COOL VILLAINY.

It was several hours before Matt regained consciousness. His first tangible feeling was one of nausea. Opening his eyes, he found himself in a bare little room, lighted by a candle planted in its own drippings on the hard earth floor.

Matt's hands and feet were tied, and his limbs felt terribly numb and cramped. As his wits slowly returned, he began to note his surroundings more in detail.

The walls of the room were of adobe clay, but they had caved in in several places and parts of the thatched roof had fallen to the floor. The litter of clay and tule thatching had been brushed aside to leave the center of the room clear.

On the floor near Matt lay his leather cap. Close to the sputtering candle, squatting tailor-fashion, a doubled elbow on one of his knees and a black pipe in his fingers, was a resolute-looking man in cowboy clothes. Alongside of him lay a broad-brimmed hat and a coiled riata.

"Where am I?" called Matt.

The man turned his grizzled face in Matt's direction.

"Oh, ho!" he chuckled. "Come back ter earth, have ye? I was allowin' it ort ter be time. Whar be ye? Why, ye're in a desarted Mexican jacal in the foot-hills o' the Phoenix Mountains, about twenty miles from the capital of Arizony Territory. Anythin' else ye're pinin' ter know?"

"Who brought me here?" demanded Matt.

"You was brought in one o' them hossless kerriges, bub. That was a hull lot o' style, now, wasn't it? I've heern tell that lots o' people pays five dollars an hour ter ride in them benzine buggies, but you got yer ride fer nothin'. Ain't ye pleased?"

"This is no time for foolishness," said Matt. "I was dragged away from Phoenix against my will, and the best thing you can do is to take these ropes off me and let me go."

"The best thing fer you, mebby, but not exactly the best thing fer myself, not hardly. Jest lay thar an' be as comfortable as ye can, bub. We'll git along fine if ye're only peaceable. I'm goin' ter let ye go, bumby."

"By and by? When will that be?"

"After them races are over in Phoenix."

Matt's freshly awakened brain was just beginning to get a grasp of the situation.

"This is Hawley's doing!" he cried. "He had me captured, there on the bank of the canal, and brought out here in his machine! This is his scoundrelly way for keeping me out of that bicycle-race. Who are you?" Matt asked angrily.

"Me?" grinned the cowboy; "oh, don't worry none about that. I'm only jest the feller that helps. Roll over an' go ter sleep. I'll sit up an' see that nothin' comes in ter pester ye."

"There's a way to take care of people like you and Hawley," threatened Matt. "If you want to save yourself trouble, you'll release me."

"Waal, I don't figger it jest that way, bub," drawled the cowboy. "To let ye go afore Saturday night would be a mighty short cut ter trouble fer yours truly."

"But I'm to ride in that bicycle-race to-morrow!"

"Ter-day, bub, not ter-morrer. That bicycle-race is ter-day, since it's some little past midnight. We passed the fag-end o' Friday clost ter an hour ago. Yep, I understood ye was goin' ter race with O'Day at four o'clock p. m. But ye've changed yer mind about that."

"I haven't changed my mind," answered Matt desperately.

"Then somebody else changed yer mind fer ye, which don't make a particle o' difference, seein' as how ye can't help yerself. Good night, bub. I'll jest set here an' smoke an' doze an' make shore that nothin' don't happen. The man as got me ter do this was powerful pertickler about that."

There was nothing to be gained by talking with the fellow—Matt was not slow in making up his mind to that. The terrible pains he had felt when he had first opened his eyes were leaving him slowly, and this afforded him some comfort. Turning a little in order to make his position more easy, he closed his eyes and fell to thinking.

When he went to that place on the canal to meet Clipperton he had walked into a trap—but it was not a trap of Clipperton's setting. Hawley—and Perry, perhaps—had, as usual, used Clipperton as a tool. Matt was positive of this from the way Clipperton had acted when the trap was sprung. There were things about that challenge of Clipperton's which he did not understand, and probably never would understand until some one of his enemies explained the matter to him.

But, with the passing of recent events, fresh light was thrown upon the story told by Welcome Perkins. If Matt could not get back to Phoenix before 4 o'clock, Saturday afternoon, Perry would ride against O'Day—and Major Woolford's club would lose the bicycle-race. Incidentally, Hawley's scheming would enable him to win a lot of money.

The betting part of Hawley's schemes Matt cared little about. What he did worry over was Major Woolford's disappointment, and the fact that the Comet would go to O'Day—and go to him unfairly. Besides, Matt had set his heart on having the Comet for his own, and all his future plans clustered about his ownership of that splendid machine. He must get away, he must! By hook or crook he was in duty bound to get back to Phoenix in time for the bicycle-race, and to confront Hawley and Perry and foil their villainous plans. But how was he to escape?

Carefully he began tugging at the ropes about his wrists. They were discouragingly tight, and he soon discovered that he could do nothing with them. While he was racking his brain in an endeavor to think of something that would serve his turn, the craving of his tired body for rest and sleep gradually overcame him and his thoughts faded into slumber.

When he opened his eyes again it was broad day. The sun must have been two or three hours high, for its beams were shining in through an opening in the eastern wall that had once served as a window.

"Mornin', bub," drawled the voice of the cowboy. "Had a fine snooze, didn't ye? An' ye jest woke up in time fer grub. I've had my snack, an' I kin give my hull attention ter passin' ye yours."

