CHAPTER IX. A WEIRD STATE OF AFFAIRS.

Clancy regained the rear of the garage by the same devious course he had taken in leaving it. All was dark and silent within the little room.

“Jimmie!” he whispered, thrusting his head through the window.

There was no answer, and he repeated the call as loudly as he dared. Still there was no response from Fortune.

“He’s sleeping like a log,” thought Clancy. “I’ll have to get in and give him a shaking.”

With great care, he climbed through the window, groped his way through the dark to the bed, and laid both hands on the blanketed form.

“Jimmie!” he muttered, and shook the form briskly.

A stifled gurgle came from Jimmie, but no words which Owen could understand. In some alarm, the red-headed chap whirled to the window, drew the shade, and snapped on the light. What he saw startled him.

Jimmie’s trousers lay on the floor. Beside them lay his shirt, fairly torn to ribbons. The door leading into the garage was unbolted and swinging open by a couple of inches.

Jimmie, entirely swathed in a blanket, lay on the bed. He was wrapped, outside the blanket, with coil on coil of stout rope, and looked more like a mummy than anything else. The blanket covered his head and face, so that it was impossible for him to talk, and it must have been almost impossible for him to breathe. Jimmie, in his helplessness, was twisting and writhing about on the bed.

Clancy, astounded by all this, hurried to Jimmie and began removing the rope. First he freed his friend’s head, pulled back the blanket, and Jimmie began gasping like a stranded fish. While he was pumping the fresh, cool air into his lungs, Clancy removed the rest of the rope and pulled the blanket away entirely.

Fortune lay on his back, looking up at his pard with astonished eyes.

“What the deuce has been going on here?” demanded Owen.

Jimmie sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed his arms.

“Whoosh!” he answered. “Here’s a fine kittle o’ fish, I must say! A couple o’ plug-uglies was here and raisin’ Cain, pard. They thought I was you, and they was after that note.”

“After the note?”

“Ain’t I tellin’ you? Gee-wollops, but this is fierce! I took all that was comin’ to you, that trip. You see, I was all kivered up with the blanket, and them junipers couldn’t tell the diff’rence between Jimmie, the Jonah, and Red Owen--so they handed it to me proper.” He chuckled. “But they got fooled,” he added.

“When did this happen, Jimmie?” asked Owen, trying to keep down his excitement.

“No sabe, pard. I was sleepin’ like old Rip Van when I felt some un ropin’ me. The blanket was twisted about my head and tied close to my neck, and I couldn’t talk and couldn’t hardly breathe. Then my hands was lashed to my sides and my feet tied at the ankles, and there wasn’t a thing I could do.” Again he chuckled, rubbing his throat tenderly. “But they sure got fooled plumb out of their eye teeth!” he finished.

“They thought you were me, and they were trying to get that thousand-dollar note?”

“I wasn’t so badly wrapped up that I couldn’t hear a little o’ what went on,” proceeded Fortune. “The feller that was tyin’ me says to some un else, ‘Get that note out o’ the wallet in his shirt,’ he says.

“‘It ain’t here,’ the other comes back.

“‘Look in his pants,’ says Number One.

“‘Not there, nuther,’ says Number Two. ‘See if he ain’t got it under his piller.’

“Then Number One throws me around and looks under the piller, and he don’t find a thing. I heerd somebody swear good and hearty.

“‘Ask him what he’s done with it,’ says Number Two. ‘Blow his head off for him, if he don’t tell.’

“Somethin’ hard was poked ag’inst my head, and I allow it was the muzzle of a six-gun, although, o’ course, I ain’t able to see a thing.

“‘Where’s that note?’ says Number One, real cross. ‘Speak out, or I’ll start you for Kingdom Come.’

“‘You don’t get it,’ I says, pantin’ for air. ‘I put it in the bank.’

“They couldn’t tell, pard, that it wasn’t you talkin’, the blanket gagged me so, and my voice was low and husky. After that there was more piratical langwidge, then them fellers went at somethin’ else.

“‘Now’s our chance,’ says Number One, ‘to carry out the other scheme. If we can’t make good at this game we will at that one.’

“‘We got to have a car,’ says Number Two, ‘and we got to get it from this garage.’

“‘How’ll we work it?’ asked the juniper who stands clost to me.

“‘You go out to a telephone,’ says the other, ‘and call up this place. Pruitt’ll answer. Tell him you got to have a car for a night trip some’r’s and that you’ll furnish your own driver. Say it’s Job Arnold, or Colonel Chiswick, or any o’ them big bugs, talkin’. Pruitt’ll bite. As soon as he leaves, I’ll steal a car and pick you up on First Av’noo, cornder Hackberry. That’s clost, and you can get there easy.’

