenishing the gasoline and oil. At four they pulledout for Sykestown, and had barely crossed the Carrington town linebefore accidents began to happen.
First, a front tire blew up. A flying stone gouged the shoe and theinner tube sprung a leak.
An hour was lost repairing the damage. Nevertheless, the cowboy kepthis temper well in hand, for they had not planned to reach Sykestownand meet Matt before morning.
A mile beyond the place where the tire had blown up the electricitywent wrong; then the carburetor began to flood; and last of all thefeed pipe became clogged.
"Let's leave the old benzine-buggy in the road and walk the rest of theway," suggested McGlory. "A pair of bronks and a wagon for me, any oldday."
It was eleven o'clock at night when they got into Sykestown and pulledto a halt in front of the only hotel in the place. There was no garage,and Cameron backed the car under an open shed in the rear of the hotel.
While he was doing this, McGlory was making inquiries regarding MotorMatt.
"Nothing doing, Cameron," announced the cowboy, meeting the lieutenantas he came into the hotel.
"Matt hasn't got here yet?"
"He hasn't been seen or heard of. That's some queer, I reckon. He tooka crosscut. Coming at sixty miles an hour, barring accidents, he oughtto have reached Sykestown by noon."
"Well," said the optimistic lieutenant, "it's a good thing to knowhe hasn't got here and gone on without waiting for us. Matt knows wewere not to meet until morning. He may be waiting at some farmer'sshack, somewhere out of town. Let's get a hand-out and then go to bed.Wrestling with a refractory motor is tiresome work."
This was sensible advice, and the cowboy, although he did not acceptCameron's explanation of Matt's absence, concluded to accept it.
McGlory was up at dawn, however, inquiring anxiously for news. Therewas none. Taking a chair out in front of the hotel he sat down to wait.
An hour later, Ping came scuffling around the corner of the hotel.
"Where have you been, Ping?" McGlory asked.
"My makee sleep in choo-choo car," replied the Chinaman, taking anupward squint at the sky with his slant eyes. "Cloud Joss no makeecome, huh?"
"Nary, Ping. I'm which and t'other about this, too. We're up against arough game of some kind, and I'd give my eyeteeth to know what it is."
"Plaps Motol Matt makee lescue Melican lady all by himself."
"There's no Melican lady to rescue, and that's the worst of it."
At this moment Cameron issued from the hotel. He had his khaki jacketover his arm and the handles of a brace of six-shooters showed abovethe tops of his hip pockets.
"No sign of Matt yet, eh?" he asked cheerily.
"Nary a sign, Cameron," replied McGlory. "Unless something had gonecrossways, he'd have been on here early this morning."
"I don't believe in crossing bridges until you get to them," saidCameron, dropping down on a bench. "You know Motor Matt better thanI do, McGlory," he went on, "but I'm well enough acquainted with himto know that he keeps his head with him all the time and never getsrattled."
"He's the boy on the job, all right," averred the cowboy, with a touchof pride. "But what good's a cool head and plenty of pluck if a flyingmachine up-ends with you a couple of hundred feet in the air?"
Cameron grew silent, and a little bit thoughtful.
"There was a still day yesterday," said he, at last, "and only a bit ofa breeze this morning. It's not at all likely that any accident of thatkind happened."
"I'm not thinking of that so much as I am of Murgatroyd and his gang,"went on McGlory. "That bunch of tinhorns may have laid for Mattsomewhere between Sykestown and Minnewaukon."
"Hardly. They wouldn't be expecting him by air ship, and acrosscountry, the way he started."
"Hackberry, you remember, wanted him to get a horse and ride crosscountry."
"But Matt told Hackberry he expected to reach Sykestown by train.Because of that, no matter what the plans of Murgatroyd and his menwere, they'd have to give over their designs and lay for Matt somewherebetween here and the Traquair homestead."
"That's where you're shy some more," said McGlory. "Hackberry, comingon horseback from Minnewaukon, hasn't got to where Murg is, yet, sohe can't have told him what Matt was expecting to do. Take it fromme, Cameron, there was a gang on that cross-country road, last night,layin' for our pard."
"Well, if there was," returned Cameron easily, "then Motor Matt sailedover their heads. But all this is mere guesswork," he added, "andmighty poor guesswork, at that. We'll just wait here until Matt showsup."
There was a silence for a while, Ping getting a crick in his neckholding his head back and watching the sky toward the north and east.
"No makee see Cloud Joss," he murmured.
Neither McGlory nor Cameron paid much attention to the report. If Matthad been coming in the a?roplane the excitement in the town wouldquickly have apprised them of the fact.
"I can't understand," said Cameron musingly, "what this Murgatroydhopes to accomplish by all this criminal work."
"You can't?" echoed McGlory. "Well, Matt butted into Murgatroyd's gameand knocked his villainous schemes galley-west. That don't make Murgfeel anyways good, does it? Then there's Siwash Charley. He's a tinhornand _mucho malo_, and there's no love lost between him and the king ofthe motor boys. What's the result if Murg and Siwash get Matt in theirclutches?" The cowboy scowled and ground his teeth. "You ought to beable to figure that out, Cameron, just as well as I can."
"Murgatroyd isn't anybody's fool," said Cameron. "He's not going to goto any desperate length with Matt and run his neck into a noose."
"Murg won't, but what does Siwash Charley care? He's already badlywanted, and he's the sort of cold-game gent who does things when he'scrossed. Murg will play safe, but Siwash is apt to break away fromMurg's plans and saw off with Matt in his own way. What that way is I'mafraid to think about, or----"
The noise of a motor was heard up the road, accompanied by the hollowrumble of a car crossing the bridge over Pipestem Creek.
"Another car coming this way," remarked Cameron, looking in thedirection from which the sound came.
Buildings intervened between the front of the hotel and the bridge,effectually shutting off the view.
A moment after Cameron had spoken, however, a big car came around aturn in the road and headed for the hotel.
The car carried two passengers--a man and a woman. The moment the carhove in sight, the proprietor of the hotel came out and leaned againstthe wall of the building near the door.
"I don't know what's to be done now," muttered the proprietor. "There'sonly room in that shed o' mine for one automobile, an' your machine isthere. What'll Mr. Murgatroyd do with his car?"
"Murgatroyd!" exploded Cameron, jumping to his feet.
"Murgatroyd!" cried McGlory.
"Woosh!" chattered Ping. "We no ketchee Matt, mebbyso we ketchee Murg,huh?"
Up to that moment there had been nothing doing in Sykestown; but now,with startling suddenness, there seemed to be plenty on the programme.