CHAPTER II. MATT KING’S RESOLVE.

“That man was so mad he was locoed,” observed the cowboy.

“Certainly he was, Joe,” agreed Matt. “If he hadn’t been, he’d never have given away that machine. It’s a powerful car and worth twenty-five hundred of any man’s money.”

“Don’t tamper with it, Matt,” implored Billy. “When that fellow gets over his mad spell he’ll want the runabout back. Let him have it--and let him find it right where he left it.”

“If he hadn’t been worked up like he was,” said Matt, “he wouldn’t have given the car to me. I won’t take it, of course, but Joe and I will use it to take us to the Malvern Country Club, and then back to Manhattan. By to-morrow that fellow will be looking for me and wanting his car back.”

“You wouldn’t think of such a thing as wanting to bother with that runabout!” gasped Billy, from his seat in the touring car.

“Yes, I would,” answered Matt. “Why not?”

“The number--thirteen thirteen!”

“Bosh!”

“It’s a hoodoo car.”

“Never mind about that, Billy. You go on to Krug’s Corner and get a stout rope. If you overtake the owner of the runabout you can give him a lift. See him, anyhow, and tell him we’ll take the runabout to New York and that he can have it whenever he wants it.”

“Don’t do it!” begged Billy. “I’ve seen enough of these hoodoo cars to know they’ll prove the death of somebody. Don’t let that runabout prove the death of you!”

“Go get the rope, Billy,” said Matt sharply, “and hustle back with it.”

There was that in the voice of Matt King which proved that he had made up his mind, and that there was no shaking his determination. With an ominous movement of the head, Billy started for Krug’s Corner.

“Pard,” remarked McGlory earnestly, “I reckon the runabout is heap bad medicine. Do you think you ought to mix up with it?”

“Are you going back on me, Joe?” asked Matt.

“Not so you can notice. I’d get on a streak of greased lightning with you, if you said the word, and help you ride it to the end of the One-way Trail, but I think this is too big an order for us. Sufferin’ thunderbolts! Why, pard, that car won’t mind the helm or do the thing it ought to do even when you pull the right thing. When it began to crawfish around the road, the reverse wasn’t on.”

“I don’t know about that. It’s on now,” and he looked down at the runabout. “I guess the man must have thrown on the reverse instinctively when the tire blew up. Think of rinsing the chalk from the outer tube with gasoline!” Matt laughed. “There was good cause for the tire going wrong, and there may be other good and sufficient causes for the machine’s sizzling around like it did. Anyhow, we’ll try it, and see how it will behave for us.”

“But how can we lay a course for the Malvern Country Club? Billy will have to show us.”

“Billy can tell us how to go, and we’ll get to the Country Club all right. Hello! What’s this?”

Matt began slipping and sliding down the slope at the side of the runabout. Just at the point where the driver of the car had taken his header, the young motorist picked up a long manila envelope, unsealed.

“I reckon that dropped out of the man’s clothes while he was upside down,” ventured McGlory.

“That’s a cinch,” said Matt. “There’s no address on the envelope, and no printed card in the corner, but it may be we can find the man’s name and address on the papers inside. If he won’t come for his car, we’ll take it to him.”

“I’m a Piute,” mumbled McGlory, “if I feel right about this runabout business.”

“Billy’s talk about hoodoo cars has got you on the run,” grinned Matt. “You’ll feel different when we’re slamming along the pike with the runabout under perfect control. It’s my opinion that man doesn’t know a whole lot about running a car.”

While Matt was moving here and there about the steep bank, making a few investigations of the “hoodoo” machine, Billy came racing back.

“There’s your rope, Matt,” said he, tossing a coiled cable into the road.

Matt crept warily up the bank to the front of the runabout.

“Did you see the man, Billy?” he asked.

“Sure I did. Let him ride with me for half a mile.”

“You told him what we were going to do?”

“I did. He says that if you get that car back to the city, and try to turn it over to him, he’ll have you arrested for assault with intent to do great bodily damage. He says the runabout is a powder mine, and liable to blow up at any minute. ‘Tell Matt King to keep it,’ he said, ‘providing he’s got the nerve.’ That’s the way he handed it to me. Take my advice,” Billy clamored desperately, “and leave it alone!”

