Chapter XV: Back to the Farm

The skirmish--for it amounted to little more than that--was over with in short order.

Grattan resisted stoutly, but Boggs went to Banks' assistance, while Matt and Gridly went to McGlory's. In almost less time than it takes to tell it, handcuffs were snapped on the wrists of the prisoners and they were loaded into the tonneau with the two officers.

"It worked as slick as greased lightning, Motor Matt!" cried the delighted sheriff. "Those two crooks never suspected a thing!"

Pardo was exceedingly bitter.

"Now, see what your confounded plans have done for me, Grattan!" he cried angrily. "I was a fool to ever tie up with you."

"If we'd been successful," returned Grattan coolly "and secured the ruby, you'd have talked the other way. Where's your nerve, Pardo?"

Pardo, still dazed by the suddenness of the capture, sank back into the corner of the tonneau, muttering.

"This is your work, is it, Motor Matt?" inquired Grattan, leaning over the side of the car and fixing his gaze on the young motorist.

"I helped plan it," said Matt.

"He was the whole works," spoke up McGlory. "Maybe it wasn't _quite_ so clever as the way you played it on me and Tsan Ti, Grattan," and a tantalizing grin accompanied the words; "but I reckon it'll do."

"The more I see and learn about Motor Matt," declared Grattan, "the more I admire his shining abilities. He's a wonder. We've matched wits several times, and he's always had a shade the best of it. Will you answer a civil question, my lad?"

"What is it?"

"Where's Tsan Ti and the ruby?"

"Tsan Ti and Bunce are at a farm near here, but----"

"So that old idiot has got tangled in the net, too!"

"But the ruby," finished Matt, "has been lost."

"Lost?" Grattan showed considerable excitement. "How was it lost?"

"Sam Wing stole the ruby from Tsan Ti, on the train, and jumped off at Gardenville. The mandarin discovered his loss in time to leave the train at the same station."

"Oh, thunder!" exclaimed Grattan disgustedly. "So _that_ was why Tsan Ti followed Sam Wing out of Gardenville!"

"And you thought the mandarin was afraid of you, and that that was his reason for hot-footing it into the hills," derided Pardo.

"Where and how was the ruby lost?" went on Grattan, paying no attention to Pardo.

"I started out with Martin to look for this automobile," said Matt, "and we found Sam Wing at the watering place on the Gardenville road. McGlory and I followed him, but my chum got lost and I was left to keep up the chase alone. It was somewhere along the course Sam Wing led me that the ruby was lost."

"Sam Wing is fooling you!"

"I think he's telling the truth, Grattan."

"Bosh! The chink has hidden the ruby and is trying to make you believe he lost it. If you let him go, he'll find the stone and get away with it."

"Why not turn him loose, an' then follow him?" suggested Banks.

Matt shook his head.

"I'm positive Sam Wing is giving the straight of it," he declared.

"Well," laughed Grattan, but with an undernote of regret, "I hope he is. If I can't have the ruby that I've worked for so long, I'm glad to think that no one else will have it. Where are we bound for, gentlemen?" and Grattan turned to Banks and Gridly.

"To the Boggs farm to pick up the sailor," Banks replied, "then for the Catskill jail."

"Very pleasant outlook," observed Grattan.

"Can you drive a motor car, Matt?" asked Gridly.

"_Can_ he?" exploded McGlory. "Say, pard," he added, turning to Matt, "do you know a spark-plug from the carburetor?"

"No offense," proceeded Gridly hastily. "I was only going to ask Matt if he would bring our roadster along."

"Boggs and I will come in the roadster," said Matt. "You take the blue car to the farm, Joe."

"On the jump, pard!" came heartily from McGlory.

"You motor boys are a great team!" exclaimed Banks.

"They're hard to beat," put in Grattan. "If it hadn't been for them, I should have been in Paris about now, in very comfortable circumstances."

Matt waited for no more, but, accompanied by Boggs and Tige, hurried along the road to the place where Banks had left the roadster. Matt was cranking when McGlory whirled past on his way to the farm. Two minutes later the roadster was crowding the touring car hard, and Matt was honking for the cowboy to make better time.

"Everybody seems to be your friend, Motor Matt," said Boggs, "even that there thief."

"Grattan is a strange fellow, Boggs," answered Matt. "He's as talented a chap as you'll find anywhere, but he'd rather steal for a living than work honestly."

"Some folks is that way," ruminated Boggs. "They'll waste more brains an' elbow grease pullin' off a robb'ry that'll bring 'em in a thousand dollars than they'd need for makin' ten thousand honestly. Look at me, scrubbin' along on a stony farm, raisin' garden truck for the hotels, when I might go out with a drill an' a jimmy, an'----"

"Make a nice comfortable home for yourself in a stone house with iron doors and barred windows," laughed Matt. "There are lots of worse places than a stony truck farm, Boggs."

"I guess yew're right."

At that moment the touring car turned in at the farmyard and came to a halt near the barn. The roadster followed and stopped alongside.

Leaving Gridly to take care of Grattan and Pardo, Banks accompanied Matt and Boggs into the barn. Josi' met them at the door.

"What luck, Zeke?" he asked.

"Best kind, Josi'," replied Boggs. "Got our men, too easy for any use. The sheriff, here, and his deputy, Gridly, come along jest in time to help. They want one o' the prisoners we left yew to take keer of."

"They're all here, you bet," said Josi', with laudable pride. "The' wa'n't any of 'em could git away from _me_."

Banks cast his eyes over the three men.

"What's to be done with the two Chinamen?" he asked.

"I think they ought to go to Catskill, too," said Matt.

"We can carry the sailor in the tonneau of the big car, and there's room for one of the Chinamen on the seat alongside McGlory. T'other chink could go with you, in the roadster. Which is the mandarin that got robbed of the ruby?"

Matt pointed to the dejected figure of Tsan Ti.

"What is he roped for?" asked Banks.

"So he can't put himself out of the way," said Matt. "The regent of China sent him a yellow cord, and told him that if he did not recover the ruby in two weeks he was please to strangle himself. I had to tie the mandarin in that way to keep him from obeying orders."

Banks was not a hard-hearted man, and something in the mandarin's plight touched him. Perhaps it was the Celestial's hopeless air, coupled with his torn and dusty garments.

The sheriff stood for a few minutes in front of Tsan Ti, looking down at him and shaking his head.

"They're a queer lot, these chinks," he commented finally. "Their ideas are not ours, by a long shot, but I don't know as that's anything against them. Do you want to take the mandarin with you in the roadster, Matt?"

"I think I'd better."

Matt bent down and removed the rope from Tsan Ti's ankles. The mandarin did not want to get up or make a move, but Matt and Banks lifted him to his feet and succeeded in getting him out of the barn.

As they stood beside the roadster, the mandarin slumping limply in their supporting hands, a cry came from the road.

"Well, by golly! If dar ain't de man whut got ole Gin'ral Jackson back fo' me. Ah's monsus 'bliged tuh yo', boss, Ah is, fer er fac'."

Matt looked around and saw the old darky ambling toward the barn on his mule.

"That's Neb Hogan," spoke up Boggs. "He's got a cabin down beyond about half a mile. Do you know him, Motor Matt?"

Although old Neb Hogan did not look it, yet he was, at that moment, engaged upon one of the most important missions of his life.