The Project Gutenberg eBook of Owen Clancy's Run of Luck; or, The Motor Wizard in the Garage, by Burt L. Standish.

High above these sounds there broke a startled yell. Owen Clancy, who was tramping along the road with his coat over his arm, not only heard the yell, but caught one tragic glimpse of a figure soaring through the cloud of dust, dropping in a sprawl on the rocks, and then rolling over the edge of the cliff.

“Great jumping horn toads!” gulped the red-headed chap, coming to an astounded halt, every nerve in a quiver. “Right over the precipice, by thunder! That fellow’s done for, and no mistake. The man behind that steering wheel ought to be pinched! He didn’t give the fellow in the trail any chance at all—just ran him down and made him jump over the edge of the cliff. Now the driver of that car hasn’t the common decency to come back and see how much harm has been done!”

The scene of this reckless automobile driving was a trail leading toward the city of Phoenix, Arizona. It was one of those mountain-and-desert trails which lead for miles over thirsty, sun-scorched plains, and occasionally climb to dizzy heights by narrow, hair-raising spirals clipped from the mountainside.

Clancy, at the high point of the trail, had been crossing a rugged, bowlder-covered uplift. At his left was a blank wall, a hundred feet high; under his feet was a shelf, barely wide enough for the road; and, on his right, was a precipice.

Those heights overlooked a dusty stretch of flat desert, at whose farther edge could be seen the rooftops and spires of Phoenix peeping out of the green treetops. The city, from that distance, presented a most enchanting view, and Clancy had paused to look and to admire.

“Wonder what sort of luck I’m going to have in that town?” he had asked himself. “I’ve got a notion it is going to make or break me. Well,” and he frowned resolutely, “if it breaks me, I’ll make good somewhere else. I’m the head of the family now, and it is up to me to show the folks back East just what sort of a little, red-headed breadwinner I am. I’ll——”

He broke off his reflections abruptly. From behind him, and altogether too close for comfort, came the toot of a motor horn. Accompanying the sound there burst forth the loud run of a motor.

Clancy, always quick to act in an emergency, gave one leap for the blank wall at the trailside, and flattened against it. Not an instant too soon did he accomplish this, for, ere he could draw a full breath, a big, black car lurched past, the mud guards almost brushing his knees.

It was a six-cylinder machine, built to carry seven passengers, but there was only the driver aboard. Lightly ballasted, the huge machine jumped and swayed on that dangerous path in a manner to make the heart jump.

But there was something else that made Clancy’s heart jump. He suddenly became aware of another pedestrian in the road, a fellow he had not seen before.

In the instant of time allowed him for making observation, Clancy saw only that the other foot traveler was a youngish chap, and that he was loitering along unconscious of the speeding car behind him.

The driver of the machine did not slacken gait in the least, but contented himself with merely sounding the horn. Wildly Clancy cried out for the stranger to jump. The stranger, casting one frightened glance over his shoulder, jumped without delay—but in the wrong direction.

Alighting on the edge of the cliff, he fell and rolled—over the edge. The car raced on and vanished behind a shoulder of rock, leaving a cloud of dust to mark its passage. Clancy ran forward, badly shaken by what he firmly believed would turn out to be a tragedy.

The dust was flicked away by the wind, and, as the air cleared, Clancy fell to his knees on the cliff’s edge.

There was no answer, and the gruesome fears of the red-headed fellow increased. Some of the dust was rolling below the brink of the wall and he could not see clearly. Straining his eyes downward, he shouted again.

This time he was electrified by hearing an answering shout. It came up through the thinning fog of dust and was strong and, apparently, from near at hand. The fellow who had rolled over the edge had not fallen to the bottom of the cliff, after all.

“I’m where I’m glad to be, but where I wish I wasn’t,” was the rather queer response. “Feller that’s born to be hung or drowned, howsomever, ain’t goin’ to be put out of business by a chug wagon and a bit of up-and-down wall. Pard, do somethin’ for me. I don’t reckon I can do a thing for myself, and the position I’m in is right juberous.”

By then, the dust had entirely cleared away below and a strange spectacle presented itself to the eyes of the lad on the brink.

Ten or fifteen feet down, the steep, smooth wall was broken by a shelf. The shelf was no more than a foot and a half in width, and a stunted bush was growing at its edge. The stranger’s body had met the obstruction in its fall, and was now lying on the shelf, wedged in between the bush and the face of the cliff.

The stranger lay quietly in his perilous berth, half on his back with face upturned. He could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen years of age, and he wore a faded shirt of blue flannel, corduroy trousers, and tight, high-heeled boots.

Those cowboy boots, constructed for riding rather than for walking, had undoubtedly got him into his dangerous predicament. They had given him no firm foothold in alighting from his sudden jump, and he had fallen and rolled from the edge of the cliff.

“Get up on your feet!” called Clancy, “I’ll lower myself as far as I can and try to take your hand and pull you up.”

“Nary, pard,” came the answer. “I reckon as how I’d better imitate a piece of bloomin’ brick-a-braw on a mantel-shelf. If I get to squirmin’, that bit of brush pulls out and lets me down. See how it is? Throw down a rope.”

“Then, by glory, I opine I was born to be busted in fraggyments at the foot of this here clift. Why ever ain’t you got a rope?”

The stranger seemed composed enough, and certainly he took a very peculiar view of the situation. He wasn’t frightened—at least not so Clancy could notice it.

“You’ve got to up end yourself somehow!” declared Clancy. “Straighten yourself upright along the wall and reach as high as you can. Maybe our hands will meet.”

“Bush is givin’ ’way,” was the answer. “I can feel it pullin’ out. One thing I want you should do for me, friend.”

“Find out who that cimiroon was that was drivin’ that gas cart; then scalp him, and say you done it for James Montague Fortune, which is me. Adios, pard. That blamed bush can’t stand the strain much longer.”

“Oh, take a brace, can’t you?” Clancy answered sharply. “If you’ve got to drop anyhow, you might as well do it while trying to save yourself. Here, look!”

With his left arm around a bowlder at the cliff’s edge, Clancy, flat on the ground, was reaching his right hand downward.

“See if you can’t get hold of my hand,” he went on. “Do that, Fortune, and I’ll pull you up. Come on, now. You can make it if you try.”

“You’re the most persistenest person I ever seen!” grumbled James Montague Fortune. “You can’t even let a feller fall down a cliff in peace! Well, if you’re set on it, I’ll make a stagger to get up, but I’m a-tellin’ you it’s a powerful small piece o’ standin’ ground I got, and it tips the wrong way and is smooth, like it was greased. Here’s where I caper. Reckon I might as well shoot off into the dizzy void as to go rollin’ down the face of them rocks with a measly handful of chaparral.”

Slowly, and while Clancy held his breath and waited, Fortune began twisting himself into a sitting posture. The bush gave a sudden heave, and its top bent until it was sticking straight out at right angles to the cliff wall. Clancy whooped in an agony of fear. The other looked up at him calmly.

“Told you!” he called. “Couldn’t even hang a persimmum on that clump o’ brush without givin’ it the wiggle-waggles, and here I’m tryin’ to balance a hundred and forty pounds on it. Don’t take no head for ’rithmatec to figger out what’s goin’ to happen. I’m givin’ myself a minute and a half. How much do you give me?”

“I’d like to give you a punch,” howled Clancy, “for wasting time when you haven’t an instant to spare! Get up! Reach for my hand! Quick!”

“Ain’t you the funny whopper, though! Here’s where I get up and fall off.”

With a quick, wiry contortion, Fortune hoisted himself erect and hugged the smooth, steep wall with both arms. A bushel of rock and débris went bounding downward from the shelf, booming and echoing into the depths. The bush went, too, and Fortune, in his absurd boots, was balanced on a slippery foothold, with a gulf below and a glassy wall overhead.

This was something Fortune could not do. One reached down and the other reached up, but a foot gap separated their groping fingers.

“Splice out that arm about a foot, pard,” said Fortune, “and we’ll make it.”

He drew back from the edge, hastily unbuckled the belt about his waist, removed it, buckled it once more, and then, clinging tightly to the leather loop, lowered it over the cliff.

The maneuver was successful. Fortune gripped the band of stout leather and Clancy, exerting a surprising amount of strength, dragged the chap below back over the brink and to safety.

“Blamed if you didn’t make it!” exclaimed Fortune, in[3] a tone of surprise, as he squatted on the edge of the precipice. “Wouldn’t ’a’ believed it possible nohow. What’s your handle, pard?”

“Now that you’ve pulled me out o’ that diffukilty,” remarked James Montague Fortune, “what do you opine to do with me, huh?”

CHAPTER II.
JIMMIE FORTUNE.

Fortune had the sort of good-natured face that reflects an easy-going disposition. He was about as handsome as Owen Clancy, which is the same as saying that he would never be hung for his good looks, but his face was attractive for all that. His nose was a “snub,” and his eyes were narrow, and crinkled all around where a perennial smile had puckered them and left its marks.

Handsome is as handsome does, always, and it was safe to say that James Montague Fortune, while a peculiar chap in some respects, possessed a cheerful soul and a nature most companionable.

“What am I going to do with you?” repeated Clancy, studying Fortune with humorous eyes. “That’s not my business, is it? This is a free country, and you’re your own boss.”

“Sure,” was the reply, “but I’m tired of bein’ my own boss. It’s too big a job and I ain’t able to swing it. I’m right smart of a feller, Clancy, and husky and able more’n I can tell, but I’ll be dad-binged if I’m much of a success. How’d you like to sign me on for my board and keep and, say, fifty plunks a month? Huh?”

“What use have I got for a chap like you?” Clancy returned. “Why, I’m looking for a job myself. That’s why I’m going to Phoenix, Fortune. And I’m walking to save stage fare from Mesa.”

“Didn’t know but you might be a Vandefeller, or a Rockybilt in disguise,” grinned Fortune. “I’ve worked for purty nigh everybody in southern Arizona, and I jest wanted to add you to my list of employers. I don’t seem able to hold a job long. Shortest time I was ever hired and fired was fifteen minutes, and the longest time was two days. Fortune! That’s a bully name, ain’t it? Never done me no good, though. If you can’t hire me, mebby you’d like me for a pard? I’ll be your compadre jest for my board and keep. How about it?”

“I’m going to have all I can do to corral my own board and keep, Jimmie,” he answered.

“H’m,” mused Fortune, rubbing his chin. “You’re the blamedest feller! While I was on that ledge, down there, you said somethin’ about punchin’ my head. Reckon you could get away with it?”

“I don’t know,” said the surprised Clancy. “If you’re as good as you look I’d probably have a handful.”

“Can’t you tell what I mean jest by lookin’?” was the cheerful response. “Take holt o’ me and slam me down. Bet you can’t.”

“One or t’other of us goes on his back in about two minutes.” Fortune began hopping around in his high-heeled boots. “Hit me in the eye!” he begged, sawing the air with his fists.

For a few moments Clancy was astounded. Fortune’s grin was wide and inviting—in fact, he was about the pleasantest slugger Clancy had ever seen.

“Cut out the foolishness,” said Owen. “What reason have I got to fight with you?”

“Shucks! You got to have a reason for every blame’ thing? Climb my neck—if you got the sand! Ain’t I beggin’ hard enough?”

Abruptly Clancy made up his mind to enter heartily into the spirit of the affair. So he sprang erect and sailed into Jimmie Fortune, whom he had just saved from being dashed to pieces at the bottom of the cliff.

The sodden fall of fists was heard during a sharp give-and-take. Clancy, who had forgotten more of the “science” than Fortune ever knew, had all the best of it. Fortune clinched; and then Clancy, with a fine exemplification of the old reliable “double grapevine,” laid his antagonist on his back in the middle of the road.

Fortune got up with a joyous laugh, caressing a bruise on his chin with one hand, and, with the other, wiping the dust out of his eyes.

“I reckon you’ll do,” said he. “You’re as good as you look, Clancy, and then some. Let’s be pards, huh? We’ll travel together, and I’ll look after my own board and keep. I’m for Phoenix to find a livin’, same as you. Why not make a stab at the old burg in double harness? I could jest love a feller that slammed me down like that!”

Fortune was so delighted that his mirth was infectious. Clancy saw no occasion for all that abandon of happiness, and yet it was impossible not to join in his companion’s rollicking mirth.

“All right, Jimmie,” said he, “we’ll be pards, and we’ll go on together. Suppose we travel?”

“I allow we’ll have to travel if we ever reach Phoenix. Pasear it is, Reddy!”

“I got to uncork,” remarked Fortune, “and tell you more about myself. Some folks calls me a desert rat, but that there’s a libel. I’m jest a rollin’ stone, but I’d stop rollin’ blame’ quick if anybody ’u’d hire me and keep me hired.”

“Mainly because I do the wrong thing while ketchin’ onto a new line o’ work. An assayer gave me a chanst in Prescott, and set me to grindin’ at a muller board. I tipped over the table and busted a carboy o’ sulphuric acid, and got run out o’ the place. That’s where I lasted fifteen minutes. ’Nother time I took a throw at a general store in Tempe, and believe me, I was busy-izzy for one hull day. Store was crowded and I had to be in about six places to oncet. The boss reckoned he had a prize, from the way I flew around; but he changed his mind when he diskivered I’d left the spigot o’ the molasses bar’l open. The floor o’ the back room was ankle deep in sweet stuff, and the old man made a pass at me with his foot. I dodged the foot and he slipped and went down in the black strap. He rolled over and over, and when he chased me through the front door of the ‘Emporium’ he had gathered up purty nigh everythin’ in the store like a piece[4] o’ fly paper. A bolt o’ calico, a couple o’ feather dusters, fifteen or twenty pounds o’ crackers—oh, I can’t begin to tell all the stuff that was stickin’ to him. The damage was right considerable, and I ain’t had the nerve to go back to Tempe since.”

Clancy enjoyed Fortune’s reminiscences. There was no doubt that the wanderer drew heavily on his imagination, but that merely made his recital the more interesting.

“It’s been a year since I tackled Phoenix,” went on Jimmie. “I worked that bunch of adobes up and down and across, but maybe some of ’em have kind of forgot me, and I’ll get another show. What field of industry are you aimin’ to hit, Brick Top?”

“Never tried ’em myself. Looks like a promisin’ field. Wonder if we couldn’t get jobs in the same garage?”

“Maybe we could; and then, again, maybe there isn’t a garage in Phoenix that has a place for us. I have a note for a thousand dollars that I want to collect from the proprietor of a garage in—— What’s the matter with you?” demanded Clancy, breaking off suddenly.

Fortune had come to a dead stop in the trail. He stared at his new “pard,” then craned his head forward and put a hand behind his ear.

“Otra vez!” he murmured. “Come again with that, Red. A note for—how much?”

“Gee-wollops! I didn’t know there was that much dinero in the world. And here you tune up and allow you couldn’t hire me at fifty plunks a month!”

“The note doesn’t belong to me,” Clancy explained, “but to my father. The folks need the money—and I may have a hard time collecting it. You say you have been in Phoenix, Jimmie?”

“He’s my Uncle Si, but he never had no use for any the rest of the fambly. Sort of an even thing, Red, ’cause none of the rest of the fambly ever had much use for him. He runs the Red Star Garage, on First Avenue, and he was never knowed to pay a cent if he could dodge or run away. If he owes your folks money, then you better forget it. You can get blood out of a turnip quicker’n you can get cold cash out of Uncle Si. My people knows him by the lovin’ name of ‘Old Rocks,’ and——”

Fortune’s voice trailed off into silence. He and Clancy were standing on the slope of the mountain, near the place where the trail left the uplift and straightened out across the flat desert. Fortune’s eyes were fixed on something at the foot of the descent—something which seemed to hold him spellbound.

Clancy, his wonder aroused by his companion’s behavior, dropped his gaze to the foot of the slope. What he saw there surprised him.

The big automobile, which had so recklessly swept past him and Fortune on the heights, was at a halt at the edge of the brown, dusty plain. A smaller car, facing the other way, was drawn up beside the six-cylinder machine.

Two men had got out of the small car. One of them was stoutly built, well dressed, and of middle age. This man’s panama hat was pushed back on his head and he seemed to be violently agitated. The driver of the large machine was on the ground, and to him the stout gentleman was addressing himself. The other man hovered around in the background.

This third member of the party at the foot of the slope was tall and thin, and wore a linen duster, a cap, and had a pair of goggles pushed up on his forehead.

“Great jumpin’ tarantulas!” gasped Fortune. “Talk of the Old Nick and you hear him a-snorin’. Red, that man in the duster, down there, is Uncle Si! Wouldn’t this rattle your spurs?”

“I’m by; but the feller that other chap’s talkin’ to is the one that drove me over the cliff! Whoop-ya! Right here’s where I get even. Watch my smoke!”

With that, Fortune rushed down the sloping trail at top speed. Clancy followed him swiftly, calling out as he went:

“Don’t do anything reckless, Jimmie! Look out, or you’ll get yourself into trouble.”

“Somebody’s goin’ to get into trouble, all right,” Fortune flung back, over his shoulder, and raced on.

CHAPTER III.
THE MOTOR WIZARD.

As Clancy drew nearer the group at the foot of the slope, it became apparent that the stout gentleman was “laying down the law” to the driver of the big car. Rockwell continued to hang discreetly in the background.

Into this group Fortune plunged like a whirlwind. In half a minute he had laid violent hands on the chauffeur, and the two fell to struggling with might and main.

The chauffeur was older than Fortune, although about the same size, and he protected himself with a good deal of vigor. In spite of his utmost efforts, however, the wanderer threw him and dropped on his chest with both knees; then, as he drew back his fist to strike, the stout man grabbed his arm.

“What do you mean, you young savage?” the man cried. “Here, Rockwell! Help me get these two apart.”

Rockwell helped, and so did Clancy. In a little time the two antagonists were dragged away from each other and held firmly at a distance. Their glances crossed angrily.

“If it’s a fight you want,” snarled the chauffeur, “I’m willing to accommodate. No one can jump me like that without takin’ his medicine, by gorry!”

“Y’ought to have your face pounded in!” shouted Fortune. “You run me down on the narrer trail, up the mountain, and I had to roll over the edge o’ the clift to get away from you. What d’you mean by whalin’ along a road like that, without ever givin’ a feller who’s hoofin’ it a chanst for himself?”

“Look here, Dirk Hibbard,” called the stout man, fastening a stern glance on the chauffeur, “is that what you did?”

“You can’t believe that whelp, judge,” answered Hibbard. “You know I’m a careful driver. He’s making up that yarn out of whole cloth. I slowed up and sounded the Gabriel—and he knows it!”

“Slowed up!” jeered Fortune. “You tore past me at[5] forty miles an hour. Ain’t that so, pard?” and he appealed to Clancy.

“Yes,” said Clancy, “it’s so. He sounded the horn, but never slackened speed at all. I had to be quick to get out of his way.”

The judge favored Clancy with a keen look. Evidently he was impressed by the youth’s appearance and truthfulness.

“Well,” remarked the judge, “maybe Hibbard deserves a licking—but he’ll get worse than that before I’m done with him. You keep hands off,” he added to Fortune; “I’ll not stand for any rough-house.”

He pushed Fortune away and nodded to Clancy to take charge of him and restrain his hostile ardor. Clancy at once passed to the side of his friend and caught his arm restrainingly. Rockwell, who did not seem to recognize Fortune as a relative, got off into the background once more.