The cowboy began fishing some crackers and cheese out of a paper bag.

"Can't you take the ropes off my hands while I eat?" asked Matt.

"Waal, I'd like ter, mighty well, seein' as how I'm the most obligin' feller by natur' you most ever set eyes on, but I give my promise that I wouldn't take them ropes off'n yer hands until sundown. 'Course ye wouldn't have a feller go back on his word, would ye?"

There was no satisfaction to be got out of the fellow, and Matt was obliged to wriggle to a sitting posture and have his jailer feed him. From time to time the cowboy would press a canteen of water to his lips.

Matt had a good appetite and he ate heartily, feeling that if he found a chance at attempting anything he could not do his best on an empty stomach.

"Thar ain't much variety to this here grub," apologized the cowboy, "but thar's plenty of it an' it does me proud ter see ye eat so hearty. I'm twicet as glad ter see ye chipper as I would be ter see ye down in the mouth."

"I try to be a good loser," said Matt.

"That's you! Bicycle-races ain't all thar is in this world."

"What time is it?"

"I ain't got no watch, but I kin figger purty clost by the sun." Stepping to the doorway the cowboy cast a critical glance at the cabin's shadow. "Half-past eleven, bub," he went on, turning back into the room, "is what I make it."

A thrill of dismay passed through Matt's nerves. Half-past eleven and the bicycle-race, the last event on the list, was to be at four o'clock! Only four hours and a half! And there was Matt, a prisoner, and twenty miles from Phoenix!

"You seem to be a pretty good fellow," said Matt eagerly, "and why is it you can help Hawley in this cool villainy of his? That bicycle-race means a lot to me! I don't know how much Hawley is paying you to keep me here, but if you will let me go, and give me a few weeks to pay it, I will double the money."

The cowboy shook his head. "I'm some pecooliar, thataway," he observed. "When I give my word I'll do a thing, you can bank on it I'm right thar with the goods. Now, if ye had a million, which it ain't in reason a boy yore age would have, an' if ye offered me half of it, I'd shore spurn yer money. When I hire out I goes ter the highest bidder, an' I sticks thar like a wood-tick ter a yaller dog. Sorry, bub, but that's the way I stack up."

There was no beating down the cowboy's resistance. He was there to do the work Hawley had paid him for, and nothing could swerve him from what he believed to be his duty.

Apparently not caring to have any further conversation with Matt, the cowboy began walking back and forth in the room, whistling to himself and now and then humming a snatch of song. Finally he sat down, picked up his coiled riata and began braiding the brushy end of the rope and overlaying it with twine.

The minutes passed. For a time Matt tried to count them, his heart all the while growing heavier and heavier. This was a time when it was hard indeed to be a "good loser."

There was a tremendous rivalry between the two athletic clubs—a rivalry in which the separate towns that claimed them took active part. In the contests the year before the Prescott club had got the better of the Phoenix club in the matter of points. Phoenix had won the one-mile dash, the broad jump, the bicycle-race and the hammer-throw, but Prescott had cleaned up all the other events. Matt knew how eager the major was to have Phoenix get the better of the rival town, and the loss of the bicycle-race, which counted high in the final summing-up, might turn the scale in favor of Prescott.

In his mind, as he lay helpless there on the floor of that abandoned jacal, the boy pictured the throngs of people moving along Washington Street toward the park. He heard the horns, the megaphones, the band, and he saw the white and blue of Phoenix High waving defiance to the red and white of Prescott High. Above everything came the school yells, and he stifled the groan that rose to his lips. He ought to be there, and he was twenty miles away! Yes, it was hard to be a good loser.

The cowboy must have divined something of what was going on in Matt's mind, for, as he laid aside his repaired riata and got up, he looked toward Matt.

"I'm sorry, bub, honest," said he, "but thar ain't a pesky thing I kin do except watch ye till sundown. Why, I ain't even got a hoss here. It's clost to two o'clock, now, an' if ye was loose ye couldn't git ter Phoenix in time fer that bicycle-race."

Matt made no reply. He could not trust himself to speak. The cowboy picked up the water-canteen and tried to drink, but the canteen was empty.

"I'm goin' ter the spring, bub," he remarked, starting for the door. "It ain't fur, an' I'll be back in a few minits. I'm dryer'n the desert o' Sahary, an' I reckon you wouldn't mind havin' a drink neither."

With that he left the room and vanished around the wall of the hut. Matt could hear his thin-soled, high-heeled boots crunching the sand as he moved away.

It was then that something happened which fairly took Matt's breath. A face appeared in the door—a swarthy face set sharply in lines that suggested a fierce strain and failing strength. Two gleaming black eyes looked in at the boy on the floor. The next moment a dusty form staggered into the room, reeled across the floor to Matt and went down on its knees.

"Clipperton!" whispered Matt, scarcely knowing whether he was awake or dreaming.

Without a word Clipperton began cutting at the ropes with a jack-knife. Slash, slash. It was quickly done, the severed coils falling from Matt's wrists and ankles.

"Come!" breathed Clipperton huskily. "Time is short. The man will be back."

Matt was groggy on his feet. Clipperton, none too steady himself, contrived to support him to the door. Once outside they started hurriedly across the bare hills, Matt speechless with the wonder of it all.