SURPRISING EVENTS.

"You're a daring youngster," remarked Red-whiskers, leering at the prisoner through the smoke of his cigar. "I suppose you think you're pretty smart, eh? Well, there are others. How did you find out we were here?"

"I found out," said Matt. "I don't think it would help me any if I told you how."

"Don't get gay," admonished Red-whiskers, his eyes dropping significantly to the weapon on his knee. "Remember where you are, Motor Matt. You're interfering with a game that doesn't concern you in the least. Poor policy, boy, poor policy. You ought to have sense enough to know that without being told. Where did you meet young Lorry?"

"I'm not talking about Lorry or any one else," returned Matt. "You might as well let me go."

"All in due time, my lad, and after you satisfy our curiosity. You rowed over from Tiburon?"

Matt was silent.

"That's what he must have done," spoke up Ross. "How could he have got here if he hadn't rowed over? He didn't swim, that's sure, for he's got on all his clothes an' they're dry as a bone. I'll go out and see if I can discover his boat."

Ross turned to the door, but Red-whiskers lifted a restraining hand.

"We'll look after the boat in due time, Ross," said he. "Just now we'll give all our attention to Motor Matt. I'll trouble you for that trunk check, my lad," he finished, facing the prisoner once more.

Matt, knowing it would be worse than useless to resist, drew the check from his pocket and tossed it to Red-whiskers.

"Much obliged," said the leader grimly, examining the tag. "This is the one, sure enough," he added to Kinky and Ross.

"How did you know I had it?" asked Matt.

"The gent that raffled off that boat put me next. How much pleasanter it would have been," Red-whiskers pursued, slipping the check into his pocket, "if you'd been nice and sociable, over there at the foot of Clay Street, and let me have that brass tag without trying to make trouble. What have you gained, Motor Matt, by roughing things up like you did? And what have you gained by sneaking in here? Are you any better off?"

"Cut it out, John," growled Kinky. "What's the good o' readin' him a lecture?"

Red-whiskers scowled at Kinky.

"Be so good as to dry up," he requested. "You never was able to see anything an inch or two beyond your nose, so you can't guess what I'm driving at. Motor Matt," he went on, to the prisoner, "what did you lug that cop along with you for, when you came to the foot of Clay Street? What was your object? Was you afraid of that part o' town, and was he just a sort of bodyguard?"

Matt laughed at that.

"Hardly that," said he. "You've got ten thousand dollars that belongs to young Lorry, and the policeman was there to get it."

"Well, well!" exclaimed the red-whiskered man, with a humorous glance at Ross and Kinky, "he thinks we've got ten thousand dollars! But," he continued, "assuming that we have got that much money, how do you figure that it belongs to Lorry? Did Lorry steal it from his old man? If he did, does that make it his? If it does, Motor Matt, then if we stole the money from young Lorry it ought to belong to us."

"That's foolish," said Matt, trying to guess what Red-whiskers was driving at.

"Possibly it is. Now, you're a pretty good sort of fellow, only a trifle headstrong, and I don't mind saying that we did take that ten thousand from young Lorry. And why? Let me tell you it was all perfectly legitimate." He leaned over confidentially and tapped Matt on the knee with the muzzle of the revolver. "We're detectives, Motor Matt, Chicago detectives, and old Mr. Lorry, that lives in Madison, Wisconsin, commissioned us to recover that money. We've recovered it; and you"—Red-whiskers leaned back and laughed softly—"thought we was thieves and tried to have us pinched! What do you think of that for a joke?"

"Then," said Matt, "it's all a joke about you and your pals sailing for Honolulu to-morrow and dividing the money between you when you get there?"

Enjoyment immediately faded out of the situation for the red-whiskered man. He straightened up, pulled at his fiery beard and glared at Motor Matt.

Matt realized that he had made a mistake. By speaking as he had done, he had virtually admitted that he knew more about the plans of the three rascals than they had thought possible.

"Ah," and a crafty smile crossed Red-whiskers' face "I thought you'd let out something, if I prodded you a little, but I'll be hanged if I expected that. This is beginning to look mighty serious for you, Motor Matt. Where did you learn all that?"

"I was under the floor," replied Matt.

"Exactly—under the floor listening to a conversation that didn't concern you. Because of that, you're going to stay two weeks on this boat, and Landers is going to keep you. By then we'll be where we're going and out of harm's way, and it won't be possible for what you know to have any effect. You've only yourself to blame for this. Who's that chink that won the boat in the raffle?"

"I don't know much about him," replied Matt.

"You took his boat across the bay for him, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, he knew where you had gone, because he told me. That's how I was able to send that note to the Bixler House. The chink said you had a couple of fellows with you—one, in particular, who had fallen off a ferryboat and whom you had picked up. Was that young Lorry?"

"I'm not saying a word," said Matt, "about Lorry. You say you're going to keep me on this house boat for two weeks. If that's your plan, all right, go ahead with it."