“Joe and I are going to use it,” answered Matt. “Hand me an end of that rope, pard,” he added to the cowboy.

McGlory passed him the rope, and Matt made it secure to the front of the runabout.

“Back up, Billy,” called Matt, “and tie the other end of the rope to the touring car. You’ve got to give us a lift into the road.”

“What if something should happen?” demurred Billy.

“Nonsense!” said Matt impatiently.

“You can’t give the car back to that fellow if he won’t take it.”

“We’ll make him take it. He’s a very foolish man, and he’s going to feel differently when his temper cools.”

Billy, not in a very comfortable frame of mind, backed the touring car close to the edge of the bank. The rope was made fast, and Matt and McGlory went to the foot of the bank to push while the big machine pulled.

The attempt was successful. The runabout sputtered--perhaps defiantly--as it yielded to the tugging and rolled up the slope. Matt looked the machine over and could not find that it had suffered any by the slide down the slope.

“It’ll hang together till it gets you, Motor Matt,” observed Billy grewsomely. “That’s the way with these hoodoo cars. They never go to pieces till they kill somebody.”

“You’re too good a driver, Billy, to talk such foolishness,” returned Matt. “Now, tell us how to get to the Malvern Country Club.”

“Ain’t I going with you?”

“Three of us couldn’t ride very comfortably in the runabout.”

“But hadn’t I better go along in the touring car so as to be handy in case of accidents?”

“Oh, Joe and I will get along. We’re not going to have any accidents if we can help it--and I feel pretty sure we can.”

Billy laid out the course the boys were to take with considerable detail. When he was through, Matt felt that he had the route clearly fixed in his mind.

“If the runabout’s too much for you,” Billy finished, “all you’ve got to do is to phone the garage, and I’ll come a-runnin’.”

“Where did you get the rope?” asked Matt.

Billy told him he had borrowed it at Krug’s.

“We’ll leave it there,” said Matt, “on our way past the Corner.”

“You may never get to Krug’s,” answered Billy, in extreme dejection.

“Pile in, Joe,” said Matt, “and we’ll throw in the clutch and scoot.”

McGlory, it must be admitted, climbed into the runabout in a way that proved his lack of confidence. Matt cranked up, listening with deep satisfaction to the smooth singing of the engine, and then got into the driver’s seat.

Billy, in the touring car, watched tremulously and waited. From his appearance, he was plainly expecting that the white car would turn a few cartwheels and perhaps land upside down in the middle of the road with Matt and McGlory underneath.

But nothing of the sort happened. Car No. 1313 moved off in the direction of Krug’s as nice as you please--moved on a hair line, with none of the distressing wabbling which characterized its previous performance with its owner at the wheel.

The cowboy gathered confidence. Looking behind, he waved his hat at Billy.

“Don’t whistle till you’re out of the woods!” yelled Billy.

He shouted something else, but his words faded out in the increasing distance.

“Speak to me concerning this!” laughed McGlory, straightening around in his seat. “This little old chug cart is a false alarm, after all. It seems to understand that there’s a fellow in charge who knows the ropes up and down and across. Fine!”

“We’ll see the owner of the machine at Krug’s,” said Matt, “and get his address.”

“But he can’t have the runabout till we’re done with it,” protested McGlory.

“I should say not! We’ve sent Billy home, and that leaves us only this car to take us back. Ah, there’s Krug’s! We’ll stop for a few minutes.”

Matt tried to stop, but he couldn’t. He went through all the motions for cutting off the flow of gasoline and switching off the spark. The clutch was out, but the engine still had the car, and the engine wouldn’t stop.

An automobile was just coming out of the sheds. The runabout came within an ace of a head-on collision. Fortunately the steering gear still worked, and Matt scraped mud guards with the other car and he and his cowboy chum bounded on along the road.

McGlory yelled frantically. “Jump!” he cried; “let the old contraption run its blooming head off!”

But Matt wouldn’t jump, and he wouldn’t let his chum go over the flying wheels. Dazed and bewildered, he bore down on the brake.

The speed slackened, but they were half a mile beyond Krug’s before the car made up its mind to stop. Then McGlory tumbled out, while Matt sat astounded, his arms folded over the steering wheel and such a look on his face as the cowboy had never seen there before.