Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto, Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  DICK FERRAL.

  A young fellow of seventeen or eighteen crawled over the brink of thechasm and sat on the rocks to breathe himself. The lamps of the RedFlier shone full on him, so that Matt and Carl were easily able to takehis sizing.

  He wore a flannel shirt, cowboy-hat and high-heeled boots. His trouserswere tucked in his boot-tops. His bronzed face was clean-cut, and hehad clear, steady eyes.

  "Wouldn't that just naturally rattle your spurs?" he asked, lookingMatt and Carl over as he talked. "I thought you fellows had put a stampon that rope and were sending it by mail. It seemed like a good whilecoming, but maybe that was because I was hangin' to a twig and threeleaves with the skin of my teeth." He swerved his eyes to the RedFlier. "You've lit your candles," he added, "since you scared me out ofa year's growth by flashin' around that bend. If you'd had the lightsgoing _then_, I guess I could have crowded up against the cliff insteadof makin' a jump t'other way and going over the edge."

  "You vas wrong mit dot," said Carl. "It vasn't us vat come along undknocked you py der gulch."

  "That's the truth," added Matt, noting the stranger's startledexpression. "We were following that other automobile, and stopped whenwe heard you yell."

  Without a word the rescued youth got up and went back to give theRed Flier a closer inspection. When he returned, he seemed entirelysatisfied that he had made a mistake.

  "I did slip my hawser on that first idea, and no mistake," said he. "AsI went over, I saw out of the clew of my eye that the other flugee waswhite. Yours is bigger, and painted different. What are your names,mates?"

  Matt introduced himself and Carl.

  "I'm Dick Ferral," went on the other, shaking hands heartily, "and whenI'm at home, which is about once in six years, I let go the anchor inHamilton, Ontario. I'm a sailor, most of the time, but for the lastsix months I've been punching cattle in the Texas Panhandle. A crimpannexed my money, back there in Lamy, and I'm rolling along toward anold ranch my uncle used to own, called La Vita Place. It can't be farfrom here, if I'm not off my bearings. Where are you bound, mates, inthat steam hooker?"

  "Santa F?," answered Matt.

  "Own that craft?" and Dick Ferral nodded toward the car.

  "No; it belongs to a man named Tomlinson, who lives in Denver. Carl andI brought it to Albuquerque for him. When we got there, we found a linefrom him asking us to bring the car on to Santa F?. If we got there intwo weeks he said it would be time enough, so we're jogging along andtaking things easy."

  "If you've got plenty of time, I shouldn't think you'd want to do anycruising in waters like these, unless you had daylight to steer by."

  "We'd have reached the next town before sunset," Matt answered, "if wehadn't had trouble with a tire."

  "It was a good thing for me you were behind your schedule, and happenedalong just after I turned a handspring over the cliff. If you hadn't,Davy Jones would have had me by this time. But what became of thatother craft? I didn't have much time to look at it, for it came foamingalong full and by, at a forty-knot gait, but as I slid over the rock Icouldn't see a soul aboard."

  "No more dere vasn't," said Carl earnestly. "Dot vas a shpook pubble,Verral. You see him, und ve see him, aber he don'd vas dere; nodding,nodding at all only schust moonshine!"

  "Well, well, well!" Ferral cast an odd glance at Motor Matt. "That oldflugee was a sort of Flying Dutchman, hey?"

  "I don'd know somet'ing about dot," answered Carl, shaking his headgruesomely, "aber I bed you it vas a shpook."

  "There wasn't any one on the car," put in Matt, "and it's a mystery howit traveled this road like it did. It came out of a gully, farther backaround the bend, right ahead of us. We followed it, and when we hadcome around that turn it had vanished."

  "What you say takes me all aback, messmates," said Ferral. "I'm nobeliever in ghost-stories, but this one of yours stacks up nearer thereal thing in that line than any I ever heard. Say," and Ferral seemedto have a sudden idea, "if you fellows want a berth for the night, whynot put in at La Vita Place?"

  "Sure, Matt, vy nod?" urged Carl.

  "How far is it, Ferral?" asked Matt.

  "It can't be far from here, although I'm a bit off soundings on thispart of the chart. I've never been to Uncle Jack's before--and shameon me to say it--and likely I wouldn't be going there now if the oldgentleman hadn't dropped off, leaving things in a bally mix. They sayI'm to get my whack from the estate, if a will can be found, althoughI don't know why anything should come to me. I've always been a rover,and Uncle Jack didn't like it. My cousin, Ralph Sercomb--I never likedhim and wouldn't trust him the length of a lead line--stands to win hispile by the same will. Ralph is at the ranch, and, I suppose, waitin'for me with open arms and a knife up his sleeve."

