UNDERHAND WORK.

That was not the first time Matt King had met Dirk Hawley. The man was highly successful in his nefarious profession, owned a gambling-house in Phoenix, and Matt knew, from personal observation, that he was both tricky and unscrupulous. During the recent Phoenix-Prescott athletic meet Hawley had tried to bribe Matt to withdraw from the bicycle-race, and had even gone so far as to have him abducted from Phoenix, in order to keep him out of it. The gambler, in conjunction with an enemy of Matt's named Dace Perry, had "plunged" heavily on the Prescott contestant, and only Matt's timely arrival at the track had saved the day for Phoenix.[A]

Because of all this, there was little love lost between Hawley and Matt. The gambler's face, as he stood on the bridge with one hand outstretched, was full of anger and determination. Matt eyed him coolly. With a muttered imprecation, Hawley snatched at the letter, but Matt stepped back quickly and thrust the missive behind him.

"What d'you mean?" panted Hawley savagely.

"I mean that this letter isn't yours," replied Matt. "It's addressed to my chum, Mark McReady."

"Never you mind who it's addressed to. I say it's mine, and that's all you need to know. Give it here! This ain't the first time your trail's crossed mine, young feller, an' I'm gittin' mighty tired of havin' you butt in an' try to give me the double-cross. If you know when you're well off you'll mind your own business—if you've got any to mind. Gi'me that, an' no more foolishness!"

Hawley finished with a snap of his big, protruding lower jaw. He was a man accustomed to having his way, and from his manner it was plain that he intended to have it now. But if he was determined, so was Matt; and there was a glint in Motor Matt's gray eyes which Hawley would have done well to heed.

Chub and Penny had approached the bridge from behind the gambler, drawn to the scene by the other's loud voice and blustering manner. Matt's face was toward the boys, but Hawley had his back to them and did not know they were so close.

As Hawley made his last fierce demand for the letter, he sprang forward, intending to take it by force if he could not get it in any other way. Matt, who was watching him warily, leaped back and jerked his motor-cycle in front of him. Hawley came into violent collision with the hundred-and-fifty-pound machine, barking a shin on one of the pedals and getting a sharp dig in the stomach with one of the handle-bars. Matt hung to the motor-cycle and kept it from going over, for he was not taking any more chances with the Comet than he was obliged to.

Breathless and fairly boiling with wrath, Hawley fell back.

"Confound you!" he fumed, doubling up with both hands on the pit of his stomach, "I'll make you sorry for this! If you don't give me that letter, I'll——"

"There it goes!" cried Matt, flipping the letter deftly over the gambler's head. "Catch, Chub!" he added. "That's addressed to you, but it dropped out of Hawley's pocket, here on the bridge. Take care of it."

Chub grabbed the letter out of the air.

"You bet I'll take care of it," he answered. "It was dad who scratched out his own name and wrote mine over it—I can tell his fist as far as I can see it. How in Sam Hill did Hawley happen to have this?"

The gambler turned on Chub with an angry snarl.

"I reckon it is yours," said he, with a puzzling change of tactics that Matt could not understand, "but that's no reason I should give it up to that young cub," and he turned to glare at Matt. "The letter came into my hands by accident, an' I was takin' the trouble to walk out here an' bring it to you when that old freak, Perkins, came within an ace of running me down."

"Why didn't you give it to me, then?" demanded Chub. "You had plenty of chance while Matt was racin' after Welcome an' stoppin' the other machine."

"How could I give it to you," scowled Hawley, "when it was layin' on the bridge?"

"You never made a move to take it out of your pocket," scored Chub, "an' you didn't know you'd dropped it on the bridge till you'd turned around an' saw Matt pickin' it up."

"Aw, what's the use of chewin' the rag with a lot o' kids, anyhow?" snapped Hawley, whirling around and starting across the bridge toward town. As he passed Matt he gave him a hostile look. "I've got a big score to settle with you, my bantam," he said, between his teeth, "an' you can chalk it up that you're goin' to get all that's comin' before I'm done."

Matt did not reply, but returned the gambler's look steadily. Then he watched him as he limped off down the road.

"Here's a go!" exclaimed Chub, as soon as Hawley was out of ear-shot. "He never intended to give me the letter. I'd never have got it if Welcome hadn't come so near runnin' him down, an' if you hadn't seen it, Matt, an' got hold of it first. What sort of a game do you calculate he was tryin' to play?"

