“ The colonel’s double-dealing was shown up in all its ugly brazenness, and the cowboy finished by regretting that he had not the private report of Hannibal J. Levitt to offer in evidence.
“Perhaps,” suggested Matt, “the colonel can show it to you, if it has not already been destroyed.”
“The colonel,” spoke up that gentleman witheringly, “is not here to be bossed by a fellow of your stripe. Your wild and woolly stories seem to have made a hit with the representatives of capital, but they’re fakes, and everybody here will know they’re fakes, before many days.” ”

“ Hearing the name McGlory, and understanding that Levitt was expected with him, the broker had jumped at conclusions.
“The expert, gentlemen,” smiled the colonel, addressing the capitalists, “whom you sent to investigate my little property. A very painstaking person, and reliable to the last degree. McGlory is one of our original stockholders; a young man—a mere lad, in fact—but sharp as a steel trap.” The colonel lifted his voice. “Have them come right in, Mr. Griggs,” he called.
Matt King and McGlory did not stand on the order. ”

“ Why, pard, that car won’t mind the helm or do the thing it ought to do even when you pull the right thing. When it began to crawfish around the road, the reverse wasn’t on.”
“I don’t know about that. It’s on now,” and he looked down at the runabout. “I guess the man must have thrown on the reverse instinctively when the tire blew up. Think of rinsing the chalk from the outer tube with gasoline!” Matt laughed. “There was good cause for the tire going wrong, and there may be other good and sufficient causes for the machine’s sizzling around like it did. ”

“ A despicable part it was, for one who had benefited at Matt’s hands as had McGlory; but the cowboy was filled with the colonel’s specious arguments and crafty explanations, and believed that, when the dust of the affair had settled, and Matt knew everything, he would thank his cowboy chum for preventing him from making a big mistake.
“The colonel is a schemer, Joe,” declared Matt.
“You bet your spurs he is,” chuckled McGlory. “That’s the way they raise ’em out in Tucson. The only way to keep a fellow from getting ahead of you is to get ahead of him first.” ”

“ Matt asked.
“No thanks to that fiendish machine if I am,” sputtered the man, laboring frantically up the slope. “It has tried to kill me in a dozen different ways since I left home with it. I’m done. Life’s too short to bother with such an infernal car as that.”
Fairly boiling with rage, he started along the road on foot.
“Wait a minute!” shouted Matt. “Where you going?”
The man turned.
“Krug’s,” he answered. “I’ll get a decent, respectable car there to take me on.”
“You can telephone to a garage from Krug’s,” suggested Billy, “and they can send some one to get the runabout home.” ”

“ Can’t we get a rig to take us to the railroad station?”
“There are no rigs here,” answered Levitt. “It’s either the runabout—or travel afoot.”
“I’m a cowpuncher, and a cowpuncher ain’t built right for footwork. Well, let’s chance old Death and Destruction. We’ve got to be at that meeting, and we’ve five hours to get there. If the runabout don’t go backward more than it does ahead, I reckon we can make it.”
Levitt seemed as dubious over the attempt to ride in the runabout as was McGlory.
“Sure,” remarked Kelly, “she looks like a nice, easy-ridin’ little car. ”

“ Now and then the long, wild note of the Arctic wolf is heard through the midwinter gloom and a constant watch must be kept by well-armed men. The repeating rifle made wolves so scarce, however, that dogs are by far the greatest source of danger.
It seems utterly impossible to train the malamoot dog to herd deer. At sight of a deer the tamest malamoot becomes as uncontrollable as though he had never known human restraint and were once more a plain wolf. ”

“ He turned to the mining engineer. “The fire-water is before us, Levitt,” said he; “charge!”
Two hands gripped the glasses simultaneously, and a gurgling followed. The colonel dried his lips elaborately with a large yellow handkerchief.
“The day, Joseph,” he resumed, “is not far distant when you can own a private yacht, a racing stable, an imported car, and a lordly mansion. I have come personally to New York to drive the business through and clinch it. To-night we show the moneyed interests what we’ve got up our wide and flowing sleeves. ”

