Chapter VII: Trapped

Matt saw that McGlory had managed, like himself, to stay with the car, then both motor boys had a flash-light glimpse of the mariner ricochetting through the atmosphere and striking earth right side up by the track. But Bunce did not remain in an upright position. The force with which he had been thrown launched him into a series of eccentric cartwheels, and when he finally stopped turning he was in a sitting posture, with his back against a bowlder.

Apparently he had escaped serious injury, which was a remarkable fact, in view of the circumstances. A broken neck might easily have resulted, or, at the least, a fractured arm or leg.

"Shiver me!" gasped Bunce, dazed and bewildered by the suddenness of it all.

Then Motor Matt's and McGlory's shocked senses laid hold of another detail of the situation which was most astounding.

The green patch had been shaken from the mariner's head, and he was peering around him with two good eyes!

"Tell me about that!" roared McGlory, pointing. "Look at his lamps, Matt! He's got two!"

"I see," answered Matt grimly. "Suppose we approach closer, Joe, and find out about this."

Bunce watched the boys descend from the speeder and advance upon him, but there was still a dazed gleam in his eyes which proved that he was slow in recovering his wits.

"Are you all right, Bunce?" asked Matt, reaching the mariner's side and bending down.

"That--that craft must have--have turned a handspring," mumbled Bunce. "Purty tolerable blow we had, mates, an' I was snatched away from the bench, an' tossed overboard. It was done so quick I--I hardly knowed what was goin' on. By the seven holy spritsails! it's a wonder I'm shipshape an' all together." He got up slowly and began feeling gingerly of his arms and legs. "Nothin' busted, I guess," he added.

The ground where he had landed was cushioned with sand. To this fact, more than to anything else, he owed his escape from injury.

McGlory picked up the green patch.

"Here's an ornament you dropped during that ground-and-lofty tumbling, you old tinhorn," said he. "What did you wear it for, anyhow?"

"Blow me tight!" exclaimed Bunce, staring at the patch with falling jaw. "Ain't that reedic'lous?" he added, with a feeble attempt to treat the matter lightly.

"It is rather ridiculous, Bunce, and that's a fact," answered Matt. "You've a pair of very good eyes, it seems to me, and what's the good of that patch?"

The mariner grabbed the bit of green cloth and pulled the string over his head.

"I never said I'd lost one o' my lamps," he averred, settling the patch in place. "Off Table Mountain, South Africy, a cable parted on the ole _Hottentot_, an' I was hit in the eye with a loose rope's end. For a while, I thought I was goin' blind. But I didn't, only the eye has been weak ever sence, an' needs purtection. That's why I wear the patch."

"You've got it over the wrong eye, Bunce," observed McGlory. "You've been wearing it over the left eye, and now it's over the right. Have you got any clear notion which eye was hit with that rope's end?"

Bunce hastily changed the position of the patch.

"I'm that rattled," said he, "that I'm all ahoo, an' don't rightly know what I'm about. I----"

For an instant he stared up the track, breaking off his words abruptly; then, without any further explanation, he whirled and rushed for the timber.

With a yell of anger, McGlory started after him.

"Come back, Joe!" shouted Matt. "Here come some men who seem to have business with us."

The cowboy whirled to an about face, and followed with his eyes the direction of his chum's pointing finger.

Four men in flannel shirts and overalls, and carrying spades, picks, and tamping irons, were hurrying up the track in the direction of the curve.

"The section gang!" muttered McGlory.

"A good guess," laughed Matt. "We've been trapped."

"Trapped?"

"That's the way it looks to me. We were seen coming down the mountain and those men, recognizing the speeder, laid the tie across the rails to catch the thieves."

"Sufferin' kiboshes, but here's a go! This comes of trying to fill the bill for an old tinhorn like Bunce."

"Ketched!" yelled one of the approaching men, flourishing a tamping iron; "we've ketched the robbers that run off with Mulvaney's speeder! Don't you make no trouble," he added, slowing his pace and coming more warily.

The other three men spread out and then closed in, barring escape for the motor boys in every direction.

"You've made a mistake," said Matt.

"Oh, sure!" jeered the section boss, "but I reckon we'll take ye to Catskill, an' let ye tell the superintendent all about the mistake."

"Don't be in a rush about taking us to Catskill," threatened McGlory. "You listen to what Motor Matt says, and I reckon he'll make the layout clear to you."