"What did he say to you while I was sailing after Welcome?" asked Matt.

"Why, he asked if I had heard anythin' from dad lately—wanted to know if anythin' had come by wireless from Delray at the Bluebell."

Chub was of an inventive turn, and had constructed a wireless apparatus that enabled him to communicate with the Bluebell Mine, twenty miles away in the hills. Delray, the watchman at the Bluebell, was an old telegraph-operator, and a good friend of Chub's and Matt's.

"He didn't say anything about having a letter for you?"

"Not a yip. What's he developed such a sudden an' overwhelmin' interest in dad for? Why, he wouldn't even pass the time of day with dad, even if dad was willin'—which he wouldn't be, not havin' a very high opinion of Hawley anyhow. And yet, here's Dirk Hawley, walkin' 'way out here to bat up a few questions concernin' dad. But he wasn't intendin' to give me that letter, that's a cinch."

"I'm dashed if I think he was, either," mused Matt. "He made a sudden shift, after I got the letter into your hands, Chub."

"Take it from me," chimed in Penny, "Dirk Hawley's up to some underhand work. Mebby you two can figure it out, but I've got to be goin'. Hope old Perk'll get over his mad spell, Chub," he added, with a grin.

"Susie'll smooth him down, Ed," laughed Chub, "but I guess he won't buy that gasoline push-cart of yours for me, now."

"Was Welcome thinking of doing that?" put in Matt.

"That's what he had in his mind, but after that wild ride, and the way he felt when he got through with it, I guess that little Reddy McReady will have to pass up the motor-cycle."

"Well," said Penny, starting off, "a hundred takes 'er, Chub, if the reformed road-agent changes his mind."

When Penny got over the bridge, and had headed for the place where his motor-cycle had been left, Chub and Matt went on with their talk about Dirk Hawley and the letter.

"It's the biggest mystery I ever went up against," declared Chub.

"Maybe there's a way you can clear it up," said Matt.

"How?"

"Why, by reading the letter," laughed Matt, "instead of standing there and bothering your head about it."

"Sure," returned Chub. "That's the one thing to do, and it's the one thing I hadn't thought of."

Just as he started to take the letter out of the envelope, a shrill voice reached the boys from along the road.

"Mark! Come here, Mark—and hurry!"

Chub and Matt shifted their gaze to the front of the house. Chub's sister Susie was standing by the gate and seemed to be considerably excited. As she called to her brother, she waved her hands frantically.

"Gee-whiskers!" exclaimed Chub, pushing the letter into his pocket. "What's to pay now?"

"Perhaps Welcome refuses to be smoothed down," suggested Matt.

"It's somethin' besides that," declared Chub.

Matt mounted the Comet and kept abreast of Chub as he hurried back toward the house.

"Come around to the kitchen—quick!" called Susie, retreating hurriedly through the gate as the boys came close.

Matt took his machine into the yard and leaned it against the wall. Chub had already followed Susie into the kitchen, and they were standing in one corner of the room, looking down at the wreck of Chub's wireless apparatus when Matt ran in.

"What d'ye think of that?" wailed Chub, waving his hand toward the smashed instrument.

"Who did it?" queried Matt.

"I don't know, Matt," answered Susie. "I was in the front part of the house when I heard a smash out here in the kitchen. I came as quick as I could, but there was no one here. The kitchen door was open, and I ran and looked out. I heard some one running through the bushes, but I couldn't see who it was."

It had taken Chub several weeks to get together the materials for that wireless-telegraph apparatus. Induction coils and batteries he had sent away for, but all the rest of the material he had picked up here and there, wherever he could find them. The instruments had been crude, but they served their purpose and had been the pride of Chub's heart.

As he stared at the wreck, Chub clenched his hands and his lip trembled.

"Too bad, Chub," sympathized Matt. "Have you any idea who could have done it?"

"This seems to be Dirk Hawley's day for underhand work," muttered Chub.

"But Hawley couldn't have done this—he was hiking for town when it happened. Still, it may be that he was mixed up in it. Read that letter, Chub. There's a chance that it may give us a clue to the mystery."

Chub dropped into a chair and pulled the letter out of his pocket.