“ Buyers flock to the scene. The colonel picks out this syndicate of Random & Griggs’ as the boys to get the mine. Levitt comes out to examine the mine for the syndicate. The stockholders who have been frozen out begin to grow restive, and to threaten legal complications. Then Billings shows his fine Italian hand by hiring Levitt to make out that report, saying the ‘Dream’ is a pocket, and that the pocket is empty. That’s for the soreheaded stockholders to see, and they see it. So, in that way, legal complications are sidetracked while the colonel is selling the mine to the syndicate. ”

“ The Old Boy himself takes charge of some cars the moment they’re sold and in a customer’s hands. I’ve worked in a garage for five years, and I know.”
Matt laughed. McGlory laughed, too, but not so mirthfully. The cowboy had a little superstition in his make-up and Billy’s remarks had left a fleeting impression.
“Gammon, Billy, gammon,” said Matt. “If a car is built right, and works right, it is going to run right. That stands to reason.”
“A lot of things happen,” insisted Billy, “that don’t stand to reason. Now, take that runabout. The engine’s working fine—from the sound of it. Eh?” ”

“ I’m trying to hand you a fortune, and you’ve got to help me—in spite of Pard Matt. It’s your duty to help me. You’ll never have such a chance to pick out a brownstone front on Easy Street, and you mustn’t let the opportunity slip through your fingers.”
To say that Joe McGlory was not influenced by the colonel’s words would be to say that he was not human. The cowboy wanted money, not for its own sake, but for the great things he felt he could do with it. Not the least of the cowboy’s desires was to help Matt in some of his far-reaching aims in the motor field. ”

“ The old darky turned and deliberately pointed away from the pavilion and to a point in the encompassing timber which led toward the road, well to the north of the clubhouse.
“Dat’s de way he went, boss,” said he, “an’, by golly, he went jess a-hummin’.”
“This way, men!” shouted Levitt, leaping off in the direction indicated by the negro.
The six pursuers disappeared at a run, and left Matt gasping with astonishment. Why had the old darky put them on the wrong track? It was preposterous to think that the negro had himself been deceived. ”

“ Levitt began again.
“You didn’t know I had that private report, did you?” A weird laugh came with the words. “I’m a bit foxy myself, colonel. The ‘Pauper’s Dream’ isn’t worth what it cost to put down the shaft. You haven’t any vein. There was a pocket, but the pocket has been worked out. You’ve got to come across with a pile if you make me suppress that private report.”
“I’m the biggest blockhead that walks the face o’ the earth!” declared McGlory. “I——”
Levitt interrupted him.
“Keep your eye on Matt King, Billings! If lightning hits us, that cub will be back of it!” ”

“ Matt tried to stop, but he couldn’t. He went through all the motions for cutting off the flow of gasoline and switching off the spark. The clutch was out, but the engine still had the car, and the engine wouldn’t stop.
An automobile was just coming out of the sheds. The runabout came within an ace of a head-on collision. Fortunately the steering gear still worked, and Matt scraped mud guards with the other car and he and his cowboy chum bounded on along the road.
McGlory yelled frantically. “Jump!” he cried; “let the old contraption run its blooming head off!” ”

“ I’m beginning to think Billy had a bean on the right number, pard, when he said this car would have to kill somebody before it settled down and acted as though it was civilized.”
Matt looked up and saw his cowboy chum. McGlory was rubbing a bruise on the side of his face and was carrying the long manila envelope in his hand.
“Why didn’t you let the car go to blazes?” demanded the cowboy. “What did you want to hang on to it for? The best place for the blamed thing is the junk pile.” ”

“ McGlory was away again like a shot, leaving the colonel wondering—and fretting a little.
A few minutes later Levitt came gloomily into the room.
“That young cub gave us the slip,” said he savagely, “and I never had such a run in my life. The fat’s in the fire, Billings.”
“Not so, my friend,” returned the colonel, his quick wit grasping something that looked like an opportunity. “Can you get hold of a man who will help you? Are you acquainted with any one about the club grounds who can be trusted to do a little brisk work and then keep quiet about it?” ”

“ Old Ebony-face thinks you’re about the whole works, from the way he talks. A lot of queer things have happened to-day, but the queerest is your meeting Uncle Tom in this out-of-the-way corner of Long Island.”
“Wrong, Joe. The queerest—and the best—thing that’s happened is the way we picked up that private report of Levitt’s. We have to thank the crazy runabout for that.”
McGlory, although of a different opinion on that point since listening to the colonel’s persuasions, did not allow Matt to think that he disagreed with him. ”

