Chapter VIII: The Cut-Out Under the Ledge

McGlory was inclined to view recent events in a humorous light.

"Speak to me about that, pard!" he laughed, when he and Matt had halted for breath, and to determine, if possible, which way Bunce had gone. "I told you what was on the programme if you became trustee for the Eye of Buddha. We never know when lightning's going to strike, or how."

"I don't like episodes of that sort," muttered Matt. "It puts us in a bad light, Joe."

"Oh, hang that part of it! We can explain the whole thing to the railroad superintendent as soon as we get back to Catskill. That section boss was a saphead. You couldn't pound any reason into his block with a sledge hammer. Forget it!"

"But you drew a gun on the section men. That makes the business look bad for us."

McGlory chuckled. "See here, pard," said he. With that, he "broke" the revolver and exposed the end of the cylinder.

There were no cartridges in the weapon!

"Now, what do you think?" laughed the cowboy. "I borrowed the gun in a hurry, and didn't think to ask whether it was loaded--and I reckon the hotel clerk didn't think to tell me. It's about as dangerous as a piece of bologna sausage, but it looks ugly--and that's about all there is to this revolver proposition, anyhow."

Matt enjoyed the recent experience, in which the harmless revolver had played its part, fully as much as his chum.

"Well," said the king of the motor boys, "what's done can't be helped, and we'd better be about our business with Bunce. But what's become of the mariner? He ought to be around here, somewhere."

"He's ducked," returned McGlory, "and I'll bet it's for good. We've found out he had a pair of good eyes, and he's got shy of us."

"If we don't find him," mused Matt, "it's a clear case that he was playing double with us. If we do find him, then we can take a little more stock in what he tells us about Tsan Ti. It will be worth something to feel sure, either way."

"Maybe you're right, but how are we going to pick up the webfoot's trail?"

Matt studied the ground. The earth was soft from a recent rain, and the fact gave him an idea.

"Track him, Joe. You're used to that sort of thing. Put your knowledge to some account."

"In order to track the mariner," said McGlory, "we'll have to go back to the place where we saw him duck into the timber. It'll be a tough job, but I'm willing to try if we can once pick up the trail."

"That's the only thing for us to do. If Bunce was intending to deal squarely with us, he'd have shown himself before this."

"Let's see," mused the cowboy. "He said that Grattan was hiding out about five miles from Catskill, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Then I reckon the place is somewhere around here. We're about five miles from the town, I should judge. Still," and disgust welled up in the cowboy as he voiced the thought, "you can't tell whether Bunce was giving that part of it straight, or not. He's about as crooked as they make 'em, that tinhorn."

The boys, during their talk, had been moving slowly back in the direction of the railroad track. Cautiously they came to the edge of the timber, close to the right of way, on the alert not only for the tracks left by Bunce, but for the presence of the section men, as well.

The section gang, they discovered, had left the vicinity of the sharp curve, and were nowhere in sight. The speeder, badly shaken by the jar of its collision with the tie, was off the rails, and the tie lay beside it.

"No sign of the section men," announced Matt, after a careful survey of the track.

"Mighty good thing for us, too, pard," said McGlory. "Here's Bunce's trail, and he traveled so fast he only hit the ground with his toes. Come on! I can run it out for a ways, anyhow."

McGlory's life on the cattle ranges had made him particularly apt in the lore of the plains. The trail was very dim in places, but even the disturbed leaves under the trees, and the broken bushes told McGlory where the mariner had passed.

The course taken by Bunce led across a timbered "flat" and down into a rocky ravine, then along the ravine to a ledge of rock which jutted out from a side hill. The under side of the ledge was perhaps a dozen feet over the bottom of the ravine, and under it was a sort of "pocket" in the hill.

Here there were evidences of a primitive camp. The soft earth under the ledge was trampled by human feet, and there was a large, five-gallon can that had once held gasoline, but which was now empty. A small mound of dried leaves had been heaped up at the innermost recess of the "pocket," and the bed still bore the faint impression of a man's body.

"Bunce was right about Grattan being in hiding near Catskill," observed Matt. "Here's the place, sure enough."