“So,” went on the judge, in scathing tones, again giving attention to Dirk Hibbard, “you take my car out without permission and go over mountain trails with it at forty miles an hour! What have you to say for yourself?”

“Judge Pembroke,” answered Hibbard, “these two hoboes are pullin’ the wool over your eyes. I don’t see why you are taking their word against mine. You know me, and they’re strangers. Is that right?”

“Did I, or did I not, tell you never to take that machine out of the garage without permission?” flared the judge.

“You knew my wishes. To-day you thought I was going to Prescott, and you deliberately disobeyed instructions. I changed my mind about going north and telephoned the garage for the car. Rockwell told me you had taken the car and gone north by this road. He and I followed you, and found you at the foot of the mountain, with the car disabled. Where have you been, Hibbard?”

“The motor wasn’t workin’ well, judge,” said he, “and I took the car over the trail to get it in shape.”

“Oh, you did!” answered the judge. “You took it over the mountain trail at forty miles an hour—just to get the motor in shape! Likely yarn! You seem to have got it in excellent condition, for the car is disabled and can’t turn a wheel. Why don’t you fix it?”

“I’m trying to,” answered Hibbard, “but it promises to be a long job. I don’t know just where the difficulty is.”

“Can you locate the trouble?” he asked. “I want to take this car back to the garage—I’m not going away and leave it here.”

The garage proprietor came up to the machine. Both sides of the hood had been lifted, and he stooped down and looked the motor over critically.

“Engine seems all right,” said he. “Maybe there’s no gasoline in the tank.”

“All that being the case,” went on Rockwell reflectively, “I reckon we better hitch a rope to the machine and haul it back to the garage for an overhauling.”

Clancy’s keen eyes had been going over the motor. At a glance he had located the difficulty, and he was amazed to hear the garage owner and the chauffeur assert their ignorance of it.

“The trouble’s plain enough,” he blurted out. “I can locate it from here.”

Instantly the red-headed fellow captured the complete attention of the judge, Rockwell, and Hibbard.

“You must be a wonder!” sneered Hibbard. “I’ve been drivin’ a car for four years, but maybe you know a heap more’n I do. You act like one of these chaps that know it all!”

“Mechanic!” jeered Hibbard. “He’s an expert. Can’t you tell that by lookin’ at him? Regular red-headed fix it. You don’t know what’s wrong, Rocks, and I don’t. Let’s see if he can go ahead and make good.”

Clancy, under this fire of ill-natured talk, kept his temper well in hand. Fortune grew restive, and was plainly eager to give Hibbard as good as he sent, but his “pard” checked him with a look.

“It doesn’t take an expert, nor much of a mechanic, to tell what is wrong with that engine,” said he. “If the rest of the car is in order, I can settle the difficulty in thirty seconds.”

“Wow!” cried Hibbard, with an ugly laugh. “He’s a wizard, a regular motor wizard. He rolls up out of the desert, and——”

“That will do!” cut in the judge sharply. “What is your name, young man?” he asked, turning to Clancy.

Clancy told him. Rockwell, when he heard the name, gave a start and looked at the lad more closely.

“You say,” continued the judge, pulling a gold timepiece from his vest, “that you can make my car ready for the road in thirty seconds. Go ahead and make good. I’ll time you.”

He bent down and manipulated a couple of wires leading from the magneto to the spark plug. Then he straightened up.

“It’s all over, judge. The wires were crossed, that’s all. Easy enough to see and easy enough to fix.”

Rockwell and Hibbard exchanged a quick glance. It was a significant glance and did not escape either Clancy or Fortune, although it was entirely lost upon the judge.

“You mean to say the trouble is remedied?” inquired Judge Pembroke incredulously.

“I think so,” Clancy answered, “providing the rest of the car is in condition. The crossing of wires from magneto to spark plugs will disable any car.”

Clancy lowered the sides of the hood, fastened them in place, and then walked back and adjusted the spark. One spin of the crank set the engine to humming.

“Well, by George!” exclaimed the judge; “and neither Rockwell nor Hibbard could tell what was wrong! What do you know about that?” he asked, turning to the garage proprietor.

Rockwell merely grunted and began cranking his own machine preparatory to a return to town. Hibbard’s face was like a thundercloud. The animosity he had previously shown toward Fortune had seemingly shifted to[6] Clancy. Like Rockwell, however, Hibbard had nothing to say.

“I don’t want to take the place of your chauffeur, judge,” said Clancy, “and, besides, I’ve a little business with Mr. Rockwell and would like to ride with him. We can transact the business very nicely on the way to town.”

Rockwell, who was behind the wheel of the other machine, shot another quick glance at Clancy.

“I reckon I’ll take the rumble seat o’ the other car, and ride with you, pard,” spoke up Fortune.

“I reckon you won’t,” snapped Rockwell. “You’ll either ride with the judge, young man, or else you’ll walk.”

“Wait for me at the garage, Jimmie,” said Clancy, “providing you get there before we do. If we get there first, I’ll wait.”

“Correct,” returned Fortune, and climbed into the tonneau of the judge’s machine.

The judge, with no very good grace, motioned Hibbard to climb to the driver’s seat, and then followed and took the seat beside him.

“I’ll see you again, Clancy,” called the judge, as the big car started off. “I want to have a talk with you.”

Clancy got in with Rockwell, and the smaller machine got under way. For several minutes Rockwell sat bowed over the steering wheel and did not speak. At last he thawed out enough to remark:

“I wouldn’t have had that happen for a hundred dollars! What business have you butting into my affairs? If it comes to that, what’s your business with me, anyway? Come across with it.”

CHAPTER IV.
CLANCY GETS A JOB.

There was nothing friendly in Rockwell’s voice. In fact, his very words showed an enmity for which Clancy was at a loss to account.

“I was helping out the judge,” said he. “I didn’t know I was butting into your affairs.”

“Think I’m a fool? Think I——” Rockwell broke off suddenly, as though realizing he was going too far. “Pembroke is one of my best customers,” he went on. “He keeps two cars at my garage—that big one and an electric for his wife. You’ve made him think I don’t know my business, and I’m liable to lose his trade. That’s why I’m sore about your butting in.”

There was something here which Clancy could not understand. If Rockwell knew what was wrong with the judge’s car—and it was foolish to think that a man who ran a garage could not locate so simple a difficulty—then why hadn’t he fixed the motor instead of offering to tow the car in for an overhauling?

Clancy, who was quick-witted, fell to wondering if Hibbard and Rockwell might not be in “cahoots” to secure money from the judge for “repairs” that were not needed. The chauffeur had shown that he was not to be trusted, and Clancy had heard stories of Rockwell which were far from being a credit to him.

All this, however, was merely guesswork. Knowing nothing absolutely, Clancy reserved judgment.

“I’m sorry if I did you a bad turn, Mr. Rockwell,” said he, “but it seems queer that Hibbard would misrepresent things to the judge, and——”

“Never mind that,” cut in Rockwell. “You made a show of Hibbard and me before the judge, but that’s done with now, and I’ll see if I can’t smooth things over. Pembroke seems to have taken a fancy for you, and you can help me—and maybe Hibbard, too—by keeping away from him. What’s your business?”

“I like to work with motors and I want a place in a garage. I was going to Phoenix to see you about it. Have you a place for me?”

A look of relief crossed Rockwell’s face and his voice took on a more friendly tone as he answered:

“I’d like to give you a job, but hanged if I see how I can. Got more men now than I know what to do with. Is that all?”

“No. He went down there to save some of his investments and just managed to escape with his life. He’s sick, and in bad shape, and I’ve sent him back East to recover his health.”

“He lost everything he had, down below the line. The revolutionists cleaned him out.”

“Too bad, too bad!” murmured Rockwell. “John Clancy was well off, and a good sort of a man. But what’s all this to do with me?”

“The way things are now, Mr. Rockwell,” pursued Clancy, “the governor needs all the money he can get hold of. He let you have a thousand dollars and you gave him a note for it. The note is long past due, and I’m here to collect the money.”

Clancy drew an old black wallet from the breast of his shirt, opened it, and removed an oblong slip of paper.

“Here,” said he, pushing the paper over the steering wheel and under the eyes of Rockwell.

The latter pushed up his goggles, stared at the note for a moment, and then pulled the goggles down over his eyes again.

“That’s the paper, all right,” he observed. “Why wasn’t it presented when due? I had the money to pay it, then, but I’m pretty badly crowded just now.”

“Always pay my obligations, if I’m given time enough. But I can’t do it right off, Clancy. You’ll have to give me a week or two to round up the money.”

Clancy returned the note to the wallet and the wallet to the breast of his shirt.

“I want to close the matter up as quickly as possible, Mr. Rockwell,” he answered. “You see, I’ve got to find a job right away, and get busy. I haven’t any money to waste loafing around. If there is no garage in Phoenix that can find a place for me, I’ll have to go to some other town.”

“No,” was the answer. “Up to now I haven’t had to work. Dad has had plenty of money, and I was attending an academy and getting ready for college. When the crash came, I had to quit school and look for work. The care of the family now falls on me, and—and I’ve got to make good.”

“Now that I know you’re John Clancy’s son,” said Rockwell slowly, “I’m inclined to do more than ordinary to make a place for you. That thousand I got from your father on my plain note helped me over a mighty tight pinch, and that’s mainly the reason I’d like to be of some use to you.”

Clancy was surprised and delighted at the expression of these sentiments. From what he had heard regarding Rockwell, he expected to find in the man a cunning, unscrupulous person who would be exceedingly hard to deal with. Yet here Rockwell was showing a grateful disposition which did not tally with the reports of his character which had come to Clancy.

If Clancy could have seen the guileful light in Rockwell’s eyes, it is safe to say he would not have been so pleased. But the goggles hid the garage owner’s eyes, and the youth was left in the dark as to what was passing in the man’s mind.

“Are you willing to do what I tell you to, and to keep your mouth shut?” asked Rockwell.

“I’ll obey orders, of course, and do the best I can. As for talking, I’ll close up like a clam about everything that concerns you and your business.”

It was an honest, straightforward answer, but it failed to make the proper impression on Rockwell somehow.

“The garage business is peculiar,” remarked Rockwell. “To make anything at all, the proprietor of a garage has to pull a lot of wires. Now, Judge Pembroke just wallows in money, and he wants his cars in the best condition always. I’ve been at him for a long time to get that big machine overhauled, but as long as it runs fairly well he seems to be satisfied. That’s the way with car owners,” and a complaining note entered the man’s voice. “I know, a heap better than the judge, what’s best for his car, and if I don’t do some tinkering with it before long he’ll have a bad spill on the road. Can’t make him see that, though. In order to get that machine and put it in A-1 order, I had to resort to tact. Get me?”

“That’s the word. I was doing it all for the judge. I knew those wires were crossed, and so did Hibbard. What I was after was to tow the big car back to Phoenix and put it in apple-pie order. Hibbard and I were working together. Of course, I had to give Hibbard a bonus; but then, all chauffeurs draw down a commission on about everything—they expect it, and if a garage proprietor don’t pony up, they’ll work it so the car finally lands in some other garage. When things like that happen, Clancy, I want you to keep your own counsel. If you do that, maybe I can find a place for you. If you can’t be—er—diplomatic, there isn’t much that I can do for John Clancy’s son. What about it?”

Rockwell was plausible, but he was not plausible enough to fool Clancy. The red-headed chap was badly disappointed. Rockwell was crafty, if not downright dishonest.

“I guess you don’t want me, Mr. Rockwell,” said Clancy. “I haven’t been brought up to stand for that sort of thing.”

“Bosh! You’re too thin-skinned. Business is business, young fellow, and nowadays a man has to be mighty shrewd if he makes good. It’s principally the rich men who keep cars in garages, and it’s necessary to keep their machines in trim—even if you have to use tact, once in a while, to get permission to overhaul a car. As for the driver’s end of it—well, maybe that’s plain graft, but it’s legitimate so far as the garage owner is concerned. If he keeps his customers he has to pay the driver his bit.”

“I need work,” said Clancy, “but I’m going to be square. If I can’t make good without stealing, then I won’t make good, that’s all.”

Silence settled down between the two. The car rolled into Washington Street and along it to First Avenue. As it turned into the avenue, the front of the garage was brought plainly into sight. A big red star hung over the door. Above the star were the words, “Red Star Garage,” and, below it, the attractive legend, “Free Air.”

The garage was an adobe structure, but it looked rather imposing and prosperous. A man in greasy overclothes was out in front, filling a radiator. Another car, spick and span from recent grooming, was just sliding through the broad doorway into the street.

In front of the building, on a bench, sat Judge Pembroke and Jimmie Fortune. Evidently they were waiting for Clancy to arrive. Rockwell muttered something under his breath.

“I’ll give you a job as mechanic’s helper at fifty a month to start,” said he, “and I’ll trust you to do the right thing by me. Is it a go?”

As Clancy got out of the car in the garage, he turned to find Judge Pembroke at his elbow.

“I’ve just discharged Hibbard,” said he, “and I want another driver. I’ll give you seventy-five a month to work for me, Clancy. Will you take the place?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he answered, “but I’ve just hired out to Mr. Rockwell.”

“You’re not half as sorry as I am,” said the judge, turning away. “If you don’t like it here, come and see me.”

CHAPTER V.
HIBBARD SHOWS HIS TEETH.

It was hard for Clancy to understand Rockwell. At first, he had no place open for Clancy at all; after he saw the thousand-dollar note, he suddenly discovered that he could put him on the pay roll, providing he could do his work and keep his own counsel; and finally, when Clancy declined the position if he must turn his back an his principles, Rockwell “took him on,” anyway.

It did not occur to Clancy that Rockwell might have[8] a design in these shifty tactics, and that the design underwent changes as Clancy developed his aims and intentions.

As the judge walked off, leaving Clancy poorer by twenty-five dollars a month because of his promise to Rockwell, Fortune saw a chance and took quick advantage of it.

“Hold your bronks a minute, judge,” he called, hurrying after Pembroke. “I’m big for my size and old for my age, and I reckon I could pull down that seventy-five allee same Clancy. What do you say?”

“Me? Gee-wollops! Say, I invented cars. If the diaphragm gets crossways of the razmataz so that the needle valve back fires, I can fix it in ten seconds with my eyes done up in a cloth.”

“Bosh!” interfered Rockwell. “You don’t want a thing to do with that good-for-nothing, judge. I happen to know him. He can’t tell a radiator from a bale of hay.”

“I don’t think you’ll do,” said the judge to Fortune, and walked off down the street.

“You’re a fine uncle for a wanderin’ boy that’s tryin’ to get a foothold!” cried Fortune, turning on the garage owner. “Out with a hammer and knockin’ the rest o’ the fambly as per usual. If I had a disposition like yourn, blamed if I wouldn’t go down where the boats come in, and jump off!”

“When I get good and ready. I ain’t in your old chug-wagon corral, but out in front. You don’t own the street, I reckon. If you don’t like my comp’ny, start your feet and change locations. Whoosh! Say, if I was as mean, and back bitin’, and as full o’ low-down schemes as you, I’d be glad to bob up in straight and honest sassiety oncet in a while jest to ketch a breath o’ good air. I’d——”

Rockwell, red with rage and muttering to himself, did not pause to hear any more, but dived through the front door of the garage. He looked out again to call to his new employee:

“I’ll expect you to sleep here nights, Clancy. If you go away, get back by eight o’clock.”

Rockwell disappeared, and Fortune dropped down on the bench and drew Clancy down beside him.

“Who’s goin’ to pin a rose on you for that? Old Rocks? Fergit it! He’s workin’ a scheme, and already you’re beginnin’ to get the worst of it. What did he say about that note?”

“He never will, and all he’s doin’ is playin’ for time. You and me can’t trot in double harness if you stay here, Red. I was sort o’ bankin’ on takin’ your little hand in mine and goin’ out for a look at the universe. And here you’ve cut yourself off from Jimmie and Jonah first clatter out o’ the box.”

“We’ll keep track of each other,” laughed Clancy, “and maybe I’ll be able to help you to a job before long. How are you fixed for money, Jimmie?”

“Money?” gasped Fortune. “What’s that? I ain’t on speakin’ terms with a soo markee.”

Clancy took two silver dollars from his pocket and pressed them into his friend’s hand.

“That’s not much, Jimmie,” said he, “but it’s the best I can do for the present. That ought to keep you going for a short time. I don’t think I’m going to like it at this garage,” he went on, dropping his voice, “but I’ve got to stay here till I collect the money on that note. Drop around occasionally and let me know where you are.”

“You are the clear quill, Red,” he finally observed. “This here’s a grubstake, and that means you got a half interest in any vein o’ pay rock I’m able to unkiver. Maybe I ain’t named Fortune for nothin’, after all, and we go snooks on whatever grows up from these two plunks after I’ve planted ’em. Hoop-a-la!”

The queer chap got up from the bench with a wide smile, jingling the money in his trousers pocket. Just as he started away, Dirk Hibbard darted around the corner of the garage and rushed up to Clancy. The fellow’s manner was distinctly hostile, and, in a flash, Clancy was on his feet.

“I reckon you’re plumb satisfied now!” exclaimed Hibbard, bitterly resentful.

“Well, yes,” drawled Clancy, looking the discharged chauffeur squarely in the eyes, “I’ve got a job and I suppose I ought to be satisfied!”

“It’s nothing to me whether the judge keeps you or fires you, and I didn’t lay any plans. I’m working for Rockwell and not for Judge Pembroke.”

“You wanted to get my job for that muttonhead friend of yours!” breathed Hibbard, through his teeth.

“Who’s the muttonhead?” demanded Fortune, stepping forward truculently. “Me?”

“Keep off, Jimmie!” said Clancy. “Hibbard’s business is with me, not with you. I don’t care a rap about you, one way or the other,” he went on to Hibbard, “but it’s my private opinion that the judge did a good piece of work when he pulled the pin on you. I’ve an idea that you have been double crossing him right along, and that he has just begun to find it out.”

“Any fellow who will disable a car just to get a commission for having it overhauled isn’t giving much attention to the interests of his employer; what’s more——”

Hibbard’s face was full of wrath. With a muttered oath, he struck at Clancy with his fist.

The red-headed chap was not taken by surprise. He had kept his eyes on the chauffeur’s face, and he knew that blow was coming an instant before it was launched.

Clancy side-stepped with the swiftness of lightning, and the clenched hand found only space. Before Hibbard could recover his balance, Clancy had struck him and sent him to his knees.

“Gle-ory to snakes, and all sashay!” piped Fortune jubilantly.[9] “Pard, you found him! That little surprise party was somethin’ of a jolt. The cimiroon went gunnin’ for more’n he expected.”

With a bellow of rage, Hibbard regained his feet and plunged into the garage. The next moment a monkey wrench came sailing through the door, but Clancy saw it in time to dodge. Hibbard followed the monkey wrench in person, armed with a hammer. His face was working convulsively, and he seemed absolutely beside himself.

Fortune, his eyes wide with apprehension for his “pard,” retreated slowly, and watched.

What he saw was something of a revelation to him in the art of self-defense. The red-headed chap gave a pretty demonstration of coolness and skill as opposed to brute strength and unreasoning rage.

Whirling the hammer in short, vicious circles, Hibbard executed a furious attack. Clancy stood his ground until the fellow was close, then he sprang high into the air. His feet shot out, and the toe of one shoe landed on the wrist of the hand that held the hammer. The heavy weapon went clattering to the cement walk.

