MARKING OUT A COURSE.

"Poor old codger!" exclaimed McGlory, as he and Matt lifted the clerk and carried him to the bed in the other room. "He's had more trouble than he could dodge, pard."

"He didn't try to dodge it, Joe," answered Matt quietly, "and that's to his credit. He's worn out. I'll bet that, while he was scrimping in order to take up his son's I O U's, he has hardly eaten enough to keep himself alive. His constitution is broken down, and this trip in the rain from Minnewaukon has topped off his endurance. It's only a faint, that's all, but it proves the old man has got to be looked after."

Matt and McGlory had revived Prebbles before Cameron came with the doctor. The latter, after listening to as much of the matter as the boys could tell him, felt the old man's pulse and shook his head gravely.

"We'll have to keep him in bed for a day or two, I think," he said.

"Don't say that!" begged Prebbles. "I got work to do, doctor! Besides, this isn't my bed—it belongs to Motor Matt's friend, Cameron, and——"

"Motor Matt's friend," put in the lieutenant, "is only too glad to give you his bed, Prebbles. I can sleep on the couch in the next room, and you can stay here until you're well enough to leave."

"But I can't stay here," cried Prebbles querulously. "Didn't you hear me say I had work to do? I've got to help Motor Matt—all of you know why."

"Anyhow, Prebbles," said Matt, "nothing can be done until morning. You stay here and keep quiet until then. Meanwhile, Cameron, McGlory, and I will mark out a course, and we'll tell you all about it before we begin following it. If you're able, you can go with us. If you're not able, you can stay here and feel sure that I'll carry out this make-and-break affair of yours just as though it was my own. You can trust me to advance the spark of friendship, can't you?"

"There ain't any one else I'd trust but you, Motor Matt," declared Prebbles. "But I'm going with you, in the morning. I haven't any money——"

"You don't need any," interrupted Cameron. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you please, at the government's expense. You have brought a clue which may lead to the capture of Murgatroyd, and the government has offered a reward of one thousand dollars for him."

"If he can be captured, Prebbles," added Matt, "the money will go to you."

"It'll come in handy, but—but it's Newt I want."

At a nod from the doctor, Matt, McGlory, and Cameron went into the other room and closed the door.

"Prebbles will never be able to leave here to-morrow morning," averred Cameron.

"It's up to McGlory and me," said Matt, "to do what we can."

"Give me a share in the work," begged Cameron. "Perhaps I can do something. If necessary, I'll get a furlough."

Matt was thoughtful for a few moments. Stepping to the window overlooking the parade ground, he peered out at the weather. The rain continued to come down in torrents, but there was a hint, overhead, that the storm would not last out the night.

"We have a good clue to Murgatroyd's whereabouts," said Matt presently, coming back and taking a chair facing his friends, "but there are several points to be considered. Prebbles sent on the original of his son's letter last night. That means that some time to-day Murgatroyd got the letter in Bismarck. If it is raining as hard, over on the Missouri, as it is here, it is unlikely that Murgatroyd went up the river to Burnt Creek to-day. With clearing weather, he'll probably go up to-morrow."

"Then," said Cameron, "it's our business to take a train for Jamestown at once, connect with a west-bound train there for Bismarck, and then take a team and drive from Bismarck to Burnt Creek."

"The afternoon train has left Minnewaukon," answered Matt, who seemed to have considered every phase of the matter, "and there is no other train south until to-morrow morning. That train, I think, connects with one on the main line for Bismarck, but we could hardly reach the town before late to-morrow afternoon, and it would be night before we could get to Burnt Creek. While we were losing all this time, what will Murgatroyd be doing?"

"Why not get an automobile from Devil's Lake City," suggested Cameron, "and reach Jamestown in time to connect with an earlier train?"

"How will the roads be after this rain?" inquired Matt.

"That's so!" exclaimed Cameron, with a gloomy look from one of the windows. "These North Dakota roads are fine in dry weather, but they're little more than bogs after a rain like this. We can't use the automobile, that's sure, and Murgatroyd is likely to reach Burnt Creek before we can possibly get there. Will he and young Prebbles stay at Burnt Creek until we arrive? That's the point."

"It's so uncertain a point," said Matt, "that we can't take chances with it."

"We've got to take chances, pard," put in McGlory, "unless we charter an engine for the run to Jamestown."

"There's another way," asserted Matt.

"What other way is there?" asked Cameron.

"Well, first off, we can send a message at once to Bismarck, to the chief of police——"

"Sufferin' blockheads!" grunted McGlory. "I never thought of that."

