CHAPTER XVI.
FAME--AND A LITTLE FORTUNE.
"The returns are in from Devil's Lake City and Minnewaukon. Time, twohours and seven minutes. Distance traveled, ninety miles. This wasat the rate of a little less than forty-five miles an hour, and thegovernment ought to be completely satisfied. I know I am. Motor Matt,allow me to congratulate you."
One of the officers was doing the speaking.
It was three hours after the sensational finish of the trial. Thecrowds had departed. McGlory, a few officers, Cameron, and Matt were inthe tent at Camp Traquair. Cameron, his head bandaged, was lying on acot, but he was wide awake and smiling.
"I knew he could do the trick," said Cameron; "in fact, I've beenconfident of that ever since I saw him wabble around on his firstflight with the a?roplane. What beats me, though, is how those ropesbecame notched."
"Sergeant O'Hara thinks he knows how it happened," explained theofficer who had read off the _June Bug's_ record. "He and the otherthree guards were having a game of seven-up, last night, when theyshould have been giving their entire attention to watching thea?roplane. O'Hara thought he heard a noise around the machine. Heinvestigated, but found no cause for uneasiness. After that, O'Haradeclares, the card playing stopped; but, it now seems clear, the evilhad already been done."
"We don't know that this fellow calling himself Siwash Charley was thescoundrel who filed the guy ropes," spoke up another officer.
"It's a positive certainty, in my own mind," declared Cameron.
"What your individual belief is, lieutenant, would hardly stand at acourt-martial, or in a court of law."
"That's true, yes, sir. Siwash Charley was seen in Devil's Lake Cityyesterday----"
"Circumstantial, but hardly conclusive. He can't be found now. Fullya hundred men have been looking for him and are now on the trail, butSiwash Charley, if he was here, has vanished."
"I'm too happy over the way everything came out," put in Matt, "towaste any thoughts on Siwash Charley. The a?roplane has made good.There's no doubt about the sale to the government?"
"Not the slightest," came a chorus from the officers.
"There can't possibly be, Matt," added Cameron.
"That telegram of mine was sent to Mrs. Traquair?" Matt went on.
"It was sent from the post within half an hour after the a?roplanelanded. By this time, Mrs. Traquair knows what Motor Matt has done forher."
"It wasn't that that I wanted her to understand, but the fact thata little fortune had come to her, and that she was no longer in theclutches of that loan shark, Murgatroyd."
"She knows that, too. A little fortune, I understand, has also come toMotor Matt."
"And more fame," put in McGlory, "than one modest young chap like mypard knows how to shoulder."
"What little fortune there is," smiled Matt, "is to be divided withmy chum, Joe McGlory, who was a bigger help to me than I imagine herealized. Part of the fame should be his, too."
"Speak to me about that!" chuckled the cowboy. "Fame! Oh, yes, I oughtto be plastered with it. Why, I wouldn't have gone up in the _June Bug_for all the fame they tacked onto Napoleon."
There was a general laugh at this.
"I wonder what's become of Ping?" Matt inquired anxiously. "It isn'tlike him to hide out on us, in this fashion. The last I saw of him waslast night."
"There is something queer about that," averred McGlory. "He ought tohave been around to exult, Ping had, and it's----"
O'Hara stuck his head in at the tent flap, just at that moment.
"Beggin' yer pardon, sors, but there's an Injun just come, totin' ahalf-baked Chink. Do yez want thim insoide?"
"Sure!" cried Matt. "Send them in."
A Sioux Indian, looking anything but the noble red man in his moccasinsand coat, hat, and trousers, pigeon toed his way into the tent with abrief but respectful "How!"
Behind him, half carried and half dragged, came Ping!
The boy was a sight.
He was bareheaded and barefooted; his usually neat blouse and baggytrousers were torn and soiled; his hands were bleeding, and there was awild, despairing look on his yellow face. The wildness and the despairvanished, however, when he caught sight of Matt.
"By Klismas!" he gurgled. "Shiwas Charley no killee Motol Matt?Hoop-a-la!" and Ping ran to Matt and dropped down on his knees in frontof him, hugging one of his hands in a maudlin expression of joy.
"Where have you been, Ping?" asked Matt.
"Allee same woods. Shiwas makee tie hands and feet, stoppee talk withgag. Whoosh! My thinkee you go topside, my no come tellee what Shiwasdo. Velly bad pidgin!"
Then, little by little, Matt got the whole story of Ping's experience.
"You are positive Siwash Charley was one of the men who knocked youdown, here at the camp, and carried you into the woods?" asked Matt.
"My savvy Shiwas plenty much," declared Ping.
"I guess there's our proof, gentlemen," said Cameron. "Siwash can'tdodge that."
"Hardly," said one of the officers. "If Siwash is caught, he'll betaken care of. What a dastardly piece of work! What made the fellowsuch an enemy of yours, Matt?"
"He was only a tool in the hands of another," said Matt. "That otherman was an enemy of Traquair's, and the fellow didn't want thea?roplane to stand the test she faced to-day. The money Mrs. Traquairis to receive will enable her to pay a mortgage which this otherscoundrel holds on a quarter section of land in Wells County."
"And all this double-dealing is about a mortgage on a quarter sectionof prairie land! It hardly seems possible."
"There is something about that land I don't understand," admittedMatt. "But that's the way the matter stands, anyhow, no matter what isback of the mortgage. The government, I presume," he added, "merelybuys the a?roplane? What it pays for the machine isn't a purchase ofTraquair's patents?"
"Not at all," went on the officer who had been doing most ofthe talking. "The government simply buys this a?roplane, calledthe--er--the _June Bug_--a name, by the way, which I don't fancy--andthe government likewise secures the right to purchase any othera?roplane using the Traquair patents, or to build such machines itself,paying Traquair's heirs at law a royalty."
"That," said Matt, "is liable to make Mrs. Traquair a rich woman."
"Well, hardly, unless the government goes into the a?roplane businessrather more extensively than I think. Still, Mrs. Traquair should beassured of a modest competence, say, a hundred thousand dollars, orsuch a matter."
McGlory reeled on his chair.
"Modest competence!" he gulped. "Sufferin' poorhouses! Why, Mrs.Traquair wouldn't know how to spend a quarter of that money. She----"
"Tillygram, sor," announced O'Hara, again thrusting his head throughthe tent flap. "It jist came down from th' post an' has th' name avMotor Matt on th' face av ut."
Matt took the envelope and tore it open. His face crimsoned as he read,and he started to put the yellow slip away in his pocket.
But McGlory grabbed it.
"Listen to this once," said he, and read aloud:
"'How can a poor woman thank you for what you have done? You, and you alone, have saved poor Harry Traquair's wife and children from more bitterness and hardship than you will ever realize. God bless you!
MRS. TRAQUAIR.'"
THE END.