Then, while the driver stood disarmed, Clancy sailed into him with vigor and determination. In almost less time than it takes to tell of it, Hibbard was tripped, flung from his feet, and cast against the adobe wall.

The force of his fall dazed him, and he sat in a quivering heap, his back to the adobe and his eyes blinking up at Clancy.

“What’s this?” called the sharp voice of Rockwell, who came hurrying through the door.

“Hibbard picked a quarrel with me,” answered Clancy calmly. “His fists weren’t good enough, and he went after a monkey wrench and a hammer.”

“Haven’t you got any sense at all?” he asked sternly. “Do you think you’re helping yourself any by this kind of work?”

Hibbard shook his head, as though to clear the fog from his brain, and got up slowly.

“That red-headed skunk has euchered me out of a job,” he growled. “I’ll get even with him, by thunder! If I can’t get him one way, I will another.”

“My advice to you, Hibbard, is to sing small,” said Rockwell. “Don’t want to get yourself in the lockup, do you?”

“I don’t care a whoop where I get myself, if I can saw off even with that dub!”

He made another pass at Clancy with his fist, but Rockwell grabbed the doubled arm and pulled the baffled chauffeur off along the walk toward the main street. The two presently turned the corner and were lost to sight.

“Hibbard’s no match for you, Reddy,” said Fortune, “but you look out for him, jest the same. He’s the sort that’ll hit from behind, and strike in the dark. Mind that!”

“Hibbard can’t scare me,” he answered. “He’s sore because he lost his job—and he’s blaming everybody but himself.”

“While you’re watchin’ him, pard,” said Fortune, “keep a weather eye out for old Rocks. He allers has a few tricks up his wide and flowin’ sleeve, and I don’t like the looks o’ things around these diggin’s. That’s honest.”

CHAPTER VI.
ROCKWELL’S SCHEME.

Hibbard sputtered wrathfully while Rockwell led him across the street and to a bench in the city hall plaza. The bench was partly screened from passers-by by a clump of tall oleanders.

“Sit down, Hibbard,” said Rockwell. “I want to talk a little sense into that foolish brain of yours, if I can.”

“I don’t want to do any chinning,” protested Hibbard. “I lost a good job, and I want to get even with the chap that stole it away from me. Pembroke paid me seventy-five a month, but the ’coms’ and—er—other things brought me in a hundred and fifty, and sometimes two hundred. I ain’t a-going to be pried loose from that snap without makin’ that red-headed robber smart for it!”

“Oh, hush!” returned the garage owner impatiently. “You’re talking at the top of your voice, and it would be easy for some one to overhear you. That wouldn’t do, Hibbard; you know pesky well it might get you into trouble.”

“Me?” was the grim response. “I allow there are some others that would get into trouble, too.” He peered at Rockwell significantly. “Eh?”

“Never mind about that,” was the uneasy response. “Just cool off, will you, so we can talk sensibly.”

Hibbard seemed to get himself better in hand. His voice dropped, his manner changed, and he sank down on the bench.

“If you’ve got any jobs to throw around you might toss one my way. Why in blazes did you want to hire that other yap?”

“I hired him to keep him away from Pembroke. The judge was waiting when we got back to the garage. But he was too late. I had already taken Clancy into my employ at fifty dollars a month.”

“Yes,” chuckled Rockwell, “but the fellow has got peculiar ideas about business. He wouldn’t accept the judge’s offer of seventy-five a month when he had hired out to me for fifty.”

“No comments, Dirk. I do as legitimate a garage business as I can, but, with the commissions demanded by you drivers, I have to figure close and use tact in order to make a living. If chauffeurs would play fair, garage keepers wouldn’t have to scheme so confounded hard to make both ends meet.”

“Piffle!” sneered Hibbard. “Everybody knows you’re a skinner, Rocks, and if the drivers didn’t make you whack up with them you’d stuff all the ‘velvet’ into your own pocket.”

“That’s your way of looking at it,” Rockwell answered patiently, “but you’re wrong. That has nothing to do with this case, though.”

“That red-headed chump beat me out of a big commission on overhauling the judge’s machine, didn’t he? I was to get twenty-five per cent of the bill you ran up on the judge, in addition to ten and five on extra parts for repairs. Whose scheme was that, eh? You hatched it up and asked me to work it out for you. Your new employee got next to the crossed wires. Now I’m out of a job, and the judge don’t even suspect that you had a hand in putting the car out of commission! Is that right? You ought to find a place for me, Rockwell.”

The garage owner did not reply at once. He appeared to be turning something over in his mind.

“Why didn’t you let Pembroke take him on?” continued Hibbard. “Then I could have had this place you’ve given him.”

Rockwell peered around cautiously. There was no one on the graveled walks of the plaza, in their vicinity.

“There’s something you can do for me, Hibbard,” he proceeded. “I’ll give you a couple of hundred if you pull it off. If you have a grouch against young Clancy, you can wipe it out at the same time.”

“Tell me about it,” said he. “I’d do anything to play even with Clancy.”

“If I let you in on this, and you betray my confidence in any way, you’ll get yourself into a peck of trouble, Hibbard.”

“When it comes to handing out trouble, Rocks,” he returned grimly, “I allow two can play at that game. We know too much about each other to do any double-crossing. Play square with me and I’ll do the same with you.”

“You’ve got such a blooming temper,” the garage man hesitated, “that I don’t know whether it would be wise to trust you. The minute you lose the whiphand of yourself, you fly all to pieces, and blurt out everything you know.”

“Don’t you believe it! I never blurt out anything that’s liable to get me into hot water. But why did you bring this matter up, if you think I can’t be trusted?”

“Well, I’m going to take a chance. You’re about the only one that fills the bill for this particular piece of work, and circumstances have shaped themselves so that you are the logical man. I’ll have to explain a few details so that you’ll get the matter straight. This Owen Clancy, the fellow I have just hired, is the son of a man named John Clancy. John Clancy hired cars from the garage a good many times, and we got to know each other pretty well. He’s a mining engineer, and picked up a pot of money. I understand, though, that he has lost most of it in Mexico, and that he has now gone back to his home in the East, a physical and mental wreck. Young Clancy is taking care of the family.”

“It has a bearing on it. Several months ago I was pretty hard pressed, and needed a thousand dollars to see me through. I got the money of John Clancy, giving him my plain, unendorsed note. The note became due, but was not presented for payment. I heard Clancy had been killed by Mexican revolutionists, and I naturally believed I never would have to pay that note. Now,” and the sharp lines gathered in Rockwell’s face, “young Clancy turns up with the paper, and wants the money.”

“Not just at present. What’s more, Hibbard, I don’t want any trouble on account of that note.”

“You’ll not have any trouble. Everybody knows that all your property is in your wife’s name. She didn’t sign the note with you, did she?”

“I can’t do that. If young Clancy sues and tries to collect, the publicity would be a bad thing for the business.”

“Why didn’t Clancy’s father deposit the note in the bank before he went to Mexico?”

“I don’t know. The thing that concerns me is that young Clancy is here with the note, and demands payment. I have told him that I would try and give him the money in a couple of weeks.”

“So,” remarked Hibbard, “in order to keep him quiet and comfortable, you have given him a job. Is that the way of it?”

“That is partly the way of it. So long as he has the note, he possesses a weapon which he can use against me at any time. Frankly, Hibbard, I don’t see how I can get the money together in a couple of weeks.”

“That is out of the question,” he answered. “I borrowed the money of Clancy to pay a gambling debt, and I want to keep the whole thing quiet.”

“Here’s the way of it,” returned Rockwell. “If I had that note in my possession—if I could get hold of it without young Clancy’s knowledge—I could——”

“You could tear it up, and save yourself a thousand dollars, plus the interest,” said Hibbard, with an evil grin. “I get you, old Rocks!”

“No, you don’t get me,” he growled. “You’re too ready to think me crooked. If I had the note in my own hands, and if it got to me without young Clancy’s knowledge, I could hold it until I was ready to pay over the money. And, while I was getting ready, Clancy couldn’t make me any trouble at all. He’d simply think he lost the note, see? I’d be white with him, too. While I was getting the money together to take up the note, I’ll let him work for me at fifty a month.”

“Then, coming down to cases,” observed Hibbard, “you want me to steal that note from young Clancy, turn it over to you, and get a couple of hundred for my trouble.”

“I’m not interested particularly in how you secure the paper from Clancy. The moment you put it into my hands I will give you two hundred dollars. It will be worth that to me to have two or three months’ extension of time on the obligation.”

“Does Clancy carry the note around with him?” asked Hibbard, already beginning to figure on ways and means for his rascally exploit.

“He’ll be in the little room back of the garage,” was[11] the significant rejoinder. “I’m having him sleep there to help out the night man in case there is a rush of work. You know all about the garage, Hibbard. The trick ought to come easy for you. All I want is a little more time on that note—and this is about the only way I can get it.”

Hibbard, knowing Rockwell so well, felt positive in his own mind that the note, once in the signer’s hands, would be destroyed. The garage man had a way of giving a plausible touch to his rascally undertakings that fooled very few of those who understood his character.

“I’m going to earn that two hundred, and get even with Clancy, providing——”

“Providing you give me young Clancy’s job, or another where the chance of a rake-off is as good, after the thing is over. I’ve got to live—and where, in this burg, can I get another job as chauffeur without a recommendation from Pembroke?”

CHAPTER VII.
IN THE RED STAR GARAGE.

As soon as Rockwell and Hibbard had disappeared, Jimmie Fortune took rather an abrupt leave of Owen. He walked rapidly in the direction taken by the garage man and the chauffeur, jingling his silver dollars as he went.

“I’ll bet something handsome he’s going to keep an eye on Rockwell and Hibbard,” muttered Clancy. “Those two fellows trouble him a lot more than they do me. Jimmie’s a pretty good sort of a chap, though, if I’m any hand at reading character.”

Truth to tell, Owen had taken a great liking to the irresponsible, happy-go-lucky Jimmie. The wanderer had shown no great capacity for anything but celerity in losing the various jobs which he managed to secure, and yet his oddness and good nature made him likable and a good companion.

Clancy went into the garage and looked around with considerable interest. One corner of the huge room was partitioned off for an office. A couple of young fellows, who looked as though they might be chauffeurs, sat at a table in the office, smoking cigarettes and playing cards.

The interior walls of the garage were painted white, and marked off with perpendicular black lines, six or seven feet apart. Cars of many different makes were berthed between these lines. Other cars were drawn out toward the middle of the floor and workmen were tinkering with them.

In an “L” opening off the rear end of the big room machines were being washed. In another L on the opposite side a sandy-whiskered man was vulcanizing a tire. His face was smudged with oil and grease, but the flame, striking his features sharply, revealed eyes that captured Owen’s confidence.

“You’re the mechanic here?” the new employee asked, approaching the bench where the man was at work.

“I’m going to begin work here to-morrow, and I’m sort of looking around to get an idea of the place.”

The man leaned back against the side of the bench, picked up a pipe, lighted it, and surveyed Clancy thoughtfully through wreaths of smoke.

“Don’t do it,” said he, shaking his head. “I don’t know why in blazes Rockwell is hiring more help, but that’s his business. I suppose it’s none of my business, either, where you work or what you do, but you look to be as square as a die. If that’s the case, then the Red Star Garage is no place for you.”

Clancy was surprised at this bit of advice coming from one of Rockwell’s men. He must have shown how he felt, for the other went on quickly:

“Of course, I’m not yellin’ my advice to you in Rockwell’s ears. What I’m saying to you is strictly on the q. t. If you’ve got a job here, chuck it!”

“Then you’re going into the game with your eyes open. I guess I didn’t read you right.”

“I guess you did,” said Owen. “I won’t stand for the kind of ‘tact’ Rockwell mentioned, and I told him so.”

“I’m by! You must have some kind of a hold on him, I reckon. This garage is a good place for a young fellow to start on the down grade. If you can work here and keep square you’re entitled to a medal. My name is Barton, Andy Barton. In case you bump into anything here where you think a little advice would help, call on me.”

“Much obliged, Andy. My name’s Owen Clancy, and I guess I’m to take hold as one of your helpers.”

“I reckon I hadn’t better talk to you much, just now,” said he. “The boss will want to do that. There he comes,” and Barton went back to his work.

Clancy looked around, and saw Rockwell just coming into the shop wing of the building.

“Getting the lay of the land, Clancy?” the garage man asked, pleasantly enough.

“Yes,” was the reply. “This looks like a pretty good-sized establishment.”

“There are bigger ones in town, but I don’t think you’ll find any much better. You’ve met Barton? Good! He’ll tell you what to do when you show up for work in the morning. Of course,” he added, as Owen strolled away with him, “there are a lot of cars stored here that are looked after by the owners themselves. We get six dollars a month for space between two of those black lines. The rent, along with the sale of gasoline and oil, is about all the revenue we get from that class of customers. It’s the big bugs, like Judge Pembroke, who make the business worth while.”

He opened a door at the rear of the big room and ushered Owen into a small apartment equipped with a bunk, washstand, and chair, and having a single window for light and air.

“My night man’s name is Pruitt,” continued Rockwell. “He takes care of the business during the off hours. Occasionally—not very often—he is rushed, and needs help. That’s why I want you to sleep in this room, Clancy, and I wish you’d sleep here to-night.”

“If Pruitt has much for me to do,” said Owen, “I can see where I’m not going to be of much help to Barton.”

“You may never be routed out during the night, but I want some one around in case Pruitt has to leave the garage with a car. You’ll show up here this evening?”

“All right, I’ll depend on you. I’ll tell the helper, who has been sleeping here, that he can begin berthing at home. Give me faithful service, Clancy, and I’ll see that your wages are raised from time to time. I reckon that will be all. You’d better go and hunt your supper. Where’s your baggage?”

“Your old man must be pretty badly crimped, if you had to do that,” he remarked. “Show up here at eight o’clock. You’ll not be on duty, you understand, except in case you’re needed. You can turn in at eight, or light up and read, or spend your time in the office—please yourself about that. Report to Barton in the morning.”

Clancy went away to find a place where he could get his supper. As he went, he wondered a little why it was necessary for the proprietor of such a prosperous establishment to take so much time getting together a thousand dollars.

“I guess Rockwell’s a bandit, all right,” he muttered, “but I’m going to be on my guard and see that he doesn’t get the better of me. That note is a thing he can’t dodge, and I’m going to keep it right in my hands until he takes it up.”

Clancy found a modest restaurant in Washington Street where the food was good and prices reasonable. Although it was still early in the evening, the electric lights were sparkling up and down the business thoroughfare as he came out of the short-order place.

He felt like a stranger in a strange land, and would have given a good deal for the companionship of Jimmie Fortune just then. Never before had he been so impressed with the responsibilities that had been heaped upon his shoulders, and he was hungry for a little friendly talk—and Fortune was his only friend in that big town.

In better and happier times, the money represented by that note of Rockwell’s would have had small bearing on the fortunes of the Clancys. But now, with his father sick and his financial affairs gone to wreck and ruin, a thousand dollars was a lot of money. Clancy had been told that collecting the amount of that note from Rockwell was a hopeless undertaking, that the garage man would exercise every resource of an unscrupulous nature to get out of paying. So he had been surprised and pleased when promised the money in a week or two.

Perhaps—he told himself—Rockwell wasn’t so bad, after all. He appeared to want to do the square thing, and maybe he was not so prosperous as he seemed, and would have to hustle a little to get the money to take up his note.

“I’ll wait on him,” murmured Clancy, “and while I’m waiting I’ll be earning something and getting a start in this garage business. The Clancys are about due for a run of luck, and maybe this is where it starts.”

The big clock on the courthouse in the plaza was booming the hour of eight as Clancy got back to the Red Star Garage. At that time there was not much doing about the place, and Clancy passed through the wide doors and made his way to the rear room. A man—Pruitt, no doubt—was smoking a pipe in the office. Clancy did not stop to speak with him, but went directly to his own quarters.

He had bought a “jumper,” a pair of overalls, and a pair of gloves. These he took out of the paper in which they were wrapped, and laid them to one side.

“In the morning,” he thought whimsically, “I’ll get into them and begin rooting for the family. I’m going to make good, too, although I wish I was starting out with any other fellow than Rockwell.”

For a long time he sat in that dingy little room, thinking over the past, and trying to forecast the future. There was a man’s work ahead of Owen Clancy, but he faced it with an indomitable spirit. Collecting that note was only the beginning. After that had been accomplished, bigger things lay ahead.

An hour or two passed while he sat in the little room wrapped up in his reflections. Then, suddenly, he heard a sound that caused him to start bolt upright in his chair. Some one was tapping on the window. He turned to look, and saw a face pressed against the glass. It was the face of Jimmie Fortune, and Jimmie had a warning finger laid against his lips.

Clancy got to his feet and slowly approached the window. Fortune motioned upward with his hands, and Clancy carefully raised the sash.

“Somethin’ doin’, pard!” said Fortune, in a husky whisper. “I got to come in and tell you about it. Lock the door over there. I don’t want nobody buttin’ in on us. Make everythin’ tight, and then I’ll crawl in and bat the hull propersition up to you.”

Clancy secured the door, sliding the bolt softly. Meanwhile, Fortune had been climbing into the room. As soon as he was inside, he lowered the sash noiselessly and pulled down the shade.

“I don’t know jest what’s the matter, compadre,” was the guarded response, “but I allow I’ve got the tail end of a whalin’ big mystery. I’ve come to you for help in figgerin’ it out.”

CHAPTER VIII.
FORTUNE’S MYSTERY.

“I’m all in a takin’ over what I’ve found out,” he remarked, “but in spite o’ that, I could slop down on this bunk and sleep to beat four of a kind. Er-wow!” and he threw up his arms and yawned. “Ain’t it orful,” he went on, “to be so chock full of agitatin’ things and yet feel like layin’ right down on ’em and poundin’ your ear?”

“If you’ve got anything in your system, Jimmie,” said Owen, “now is your chance to get it out. When you’ve done that, you can crawl in between those blankets and sleep as long as you please.”

“Mebby I won’t have no chanst to sleep. It all depends on how you figger out my diskiveries. Fust off, pard, I’ve found where Dirk Hibbard went when he hiked off with the jedge’s car. It wasn’t no joy ride, you can gamble, and he wasn’t jest tryin’ out the machine to see what was wrong with it. He was acrost the mountain palaverin’ with Tom Long, who’s got a past like a bandit.”

“That cimiroon has been keepin’ purty quiet for some sort of a while, and I opine he’s about due to break out. If there’s a train robbery or any other kind of a hold-up anywheres on this part o’ the range, fust thing the sher’ff does is to go inquirin’ for Tom Long, otherwise Chantay Seeche Tom. That’s the sort of a maverick he is. Whyever d’you suppose Hibbard went acrost the mountain to talk to a feller like that?”

“That ain’t all. Mebby I’ve got somethin’ that’ll help us git a twist on this little game o’ muggins. But I sort o’ begun my yarnin’ wrong end to. I ort to have commenced at the start, ’stead o’ goin’ along down toward where you write finish. When your trail and mine forked, a spell ago, I had a notion I’d keep track o’ Uncle Si and the shuffer. I seen ’em on a bench in the plaza, thick as two thieves, but I couldn’t get nigh enough to catch the run o’ their conversation. I’ll bet it was crooked palaver, though, ’cause old Rocks ain’t no better than Hibbard, and you and me sabe what Hibbard is.