  "When did your uncle die?" inquired Matt.

  "As near as I can find out, he just simply vanished. All he left wasa line saying he was tired of living alone, that he never could getme to give up my roaming and come and stay with him, and that whileRalph came often and did what he could to cheer him up, he had alwayshad a soft place in his heart for me, and missed me. He said, too, inthat last writing of his, that when he was found his will would befound with him, and that he hoped Ralph and I would stay at the ranchuntil the will turned up. That's what came to me, down in the TexasPanhandle, from a lawyer in Lamy. As soon as I got that I felt like aswab. Here I've been knockin' around the world ever since I was ten,Uncle Jack wanting me all the time and me holding back. Now I'm comingto the ranch like a pirate. Anyhow, that's the way it looks. If UncleJack was alive he'd say, 'You couldn't come just to see me, Dick, butnow that I'm gone, and have left you something, you're quick enough toshow up.'"

  Ferral turned away and looked down into the blackness of the gulch. Hefaced about, presently, and went on:

  "But it wasn't Uncle Jack's money that brought me. Now, when it'stoo late, I'm trying to do the right thing--and to make up for whatI ought to have done and didn't do in the past. A fellow like me isthoughtless. He never understands where he's failed in his duty till ablow like this brings it home to him. He's the only relative Ralph andI had left, and I've acted like a misbemannered Sou'wegian.

  "When I went to sea, I shipped from Halifax on the _Billy Ruffian_,as we called her, although she's down on the navy list as the_Bellerophon_. From there I was transferred to the South Africanstation, and the transferring went on and on till my time was out, andI found myself down in British Honduras. Left there to come across theGulf of Galveston, and worked my way up into the Texas Panhandle, whereI navigated the Staked Plains on a cow-horse. Had six months of that,when along came the lawyer's letter, and I tripped anchor and bore awayfor here. As I told you, a crimp did me out of my roll in Lamy. Heclaimed to be a fellow Canuck in distress, and I was going with him tohis hotel to see what I could do to help him out. He led me into a darkstreet, and somebody hit me from behind and I went down and out witha slumber-song. Then I got up and laid a course for Uncle Jack's. Ifyou'll go with me the rest of the way, I'll like it, and you might justas well stop over at La Vita Place and make a fresh start for Santa F?in the morning."

  "We'll do it," answered Matt, who was liking Dick Ferral more and moreas he talked.

  "Dot's der shtuff!" chirped Carl. "Oof you got somet'ing to eat at derranch, und a ped to shleep on, ve vill ged along fine."

  "I guess we can find all that at the place, although I don't think theranch amounts to much. Uncle Jack was queer--not unhinged, mind you,only just a bit different from ordinary people. He never did a thingin quite the same way some one else would do it. When he left England,a dozen years ago, he stopped with us a while in Hamilton, and thencame on here and bought an old Mexican _casa_. He wanted to get awayfrom folks, he said, but I guess he got tired of it; if he hadn't, hewouldn't have been so dead set on having me with him after my parentsdied. The bulk of his money is across the water. But hang his money!It's Uncle Jack himself I'm thinking about, now."

  "We'll get into the car," said
Matt, "and go on a hunt for La VitaPlace."

  Matt stepped to the crank. As he bent over it, Carl gave a frightenedshout.

  "Look vonce!" he quavered, pointing along the road with a shakingfinger. "Dere iss some more oof der shpooks!"

  Matt started up and whirled around. Perhaps a hundred feet from wherethe three boys were standing, a dim figure could be seen, silvereduncannily by the moonlight.

  "Great guns, Carl!" muttered Matt. "Your nerves must be in pretty badshape. That's a man, and he's been walking toward us while we weretalking."

  "Vy don'd he come on some more, den?" asked Carl. "Vat iss he shtandin'shdill mit himseluf for? Vy don'd he shpeak oudt und say somet'ing?"

  "Hello!" called Ferral. "How far is it to La Vita Place, pilgrim?"

  The form did not answer, but continued to stand rigid and erect in themoonlight.

  "Ve'd pedder ged oudt oof dis so kevick as ve can," faltered Carl,crouching back under the shadow of the car. "I don'd like der looks oofdot feller."

  "Let's get closer to him, Ferral," suggested Matt, starting along theroad at a run.

  "It's main queer the way he's actin', and no mistake," muttered Ferral,starting after Matt.

  Matt was about half-way to the motionless figure, when it melted slowlyinto the black shadow of the cliff. On reaching the place where thefigure had stood, it was nowhere to be seen.

  "What do you think of that, Ferral?" Matt asked in bewilderment.

  Ferral did not reply. His eyes were bright and staring, and he leanedagainst the rock wall and drew a dazed hand across his brows.