For several minutes Matt, from where he sat, had been trying to locate the satchel under the bench. It was impossible for him to see it, and he supposed that it had either been moved by Red-whiskers, or taken away.

"We're going to leave for parts unknown," continued the leader of the three rogues, "and we're going to take young Lorry with us. I guess if we give him a thousand of his father's money he'll be satisfied."

"You're a scoundrel, on your own showing," cried Matt angrily, "but I don't think you'd be such a contemptible scoundrel as to take that boy away and make him a thief, like you and your pals!"

"Softly, Motor Matt," warned Red-whiskers. "What is the boy now but a thief, and on his own showing, at that? I don't think we can hurt him any, and by taking him away we'll be doing a good thing for him—and for us."

"You'll ruin him, that's what you'll do," proceeded Matt indignantly. "Haven't you a thought for his people, back there in Wisconsin?"

"What are his people to us? I had intended all along to compromise with the cub and give him a thousand, but you got to him before we did. He doesn't dare appeal to the law——"

"There are others who will act for him," broke in Matt. "There's the making of a man in young Lorry, and if you do as you say you intend to, you will end by making him no better than you are."

"You're not very complimentary, it strikes me," said Red-whiskers easily, bending down and groping under the bench with one hand. "We might just as well take our boodle and get away from here. I had planned to stay on the house boat all night, and run over to 'Frisco in the launch in time to catch that steamer to-morrow, but you've compelled us to change our plans. We'll take a night train, and—— Where in blazes is that satchel?"

Failing to find the satchel with one hand, Red-whiskers had used both hands. Even then the treasure grip eluded him, and in a sudden flurry he dropped to the floor on his knees and looked under the bench. The next instant he had leaped up, maddened and furious.

"It's gone!" he shouted.

Kinky and Ross jumped as though they had been touched by a live wire.

"Gone?" they echoed blankly.

"You know something about this!" cried Red-whiskers, facing Ross furiously.

"What're you givin' us?" retorted Ross menacingly. "If you think you can throw any such bluff as that, John, and make it stick, you've got another guess coming. You've taken the satchel yourself! You never intended to whack up with Kinky and me, and this is a move to corral all the money."

"Don't be a fool!" snapped Red-whiskers, studying Ross' face for a moment, and then swerving his eyes to Kinky.

The affair had a dark look, for a space, as both Kinky and Ross had reached their hands under their coats. If the three scoundrels had a quarrel among themselves, Matt felt that he would have a chance of escape. His eager eyes traveled to the doors, and then to the window.

"Look here, you two," went on Red-whiskers, his eyes glittering fiendishly, "the satchel's gone. I'll take back what I said about you two having had anything to do with trying to lift it. Certainly I didn't—you ought to know that. We've all been in this room——"

"Except when we ran aft to ketch that fellow," fumed Ross, indicating Matt with a jerk of the head. "You was in here alone with the satchel then, John. How do we know you didn't hide it on us?"

"Mebby it was him!" stormed Kinky, stepping toward Matt.

"How could it have been him?" objected Ross. "He was under the floor, and we kept him busy every minute until he bobbed up through the after hatch."

"Then it was Landers!" cried Kinky. "I never did like that feller's looks. I'll bet it was Landers! If——"

Just at that moment the chug-chug of a motor was heard outside.

"He's turning over the engine!" cried Red-whiskers, jumping for one of the doors. "Landers has got the satchel and he's getting away with it in the boat."

Red-whiskers threw himself against the door, trying to break it down.

"Wait, confound it!" yelped Ross; "here's the key, John. I'll unlock the door if you'll gi' me a chance."

The three men paid no attention whatever to Matt. As soon as Ross could unlock and throw open the door they all rushed out.

The San Bruno was still lying where she had been moored, but the wheeze of a boat could be heard, and a craft, a cable's length away, could be seen vanishing wraithlike into the shadows across the cove.

"Landers has got another boat, somewhere, and he's running away in it!" declared Kinky.

"We'll overhaul him with the San Bruno," cried Red-whiskers, throwing himself into the launch. "One of you stay behind and look after the prisoner——"

"Hang the prisoner!" answered Kinky. "The money means more to us than he does."

Ross cast off the rope that held the launch alongside the house boat, and both he and Kinky sprang aboard the San Bruno.

Matt, bewildered by the surprising events that had followed each other so swiftly, stood on the forward deck of the houseboat and watched while the San Bruno got under way and started on the track of the other boat.

That other boat, of course, Matt knew to be the Sprite. But why was she tearing off across the cove like that? Why were McGlory and Ping leaving Matt when they must have known he was in difficulties? Had they started for Tiburon to get a few policemen and bring them back to help their comrade out of his trouble?

As these questions sped through Matt's bewildered mind a laugh echoed behind him—and he turned to face the most surprising of all the events that had happened that night.