“I didn’t linger long around the plaza when them two got up and hiked. Two silver dollars was burnin’ a hole in my pocket, so I moseyed over to the Palace and played ’em on the red——”

“I didn’t think it was gamblin’, pard—I reckoned it was a cinch. You’d saved my scalp on the cliftside, hadn’t you? And you and me was pards, wasn’t we? And that thatch o’ yours is carmine! Figgerin’ from all that, I allowed I’d drop two cases on the red and pull out four, then I’d stake the four on red to win and corral eight, leave the eight on the same color and grab sixteen. I was plannin’ to keep this up till I had dinero sufficient to buy a garage for you and a private yacht and a few other things for myself, but—dog-gone it! red didn’t win that fust time, and the croupier juggled my little two bones into the till. Ain’t it scandalous?”

“I should say so!” muttered Clancy. “I didn’t give you that money to use in gambling, Fortune, but to keep you going till you landed a job. Now your money’s gone, and you haven’t a thing to show for it!”

“Easy, pard! Sure I’ve got somethin’ to show for it. If I hadn’t gone to the Palace I wouldn’t ’a’ met Slim Simmons, would I?”

“Desert rat. I’ve seen him a heap o’ times, and we sabe each other a hull lot. He come over the same trail we did, but he was ahead of us. I got to palaverin’ with Slim, and refers incidental to Hibbard and the way he forked me over the cliffs. Simmons allows Hibbard was the same juniper he’d seen gassin’ with Long Tom, otherwise Tom Long. You see, Slim stopped at Chantay Seeche’s for a drink, and he glimpsed Hibbard and Long powwowin’ cautious and careful by the ranch corral. Slim asked Hibbard for a ride into town, and Hibbard wouldn’t have it. Hibbard must have stayed at Tom Long’s quite a while, for Slim was able to get pretty well over the trail afore Hibbard came along and passed you and me. That’s how I diskivered where Hibbard had been. There’s more, though. While Slim and me was gassin’ in one corner o’ the Palace, who rolls into the place but Chantay Seeche himself?”

“Surest thing you know. He walked in, big as life, and twicet as ornery, and dropped down at a table behind the pianner. I allowed I’d walk over to him, pass the time o’ day, and inquire as to what Hibbard was doin’ at his ranch. That was my idee, and jest as I was goin’ to carry it out, in comes Hibbard and sits down at the same table with Long. Neither of ’em saw me, so I jest hung back and watched.

“They got real confidential, them two. Bymby, Hibbard takes a pencil and paper from his pocket and makes a diagram. Chantay Seeche considers it. There’s more talk, a little drinkin’, then the two shakes hands and separates. They leave the table together, and they fergit to take the diagram. I ain’t more’n a minute freezin’ to that paper and lookin’ it over.

“I haven’t got savvy enough to make head or tail to it, but I thinks of my red-headed pard, and hikes for here. Not bein’ what they call persona gratter to the front of the establishment, I sneak up to your room from the rear. So here I am, gappin’ like Rip Van Winkle gettin’ ready for thirty years o’ sleep; and here’s the paper, and you’re welcome to tell me what it’s about—if you can.”

Jimmie handed over the paper. It was a small sheet, and seemed to have been torn from a memorandum book. It was marked with lines in the form of a rough, oblong square. This square was crossed and recrossed with other lines, and there were subdivisions indicated here and there. Clancy studied the diagram closely.

“Looks like a chink puzzle, eh?” said Fortune. “Can you make anythin’ of it, Red?”

“Well, now!” murmured the other. “Blamed if I’d thought o’ that! It might be the ground plan of a house, or the picter of tracks in a chicken yard. What makes you think it’s a diagram of a ’dobe?”

“The plan is divided into rooms, and there are little marks in the outside walls that may indicate doors and windows. But the best proof that this is a diagram of a house is given by the only written words on the paper. Along one side is the word ‘second,’ and along the other side we find the two words, ‘Cerro Gordo.’ Is there a street in this town called Cerro Gordo Street, Jimmie?”

“By glory!” gulped Fortune. “You’ve hit it right between the eyes! Sure there’s a street called Cerro Gordo, and it’s the best residence street in town. Corner of Cerro Gordo and Second Av’noo is right in the middle of Magnateville and Upper-tendom! You’ve cracked the shell of the mystery, Red!”

“We’re a good way yet from cracking the shell of the mystery,” said he. “If this is really the ground plan of a house at the corner of Second and Cerro Gordo, why did Hibbard draw it and show it to Chantay Seeche? That’s the mystery, Jimmie, and we haven’t begun to solve it.”

“That’s you! I missed the p’int, and no mistake. But Hibbard and Chantay wasn’t considerin’ that plan for any good purpose, believe me. There’s a hen on, and trouble’s hatchin’. How we goin’ to find out what’s in the wind?”

“I believe I’ll go over on Washington Street, and see[14] if I can find out anything. You stay here, Jimmie. Get in bed and go to sleep, if you want to.”

“Suppose somebody wants you for somethin’ while you’re gone? I might help out, but, not bein’ on good terms with the boss o’ this establishment, I reckon I hadn’t better try.”

“No,” said Clancy, “don’t try. We’ll take chances, and hope the night man won’t call on me for anything. Anyhow, I’ll not be gone long. Crawl into the blankets and go to sleep. The bed’s big enough for two, and I’ll make use of my half of it when I get back.”

Fortune had already kicked off his boots and removed his flannel shirt. He was out of his trousers in a jiffy and had rolled up head and ears in a blanket.

“Buenas noches, pard!” came in muffled tones from the depths of the blanket.

Clancy turned off the light, passed to the window, raised the shade, and then the sash, and softly climbed through and dropped to the ground. By a roundabout course he gained First Avenue, went by the front of the garage on the opposite side of the street, and so came into the main thoroughfare of the town.

Clancy did not intend to be gone long for he believed that he could discover all he wanted to know in a very few minutes. He was longer in his quest, however, than he had supposed he would be.

He went into a hotel across from the courthouse plaza, and approached the desk in the lobby. Eleven o’clock was just chiming from the courthouse bell.

The night clerk, after surveying Clancy rather uncertainly, pushed the register around and handed him a pen.

“No,” said the youth, “I’m not going to put up here. All I want is a little information.”

“Can you tell me who lives at the corner of Second Avenue and Cerro Gordo Street?”

“Hanged if I can! I haven’t been here long, and don’t know this town very well. Why don’t you go to the place and find out?”

Clancy didn’t care to do that, and carried his search farther. Place after place was visited fruitlessly, until it seemed that the only way for him to learn what he wanted to know was by really going to the house and making his inquiries on the spot. At last, however, he found himself in the same restaurant where he had taken supper, and the cashier gave him the required information.

“Cerro Gordo and Second?” repeated the cashier. “That’s easy. Judge Pembroke lives there and—— What’s the matter with you?”

A sudden whiteness had flashed into Clancy’s face, and he had drawn a quick, rasping breath.

He ran out of the restaurant and started back to the Red Star Garage, greatly excited. Twelve o’clock came booming from the courthouse plaza as he turned into First Avenue from Washington Street.

“It has taken me an hour to find out what I wanted to know,” he murmured. “If there is lawlessness going on, I wonder if we’re too late to stop it? Maybe here’s a chance for Fortune and me to do something for the judge! My guesses may be all wrong, but if they’re right Jimmie and I will have to do some quick work.”

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

“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.

“‘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.’

“‘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.

“‘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.’

“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?”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“’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.

They went out through the front of the garage. Clancy hated to leave the place alone, but he reflected that Pruitt[16] 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.”

CHAPTER X.
HELPING THE JUDGE.

Cerro Gordo Street was a wide, paved thoroughfare, with date palms bordering it on both sides between walk and curb. There were four corners, of course, to the intersection of the two streets, and the two youths halted in the shadow of a palm to decide which corner was the one that ought to claim their attention.

“How we goin’ to know which casa is the judge’s?” murmured Fortune blankly.

“According to that diagram of Hibbard’s,” Owen returned, “there’s an addition jutting out from the Pembroke house toward Cerro Gordo Street. Maybe that will give us a clew.”

“I don’t think so, Jimmie. They’d be foolish to leave the machine too close to the house. You stay here while I do a little quiet investigating.”

Leaving Fortune in the black shadow of the palm, Clancy moved off cautiously along Cerro Gordo Street, toward the right. In that direction he failed to find the house that seemed to tally with Hibbard’s roughly drawn plan.

Returning on the opposite side of the street, creeping like a wraith from the shadow of one palm to the shadow of another, he crossed Second Avenue and reconnoitered in another direction.

Here he had better success. On the other side of Cerro Gordo Street was a house with a glass conservatory jutting out. The yard was a mass of dark shrubbery which the faint glow from the electric light on the corner could not penetrate.

“That must be the place,” thought Clancy. “I’ll go down a little farther and cross over. If I’m careful, I may find out what Hibbard and Long Tom are doing.”

From palm to palm he skulked along Cerro Gordo Street, and then, suddenly, came to a halt. Ahead of him, at the curb, stood a motor car. It did not show a light.

“There’s the machine Hibbard took from the garage,” thought Clancy, “and it proves we’re on the right trail.”

He investigated the car and found that it was Pembroke’s big six-cylinder machine, the one that had figured in events earlier in the day. There was no one around the car, and this proved that both plotters were giving their attention to the house.

“Here’s nerve!” muttered Clancy. “Hibbard is using the judge’s car for his night’s work, and will run away with it when he gets through at the house, unless—— Well, I’ll fix the machine so he won’t run away with it.”

Getting up on the running board, Clancy reached over to the dash and removed the switch plug. After that he sped lightly to the opposite side of the street and returned along the side of the judge’s premises.

Getting down on his knees under the lee of an iron fence, he crawled past the house, listening sharply as he proceeded. He could hear nothing. Not a sound reached his ears that would indicate that anything unusual was taking place around the house or inside it.

At the corner, Clancy arose to his feet. A few seconds later he was with his comrade again.

“I’ve spotted the house,” Clancy answered, “and the car. Fixed the car so it can’t be used. If those chaps try to get away in it, they’ll have their trouble for their pains.”

“I came past the yard but couldn’t hear or see anything of them. We’ll have to get over the iron fence and prowl through the shrubbery, Jimmie. Of course, they’re there—they must be. And it’s up to us to find them and block their game, whatever it is.”

“Wisht I had a gun,” said Fortune. “Both them fellers are heeled, and I’ll bet my spurs! What’ll we do if they poke a muzzle in our faces, huh?”

Clancy led the way to the Cerro Gordo Street side of the Pembroke property, and he and Fortune crouched under the iron fence and listened intently. Still there was not a sound to be heard.

“Mebby we’ve made a mistake, pard,” whispered Fortune. “Like enough it’s another house. Wisht I knowed more about the jedge and the wigwam where he camps. What if we’re wrong? While we’re loafin’ here, Hibbard and Chantay Seeche may be doin’ their work on one of the other three cornders.”

“I don’t think we’re wrong,” returned Clancy, in a tense undertone. “This is our best bet, anyway. We’ve got to get over the fence and look around, Jimmie. Make as little noise as you can, and keep close to me.”

“It ’u’d take a hull lot to pry me loose from you at this stage o’ the game, Red,” answered Fortune. “Two’s comp’ny, jest about now, and I’m right hongry for comp’ny.”

Laying hands on top of the iron fence, Clancy bounded lightly over and into the yard. Fortune tried to vault, but his boots handicapped him. The toe of one of them caught on an iron picket and he came down among the bushes in a sprawl. He started to sputter, but Clancy laid a quick hand over his lips.

So far as they could discover, Fortune’s floundering had not aroused any one. After a few moments, they began crawling toward the side wall of the house.

They reached the wall about midway of the length of[17] the house. There they paused and continued to listen and peer around them.

“Let’s make sure of it before we leave,” returned Clancy. “You crawl toward the front and I’ll go toward the rear. If you hear or see anything suspicious, don’t try to let me know. I’ll join you before long, and then you can tell me.”

Clancy’s maneuvers brought him point-blank against the glass side of the conservatory. He had found not the least sign of intruders. Half convinced that he and Fortune were really on the wrong trail, he crawled forward along the wall to get his friend and carry investigations elsewhere.

Fortune, however, had made a discovery which caused Clancy to change his plans for leaving the premises.

Clancy arose to his knees. Fortune was right. There was a window, there, with the lower sash raised.

“By Jove!” murmured Clancy, in his companion’s ear. “It’s a case of robbery, and both those fellows are inside!”

“We’ll wait till they come out, pard,” said Fortune excitedly, “and nab ’em one at a time, as they drap. They won’t be able to shoot, if we’re quick.”

“That’s me and my fool headwork, ag’in!” grunted Fortune. “You boss this job, Red, and I’ll foller orders. What’s the next move?”

“Don’t you! Mebby the winder’s only open fer air, and you’ll be grabbed for a thief yourself. I wouldn’t go inside that estakazol for a farm!”

“If the window was opened for air, Jimmie, the screen wouldn’t have been taken off, would it?”

“Hibbard and Long Tom are inside, and I’m going to make sure they don’t get out through a door with any boodle.”

“Gee-wollops! I’m so narvous I feel as though I wanted to yell. But go on. I’ll stay here.”

Clancy had been pulling off his shoes. Fortune did not have to tell him what disagreeable consequences would follow if he crawled into Judge Pembroke’s house and failed to find Hibbard and Long Tom there. Clancy’s imagination was good enough to picture his plight in such a condition of affairs. But, nevertheless, he was determined to go in.

Carefully he placed his hands on the sill, drew himself upward and wriggled through into the darkness of the room beyond. Fortune had many tremors as he watched his pard vanish.

“By glory,” said Jimmie to himself, as he crouched downward and made himself as small as possible, “Red has got a heap more nerve than me. I don’t allow I could do a thing like that, noways.”

As for Owen, whenever he made up his mind that it was necessary to do a thing, he banked on his judgment and did it. He might be wrong. If he was, he could explain to the judge.

Once inside the room with the open window, Clancy found himself in surroundings totally unfamiliar. And he dared not strike a light for fear of betraying himself—not only to Hibbard and Long Tom, but also to the judge’s household. Either might spell disaster for him.

As he stood in the gloom, he recalled as distinctly as possible, the diagram which Hibbard had drawn for Chantay Seeche Long. He wished, then, that he had paid more attention to that rude drawing.

As near as he could remember, this room had two doors, one in the front wall and another in the rear. If he was right, through which of those doors had Hibbard and Long Tom passed?

He reflected that they would not go toward the front of the house, providing they could get what they were after by keeping more to the rear of the building.

“I’ll chance the rear door,” thought Clancy, and groped his way in that direction.

He went slowly, avoiding chairs, and passing around a table. At the wall, he ran his hands carefully over the blank surface until they came to a swinging curtain. He pulled the curtain aside and reached out. His hand encountered only space beyond, and his eyes stared into pitchy darkness.

“I’m headed right,” he said to himself. “Those fellows went this way and left the door open. Now I’ll——”

His thoughts suddenly left him. Out of the blank gloom two arms stretched themselves, enfolded him in a viselike embrace, and wrenched his feet out from under him. He fell soddenly on a thick carpet, with a knee on his chest and pinning him down.

CHAPTER XI.
CAUGHT RED-HANDED.

That sudden attack was a big surprise to Clancy. Sure that Hibbard and Long Tom had turned the tables on him, he tried to yell and arouse the house and convey a warning to Fortune. A hand was clapped over his mouth, however, and outcry was impossible.

“Stop your struggling!” a voice hissed in Clancy’s ear. “And don’t try to call out. It will be the worse for you, if you do. I am holding a revolver to your breast, and, if I have to, I will use it.”

Here was another surprise for Clancy. A refined voice, although with a crisp, businesslike ring, had done the talking. Certainly it was not Hibbard’s voice, and it could not possibly be Chantay Seeche Tom’s. Whose, then, was it?

“That’s none of your affair,” came the sharp answer. “How many of your pals are in this house? I heard them, a while ago, and came downstairs. What are you after, anyhow?”

“That’s a likely story! What are you doing in here if you don’t belong to the gang?”

“I came here to do what I could to prevent the villains from robbing the judge. Judge Pembroke knows me. A[18] friend of mine and I blundered upon a tip that something was going to happen here to-night. There wasn’t time to call the police, and we came to see what we could do for the judge.”

“You can’t expect me to believe any such stuff as that,” he answered. “How many, besides yourself, are in this house?”

“Hibbard! He knew about that Prescott money, and he’s probably trying to get hands on it. We’ll give them a jolt, I guess. Don’t move—stay right where you are!”

The man reached away from Clancy and half arose. Snap! An electric switch was pressed and a glow of light flooded the room.

For a second, Clancy was blinded, and could see little. As his vision cleared, he discovered that the man who had made a prisoner of him was a young fellow, who bore a striking facial resemblance to the judge. He wore a blanket robe and slippers, and held a small, automatic pistol in his right hand.

“Jove!” murmured the chap with the gun. “You don’t look much like a tough, and that’s a fact. But circumstances are against you, my lad. See that door yonder?”

They were in what was evidently the dining room. As the young man spoke, he nodded toward a door on the other side of the apartment.

“That door leads into a hall, and the hall leads to the governor’s study. There is a safe in the study, and the Prescott money is in the safe. Your pals are there, I presume. Walk ahead of me. I’m going to pay them a visit and use you as a screen against any bullets they send in my direction. Start!”

“Hibbard has no love for me,” said he, “and he’ll probably be glad to shoot when he sees who I am. There are two of them, and they must be armed. You don’t want them to get away, do you?”

“I don’t want them to get away with the money. I guess I’ll be able to save that. Stir yourself—we can’t lose any more time.”

The curtain of the doorway through which Clancy had just come was pushed back. The bright glow in the dining room shone out through the doorway and into the room with the open window.

Clancy, shifting his eyes toward the drawn curtain, whirled like lightning. In a flash he had knocked aside the pistol in his captor’s hand and had overthrown him. As the young man dropped, fire streamed through the curtained doorway. A revolver roared in the other room and a bullet crashed into a piece of china on the sideboard and then broke the heavy French mirror behind it into a thousand fragments.

If Clancy had not been quick, that bullet would have struck the young fellow with the gun, for it traversed a line that crossed the exact point where he had been standing.

The young fellow was quick-witted, and, while at first he may have misunderstood Clancy’s action, the crash of the bullet gave him knowledge of the true state of affairs.

“Keep back, if you’re not armed!” shouted the other, bounding erect and dashing through the door.

Clancy was ahead of him, but, swift as they were, they were too late. The prowlers had flung themselves through the window, and wild yells were coming from the yard, where Fortune, single-handed, was having all and more than he could attend to.

There was excitement in other parts of the great house. Voices were calling, doors were opening and closing, and feet could be heard running down the stairs and over hardwood floors.

“Don’t fire!” he exclaimed. “A friend of mine is out there—you might hit him. Are you the judge’s son?”

“Yes,” was the answer, “and I want to get this over with before the governor presents himself. He might get hurt. Are you game to follow those fellows?”

There was the flutter of a bath robe in the open window, then the space cleared for Clancy. He landed on the ground beside Pembroke.

“They’ve skipped,” said Pembroke. “Even your friend isn’t here! Which way do you think the scoundrels went?”

Clancy darted for the fence and cleared the iron pickets at a bound. Young Pembroke was tight at his heels.