"Motor Matt!" returned the boss ironically. "Why don't ye say ye're the governor o' the State, or somethin' like that? Ye might jest as well. Motor Matt ain't stealin' speeders an' runnin' off with 'em."

The king of the motor boys had become pretty well known in the Catskills through his previous work in recovering the ruby for Tsan Ti. Even these section men had heard of his exploits. Matt, seeing the impression his cowboy pard's words had made, resolved to prove his identity in the hope of avoiding trouble.

"What my chum says is true, men," he declared. "I am Motor Matt. We didn't steal the railroad speeder. That was done by the man who was with us--the fellow who ran away. You saw him, didn't you?"

"Sure we saw him," answered the section boss, "but I wouldn't try to put it all off onto him, if I was you."

"Sufferin' blockheads!" rumbled McGlory. "Use your brains, if you've got any, can't you? Do we look like thieves?"

"Can't most always tell from a feller's looks what he is," returned the boss skeptically. "And this other chap can't be Motor Matt, nuther, or he wouldn't have stole the speeder. That there speeder has been missin' for three days, an' orders has gone out, up an' down the line, for all hands to watch out for it. When I seen it comin' down the grade, I knowed we had ye. All we done was to throw that tie acrost the track, an' the trick was done. Ye'll have to go to Catskill, that's all about it."

"Are you men from Catskill?" inquired Matt.

"No, Tannersville, but Catskill's the place you're wanted. We'll put ye on the passenger, when it comes along."

"But we don't want to go back to Catskill just yet," Matt demurred. "We've got business here, and it can't be put off."

Matt believed that Bunce had run to get away from the section men, who, he must have realized, had caused the speeder's mishap in the hope of catching the ones who had stolen the car. There was yet a chance, Matt thought, to overhaul Bunce and find Grattan. To go back to Catskill, just then, would have been disastrous to the work he and McGlory were trying to do under the mariner's leadership.

"Sure ye don't want to go to Catskill," went on the section boss, "right now, or any other time. But ye're goin', all the same. Grab 'em, you men," and the boss shouted the order to the three who had grouped themselves around Matt and McGlory.

"Hands off!" shouted the cowboy.

Matt saw him jerk the revolver from his pocket, and aim it at the man who was reaching to lay hold of him. The man fell back with an oath of consternation.

"Don't do that, Joe!" cried Matt.

"Oh, no," sneered the boss, "you fellers ain't thieves, I guess! What're you pullin' a gun on us for, if ye ain't?"

"I'm not going to argue the case with you any further," Matt answered shortly. "We're going back to Catskill after a while, but not now. When we get there we'll report to your superintendent and explain how we happened to be aboard the stolen speeder. I was intending to return the car to the railroad company as soon as we had got through with it, and then----"

"Sure ye was!" mocked the boss. "Ye wasn't intendin' to do anythin' but what was right an' lawful--to hear ye tell it. We got ye trapped, an' I ain't goin' to fool with ye any longer. Put down that gun, you!" and he whirled savagely upon McGlory. "We're goin' to take ye, an' if you do any shootin' ye'll find yerselves in a deeper hole than what ye are now."

"You keep away from me," scowled McGlory, still holding the weapon leveled, "and keep your men away from me. Try to touch either of us, and this gun will begin to talk. We're not thieves, but that's something we can't pound into your thick head, so we're going to attend to our business in spite of you."

The section boss was a man of courage, and was resolute in his intention to take the boys to Catskill. Certainly, so far as appearances went, he had the right of the matter, and Matt didn't feel that he could explain the exact situation with any chance of having his words believed.

"Here's where I'm comin' for ye," proceeded the section boss, "an' if you shoot, you'll be tagged with more kinds o' trouble than you can take care of. Now----"

The section boss got no farther. Just at that moment the rumble of a train coming up the grade could be heard. Instantly the attention of the section boss was called to another matter.

"The passenger!" he cried, jumping around and staring at the speeder and the tie. "There'll be a wreck if we don't clear the track. Come on, men! Hustle!"

The peril threatening the passenger train banished from the minds of the section men all thought of the boys. All four of the gang ran to remove the obstructions from the rails.

"Come on, pard!" said McGlory; "now's our chance."

Matt, with a feeling of intense relief, bounded after his chum, and they were soon well away in the timber.