“‘I’m off,’ says Number One, and I hear him crossin’ the room and gettin’ through the winder. Bymby--seemed like a year to me, fighting for air in that blanket--some un pounds on the door leadin’ into the garage.

“‘Hey, you helper!’ calls a voice.

“Number Two answers, right off, ‘What’s wanted?’

“‘I’ve got a call to take a car to Mr. Arnold’s,’ says Pruitt, ‘and I want you to keep an eye on the garage till I get back. I won’t be gone more’n twenty minutes.’

“‘All right,’ says Number Two.

“Right after that I hear a car hummin’ and glidin’ away. The machine was hardly out o’ the garage afore the bolt on that door was shoved back. Then another car began to hum, and that slipped away, too. By then, I was wide awake, you better believe, and right excited. I tried to yell, but the best I could make of it was a gasp and a gurgle. Tried to get up, too, but it was no go. Right after that, pard, you got here. What d’you suppose is goin’ on?”

“Those two men are going to commit a crime of some sort,” answered Clancy.

“I wouldn’t put it past ’em none. I reckernized their voices, pard.”

“You did? Who were they?”

“One was Hibbard--Number Two--and t’other--Number One, the feller that done the telephonin’--was Chantay Seeche Tom. They’re a fine pair to turn loose at the dead o’ night in a stolen automobile! Somebody’s due for a holdup.”

“Yes,” said Clancy, “and that somebody is Judge Pembroke!”

“It never ain’t!”

“He lives at the corner of Second Avenue and Cerro Gordo Street. As soon as I discovered that, I came right back to the garage. Can’t you see what is going on, Jimmie?”

Clancy paced the floor of the little room nervously while he talked.

“I know somethin’ of what’s goin’ on, pard,” returned Fortune, “because I was right in the middle o’ the excitement. I can’t see ahead very far, though, and that’s allers been the trouble with me. How does the business stack up to you?”

“Why, Hibbard was the judge’s driver. He must have known a good deal about the judge’s affairs, and probably could have traveled all around his residence blindfolded. Hibbard has some reason for wanting to be at the judge’s house to-night. What it is we don’t know, but the business looks black. The fact that Hibbard got this rascal, Long Tom, to help him, gives the whole thing a criminal appearance.”

“Who put Hibbard up to get that note away from you?”

“Never mind that, now. We----”

“It was old Rocks, and I’ll bet a bushel of pesos. That must have been what them two was chinnin’ about in the plaza. But Hibbard didn’t get the note,” and Fortune laughed gleefully, “because I was here in place o’ you! By glory, them fellows got hocused good!”

“We’ve got to do something to help the judge, Jimmie, and time is limited. Long Tom and Hibbard have stolen a car and gone to Second Avenue and Cerro Gordo Street. How long since Hibbard left with the machine?”

“Not such a blamed long while, pard. Not many minutes passed since he left and you got here and took the lashings off me.”

Clancy pulled the door wide and stepped out into the garage.

“I can’t see anything of Pruitt,” he reported.

“’Cause why,” returned Fortune. “’Cause he’s waitin’ at Arnold’s for some un to come out and take the car off’n his hands. He’ll keep waitin’ and honkin’ the horn till somebody shows up and tells him there’s nothin’ doin’. Reckon we ort to put the police wise to this, eh?”

“By the time we got the police on the trail, Hibbard and Long Tom might be able to do their work and rush for the hills in that stolen car. Do you know how to get to Second and Cerro Gordo?”

“If I don’t, pard, nobody does. Didn’t I tell you I worked for people here? I can take you right to the place by the shortest cut.”

“Then let’s be moving. The quicker we reach the judge and tell him what is going on, the better.”

Fortune pulled on his boots and trousers. There was no use trying to put on the flannel shirt, for it was literally torn in pieces. He slipped into his coat, however, and buttoned it up.

“All ready, compadre,” he announced.

They went out through the front of the garage. Clancy hated to leave the place alone, but he reflected that Pruitt would soon be back, and that this was a case of facing circumstances as they were, and not as he would like to have them. He took the precaution of closing the big garage doors.

“I don’t like to start till Pruitt comes back,” remarked Clancy, “but there’s no help for it.”

“Don’t you care,” said Fortune. “Jest think what old Rocks tried to do to you to-night, pard! You don’t owe that old schemer nothin’. Anyway, I don’t reckon anybody will run away with the old shebang.”

Fortune turned out of First Avenue into a cross street that ran parallel with the main business thoroughfare. A block brought them into Second Avenue, and they started along it in the direction of Cerro Gordo Street.

Very soon pretentious houses showed themselves on either hand, and, after a time, Fortune slowed his pace and dropped a hand on Clancy’s arm.

“That’s Cerro Gordo Street jest ahead,” he whispered, “and the judge’s house must be on the cornder. I never knowed where he lived, but if your information is kerect we’re clost to the place.”