“If they’ve got a car,” he panted, “they’re bound to get away from us.”

“You’re a wonder, old man!” he cried. “And I thought, when I nailed you, that I had one of the thieves!”

Two dark figures could be seen rushing across the street toward the dark bulk of the car.

“There they go!” exclaimed Clancy. “They’ve got a surprise in store for themselves! Look, they’re trying to crank the engine.”

One of the forms could be seen working at the front of the car. He started up with a frantic oath.

A figure jumped from the tonneau of the machine and flung off through the night. Hibbard, who had been pulling the crank, ran back along the line of palm trees.

Clancy took after him, and, for a minute, there was an exciting chase. Clancy, however, was far and away the better sprinter. As he came close to Hibbard, the latter turned and brandished a revolver.

Clancy ducked, lurched forward, and came up under the extended arm whose hand gripped the revolver. There was a bit of a struggle, and then Hibbard fell, the red-headed chap on top of him.

“Then the other scoundrel has the money. I couldn’t find it in the car. Dash it! We’ll have to call in the police—and maybe it’s too late. We’ll take Hibbard to the house, where we can use the telephone. Let him up, old chap.”

Clancy drew away from Hibbard, while Pembroke caught his arm and leveled the “automatic.”

“You’re a nice sort of a chap, aren’t you?” sneered Pembroke. “Robbing the man for whom you used to work! Get up!”

The latter stooped and gathered in the weapon, which had fallen from the chauffeur’s hand when he fell.

“Come on to the house, Hibbard,” said young Pembroke. “We’ll let the governor talk with you.”

“I don’t want to talk with the judge,” growled Hibbard. “Take me to jail, if that’s what you’re plannin’ to do.”

“Not much! You’ll face the governor. Step lively, and don’t try to get away. If you make a move to run, the bullets will chase you!”

Between Clancy and Pembroke the rascally chauffeur was led back toward the house.

“I don’t know whether I am or not,” Clancy answered. “I guess Mr. Pembroke was next to what you were doing before we reached the house.”

“You’d better jug me,” said Hibbard to Clancy, through his teeth, “or I’ll camp on your trail and settle for you. You’re running up a pretty big score.”

“Then you’re the fellow who repaired the governor’s car, out on the trail. He told us about you. Sorry I mistook you for a burglar, Clancy!”

“I hardly see how you could help it,” Clancy returned. “Wonder where the deuce Fortune is?” he added, as he and Pembroke and Hibbard mounted the front steps of the house.

The front door of the house was open, and the judge, in shirt, trousers, and slippers, stood in the entrance.

“What in the world is the matter, Larry?” the judge queried, staring at his son. “Has there been a robbery?”

“That’s the size of it, dad,” answered young Pembroke. “Your Prescott money has gone to Ballyhack, I reckon. There were two of the scoundrels, and the other fellow gave us the slip. He must have had the canvas bag.”

“Never mind the money,” said the judge, “if you’re not hurt. Who’s that you have there?”

“One of them is young Clancy, the chap who repaired your car out in the hills. He came here to prevent the robbery, if he could. The other is Hibbard. He knew about that Prescott money, and came here after it.”

The judge led the way into the drawing-room. A number of the women members of the household were clustered there, shivering with fright. The judge reassured them, and sent them upstairs. After they were gone, he turned to his son, Clancy, and the prisoner.

“I can’t understand this,” said he. “Hibbard, did you come to this house to rob me?”

“I don’t look as though I was here of my own free will, do I?” the chauffeur replied, with an ugly leer.

“I heard some one in the house,” explained Larry, “and went down to the dining room. Some one was just coming through the window, and I waited for him at the door leading from the den into the dining room. When I grabbed him, he proved to be Clancy, there.”

“No, dad, it isn’t possible that he’s one of the thieves. He came to warn us about the robbery, but got to the house a little too late. He saved me from getting nipped by a bullet—upset me just as one of the robbers pulled a trigger; after that, he joined in the chase and downed Hibbard single-handed. Clancy has proved a good friend of ours this night.”

“He’s equal to a thing like this! I can easily believe that he had a hand in it. I’m out five thousand dollars, but——”

“Jedge, you ain’t out a cent! I happened to grab the bag in the yard, and I ran off with it like a streak o’ greased lightnin’. James Montague Fortune has done somethin’, at last, that didn’t have a bobble in it! Whoop!”

All eyes turned toward the broad doorway that led from the drawing-room into the hall. Fortune stood there, striking an attitude, and holding high a small canvas bag. His face wore a broad and complacent grin.

“Well, here’s luck!” exclaimed Larry Pembroke. “Clancy and his friend have saved the day for us, after all!”

CHAPTER XII.
HIBBARD WEAKENS.

Clancy was mightily relieved to know that Fortune had not only kept himself from being injured, but had also covered himself with glory by saving the five thousand dollars.

“Good for you, Jimmie!” Clancy exclaimed. “How did you ever manage to get away with that bag of money?”

“Plumb easy!” returned Fortune, swaggering into the room. “I was waitin’ under the open winder, where you left me, Clancy, and I was all of a shake on account o’ hearin’ that revolver shot. While I was still in a quiver, them cimiroons drapped the money out and started to foller it. I jumped for the bag. While I was pickin’ it up, one of the junipers fell on me. We had a mix, but I tore loose and sloped for the iron fence. Say, I got over that fence with about six feet in the clear. Then I ran till I was clean winded. By then, I allowed it was safe to turn around and come back. I was in sight when some o’ you came in the front door—so I trailed along. Jedge,” and he turned to Pembroke, “allow me to fork over the missin’ dinero!” With that, he placed the bag in the judge’s hand.

“Explain this to me,” said the judge. “With so many of you concerned in what happened it is a little difficult to follow the sequence of events. Clancy, how did you and Fortune come to learn that my house was to be robbed?”

Clancy explained, and in that explanation he did his friend full credit. Fortune, however, put in a few words to the effect that Clancy’s brains in following up the clew, helped out more than any work of his own.

“I stumble onto a heap o’ things,” observed Jimmie, grinning, “but I ain’t got the sabe to figger ’em out. My red-headed pard is the feller who does that.”

During Clancy’s recital the fact had developed that Fortune was occupying Clancy’s bed at the rear of the garage when Hibbard and Tom Long came hunting for the note. This was a revelation which Hibbard listened to with wide eyes.

“Thunder!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “I deserve all that’s comin’ to me for makin’ that bobble!”

“Hibbard,” said the judge, sternly facing the chauffeur, “this is pretty bad business for you. I suppose you know what this means to you?”

“I’m not doing any sobbing,” snarled Hibbard. “Put on the screws—I reckon I can stand it.”

“Give him the limit, dad,” urged Larry. “He deserves it—treating you like this after the way you’ve treated him for the past six months.”

“You knew, did you, Hibbard,” he went on to the chauffeur, “that I was expecting to get this five thousand from Prescott for the sale of a ranch there?”

“You thought I’d gone to Prescott after the money, but you did not know that the purchaser of the ranch brought it to Phoenix to me, and that I received it after banking hours?”

“I didn’t know that, but I figgered that you couldn’t return from Prescott till after the bank had closed, and would have to keep the money in the study safe,” answered Hibbard. “The only difference your not goin’ to Prescott made, was that you caught me out with the car.”

“You slipped off to tell Chantay Seeche Tom about the money and to get his help in robbing me?”

“Hibbard,” said the judge, “I don’t want to be hard on you. Make a clean breast of everything, and I’ll let you go. You’ve got a father and mother in Mesa, and they’re good friends of mine. I don’t want to do anything to bring disgrace upon them. But,” and the judge’s face grew stern, “I’ll put you through for this if you don’t tell me everything about the affair.”

“I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean,” was the quiet reply.

“Yes. Tom was to come in to Phoenix and meet me at the Palace. After that, we were to get the note from Clancy and make a grab for your five thousand.”

“Rockwell?” burst from Clancy. “Do you mean to say that Rockwell hired you to steal that note from me?”

“He don’t want to pay the note. If Clancy hasn’t got it, how can he collect on it?”

“Oh, he’s a shark, Uncle Si is,” struck in Fortune. “That’s what I told Red. Maybe he’ll believe me, now.”

“Yes,” said Clancy, “it was a note for a thousand dollars, given to my father. I came to Phoenix to collect it. Rockwell said the note was all right, and that he would get the money together, in a week or two, and take it up. Meanwhile, I was to work in his garage at fifty dollars a month.”

“That was just a scheme,” put in Hibbard, “to get Clancy in a place where it would be easy to take the note away from him.”

“And you and Chantay Seeche Tom,” said Larry, with a laugh, “tied up the wrong fellow, and couldn’t find the note!”

“That’s where they got fooled!” chuckled Fortune. “I was all wrapped up in a blanket, and they didn’t know the difference between me and my pard. Funniest thing that ever happened; only it wasn’t so blame’ funny for me while it was happenin’.”

“Clancy,” said the judge, “you had better let me take that note and keep it for you. To-morrow I’ll see that you get justice from this scoundrel, Rockwell. I owe you that, and more.”

Clancy had made a powerful friend. He realized that, and was quick to take the note from the wallet and put it in the hands of Judge Pembroke.

“I’m sorry,” went on the judge, “that you agreed to work for Rockwell and turned down my offer. I hired a driver an hour after I left you——”

“And here was me, bankin’ on gettin’ that job!” he wailed. “Oh, jedge, this here is what I call blame’ tough!”

“Maybe I can do something for you,” said the judge, smiling, “or do something for Clancy so he can help you. I’ll come to the Red Star Garage to-morrow morning, at ten. Meet me there, Clancy, and we’ll see what can be done.”

“I’ll be there, judge,” answered Clancy, “and I’ll be mighty grateful for anything you can do that will help me.”

“I’ll wring that thousand dollars out of Rockwell, you may be sure of that.” The judge once more turned to Hibbard. “How did you and Long Tom get into the safe? You didn’t blow it open.”

“Worked the combination. You had the combination changed, a spell ago, and I stole the paper from your pocketbook, one day, when I had you out in the car. After I copied the number, I put the paper back in the pocketbook, and got the leather into your pocket again without your knowin’.”

“Hibbard,” observed the judge, more in sorrow than in anger, “you’re a bad one! You’ve gone down grade pretty fast since you went to work for me and had dealings with Rockwell.”

“Any one will hit the toboggan that gets mixed up with Rockwell,” declared Hibbard. “Anything else you want to know, judge?”

“No, Hibbard; you can go. For the sake of your people, I hope you will live a different life from now on.”

He pointed to the door, and Dirk Hibbard, with head bowed, passed through it and out of the house.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE JUDGE TAKES A HAND.

Clancy did not return to the Red Star Garage that night. He went to a hotel with Jimmie Fortune, and the two of them slept late the next morning, had breakfast at a[21] restaurant at nine o’clock, and, when ten strokes boomed from the courthouse clock, made their way to the garage.

The judge and Rockwell were alone in the office when the two youths entered the place.

“Get out of here, both of you!” shouted Rockwell. “I know that young scalawag, Fortune, and I don’t want him around, on general principles. As for you, Clancy, I have no use for a fellow who can’t be trusted. You didn’t stay in the back room last night, and you didn’t show up here in time for work this morning. That’s what lets you out.”

“Just a minute,” interposed the judge, taking a long wallet from his pocket. “Before Clancy leaves this place, Rockwell, you’d better settle your account with him.” He took the note from the wallet and laid it down on the desk in front of the garage owner. “Give him a check for a thousand dollars,” finished the judge, “and no words about it.”

Rockwell appeared astounded. His startled eyes traveled to the judge and then returned to the note.

“I—I told Clancy I’d take this up in a week or two,” he muttered shiftily.

“You’re going to take it up now,” said Judge Pembroke. “I know you have the money in the bank, and that note is long past due. Be sure and add the interest when you make out the check.”

“You don’t know about this note, judge,” continued Rockwell. “I don’t reckon I owe the money or——”

“Why did you just say you had told Clancy you’d pay it in a week or two, if you questioned the validity of the note?”

“Don’t hem and haw and side-step with me,” said the judge sternly. “You have been trying to beat young Clancy out of the money. Do you want me to tell your customers how you hired Hibbard to steal that note from Clancy so you could get out of paying it? Would that sound well?”

Rockwell fell back in his chair, limp and dumfounded. His lips moved, but no sound came from them.

“You see,” pursued the judge relentlessly, “that I know what I am talking about. I’ll publish your contemptible methods far and wide if you don’t instantly settle this debt. I’m not here to waste words on you. Write that check!”

With his face ashen and his hands trembling, Rockwell, thoroughly cowed, bent over his desk. Fishing a check book out of a pigeonhole, he opened it, picked up a pen, and did a little figuring on a scratch block. When he wrote the check, it was for one thousand one hundred and twenty dollars.

“There, Clancy,” said the judge, handing the check to Owen. “Now you are square with Rockwell, and need have nothing more to do with him. There is a young fellow in this town who has recently opened a garage. He is square as a die, and I happen to know that you can buy a half interest in his place for that money. Of course,” and the judge smiled, “it isn’t a big place like this, but the business is growing. I’d advise you to buy in with Lafe Wynn.”

“Wynn?” murmured Rockwell. “He’s one of my competitors. I didn’t think, judge, that you’d do anything to help Lafe Wynn.”

“I’ll do everything to help Lafe Wynn,” said Judge Pembroke, getting up from his chair. “Clancy will buy a half interest, give a job to his friend, Jimmie Fortune, and it won’t be many months, Rockwell, until Clancy & Wynn run you out of business. They’ll treat their patrons on the square—and that’s a principle that will help them to grow. Don’t think for a minute,” he added, “that I don’t know how I have been robbed here. I’ve suspected what was going on, and now I’m no longer in doubt. My two cars are going over to the Square-deal Garage—and I guess I know a few more cars that will follow them.”

“You might be easy with me,” whimpered Rockwell, “now that I’ve given Clancy that money.”

“Easy with you for paying an honest debt?” returned the judge contemptuously. “Why, man, if you had your deserts you would be in jail.” He moved toward the door. “Come on, Clancy,” said he, “you and Fortune. We’re through here.”

The judge left the place, Clancy and Fortune trailing along behind him. The two pards were smiling happily, and Fortune was hanging to Clancy’s hand and working his arm up and down like a pump handle.

“We’ll see about this,” he muttered, between his teeth, shaking his fist. “I’ll break that new firm of Clancy & Wynn. You’re a keen one, Pembroke, but you’ll find that I can go you one better. I—I reckon I shouldn’t have trusted that fellow, Hibbard, after all,” he added, as he turned heavily away from the window.

Continuing to follow the fortunes of Owen Clancy, Burt L. Standish has written a cracking good story, which you will find in the next issue of this weekly. It is entitled “Owen Clancy’s Square Deal; or, The Motor Wizard and the Black Thunderbolt.” Owen buys a half interest in Lafe Wynn’s garage and settles down to make good. The Black Thunderbolt is an automobile, and it is “some car.” There are some mighty exciting doings in it, too. The issue in which this story will be found will be out next week, on January 24th. It is No. 78.

HALL OF SHELLS.

An English traveler who has recently returned from Berlin gives an interesting account in one of the local papers of his visit to the new palace of the kaiser, at Potsdam.

There are many things which make the palace interesting to the privileged visitor, not the least among which is the kitchen, which stands in a separate building. Frederick the Great hated the smells of the kitchen and he had that most necessary adjunct to every house moved away from the palace. The eatables were conveyed to the royal dining hall by an underground passage. Emperor William still keeps up the custom of his predecessor.

The dining hall of the palace is small, as palace dining rooms go, and contains some very valuable paintings, but for formal events and even for family affairs, now that the kaiser’s family is getting to be so large, the great marble hall upstairs is used. Three hundred can dine at one time in this hall. Here have gathered nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, and on those occasions huge candles[22] are used for lighting instead of the more modern electric light.

Other rooms of interest are the kaiser’s smoking room, to which some wonderful vases have recently been added, the gift of a visiting Chinese prince. The private palace of the theater holds about 350 persons and the stage is arranged to produce all the latest scenic effects. The kaiser prefers light comedy, and this is the kind of entertainment he gives his guests.

The most interesting apartment in the entire palace, however, is undoubtedly the hall of shells. The room is most beautiful, its walls adorned with thousands of shells of all kinds. They have been arranged deftly in charming patterns, while other shells in grottoes give a wonderful effect when lighted by electricity. It was in this room that Colonel Roosevelt, when ex-president, was entertained by the kaiser. The famous Imperial Christmas tree is set up in this room.

The kaiser has his own railway station at Wildpark, which is only a short distance from the palace.

The Wonderful Adventures of Cap’n Wiley.

INTRODUCTORY.

I was sitting in my den desperately seeking the germ thought for a story when Cap’n Wiley blew in and appropriated the easy-chair.

“Ah, there, old top,” said he. “So I’ve caught you red-handed in your little sanctum sanctotum. What meaneth the distraught look which corregateth thy dome of thought?”

“Don’t do it,” he entreated. “You’re taking a frightful chance when you put such a strain on your impoverished gray matter. You don’t have to think to write the sort of souperific stuff you slosh out.”

“Don’t I!” I cried, exasperated. “Well, now, perhaps you think you could write it yourself?”

“No,” he answered cheerfully, “nothing quite as distressing. Now, if I was going to write, I’d hand the yearning public some real littery litterchewer, just for a change. I say, Burt, old sport, I think I’ll try one of your Havana imperfectos, if you have one inconvenient at hand.”

I brought out a box of cigars, and he helped himself to a handful. Then he “borrowed” a match, fired up, and settled back, with a sigh of satisfaction, on the easy-chair.

“Yes,” he murmured, “I think I could do it. I come from an immoderately cultured family. Why, my sister was educated in a female cemetery.”

“No, I don’t; I mean a female cemetery. Why, where else would a young lady learn the dead languages?”

“But,” pursued the marine marvel, “it really wouldn’t be necessary for me to consort to fiction; if I were to write a truthful verbatem history of my own career from the cradle to the Hall of Fame, it would prove so fascinating that the reading public would gobble it up with humidity.”

I slipped him the skeptical smile, which seemed to arouse him to a point of high resentment.

“Say, you give me a cramp!” he exclaimed resentfully. “You think I can’t deliver the goods, hey? Well, I’ll show you, some. You’ve been grafting off me for some time by plaguerizing such little mementos of my chilling adventures as I have chanced to let drop in casual conversation with you, and I’m highly distended over it.

“Now, take it from me, Burt, from this mementous hour you cease to yearn your bread and butter by parisiting on little Walter. I’m going to write my own naughty biography, and I’ll do a job at it that will put your style of bunkoing the reading public strictly on the blink. I have only one fear: what if, on publication of my personal reminoosances, some one should be unfeeling and thoughtless enough to doubt my absolute voracity? That would break my tender heart.

“Nevertheless, I’ll take a chance, remembering, as the poet puts it, that truth must rise triumphant, even though it may seem to be getting walloped groggy. Farewell, Burt. Bide a wee. You’ll gaze on my beaming counterpane no more until I have completed the colossal task I have vowed to undertake. I observe by the beautiful hand-painted culendar above your rosewood desk that it is now the conclusive day of the month of March. I shall begin my labors upon the morrow.”