"How are the police going to locate Murgatroyd?" went on Cameron. "The scoundrel is there under an assumed name."

"Why," said Matt, "tell the police, in the message, to arrest any man who calls at the post office and asks for mail for 'George Hobbes.'"

"Easy enough," muttered Cameron.

"No," proceeded Matt, "not so easy as you think, for it may be that Murgatroyd has already received the letter. But shoot the message through at once, Cameron, and let's do all we can, and as quick as we can."

The message was written out and sent to the telegraph office by O'Hara.

"Now," said Cameron, "assuming that that does the trick for Murgatroyd, there is still young Prebbles to think about. He'll wait at Burnt Creek, I take it, for Murgatroyd, and if Murgatroyd is captured, and isn't able to leave Bismarck, we can reach Burnt Creek in time to find our man and advance that 'spark of friendship'—which, to be perfectly candid, I haven't much faith in."

"I believe," said Matt, "that the greatest scoundrel that ever lived has an affection for his parents, somewhere deep down in his heart. If I'm any judge of human nature, that cowardly blow Newt gave his father has bothered the young fellow quite as much as it has that old man, in there," and Matt nodded toward the door of the bedroom. "Leaving out sentiment altogether, though, and our ability to reach Newt on Prebbles' behalf, there's something else in his letter that makes the biggest kind of a hit with me."

"What's that?" came from both Cameron and McGlory.

"Well, young Prebbles is asking Murgatroyd for money, and hinting at something he knows about the accident to Harry Traquair. You remember that Mrs. Traquair's husband lost his life, in Jamestown, by a fall with his aËroplane. It is possible that young Prebbles knows more about that accident than Murgatroyd wants him to know."

"Speak to me about that!" muttered the wide-eyed McGlory. "Matt, you old gilt-edged wonder, you're the best guesser that ever came down the pike! Give him the barest line on any old thing, Cameron, and this pard of mine will give you, offhand, all the dips, angles, and formations."

"This is plain enough, Joe," protested Matt.

"I can see it now," said Cameron, "but I couldn't before. There are big things to come out of this business, friends! I feel it in my bones."

"And the biggest thing," declared Matt, with feeling, "is making Newt Prebbles' peace with his father."

"Then," said Cameron, with sudden animation, "I'm to get leave and go with you by train, to-morrow morning, to Bismarck, on our way to Burnt Creek?"

Matt shook his head.

"That depends, Cameron," he answered, dropping a friendly hand on the lieutenant's knee.

"Depends on what?"

"Why, on whether it's a clear, still day or a stormy one."

Both Cameron and McGlory were puzzled.

"I can't see where that comes in," said the lieutenant.

"If it's a fine day, Joe and I will go to Burnt Creek with the Comet."

McGlory jumped in his chair.

"That's another time I missed the high jump!" he exclaimed. "Never once thought of the Comet."

"All roads are the same," went on Matt, "when you travel through the air. Apart from that, we can cut across lots, in the Comet, and do our forty to sixty miles an hour between here and the Missouri and Burnt Creek."

Cameron was dashed. He was eager to take part in the work of bagging Murgatroyd, and in finding Newt Prebbles.

"Suppose an accident happens to the flying machine," said he, "and you are dropped on the open prairie, fifty miles from anywhere? You wouldn't be gaining much time over the trip by train."

"We won't go by air ship," replied Matt, "unless we are very sure the conditions are right. Give me the proper conditions, and I'll guarantee no accident will happen to the Comet."

"But McGlory is scared of his life to fly in the machine," went on Cameron. "Why not leave him here and let me go with you?"

"Not in a thousand years!" clamored McGlory. "I'm going to ride in the Comet. That's flat."

"Well, the machine will carry three," proceeded Cameron. "Why not leave the Chinaman behind and take me?"

"The Comet will carry three light weights," laughed Matt. "You're too heavy, Cameron."

"That lets me out," deplored Cameron, "so far as the Comet is concerned, but I'll go by train. Maybe I'll arrive in time to be of some help."

"We may all have to go by train, lieutenant," returned Matt; "we won't know about that until to-morrow morning. For the present, though, the course is as I've marked it out."

"Well, let's go and eat," said Cameron, getting up as the notes of a bugle came to his ears. "There goes supper call. I'll hope for the best, but I'm for Burnt Creek, Matt, whether I go in the Comet or by train."

Prebbles, they found, was asleep. O'Hara was brought in to sit with him while they were at supper, and all three left the room.