DESPERATE VILLAINY.

Although Matt and his friends did not know it, yet the course taken by the Red Flier on leaving La Vita Place was watched.

Joe Mings, climbing a tree, kept the car under his eyes. In the distance he saw it leave the road, then he could make out two figures returning on foot to the road and proceeding toward the cliffs. He called down the result of his observations.

"What do you suppose they're up to?" asked Sercomb, with a worried look, as Mings slid back to the ground.

"I pass," replied Harry Packard, one of the most lawless of the quartet; "but it's a fair gamble, Ralph, that they're not up to any good."

"I should say not," said Balt Finn, the driver of the touring-car. "That Ferral is after Mings' hide."

"Well," said Mings sullenly, "I wouldn't have gone through Ferral in Lamy if you hadn't said so, Ralph."

"I'd like to know what their game is," mused Sercomb. "Mings, you and Packard go to the place where they left the car. If you can smash the car some way, they won't be able to go to Lamy until we're ready to leave here."

"A nice jaunt before breakfast!" muttered Packard.

"We can stand it, I reckon," scowled Mings. "Let's take a drink all around and try it, anyhow."

Packard pulled a flask from his pocket and took a swallow of its fiery contents; then he passed the flask to Mings.

"You fellows have got some in the house," said Packard, corking the flask and returning it to his pocket. "Joe and I will take this with us. Maybe we'll need it," and he winked at Mings.

"Be careful what you do to the fellow that stayed with the car," cautioned Sercomb.

"Suppose it's Ferral?"

"Then," returned Sercomb, with a significant look, "be careful how you do what you're going to. You fellows fell down last night."

"I'll not forget in a hurry the thumping that Ferral and the Dutchman gave us," growled Packard.

"And don't you forget, Mings," said Sercomb, "what Ferral will do to you if he gets to Lamy. Smash the car."

Mings and Packard started off briskly toward the place where the Red Flier had been left. The spot was not more than half a mile from La Vita Place.

Ferral, all unconscious of the fact that two of his enemies were approaching, sprawled out in the front seat of the Red Flier and puzzled his brain over the queer situation in which he found himself.

He could make nothing of it, and as time slipped away his brain grew more and more befuddled. He was hoping Matt and Carl might discover something of importance, or, if they did not, that when the Red Flier returned from Lamy with an officer, the law might do something to clear up the mystery in which Uncle Jack had plunged everything at La Vita Place.

A deep quiet reigned in the little grove. A droning of flies was the only sound that disturbed the stillness. The warm air and the silence made Ferral drowsy.

Once he roused up, thinking he heard a sound somewhere around him; then, assuring himself that he was mistaken, he sank back on the front seat and his nodding head bowed forward.

Suddenly, before he could do a thing to protect himself, a quick arm went round his throat from behind, and he felt some one catch his feet from the side of the car. He gave a shout of consternation as his head bent backward and his eyes took in the face that leered above him.

It was the face of Mings!

"Caught!" laughed Mings hoarsely. "Thought you'd shaken us, eh? Well, you were shy a few!"

"Just a few!" tittered the voice of the man on the ground.

"Here's a rope," went on Mings, kicking the coiled riata, which Matt carried in the car, out through the swinging door. "Take it and tie his legs, Harry. I'll hold him. Got a strangle-grip and he can't budge."

As soon as Packard let go his hold, Ferral began to kick and struggle; but Mings was in such a position that he could keep him very easily from getting away.

Packard, although tipsy from the effects of the liquor he and Mings had imbibed on the way from La Vita Place, tied one end of the rope quickly about Ferral's ankles. The free end of the rope was then wound around the seat and Ferral's hands were made fast behind him. In a few minutes he was bound to the seat and absolutely helpless. Mings and Packard, gloating over his predicament, got around in front of the car.

"How do you like that?" asked Packard.

"He likes it," hiccoughed Mings; "you can tell that by the looks of him."

"You're a fine lot of swabs!" exclaimed Ferral contemptuously. "Sercomb ordered me off the place, and I slanted away; now you follow me with your beach-comber tricks. Oh, yes, you're a nice lot! What are you trying to do?"

"Going to smash the car," answered Mings.

"You keep your hands off this car!" cried Ferral, realizing suddenly that he had been caught napping, and that Motor Matt might get into a lot of trouble on account of it.