I did not set eyes upon him again for more than two months, but, as he frequently absented himself for more or less protracted periods, I thought nothing of it. When he did turn up again I had quite forgotten about his threat to write his autobiography, and I don’t think I ever mentioned it to him. Some months later he met with that sad and terrible accident which brought his really adventurous life to a tragic termination.

Recently, in looking through a trunk in which were stowed some of the cap’n’s effects, a relative discovered a huge bundle of foolscap paper carefully tied up with ribbons made of cigar bands taken from my own cigars on various visits of Walter to my den. The paper was covered with writing, almost undecipherable in its hasty scrawl, which told that the penman had dashed off every line at fever heat. It proved to be the autobiography, and was given into my hands.

I have edited it with some pains, being at times compelled to use the blue pencil freely, and to tone down in many places the cap’n’s flamboyant style.

CHAPTER I.
ITCHING FOR ADVENTURE.

I was a beautiful baby, even though, like most babies, I was born without any hair or teeth to speak of; and if I had had them I probably wouldn’t have spoken of them at the time, which I offer as absolute proof of my natural modesty. I was also a most precocious baby, absolutely remarkable, in evidence of which I will state that at the age of six months I was distinctly heard to say “boo” and “oog.”

On hearing these pearls of intelligence and wisdom fall from my rosebud lips my mother became quite convinced that I was doomed to a wonderful career as a statesman,[23] a diplomap, or a street-car conductor. Chauffeurs were not in vogue at the time.

It may be well to skim over the days of my childhood and early youth, and plunge at once into the seething vortext of adventures which befell me when, at the tender age of sweet sixteen, I fared forth with an eager heart, and a father’s good riddance, to face the world and grapple with fortune. Perhaps it is not strictly accurate to say that I fared forth, as, not having the necessary wampum with which to pay my fare by rail, I locomoted per Shank’s mare.

It was at the witching hour of midnight that I bade the ancestral rooftree so long, sincerely hoping that it would be so long before I beheld it again that I might forget to remember what it looked like. The discerning reader will divine by this naïve confession of my feelings at the time, that my life up to that date had not exactly been one grand, sweet song.

When I crept down the back stairs and let myself out of the Wiley tepee by the kitchen door, I took with me a more or less elaborate cuisine of extra clothing tied up in a bandanna handkerchief. I was followed by little Fido, my faithful dog. Little Fido was a cross between a Skioodle and an Angostora goat, and he weighed about three pounds and seven ounces, when trained down to fighting condition. I’ve seen him chaw up a forty-pound bulldog quicker than a woodchuck could whip a bear.

Between little Fido and myself there existed an affection that was deep and tender and touching. He was an animal of high intelligence, and I was perfectly convinced by the stealthy and syruptitious manner in which he slunk from the house at my heels that he was fully aware of the fact that I was running away, and he was determined to flee with me.

You understand, it is not difficult for a dog to flea with any one, and we had slept together many a night. Is it any wonder that I had an itching for adventure? When the time came to set forth in quest of that for which I itched I certainly came up to the scratch.

And so, behold me, gentle reader, on that dark and gloomy midnight, making my get-away with faithful little Fido gamboling at my heels. Dark it was, indeed—so dark that a load of coal that had been dumped outside the back door of the Wiley domicile looked like a snowdrift. Nevertheless, also, and likewise, I knew the lay of the land, and the points of the compass, and, having reached the highway, I hastened to hie away.

It must not be thought for a single fleeting zodiac of time that I was taking this nocturnal departure from home without feeling as much as a transient emotion of regret, for I have a naturally tender and touching nature, in proof of which I might call upon hundreds of persons whom I have touched on various occasions.

I shed tears at the thought of all I was leaving behind me—tears of sincere regret; for there were about ten or a dozen persons in that town whom I had sworn to thrash within an inch of their lives, and I was saddened by the thought that I was leaving the work unaccomplished.

Blinded by these tears, as well as the intense darkness, I came near meeting with a frightful disaster while taking a short cut across a back yard; for I fell about twenty-five feet into an old well, and landed in water that was at least umsteen feet deep. Perhaps it is not precisely accurate to say that I landed in that water; suffice it to say that I dropped into it casually up to my pompadore, and found it extremely wet.

“Ah-ha!” I exclaimed, coughing up about a gallon of aqua pura which I had thoughtlessly swallowed. “I’m in a hole now.”

I began to feel of the wet and slippery rocks around me, and I must assert that, in spite of my unpleasant predicament, I was feeling well. In vain I tried to fasten my flippers on those slippery rocks; they were smoother than a con man. I couldn’t obtain a sustaining hold anywhere, and I was compelled to tread water to keep my head above the surface.

Now, treading water in a well about twenty-five feet below the level of terra firma is an occupation that becomes monotonous in the course of time. If you don’t believe me, just try it once. It will make you tired. It did me. I sought to brace my hands and feet against opposite sides of the well, and to crawl upward in that manner, but every time I attempted it I slipped down. If I could only have slipped up I should have been very happy indeed.

I could hear little Fido howling dolefully and despairingly above me. The intelligent beast knew, beyond doubt, the full extent of my frightful peril.

Gradually I was growing benumbed by the icy chill of the water and exhausted by my efforts, and I realized that unless I could soon find some method of extricating myself from that well my bath was going to disagree with me very extensively. So, while still treading water, I put my colossal intellect at work upon the problem.

It seemed a terrible thing to have the career of adventure upon which I had set forth cut short at such an early date. The prospect was far from pleasing.

Luckily for me, no one heard the remark, for if any one had he might have been tempted to drop a brick upon my head.

At last I was struck by a bright idea—an idea that made me chortle with glee and wonder why it had not occurred to me before. It was so simple!

I will explain for the edification of the unsuspecting reader that I have always been a great athlete, and the possessor of scandalous strength. I once lifted a horse and buggy. I had quite a time over it, I acknowledge; the judge gave me three months.

When the happy thought came over me I was almost overcome. As soon as I could find my breath I proceeded to put it into execution. More than one person has lost his breath by putting it into execution, but what’s the use of being hanged if you can help it? While treading water I reached down with both hands, secured a good, firm grip on the later portion of my trowserloons, took a long breath, and lifted with all my enormous strength.

The result justified my agreeable expectations. I felt myself rising! I kept on rising faster and faster, straining every nerve in the tremendous effort. In this manner I lifted myself clean out of that twenty-five-foot well, and fell, panting and exhausted, upon the solid earth, my strength failing me just as I was fully and fairly above ground.

CHAPTER II.
FIDO TO THE RESCUE.

Despite my narrow escape from a watery grave, my larder for adventure was not dampened in the least, and so, with my little dog percolating at my heels, I tramped onward throughout the remainder of that night, with my face set toward Boston.

Morning came at last. I was far from home when dawn broke across the wold. (I use the word “wold” instead of world because it sounds more poetic, and I am naturally of a highly poetic extinction.) Little birds began to carol in the wayside thickets, crickets cricked in the grass, in a near-by marsh frogs were celebrating morning mass in a masterly manner, and eventually the sun rose into a sky as blue as a poker player who has bet his last blooming chip on four kings and found that some other crook at the table holds four aces.

It was a beautiful morning, but, having been born with a decided penchant for food, without which I have unfortunately, up to the present date, found it quite difficult to subsist, I had no eye for the beauties of the universe scattered around me. My stomach was hollow.

I knew that little Fido must also be hungry, although he had bravely refrained from saying so.

I knocked at the door of a house, and a kind lady came out and asked me what I wanted. I told her I was that flemished that I knew I could find nutriment even in the hole of a doughnut, which I would demonstrate to her satisfaction if she had a few doughnut holes to spare.

At first the lady was somewhat suspicious. She asked me for my name and pedigree. I told her my name was Johnny Jones, but that I had carelessly mislaid my pedigree, and lost the blame thing. In order to allay her suspicions, I related a pathetic tale about a great-grandmother who was dying in Boston, and whose bedside I hoped to reach before the doctors could finish her.

She was touched. She told me she was a widow, and I congratulated her on the spur of the moment. She promised refreshments for me and my dog if I would perform some slight manual labor by sawing a cord of wood or so for her. The wood was in the woodshed. I inspected it with a sad and regretful eye. It never did agree with me to saw wood, and I offered to shovel the sunshine off the widow’s front walk.

But she was impervious to my argument, and so, peeling off my coat, I seized the bucksaw and went at it. The saw needed honing, and I must admit that I was greatly discouraged by the time I had amputated the first stick or two. I knew I’d never last to finish the job on an empty stomach, and this led me to set my colossal intellect at work on the problem.

The widow had gone into the house to get breakfast. I paused and pondered. A scheme came to me. I made an effort and found that by zizzing my breath through my teeth and lips I could produce an excellent imitation of a dull bucksaw cutting through a stick of wood. For the next half hour or more I sat on the chopping block zizzing with consummate industry, lifting and dropping a stick of wood at regular intervals, so that it would fall with a thud loud enough to be heard in the kitchen.

As soon as I dared, I put on my coat and strolled into the kitchen, pretending to wipe beads of perspiration from my alabaster brow, and betraying every skymptom of excessive exhaustion.

“Goodness!” exclaimed the widow, in surprise. “Did you saw the whole of that wood as soon as this?”

Then she regaled me with a sumptuous breakfast of ham and beans and corn bread and coffee, and by the time little Fido and I were eternally satiated the table looked as if it had been keeping a date with a Kansas cyclone.

“You were indeed hungry,” said the kind widow. “You are very young to be walking all the way to Boston to reach the bedside of a dying great-grandmother. Now, your parents——”

“Not often,” I answered. “I believe I may truthfully say this is my first offense.”

“That is the sad part of it,” I moaned, bursting into tears. “It is terrible for one to die so young. She is only thirty-five.”

“Only thirty-five!” she exclaimed; “and your great-grandmother? You are at least sixteen or seventeen. It is impossible for you to have a great-grandmother who is only thirty-five!”

“Pardon me, madam,” I said. “The lady is my grandmother, but she weighs at least two hundred and ninety pounds, so I call her my great grandmother.”

And I got away with it. She was so relieved to find me strictly truthful that she did not question the possibility of my having a grandmother of that age. Had she done so, I should have explained that doubtless in my haste I got the figures reversed, and that my grandmother was fifty-three instead of thirty-five. Not being particularly strong in mathematics, I sometimes make these little fox paws with figures.

“Your poor father and mother,” murmured the widow; “were they people of a spiritual turn?”

“My father was,” I replied; “decidedly so. I have known him to go out with the parson for spiritual stimulation. They would go into a back room somewhere and sit down at an ordinary round table, and it would not be long before spirits appeared before them. When those spirits departed my father used to rap on the table, and more spirits would come. After a prolonged séance of this kind my father usually saw things.”

“Dear me!” said the widow. “How unfortunate to lose such a father. How old was he when he passed away?”

Immediately, if not sooner than that, I perceived that it was time for me to be wending my way onward, and I proceeded to wend, overloading her with such a burden of gratitude that she didn’t have time to get her breath before I was half a mile down the road.

Near noon I approached the hoop skirts of a large city. As I approached, I perceived posted on fences and the sides of old barns many carnivorous posters advertising a circus which was to appear in that town on that very date.

Entering the town, I lemonaded slowly down the principal street. Ere long my ears were saluted by a sound resembling a base libel on music, and soon the circus band at the head of a long procession made its appearance.

Both sides of the street were lined with gaping multitudes. It seemed that everybody in town and for miles around had assembled to witness that parade. Lawyers, doctors, storekeepers, clerks, stenographers, street laborers, everybody, in fact, had gathered upon the sidewalks to see the procession pass, and for the time being business in that town was placed horse de tomcat.

The music assassinators of the band were dressed in bright-red suits, and rode in a gilded chariot. Next in line, a short distance behind the band chariot, came the biggest elephant I have ever seen; certainly the creature must have weighed twelve or fourteen tons, more or less.

In the center of the city there was a wooden bridge spanning a deep, dark river. Unfortunately, this bridge was not of sufficient strength to sustain the weight of that huge elephant. Just as the monster reached the middle span of the structure there was a sudden cracking of timbers, and the bridge gave way, precipitating the immense creature into the water.

The excitement immediately became intense. Women shrieked, men shouted, and, to the relief of everybody, the circus band stopped firing. The splash of the elephant striking the surface of the river resembled a clap of thunder, and water was flung over the top of a five-story building near at hand.

Crowding to the nearest bank of the river, I perceived the poor beast floundering distressingly in the middle of the stream. Almost immediately I became aware that the creature could not swim, and was, therefore, doomed to be drowned unless some one could devise a means of its rescue. Right before the eyes of those helpless and horrified spectators the beast sank and rose and sank again.

The manager of the circus, who was likewise the owner, came tearing through the crowd, frothing at the mouth, and shrieking that he would pay a reward of five hundred dollars to any one who would rescue the elephant.

“Clam yourself, sir,” said I. “I will relieve you of that five hundred. Your priceless treasure shall not perish.”

“Fido,” I cried, pointing toward the drowning mammal, “it’s up to you to get busy. We need the mazuma. Go fetch, Fido.”

Instantly my noble dog plunged into the river and swam swiftly toward the elephant. Just as the great beast was sinking for the third time, Fido seized it by one ear, and, holding the elephant’s head above the surface, turned and struck out for the nearest shore.

It was a fearful struggle. For a time the issue hung in the balance, or words to that effect. Once Fido, elephant, and all disappeared from view, and the crowd shouted in a high key. That is, most of the crowd; but, judging by the smell of the man’s breath next to me, the key he shouted in was whisky. I touched him gently on the shoulder, and admonished him to keep up his spirits. Hiccuping slightly, he assured me that it was frequently far more difficult for him to keep them down.

With folded arms, I serenely waited until little Fido reached the bank and dragged the elephant, limp and nearly drowned, but still alive, out upon dry ground.

The spectators cheered wildly, and the proprietor of the circus made a dastardly attempt to fall on my neck and kiss me, but I held him off.

“No,” I answered; “you owe me five hundred dollars, and I’ll take it in frigid cash. Even a certified check will be scrutinized with suspicion.”

CHAPTER III.
THE CAPTAIN MEETS A RASCAL.

The proprietor of the circus was most profuse in his gratitude. He was a gent who, without exaggeration, could be called effulgent. He certainly had a rush of words to the mouth, but I declined to let the flow of gas overcome me, rigidly insisting on my rights, and demanding that he should make good and cough up. Seeing that I could not be bluffed, he finally extended an invitation for me to accompany him to his headquarters at the circus grounds, where he could renumerate me according to his promise.

“I want you to understand,” he said, “that I am a man of my word. I am Samuel P. Slick, proprietor and owner of Slick’s Mammoth Circus and Colossal Aggregation of Wild Beasts.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Slick,” said I. “I am highly flavored. Lead on, and I will stick to you closer than a porous plaster to a rheumatic shoulder blade.”

Visions of that five hundred percolated through my cerebellum. In fancy I was already fingering various long, green certificates with pictures of presidents upon them. Why, I had that money spent before we even hove in sight of the circus grounds.

Mr. Slick led me to a small tent abaft the main tent. Little Fido followed us cheerfully. As soon as we were inside the small tent, and thus shielded from prying eyes, Mr. Slick sunk his grappling hooks into his trowsers pocket and dragged up a solitary greasy five-dollar bill, which he beamingly offered me.

“Take it, son—take it!” he urged magnanimously. “You deserve it, for that dog of yours is really a wonder.”

“I beg your hasty pudding,” said I, refraining from cleaving unto the fiver; “but haven’t you made a slight mistake?”

“Eh?” said he quickly. “Why, I thought I said five. Is it possible that I said one? Oh, well, never mind; we’ll call it five, just the same, for it certainly was worth it. It’s yours!”

“What under the canister of heaven do you take me for?” I cried warmly. “You said five hundred. Get busy, Mr. Slick, and add about ninety-nine duplicates to that lonesome William.”

Immediately Mr. Slick blew up. He turned purple in the face, and looked like a toad with the colic.

“Why, you young scoundrel,” he roared, “are you trying to bluff me out of a lot of real money? I said I’d give any one five dollars to save my elephant, and I meant it. Under the circumstances, I’m not obliged to pay you a cent, for you didn’t pull the elephant out; it was that there dog that did it. But I can’t give money to a dog, and so——”

“I can take money from one,” I remarked, “and that’s[26] just about what you are—and then a few. Unfortunately the United States slanguage does not furnish adjectives suitable to fit your particular case, and, as it happens that I can’t speak French a great deal better than I can speak it, I’ll refrain from attempting the impossible task of telling you just what I think of you. It chances that I’m busted; otherwise I would spurn your filthy lucifer with ignominy.”

I left him in high dudgeon, and went right away from there. I’ll admit that I was extensively sore; but five bones would purchase a beefsteak and trimmings, and I was again languishing with hunger.

We dined, Fido and I, and we went the limit, from beef a la mud to demi tassles. When I had tipped the waiter munificently I found that only twenty cents of the late-lamented fiver remained in the exchequer. With that I purchased a flagrant Havana cigar, and again set forth upon my weary tramp toward my predestination.

I think I had left the city about a mile astern, and was slowly oozing along, buried in deep thought, when the sudden consummate blast of an automobubble horn gave me such a start that I jumped about ten feet straight up into the ambient atmosphere.

Now, it happened that the gasoline jaunting car was approaching from behind with considerable acceleration. I am sure the buzz wagon could not have been more than ten rods behind me when the cheffonier blew that blast on his horn, and the blasted thing made me jump.

And the machine was moving with such expedience that when I came down I alighted fairly on the cushioned seat in the tonneau.

By the time I got my breath and quieted the spasmatic beatings of my heart, I realized that I was comfortably languishing in a strictly first-class, up-to-date naughty-mobile that was taking me toward Boston a great deal faster than I could walk.

Besides yours truly, the only other person in the car was the driver, who was so preoccupied with his job of taking the road turns at about seventy miles an hour, that he had not even seemed casually to notice the unceremonious manner in which I had dropped in on him.

The old gocart was a good one. On looking it over with the eye of a cricket, I perceived at once that in the way of such machines it might be called the ne plus ulster.

I congratulated myself with impunity. What could be more satisfactory than to make a portion of my journey in this manner? With a sigh of contentment, I settled back, murmuring in dulcet tones:

“Let her rip, old boy! As long as you don’t try to hurdle a stone wall or climb a tree, you can’t feaze little Walter.”

Then came a sudden horrifying thought: My dog—my poor little dog Fido! What had become of him?

I turned to cast my eyes backward, but, fearing I might not recover them if I did so, I refrained, and simply looked.

That is, I tried to look, but the course astern was simply blotted out by a cloud of dust. There was so much dust in the air that it seemed to crowd itself for room. I felt sure we were tearing up the solid earth at such a rate that where the road had been there would remain nothing but a long, deep ditch after we had passed over it.

Poor little Fido! Would I ever again behold my faithful little quinine companion? I feared not.

In a short time, however, we struck a long strip of macadamized bullyvard, and, again looking round, I pereevered that we were no longer distributing the highway over the adjacent country.

Imagine my unbounded amazement and joy on discovering my little dog a few rods abeam, coming like the wind, his eyes protruding like glass doorknobs, and something like a yard and a half of his tongue hanging from his mouth. He was simply making tremendous endeavors to keep up with that car, which now seemed to be only occasionally connecting slightly with the extremely remote elevations—and he was practically doing it.

But I realized that this could not last long. Speedy as he surely was, Fido could not continue to hit it up at something better than a mile a minute for more than forty or fifty miles without eventually becoming weary and discouraged.