"And Bunce came here, pard," went on McGlory; "he made tracks straight for this hang-out as soon as he got clear of us. Judging from what we see, I should say Bunce met Grattan, and that they both hurried off. But what was that gasoline for?"

"For the speeder, maybe," replied Matt.

"They wouldn't keep the gasoline supply for the speeder so far from the track, would they?"

"I shouldn't think so; still, I can't imagine what else they'd want gasoline for."

"What sort of a game was Bunce up to? If Grattan was here, then everything was going right, so far as the plan to capture Grattan was concerned. Why didn't Bunce wait for us, back there in the timber, and give us the chance to come on here and put the kibosh on the man we want?"

"It's a mystery, Joe," said the puzzled Matt. "Perhaps Bunce believed that we'd be captured by the section men and that it wouldn't be possible to get hold of Grattan. If he thought that, he might have come on to this place, given his New York report to Grattan, and made up his mind to see the rascally game through to a finish. Bunce couldn't have any idea that we'd escape from the section gang."

"Well," growled McGlory, "he might have waited and made certain of it."

There was no accounting for the queer actions of the mariner. It seemed as though, after the collision with the railroad tie and the coming of the section men, he had changed his mind about helping the boys capture Grattan.

Matt and McGlory moved around under the ledge, trying to find something else that would point positively to the presence of Grattan in the "pocket."

There was a strong odor of gasoline--much stronger than would have come from the uncorked, empty can. Suddenly Matt found something, and hurriedly called his chum.

"What is it?" inquired McGlory, running to Matt's side.

Matt pointed to two straight lines in the earth, leading out and up the ravine.

"Motorcycles," said he laconically, "two of them!"

McGlory struck his fist against his open palm.

"Well, what do you think of that!" he cried. "Motorcycles and speeders! Say, those tinhorns were well fixed in the motor line. And Bunce told us both motorcycles had been destroyed! Sufferin' Ananias, but he's a tongue twister!"

"There's no doubt but that Grattan was here," went on Matt, "and that he had the two motorcycles with him. The gasoline was used to fill the motorcycles' tanks. As soon as Bunce got to this place, the wheels were made ready and Bunce and Grattan rode off."

"They're headed for New York, I reckon, to 'fill the bill' for poor old Tsan Ti!"

"I don't believe it," declared Matt. "I didn't take much stock in the story when Bunce told it, but on the chance that it might be true, I felt as though we should give Tsan Ti the benefit of the doubt. But, now, I'm fairly certain the yarn was all moonshine."

"Bunce took a whole lot of trouble for nothing, pard," commented McGlory. "What was the good of his coming to the hotel, running the risk of our turning him over to the police, and then motoring out here with us on that ramshackle speeder if he never intended to help us capture Grattan?"

"Maybe we'll discover that later. Suppose we follow the trail of the motorcycles, Joe?"

"Why? They're a dozen miles from here, by this time."

"We can't overtake them, of course, but we can discover which way they went."

It was an easy matter to trail the heavy machines up the ravine. About half a mile above the camp under the ledge, a wagon road crossed the ravine, and the wheels had turned into it. To the surprise of the boys, the wheels had turned in the direction of Catskill.

"It can't be those two tinhorns would have the nerve to go to the town," said McGlory.

"I don't think they would," agreed Matt, "but they have gone in that direction, at all events. It's up to us to walk back, so we may as well follow the road and the motorcycle trail."

"This is what I call tough luck," said the cowboy, when he and Matt were swinging along the road. "I didn't think there was any sense taking up with Bunce, in the first place. Nice way for that move to pan out! We go gunning for Grattan on a speeder, and then hoof it back--to face a charge of robbery preferred by the section men!"

"We'll settle that robbery charge quick enough," returned Matt.

"No doubt about that. I wouldn't feel so worked up over the thing if I could make any sort of guess as to what it was all about."

"Well," laughed Matt, repeating one of McGlory's favorite remarks, "we can't know so much all the time as we do just some part of the time, Joe."

"No more we can't, pard," said the cowboy.