"Well," grinned Packard, "you just watch us."

"Are you going to Lamy?" demanded Mings.

"That's where I'm going!" declared Ferral resolutely.

"Not to-day you won't; and not in this car. We're going to fix Motor Matt for butting into our plans, and we're going to fix you so you won't get to Lamy and back before we're on the road to Denver. You're cute, but you're not so cute as we are. Oh, no! Is he, Packard?"

"We're the boys!" observed Packard.

They were both partly intoxicated. Naturally lawless, the liquor they had taken had made them more so.

"See here," said Ferral, desperately anxious to save the car, "you've got some of my money, Mings, and I could have you jugged for taking it, but if I'll promise not to get an officer and to let you keep the money, will you leave this car alone? It doesn't belong to Motor Matt, and he's responsible for it. I was left here to watch it——"

"Nice watchman!" sputtered Packard; "fine watchman! Eh, Mings?"

"Dandy watchman!" and Mings laughed loudly. "He didn't hear a sound when I sneaked into the tonneau. I tell you what, Packard!" he exclaimed, as a thought ran suddenly through his befogged brain.

"Well, tell it!" urged Packard.

"Let's send him to Lamy."

"Send him to Lamy?"

"Sure! Let's put him in the road and open the car up! Mebby he'll get to Lamy."

"He'll smash into the rocks, that's what he'll do."

"Well, that'll fix the car. By the time Motor Matt pulls Ferral out of the wreck, I guess he won't feel like getting an officer."

Ferral could hardly believe his ears.

"You scoundrels wouldn't dare do a thing like that!" he cried.

"He says we wouldn't dare, Packard," mumbled Mings.

"He don't know us, eh, Mings?"

"Not—not even acquainted. Let's throw the old benzine-buggy against the rocks, and give Motor Matt a surprise."

"He'll be surprised, all right. Serve him right, too, for meddling with Sercomb's business."

"He's a meddler, that's sure. Dace Perry told me all about him."

"Dace Perry's a blamed good fellow. He's one of our set."

"Can you navigate the car to the road?" asked Packard.

"Navigate a dozen cars! Anything more in the flask?"

"All gone," answered Packard gloomily.

"Well, there's more back at the house."

Mings got into the car and Packard did the cranking. When the car started it nearly ran over Packard.

"Trying to kill me?" shouted Packard, rolling out of the way.

"You're too slow," laughed Mings.

Fumbling awkwardly with the levers and the steering-wheel, Mings managed to get the car into the road and headed for the cliffs.

"Cut off a piece of that rope, Packard," called Mings. "I'll tie the wheel so as to be sure the car goes to Lamy."

"That's right," answered Packard, "you want to be sure."

He took out his knife, slashed a piece from the free end of the rope, and handed it up to Mings. The latter began lashing the wheel.

"Sercomb ought to give us a chromo for this," said Packard, watching Mings as he worked.

"You tell him we ought to have a chromo," returned Mings, with a foolish grin. "Sercomb's a blamed good chap; nicest chap I know."

Meanwhile, Ferral's face had gone white. He was fighting desperately with the ropes, but they held him firmly and he could not free his hands. A sickening sensation ran through him.

Neither Mings nor Packard had a very lucid idea of what they were attempting. They were fair examples of what liquor can do for a person in certain situations.

"Belay!" cried Ferral desperately. "You don't understand what you're doing, you fellows! You've headed me for the cliffs, and——"

"They're big and hard, those cliffs," said Mings, "and you'll hit 'em with quite a jolt. But it'll only smash the car, Ferral, and we had orders to smash the car."

Having finished with the wheel, Mings got on the running-board. Packard cranked up again. Mings threw in the clutch with his hand, pushed on the high gear, and was thrown off as the car jumped ahead.

He collided with Packard, and both tumbled on the ground and rolled over and over. When they had struggled to their feet, the two scoundrels saw something that almost sobered them.

It was the white runabout racing across the level ground in the direction of the road and the flying red car!

But, what was even more strange, Motor Matt was in the driver's seat of the runabout, and beside him was a strange, turbaned figure which neither Packard nor Mings had ever seen before.

On the ground, a long way in the rear of the racing runabout, stood a figure which Packard and Mings recognized as being that of Motor Matt's Dutch chum.