Then I called to little Fido, making at the same time an encouraging genuflexion with my lily-white hand. He responded at once with a tremendous burst of speed and a flying leap that brought him sailing over the back of the machine into the tonneau beside me.

A DIVER’S GREATEST DANGER.

The greatest enemy of the diver is paralysis, and this, strangely enough, is not caused by sending him into the sea, but in carelessly taking him out of it. In bringing a diver to the surface from any great depth, as much as half an hour is spent in what is known as “staging” him. He is brought up to a certain depth from the surface and there held, while he fights vigorously with arms and legs to quicken the circulation temporarily, and so to assist in sweeping the excess of nitrogen out of the tissues of the body. This excess of nitrogen, forced into the blood under pressure of air and water, is the cause of diver’s paralysis. At various depths before reaching the surface, the good diver, who understands what causes paralysis, will “stage” and prepare himself to leave the water. Once on the deck of the lugger, he will rest and recover himself for another descent, and so throughout the day.

PRESENCE OF MIND.

A passenger on a transatlantic liner had been sick for five days in succession. One evening he felt somewhat better, and promenaded the saloon for some time. About ten o’clock he thought of retiring to his stateroom, which was on the upper deck. Before leaving the saloon he sought the steward and said:

“I want you to send me some hot water for shaving at half past six in the morning. Will you remember it?”

The steward promised, and the passenger started up the saloon companionway. The steps were brass-covered and very slippery. He reached the first landing all right, but slipped on the first step of the second and came rattling all the way down again. He was picked up rather battered, but not a bit disconcerted.

“Steward,” he said gravely, “I just came back to tell you not to forget that hot water at half past six in the morning.”

NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Declares He Fasted for Fifty-one Days.

Charles B. Champion, grain man, of Fort Worth, Texas, is boasting about a fasting feat which he believes surpasses all long-distance records in the abstinence line. But he did not go out to win any “noneats” record primarily.

His health was poor. He had read that the stomach was frequently abused by the callous and indifferent manner in which it is burdened with more or less indigestible substances, and decided to give it a rest.

He concluded a little trip “back to nature” would produce desirable results. He took his family with him to the mountains of Pennsylvania and there emulated the mendicant who has “had nothing to eat for three days.” But he went the average street-corner solicitor of alms one better. Also, he vied with a certain brand of medical wizards who had gone without food longer than the ordinary man cares to.

For fifty-one days he took no food, and drank only water. At the end of his fasting period, although he had lost thirty-nine pounds in weight, he was declared physically sound by physicians. During his fast he experienced no discomfort, and spent enjoyable days whipping the streams near his camp for trout, and in long tramps over the country.

Governor Doused When Gun Kicks.

While on a shooting expedition along the St. Francis River, in Missouri, with Governor Hays, of Arkansas, Governor Major, of Missouri, got a cold bath. The two governors were crossing a bayou in a canoe. Governor Hays fired at a duck and missed. Governor Major dropped his paddle, and, standing half erect, blazed away. The kick of the gun knocked him into the water. The Arkansas governor managed to reach him and draw him back in the canoe. Each killed a deer before leaving the canebrakes.

Beachey Loops the Loop.

Lincoln Beachey, the aviator, looped the loop twice in the air above North Island, California, recently. Starting at a height of 2,500 feet, he dropped straight downward into the first loop and immediately turned over again into the second, landing afterward. At no time, seemingly, was there any loss of control. Beachey said he would repeat the performance.

Beachey’s feat of looping the loop with a biplane fitted with an upright motor upset the theory of experts, who had asserted that nothing but a revolving motor, such as the Frenchman Pegoud used, could carry an aëroplane over the top of the loop. Beachey said the loop was much easier of achievement than flying upside down. He made several upside-down flights at North Island.

Little Pig by Parcel Post.

Under the protecting wing of Uncle Sam and in care of the employees of the mail department, a little white Chester pig, four weeks old, celebrated his birthday recently by visiting Montpelier, Vt., for the first time, arriving on the afternoon mail train by parcel post, in what was probably one of the “softest” journeys ever taken by a “piggie,” at least in that part of the country, at any rate it was the first of the “pig nationality” to ever arrive in that city in this manner.

A very much surprised man was Frank Muzzy, janitor at the C. V. station, who carries the mail to the post office, when a small crate was passed out of the car, containing a little white “grunter,” and as long as a precedent has been established on animals, Frank is wondering whether or not he may get a box of snakes by the same route some day.

Passengers and people waiting at the station flocked around the crate, which was piled high upon the mail bags, showing great interest in the strange parcel, which was at once taken to the post office, and within an hour or so, a government employee had delivered the strange shipment to William I. Brown. The little animal was shipped from Robinson, Vt., by Joseph King.

Polonium as Medicine.

Sir William Ramsay, of England, discussing the properties of radium at a meeting of the British Radium Corporation recently, said there were other substances in the radium ores which had not so far been exploited from a therapeutic point of view. He hoped that polonium, which was perhaps the most easily produced, might prove to possess therapeutic qualities for the treatment of diseases which had hitherto not been treated.

Polonium, said Sir William, was somewhat analogous to selenium and tellurium, and also to bismuth, the therapeutic qualities of which had been tested. Those three elements remained in the system for some length of time, and then were excreted, but had practically no therapeutical qualities. Polonium differed from them entirely in that it gave off alpha rays, just the same as radium did, and he could not help believing that the potency of radium for therapeutic purposes depended upon the alpha rays.

Radium could not be administered as medicine to human beings, as it was too expensive, and probably too dangerous, but the three substances he had mentioned were eliminated in about three months, and his impression was that polonium might produce its effects for about that time and then be eliminated.

Bill Dahlen Out.

Bill Dahlen, manager of the Brooklyn National Baseball Club, has been given his unconditional release. Dahlen had held the place for four years. He was famous as a shortstop.

Lost Hand in Experiment.

With a book on “Experimental Science” at his call, Godfrey Meier, junior, fifteen years old, tried an experiment in the back yard of his home in New York, after school one day recently. Just what his experiment consisted of the police could not learn, but the result was an explosion, which blew off the fingers of the boy’s right hand and so lacerated the hand that it was amputated in Flower Hospital.

When his mother asked him what caused the accident[28] he said he was playing with a magneto. The police think, however, that he had got hold of a fulminating cap or something of the kind. At the time of the accident a four-year-old nephew of Godfrey was standing only a few feet away. The child was knocked down, but was not injured.

Wireless News to Train.

For the first time on record, news bulletins taken by wireless were displayed on a moving train recently. Passengers on No. 3 on the Lackawanna Railroad were astonished to see the latest foreign and home dispatches spread before their eyes as they were being whirled along at sixty miles an hour between Scranton and Binghamton, Pa.

The Scranton Times sent 250 words from the Lackawanna wireless station to the moving train. One was on the battle in Mexico, another regarding the strike in Schenectady, another relating to the dilemma in Washington with respect to landing marines in Mexico.

When the train left Hoboken the wireless apparatus was somewhat disabled, as a generator had burned out. The operator, however, was able to take dispatches and give the passengers a news service unique in history.

“To think we didn’t have it for the world’s series!” mourned an excited Chicago man.

He Prefers the Family Nag.

Wabash County, Indiana, has at least one resident who has never ridden on a railroad train, street car, or automobile, and whose fastest rate of travel is limited to the speed of his horse. This man is Jonathan Beal, who has lived in New Holland, a village in the eastern part of the county, for the last sixty years, having moved there with his parents when about fifteen years old. Mr. Beal is of the opinion that his family nag can go fast enough for all practical purposes.

Mr. Beal travels little, and his journeys during the last threescore years have been confined almost wholly to trips to Wabash, the county seat, eleven miles from his home. In making the trip he always uses his horse, and has refused many invitations to ride in a machine.

Though motor cars hourly pass his home, he never sees a train, only when in Wabash, as no railroad touches New Holland.

Operate on Human Heart.

Probably the most daring chapter in modern surgery is that which treats of operations on the heart, says the World’s Work. “The road to the heart is only two or three inches long, but it has taken surgery nearly 2,600 years to traverse it,” is one writer’s striking remark. How recent this work is, is made plain from the fact that a book published by Stephen Paget, in 1895, contained a chapter on “Surgery of the Heart,” the words being contemptuously inclosed in quotation marks.

The scientist, as well as the layman, looked upon the heart with an almost superstitious awe. Any injury necessarily implied death; any interference with such an injury could only hasten the end. Yet many shrewd observers in the course of the ages had noted that all heart wounds did not result in instantaneous death.

It was not until ten or fifteen years ago that surgeons began to act upon this knowledge. In exceptional cases death did not result immediately from a heart wound; there were intervals of a few days or a few weeks. Why not utilize the interval in an attempt to sew up the wound? Medical history now reports many successful operations of this kind.

An especially noteworthy one, performed upon an Alabama negro boy in 1902, illustrates the resources of modern heart surgery. This boy had been the victim of an especially nasty stab wound. The knife had penetrated the apex of the heart and passed into the left ventricle, making a wound nearly half an inch long. When the boy was placed upon the operating table, in the little negro cabin, the signs of death had already appeared. His feet were cold and his face showed signs of the utmost distress. The surgeon made a little, windowlike opening just above the heart. Through this they could readily see the injured organ, the blood spurting from the wound at each pulsation. One surgeon put in his hand, pulled the heart upward, and held it while another sewed the wound with catgut.

The operation—performed without an anæsthetic—lasted fifty-five minutes; on the sixteenth day the boy was sitting up; in a short time his heart was as good as ever.

Fear Rube Waddell is Dying.

In spite of his belief that he was suffering only from a slight attack of bronchitis, “Rube” Waddell, once a great baseball pitcher, has left Minneapolis to begin a battle with tuberculosis, at his sister’s home in San Antonio, Texas.

A short time ago a story was current that he had fallen a victim to the white plague, but he scoffed at the idea, and said he was suffering from a severe cold.

Since then he has been growing steadily weaker, and has been in bed for several days. His physicians fear that Waddell’s chances for recovery are slight.

Ruse of Girl Who Desired to Marry.

When Martha J. Mayers, sixteen, applied for a marriage license at Fort Collins, Colo., she told the clerk that she was over eighteen. She insisted in court the next day that she was telling the truth.

She explained to County Judge Fred W. Stover that before going for the license she had placed a piece of paper with the figures eighteen written on it in her shoe so that she could truthfully say she was over eighteen.

Bert B. Cain, who was arrested for perjury following the marriage to the sixteen-year-old girl, was held under bond.

Man Wanders Fifty Hours.

Fifty hours without food or sleep, Harry L. Sommerville, manager of the Savoy Hotel, at North Yakima, Wash., wandered into the store in the Nile, in the headwaters of the Tieton basin, and later arrived in North Yakima. With W. W. Stratton, Roy Gilbert, and a man named Mulligan, Sommerville went hunting near Bumping Lake. He started from the camp to meet another of the party. He crossed a ridge and missed the other man. When the hour of the appointment passed Sommerville found that his worn tennis shoes with rubber soles were so slippery that he could not mount the side of the ridge again over the wet logs and pine needles.

“I had no feeling of fear at any time. I did not dare to go to sleep at night because of the cold in the mountains,[29] but kept pushing on slowly. It seemed to me that I traveled a thousand miles, but it appears on the map to be only about thirty.”

Indian Wins Cotton Prize.

Jack Postoak, a full-blooded Mississippi Choctaw Indian, living in Carter County, Okla., won the sweepstake prize for cotton over competition of all the world at the International Dry Farming Congress, at Tulsa. He also won over all competitors at the New State Fair, at Muskogee. The contest required a showing in six different stages of cotton growing—seed, seed cotton, hulls, stalks, bolls, and lint cotton.

Three years ago Postoak had sold or leased the four allotments in his family, and was preparing to go back to Mississippi because he could not make a living on 1,400 acres of land in Oklahoma. A government agricultural agent induced Postoak to try once more under government supervision. He did, on a little fifty-acre tract of land near Ardmore. In three years Postoak developed from the starving Indian class to a great cotton grower.

Gives Rules for Good Health.

If a person follows these rules he will always be healthy, according to Governor W. N. Ferris, who addressed the delegates attending the annual convention of the Michigan Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis.

Bees Acquire Opium Habit.

The honey bees near Fostoria, Ohio, have contracted the opium habit. Like the Chinese, they get theirs from the poppy. Many residents of Fostoria grow Oriental poppies. The bees have found this out, and of late they are leaving acres of clover blossoms to hunt out the poppy beds.

They work vigorously for an hour or so, and then fall to the ground, apparently as stupefied as are Chinese opium smokers after “hitting the pipe.”

It is said if the bees could only be kept sober, there would doubtless be a great demand for the honey.

The Kaiser Held Up?

A report in circulation at Berlin, Germany, apparently originating in Vienna, is to the effect that the kaiser is about to sell the old Monbijou Palace, now the Hohenzollern Museum. It is asserted that the sale is due to the fact that the recent increase of the emperor’s civil list is insufficient.

There was a similar report some weeks ago regarding the alleged projected sale of a castle in the Rhineland.

A Family of White Squirrels.

A family of white squirrels, pure white from tip to tip, is making its home in a locust tree near the gate of Captain Wyman X. Folsom’s place, opposite Interstate Park, Taylor’s Falls, Minn.

How they came to be white, Nature, wise old friend of the woodland folk, only knows. But probably they are albino members of the red squirrel race. The freaks were discovered six weeks ago, and now are so tame it is possible to approach within three or four feet of them before there’s a gleam of white dashing up the nearest tree.

George Hazzard, park commissioner, and members of the Folsom household, have been taking particularly good care that nothing happens to them, and perhaps Interstate Park eventually will have a whole race of white squirrels. Anyway, that’s the idea behind the careful care which surrounds the curiosities.

Already, however, unkind fate in the form of a mean old cat has evaded the guardians, and one young squirrel’s life has been forfeited.

“He was one of the nicest of the five,” declared Martin Tangen, druggist and friend of Nature’s children. Now the two old squirrels are doing their best to keep their two remaining children from other harm.

Houses have been built for the white denizens, and they are to have an easy time this winter, according to the plans of Commissioner Hazzard, for proper food will be available, no matter how hard the earth freezes at the base of their locust tree.

Back-pension Pay Good as Fortune.

Frank Ferris, seventy-nine, of Atchison, Kan., who served during the Civil War in the Third Regiment of Missouri Infantry, applied for a pension in 1890, but because he could not produce his discharge he was denied one. He kept on in his efforts to prove that he was a soldier, and some time ago secured the help of United States Senator Thompson.

Recently the adjutant general of Missouri, in going through the records that were kept in that office during the war days, discovered the dates of both the mustering in and discharge of Ferris, and on the strength of this the pension will be allowed.

He will receive $30 a month and back pay for twenty-three years at the rate of $12 a month, or more than $3,000 in all.

Ferris is a carpenter, and a poor man. His wife is nearly eighty years old. There is general rejoicing.

Reception Room for Warship Crew.

Secretary Daniels, of the navy, approved plans for a reception and reading room for enlisted men on the new battleship New York. Mr. Daniels said the provision was a new departure, and has been inaugurated to increase the comfort of the crew and add to the attractiveness of the ship for enlisted men and their visitors when in port. Similar changes probably will be inaugurated on other vessels.

Calf Has no Tail.

A valuable Holstein cow, belonging to F. L. Sweet, of North Adams, Mass., has given birth to a handsome calf which, strange to say, has no tail. Sweet prizes the calf very highly, and jokingly remarked that he might have it “retailed.”

Fewer Free Seeds? Statesmen Angry.

Secretary Houston, of the department of agriculture, is “in bad” with numerous members of Congress because he has recommended that the distribution of ordinary vegetable and flower seeds be discontinued. Carloads and carloads[30] of these seeds have been distributed free under postal franks of congressmen and senators, the cost being about $300,000 a year. Secretary Houston wants to devote part of the money to the distribution of new and valuable seeds and plants, on a smaller scale.

Walking Hencoop Arrested.

A policeman in the outskirts of St. Louis, Mo., saw a man whose form was anything but a perfect thirty-six. His coat looked as if some tailor had settled an old grudge in the general fit, and he fidgeted along like a person who is harboring a bee.

Suspicious, the officer pursued the man and lifted his coat. Three fowls cackled gratefully to the ground. The officer asked for an explanation, and the portable hencoop informed him that the chickens flew into his coat to get warm.

The police regulations prohibit the belief of anything as rough as that, and the man was arrested.

Shot Found in Her Appendix.

Surgeons of the Harrisburg, Pa., Hospital removed from the appendix of Mrs. Reuben Ulrich, of Seline Grove, Pa., two grains of the shot with which her husband killed a rabbit last week. Mrs. Ulrich ate a part of the rabbit.

Passes Dog Off as Baby to Take it on a Train.

Because it would cost $1 fare for her dog, while babies could ride free, a Mrs. Welchel, of near Lead Hill, Ark., recently “put one over on the railroad company” by dressing her pet dog in baby clothes.

When Mrs. Welchel, with the “baby,” climbed aboard the hack to Lead Hill, Fido let loose a series of barks. “Her hand exposed,” Mrs. Welchel turned back a veil, and from the bundle of supposed humanity there appeared the head of a fice.

Conductor Clyde Miller, when told of the success of the ruse, merely remarked: “It takes a woman to beat the road.”

Leg Buried With His Body.

Valentine Weisenberger’s right leg, which was amputated twelve years ago, was brought from the undertaker’s dead room and placed in Weisenberger’s coffin to be buried with the rest of the body at Fort Wayne, Ind., recently.

When Weisenberger’s leg was amputated he ordered it delivered to an undertaker with instructions for the latter to embalm it and keep it for the complete burial. His orders were followed.

Smallest High-school Boy.

George Fielding, a freshman in the Brazil, Ind., High School, is the smallest pupil who ever entered the school. He is 2 feet 10 inches high. He stands well in his studies. His home is at Carbon.

“Some Punkins.”

There are 500 pumpkins on one vine which covers an eighth of an acre on Doctor R. G. Sloan’s farm, at Little River, S. C. One of the pumpkins weighs 100 pounds.

No Reason for Egg Famine.

Although the country faces something like an egg famine to-day, the number of eggs produced in this country has increased more rapidly than the population, according to the census bureau. Between 1899 and 1909 the population increased 11 per cent, but the egg production grew 23 per cent.

This estimate does not include the large number of eggs produced by amateur poultrymen in the suburbs of cities. It shows merely the farm product.

The price of eggs paid to the farmers in that period advanced an average of about 11 cents to an average of 19 cents.

Illinois enjoyed the cheapest egg supply. The price there in 1912 varied from 22 to 28 cents a dozen. In New York it was 29 cents to 41 cents.

The estimated production of eggs for 1913 is 1,734,529,000 dozen, an average of 17.7 dozen per capita. In 1909 the production was only 1,591,311,000 dozen.

Curley, the Crow, Still Living.