“ IN THE GARAGE.
Matt was so bewildered on account of McGlory’s actions that he offered little resistance to Kelly and Levitt. Anyhow, the manila envelope had been taken from him, and Levitt—as Matt reasoned—had nothing to gain by the capture.
“Here’s the rope, Kelly,” said the mining engineer, coming close. “Better put it on him.”
“You don’t have to tie me,” protested Matt. “I’m not a thief, Levitt, and you know it. I’m willing to go, and go quietly, wherever you want to take me. I guess I can explain the affair to the authorities so that I’ll soon have my liberty.” ”

“ He’s liable to show his hand when you’re not thinking he’s within a thousand miles of you. Pretty sudden, the colonel is. He sprang a surprise on us when we got to the Country Club and found him there to meet us instead of Joshua Griggs. That’s a sample of the way he does things, Matt. You look out for him.”
“That will do now,” said the doctor authoritatively. “You’ve talked more than you ought to.”
“When’ll you blow in here again, pard?” added McGlory, reaching out his hand. ”

“ You can guess till you’re black in the face and you’ll still be up in the air. Cut loose from that bubble wagon—that’s your cue and mine.”
“There’s a reason for the car acting as it does,” declared Matt, “and I’m going to get down to the bottom of the mystery. We might just as well put in a little time right here. It’s not a very long run to the Malvern Country Club, and we can waste another half hour without missing your appointment.”
“If you took my advice,” muttered McGlory, “you wouldn’t touch that machine with a ten-foot pole.” ”

“ These wise young ladies know that the ownership of deer carries with it as a usual thing three or four years of first-class government rations and piles of cloth and clothing which Uncle Sam throws about in the Arctic with a generous hand. So among the natives there is developing a sort of reindeer aristocracy quite at variance with the old democratic, communistic ideas of the others who hold no property worth while, and who have not been favored by the government. ”

“ If he won’t come for his car, we’ll take it to him.”
“I’m a Piute,” mumbled McGlory, “if I feel right about this runabout business.”
“Billy’s talk about hoodoo cars has got you on the run,” grinned Matt. “You’ll feel different when we’re slamming along the pike with the runabout under perfect control. It’s my opinion that man doesn’t know a whole lot about running a car.”
While Matt was moving here and there about the steep bank, making a few investigations of the “hoodoo” machine, Billy came racing back. ”

“ If the moss is poor the deer may feed for six hours, at the end of which time they are driven back to the vicinity of the camp and allowed to remain there until the next feeding time, while the ease-loving servants of the government sleep or whittle fine old ivory into curios to be traded off on the ships for the tobacco which Uncle Sam overlooked in ordering the shiploads of supplies which annually find their way to the reindeer camps of Alaska.
True, there is other work to be done. Every spring along comes fawning season, and the deer herders have to stand watch day and night by turns. ”

“ In the midst of the deliberations the quiet of Liberty Street was disturbed by the sputter of an automobile. For the most part, Liberty Street, in the vicinity of the brokers’ offices, was a deserted cañon at that hour.
But if the automobile disturbed the quiet of the street, it did not disturb the deliberations of those in Random & Griggs’ offices. It took a rap on the outer door to do that. Mr. Griggs himself answered the summons.
“McGlory and Levitt, colonel,” he called. ”

“ Matt was silent. He was facing a proposition that was new to him, but he was dealing with motor details with which he was perfectly familiar. Here was an ordinary four-cycle engine, and an ordinary float-feed carburetor; the transmission was of the common sliding-gear variety; the fuel tank was under the seat, and the gasoline was fed into the engine by gravity. ”

“ Matt, at any cost to himself, meant to keep McGlory clear of Billings and his criminal work. What is a friend for if not to stand shoulder to shoulder with a chum and save his good name? This touched upon one of Matt’s principles—one of his rules of conduct long ago formulated and steadily adhered to. ”

“ In the background the rugged Adirondacks kept watch and ward over the treasures below, and on their seamed and time-scarred forehead lingered the touch of sunlight long after the shadows of gloom had robbed Lake Menatee of its beauty.
Not a living creature was to be seen to give life to the solitude of nature. ”