“Curley, the Crow,” the only survivor of the Custer massacre, a half-blood Sioux scout, is in his seventy-second year. He declares that the famous painting, “Custer’s Last Stand,” does not truly represent the scene, since it shows scalped and mutilated American soldiers on the field of battle at Little Horn, where, on June 24, 1876, Custer and practically all of his command perished. “There was no scalping and no mutilation,” says Curley. “Four hundred and seventy-three soldiers were killed, and not a mark was found on them that was not made by bullets. I was General Custer’s scout, and he had sent me for re-enforcements the night before the battle. I was returning with Captain Bentline and his command. While I was still a long way off my horse was shot from under me, and I got down and ran until I came into the thick of the fighting. As I got there, I saw the soldiers were lying dead right and left. Those four hundred and seventy-three had been surrounded by six thousand Sioux. I saw Custer fighting with his saber, and I thought he was the last man alive there, but I soon saw that his brother, Lieutenant Tom Custer, was fighting beside him. He fell, and General Custer then stood alone. The Indians could easily have killed him before that, but the purpose was to take him alive. Fourteen Indians whom he had slashed and gashed with his saber lay near him, most of them dead or dying. I called to General Custer, meaning to tell him of General Reno’s refusal to come, and he said, ‘You here, Curley? We’ll fight to the end.’ Those were his last words. A big Sioux seized his arm, and Custer turned on him and dealt a terrible saber stroke that half cut his head off. As he did this, the son of the Sioux fired his rifle at Custer, and the bullet went through his heart. I pushed through toward Custer as he fell. I held his head as he sank back dead.”

Changes in Water-polo and Swimming-race Rules.

Radical changes in the rules that came up for consideration were passed upon favorably at the annual meeting of the Intercollegiate Swimming Association held at the New York Athletic Club a few days ago. Most of them affected water polo, and all were proposed by the graduate advisory board, a committee created last winter, when the managers and captains of the various college teams, after encountering all sorts of trouble with the rules in vogue, decided the matter ought to be placed in the hands of competent and experienced veterans of the sport.

The work of this committee, judging from the report, was thorough. Water polo came in for most of their attention,[31] they asserted, because it was that division that had created most dissatisfaction. With an eye toward making the contests less one-sided than heretofore, the board ruled that in future the ball be given to the team scored against after each goal.

A second change was the substitution of three periods for two in every game, to alleviate the tax on the strength and stamina of the players, and another was an amendment permitting a player to return to the game after he had once been withdrawn. The object of the latter ruling is to decrease the size of the visiting squad and thereby reduce their traveling expenses. The value of this change cannot be overestimated, for the matter of expenses has been the bugbear that has retarded the development of the sport among the colleges.

The elimination of the one and a half Flying Dutchman from the list of legal dives was another important amendment. The dive was considered too dangerous for collegians, several serious accidents having resulted at dual meets within the last few years.

There was one subject, however, over which the advisory board and the college representatives failed to agree, and that was the question of eliminating the plunge from the list of events to make room for the back stroke. The board favored the change on the ground that the plunge was not an interesting event from a spectator’s standpoint, that it did not develop swimmers, and that it had been stricken off national and Olympic programs. The back stroke was one style of swimming at which Americans had been beaten easily at the last Olympic meet. The delegates, however, voted to refuse the change principally because most of the colleges had first-class plungers on their squads—men capable of winning points.

No other colleges having requested admission into the association, the championship tournament will again be limited to Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, and the College of the City of New York. To interest other universities in the sport it was agreed to add a special fifty-yard event for all colleges outside of the association in the championship meet.

From Force of Habit.

T. R. Staley, of Brighton, Mich., has a horse of a religious turn of mind. Mr. Staley has many horses, in fact, but each one is assigned to a different duty. The one in question has always been used to convey the family to church, and when not busy on Wednesday or Sunday evenings, is turned into pasture. Saturday, however, Mr. Staley smashed a precedent by hitching the animal up for a drive to the Farmers’ Club. The farm helper drove the animal to the front door and there allowed it to stand, untied. An unusual delay within the Staley abode kept Dobbin standing past the appointed time for departure, and after a few anxious glances, he ambled off in the direction of the Presbyterian Church, where members of the family found him waiting at the regular hour to take them home.

Weakling Dies at 102.

Believed to have such a slender hold on life that he was christened when two days old, Philip Carlyon lived to be the oldest clergyman in the kingdom. He died at Pennance House, Falmouth, England, within six weeks of his 102d birthday. He was ordained in 1836 and retired at the age of 70.

Mr. Carlyon possessed remarkable vitality until within a short period of his death, taking long walks and attending church regularly. He remembered his father lighting a bonfire on receipt of the news of the battle of Waterloo, and was terribly frightened when an effigy of Bonaparte was thrown into the flames, thinking it was a real man.

Cow in Chinese Restaurant.

Consternation was created among patrons of a Chinese restaurant, at Ogden, Utah, when a cow which had been nibbling the grass growing between the cobblestones of the street-car tracks, spied in the window of the restaurant a quantity of green vegetables, and started in after them. Frantic efforts to frighten away the cow proved futile, and Wong Ching, the proprietor, telephoned the police. Patrolman John Russell arrived later and drove the cow to the city pound.

Pays for Stolen Tobacco.

A. A. Bouch, who, twenty-four years ago, conducted a grocery store in Manorville, Ford City, Pa., received the following letter from Edward Cunningham, whose boyhood was passed in Manorville, and who now resides in Pittsburgh:

“All is well with my soul. I have found salvation, and am born again. When I found Jesus He told me to do His will, and to do right by any man I have wronged. I asked Him to forgive me for stealing tobacco. I inclose ten cents for two packages of tobacco which I took from your store twenty-five years ago.”

Facts You May Not Know.

The great mass of steel in the buildings of lower New York is said to affect the compasses of the ships approaching the city.

It is probable that the Nile contains a greater variety of fish than any other river in the world. An expedition sent by the British Museum brought back 8,000 specimens.

The target on the ground to test the accuracy of aëroplane bomb throwers is sixty feet in diameter. The fifteen-pound bombs are dropped at an elevation of 656 feet.

A patient Englishman has carved the king’s monogram and similar devices on an eggshell.

By the end of 1916 the Chinese army expects to have 1,000 aëroplanes, this year’s budget calling for the purchase of 250.

Boys in a fresh-air school in Buffalo, N. Y., prune the orchard trees on the school grounds, grow catalpa trees for future transplanting, study bird whistles and notes as they hear them in the orchard, and incidentally acquire a valuable insight into the main principles of forestry.

A Clever Football Play.

“I would have given one thousand dollars if that play had gone for a touchdown!” exclaimed Coach F. H. (“Hurry-Up”) Yost, after Quarter Back Tommy Hughitt crossed the Penn’s goal on a fake-kick formation.

Hughitt was called back by Referee Eckersall, and Michigan[32] was penalized for holding in the line—a Michigan man slipped in the mud and grabbed a Penn forward to save himself, and the referee called it holding.

The play was Yost’s masterpiece—the crowning achievement of a career unequaled in football. Never has the Wolverine Wizard conceived a cleverer coup, and never had he taught his men to execute one with more deadly precision.

Football men at the game united in declaring that the fake was the cleverest thing they ever saw on a gridiron. It takes a higher place than Yost’s marvelous triple forward pass, which dazed Penn a year ago.

The play came in the third quarter of the Michigan-Pennsylvania game November 15. Michigan worked the ball to Penn’s thirty-yard line and Captain Paterson was called back for a place kick.

In the Cornell game, a week previous, Paterson kicked goal under identical conditions, and the Penn scouts had reported it.

Quarter Back Hughitt dropped upon one knee, with hands outstretched to receive the ball and place it for Paterson’s educated toe.

Hughitt called the signal and the oval sailed through the air. But the hearts of twenty thousand fluttered when it was seen that Hughitt couldn’t place the ball properly. Paterson stepped forward to kick.

The Pennsylvania forwards were oozing through the line; the secondary defense was closing in; there wasn’t a second to lose as Paterson’s foot swung forward, missing the ball!

But as he missed Hughitt hugged the oval to his jersey, and, jumping to his feet, swept around the Quaker line like a jack rabbit, to plant the ball between the Quaker goal posts, while the Pennsylvania forwards fought desperately to get back through the line they had been purposely permitted to penetrate.

Such was the perfection of plan and execution that thousands did not realize until the next day that it was a Yost coup, and not an accident.

Knife Gives Girl Sight.

Vera Critchfield, five years old, of Barberton, Ohio, blind from birth, to-day is able to see. Her case is only one example of what the State blind commission is doing for the blind children of Ohio. The commission has proved that all children blind from birth are not helplessly blind. One surgical operation removed the film from Vera’s eyes. One or two others will fully restore her sight.

Dream Saves Her Farm.

A dream in which Miss Helen Lochlin, of Bennett, Ill., had a vision of her dead brother directing her where to find a will he executed in 1897 saved her home to her when she was preparing to leave it because of an administrator’s sale.

The will was found by Miss Lochlin, who is more than fifty years old, where the vision told her it was hidden.

Miss Lochlin and her brother Frank lived on the small farm for many years. Frank died in the spring of 1910, and shortly after a partition suit was instituted by another sister, who lives in Denver. With no funds to buy in the share of the estate awarded to the sister by the court, Miss Lochlin was preparing to leave the home.

This will was proved authentic by the witnesses, and, as Miss Lochlin was named executrix by her brother, the estate will not go under the hammer, and she will remain on the farm.

Man Lives Long in Kitchen.

When C. B. Wright, an old soldier and bachelor, sold his home at Argyle, Wis., the other day, to move to Florida, it was discovered that since the death of his mother, fifteen years ago, he had spent his life in the little kitchen of the cottage. Wright said that, in memory of his mother, he had avoided disturbing the other part of the house, not even a pin having been moved. Everything in the rooms had been preserved just as she left it.

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700—Frank Merriwell’s Lively Lads.

701—Frank Merriwell as Instructor.

702—Dick Merriwell’s Cayuse.

703—Dick Merriwell’s Quirt.

704—Dick Merriwell’s Freshman Friend.

705—Dick Merriwell’s Best Form.

706—Dick Merriwell’s Prank.

707—Dick Merriwell’s Gambol.

708—Dick Merriwell’s Gun.

709—Dick Merriwell at His Best.

710—Dick Merriwell’s Master Mind.

711—Dick Merriwell’s Dander.

712—Dick Merriwell’s Hope.

713—Dick Merriwell’s Standard.

714—Dick Merriwell’s Sympathy.

715—Dick Merriwell in Lumber Land.

716—Frank Merriwell’s Fairness.

717—Frank Merriwell’s Pledge.

718—Frank Merriwell, the Man of Grit.

719—Frank Merriwell’s Return Blow.

720—Frank Merriwell’s Quest.

721—Frank Merriwell’s Ingots.

722—Frank Merriwell’s Assistance.

723—Frank Merriwell at the Throttle.

724—Frank Merriwell, the Always Ready.

725—Frank Merriwell in Diamond Land.

726—Frank Merriwell’s Desperate Chance.

727—Frank Merriwell’s Black Terror.

728—Frank Merriwell Again on the Slab.

729—Frank Merriwell’s Hard Game.

730—Frank Merriwell’s Six-in-hand.

731—Frank Merriwell’s Duplicate.

732—Frank Merriwell on Rattlesnake Ranch.

733—Frank Merriwell’s Sure Hand.

734—Frank Merriwell’s Treasure Map.

735—Frank Merriwell, Prince of the Rope.

736—Dick Merriwell, Captain of the Varsity.

737—Dick Merriwell’s Control.

738—Dick Merriwell’s Back Stop.

739—Dick Merriwell’s Masked Enemy.

740—Dick Merriwell’s Motor Car.

741—Dick Merriwell’s Hot Pursuit.

742—Dick Merriwell at Forest Lake.

743—Dick Merriwell in Court.

744—Dick Merriwell’s Silence.

745—Dick Merriwell’s Dog.

746—Dick Merriwell’s Subterfuge.

747—Dick Merriwell’s Enigma.

748—Dick Merriwell Defeated.

749—Dick Merriwell’s “Wing.”

750—Dick Merriwell’s Sky Chase.

751—Dick Merriwell’s Pick-ups.

752—Dick Merriwell on the Rocking R.

753—Dick Merriwell’s Penetration.

754—Dick Merriwell’s Intuition.

755—Dick Merriwell’s Vantage.

756—Dick Merriwell’s Advice.

757—Dick Merriwell’s Rescue.

758—Dick Merriwell, American.

759—Dick Merriwell’s Understanding.

760—Dick Merriwell, Tutor.

761—Dick Merriwell’s Quandary.

762—Dick Merriwell on the Boards.

763—Dick Merriwell, Peacemaker.

764—Frank Merriwell’s Sway.

765—Frank Merriwell’s Comprehension.

766—Frank Merriwell’s Young Acrobat.

767—Frank Merriwell’s Tact.

768—Frank Merriwell’s Unknown.

769—Frank Merriwell’s Acuteness.

770—Frank Merriwell’s Young Canadian.

771—Frank Merriwell’s Coward.

772—Frank Merriwell’s Perplexity.

773—Frank Merriwell’s Intervention.

774—Frank Merriwell’s Daring Deed.

775—Frank Merriwell’s Succor.

776—Frank Merriwell’s Wit.

777—Frank Merriwell’s Loyalty.

778—Frank Merriwell’s Bold Play.

779—Frank Merriwell’s Insight.

780—Frank Merriwell’s Guile.

781—Frank Merriwell’s Campaign.

782—Frank Merriwell in the National Forest.

783—Frank Merriwell’s Tenacity.

784—Dick Merriwell’s Self-sacrifice.

785—Dick Merriwell’s Close Shave.

786—Dick Merriwell’s Perception.

787—Dick Merriwell’s Mysterious Disappearance.

788—Dick Merriwell’s Detective Work.

789—Dick Merriwell’s Proof.

790—Dick Merriwell’s Brain Work.

791—Dick Merriwell’s Queer Case.

792—Dick Merriwell, Navigator.

793—Dick Merriwell’s Good Fellowship.

794—Dick Merriwell’s Fun.

795—Dick Merriwell’s Commencement.

796—Dick Merriwell at Montauk Point.

797—Dick Merriwell, Mediator.

798—Dick Merriwell’s Decision.

799—Dick Merriwell on the Great Lakes.

800—Dick Merriwell Caught Napping.

801—Dick Merriwell in the Copper Country.

802—Dick Merriwell Strapped.

803—Dick Merriwell’s Coolness.

804—Dick Merriwell’s Reliance.

805—Dick Merriwell’s College Mate.

806—Dick Merriwell’s Young Pitcher.

807—Dick Merriwell’s Prodding.

808—Frank Merriwell’s Boy.

809—Frank Merriwell’s Interference.

810—Frank Merriwell’s Young Warriors.

811—Frank Merriwell’s Appraisal.

812—Frank Merriwell’s Forgiveness.

813—Frank Merriwell’s Lads.

814—Frank Merriwell’s Young Aviators.

815—Frank Merriwell’s Hot-head.

816—Dick Merriwell, Diplomat.

817—Dick Merriwell in Panama.

818—Dick Merriwell’s Perseverance.

819—Dick Merriwell Triumphant.

820—Dick Merriwell’s Betrayal.

821—Dick Merriwell, Revolutionist.

822—Dick Merriwell’s Fortitude.

823—Dick Merriwell’s Undoing.

824—Dick Merriwell, Universal Coach.

825—Dick Merriwell’s Snare.

826—Dick Merriwell’s Star Pupil.

827—Dick Merriwell’s Astuteness.

828—Dick Merriwell’s Responsibility.

829—Dick Merriwell’s Plan.

830—Dick Merriwell’s Warning.

831—Dick Merriwell’s Counsel.

832—Dick Merriwell’s Champions.

833—Dick Merriwell’s Marksmen.

834—Dick Merriwell’s Enthusiasm.

835—Dick Merriwell’s Solution.

836—Dick Merriwell’s Foreign Foe.

837—Dick Merriwell and the Carlisle Warriors.

838—Dick Merriwell’s Battle for the Blue.

839—Dick Merriwell’s Evidence.

840—Dick Merriwell’s Device.

841—Dick Merriwell’s Princeton Opponents.

842—Dick Merriwell’s Sixth Sense.

843—Dick Merriwell’s Strange Clew.

844—Dick Merriwell Comes Back.

845—Dick Merriwell’s Heroic Crew.

846—Dick Merriwell Looks Ahead.

847—Dick Merriwell at the Olympics.

848—Dick Merriwell in Stockholm.

849—Dick Merriwell in the Swedish Stadium.

850—Dick Merriwell’s Marathon.

1—Frank Merriwell, Jr.

2—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in the Box.

3—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Struggle.

4—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Skill.

5—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Idaho.

6—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Close Shave.

7—Frank Merriwell, Jr., on Waiting Orders.

8—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Danger.

9—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Relay Marathon.

10—Frank Merriwell, Jr., at the Bar Z Ranch.

11—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Golden Trail.

12—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Competitor.

13—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Guidance.

14—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Scrimmage.

15—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Misjudged.

16—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Star Play.

17—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Blind Chase.

18—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Discretion.

19—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Substitute.

20—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Justified.

21—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Incog.

22—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Meets the Issue.

23—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Xmas Eve.

24—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Fearless Risk.

25—Frank Merriwell, Jr., on Skis.

26—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ice-boat Chase.

27—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ambushed Foes.

28—Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the Totem.

29—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Hockey Game.

30—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Clew.

31—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Adversary.

32—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Timely Aid.

33—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in the Desert.

34—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Grueling Test.

35—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Special Mission.

36—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Red Bowman.

37—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Task.

38—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Cross-Country Race.

39—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Four Miles.

40—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Umpire.

41—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Sidetracked.

42—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Teamwork.

43—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Step-Over.

44—Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Monterey.

45—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Athletes.

46—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Outfielder.

47—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, “Hundred.”

48—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Hobo Twirler.

49—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Canceled Game.

50—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Weird Adventure.

51—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Double Header.

52—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Peck of Trouble.

53—Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the Spook Doctor.

54—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Sportsmanship.

55—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ten-Innings.

56—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ordeal.

57—Frank Merriwell, Jr., on the Wing.

58—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Cross-Fire.

59—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Lost Team-mate.

60—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Daring Flight.

61—Frank Merriwell, Jr., at Fardale.

62—Frank Merriwell, Jr., Plebe.

63—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Quarter-Back.

64—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Touchdown.

65—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Night Off.

66—Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the Little Black Box.

67—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Classmates.

68—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Repentant Enemy.

69—Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the “Spell.”

70—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Gridiron Honors.

71—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Winning Run.

72—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Jujutsu.

Dated December 20th.

73—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Christmas Vacation.

Dated December 27th.

74—Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the Nine Wolves.

Dated January 3d 1914.

75—Frank Merriwell, Jr., on the Border.

Dated January 10th, 1914.

76—Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Desert Race.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

OWEN CLANCY’S RUN OF LUCK; Or, THE MOTOR WIZARD IN THE GARAGE.

CHAPTER I. OVER THE RIM ROCK.

CHAPTER II. JIMMIE FORTUNE.

CHAPTER III. THE MOTOR WIZARD.

CHAPTER IV. CLANCY GETS A JOB.

CHAPTER V. HIBBARD SHOWS HIS TEETH.

CHAPTER VI. ROCKWELL’S SCHEME.

CHAPTER VII. IN THE RED STAR GARAGE.

CHAPTER VIII. FORTUNE’S MYSTERY.

CHAPTER IX. A WEIRD STATE OF AFFAIRS.

CHAPTER X. HELPING THE JUDGE.

CHAPTER XI. CAUGHT RED-HANDED.

CHAPTER XII. HIBBARD WEAKENS.

CHAPTER XIII. THE JUDGE TAKES A HAND.