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Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post Office, according to an act of Congress, March 3, 1879. Published by Street & Smith, 79-89 Seventh Ave., New York. Copyright, 1914, by Street & Smith. O. G. Smith and G. C. Smith, Proprietors.

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No. 77. NEW YORK, January 17, 1914. Price Five Cents.

OWEN CLANCY’S RUN OF LUCK;
Or, THE MOTOR WIZARD IN THE GARAGE.

By BURT L. STANDISH.

CHAPTER I.
OVER THE RIM ROCK.

Honk, h-o-n-k!

“Look out there! Jump—jump!”

High above these sounds there broke a startled yell. Owen Clancy, who was tramping along the road with his coat over his arm, not only heard the yell, but caught one tragic glimpse of a figure soaring through the cloud of dust, dropping in a sprawl on the rocks, and then rolling over the edge of the cliff.

“Great jumping horn toads!” gulped the red-headed chap, coming to an astounded halt, every nerve in a quiver. “Right over the precipice, by thunder! That fellow’s done for, and no mistake. The man behind that steering wheel ought to be pinched! He didn’t give the fellow in the trail any chance at all—just ran him down and made him jump over the edge of the cliff. Now the driver of that car hasn’t the common decency to come back and see how much harm has been done!”

The scene of this reckless automobile driving was a trail leading toward the city of Phoenix, Arizona. It was one of those mountain-and-desert trails which lead for miles over thirsty, sun-scorched plains, and occasionally climb to dizzy heights by narrow, hair-raising spirals clipped from the mountainside.

Clancy, at the high point of the trail, had been crossing a rugged, bowlder-covered uplift. At his left was a blank wall, a hundred feet high; under his feet was a shelf, barely wide enough for the road; and, on his right, was a precipice.

Those heights overlooked a dusty stretch of flat desert, at whose farther edge could be seen the rooftops and spires of Phoenix peeping out of the green treetops. The city, from that distance, presented a most enchanting view, and Clancy had paused to look and to admire.

“Wonder what sort of luck I’m going to have in that town?” he had asked himself. “I’ve got a notion it is going to make or break me. Well,” and he frowned resolutely, “if it breaks me, I’ll make good somewhere else. I’m the head of the family now, and it is up to me to show the folks back East just what sort of a little, red-headed breadwinner I am. I’ll——”

He broke off his reflections abruptly. From behind him, and altogether too close for comfort, came the toot of a motor horn. Accompanying the sound there burst forth the loud run of a motor.

Clancy, always quick to act in an emergency, gave one leap for the blank wall at the trailside, and flattened against it. Not an instant too soon did he accomplish this, for, ere he could draw a full breath, a big, black car lurched past, the mud guards almost brushing his knees.

It was a six-cylinder machine, built to carry seven passengers, but there was only the driver aboard. Lightly ballasted, the huge machine jumped and swayed on that dangerous path in a manner to make the heart jump.

But there was something else that made Clancy’s heart jump. He suddenly became aware of another pedestrian in the road, a fellow he had not seen before.

In the instant of time allowed him for making observation, Clancy saw only that the other foot traveler was a youngish chap, and that he was loitering along unconscious of the speeding car behind him.

The driver of the machine did not slacken gait in the least, but contented himself with merely sounding the horn. Wildly Clancy cried out for the stranger to jump. The stranger, casting one frightened glance over his shoulder, jumped without delay—but in the wrong direction.

Alighting on the edge of the cliff, he fell and rolled—over the edge. The car raced on and vanished behind a shoulder of rock, leaving a cloud of dust to mark its passage. Clancy ran forward, badly shaken by what he firmly believed would turn out to be a tragedy.

The dust was flicked away by the wind, and, as the air cleared, Clancy fell to his knees on the cliff’s edge.

“Hello!” he called, in a voice husky with apprehension.

There was no answer, and the gruesome fears of the red-headed fellow increased. Some of the dust was rolling below the brink of the wall and he could not see clearly. Straining his eyes downward, he shouted again.

This time he was electrified by hearing an answering shout. It came up through the thinning fog of dust and was strong and, apparently, from near at hand. The fellow who had rolled over the edge had not fallen to the bottom of the cliff, after all.

“Where are you?” demanded Clancy.

“I’m where I’m glad to be, but where I wish I wasn’t,” was the rather queer response. “Feller that’s born to be hung or drowned, howsomever, ain’t goin’ to be put out of business by a chug wagon and a bit of up-and-down wall. Pard, do somethin’ for me. I don’t reckon I can do a thing for myself, and the position I’m in is right juberous.”

By then, the dust had entirely cleared away below and a strange spectacle presented itself to the eyes of the lad on the brink.

Ten or fifteen feet down, the steep, smooth wall was broken by a shelf. The shelf was no more than a foot and a half in width, and a stunted bush was growing at its edge. The stranger’s body had met the obstruction in its fall, and was now lying on the shelf, wedged in between the bush and the face of the cliff.

The stranger lay quietly in his perilous berth, half on his back with face upturned. He could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen years of age, and he wore a faded shirt of blue flannel, corduroy trousers, and tight, high-heeled boots.

Those cowboy boots, constructed for riding rather than for walking, had undoubtedly got him into his dangerous predicament. They had given him no firm foothold in alighting from his sudden jump, and he had fallen and rolled from the edge of the cliff.

“Get up on your feet!” called Clancy, “I’ll lower myself as far as I can and try to take your hand and pull you up.”

“Nary, pard,” came the answer. “I reckon as how I’d better imitate a piece of bloomin’ brick-a-braw on a mantel-shelf. If I get to squirmin’, that bit of brush pulls out and lets me down. See how it is? Throw down a rope.”

“I haven’t a rope.”

“Then, by glory, I opine I was born to be busted in fraggyments at the foot of this here clift. Why ever ain’t you got a rope?”

The stranger seemed composed enough, and certainly he took a very peculiar view of the situation. He wasn’t frightened—at least not so Clancy could notice it.

“You’ve got to up end yourself somehow!” declared Clancy. “Straighten yourself upright along the wall and reach as high as you can. Maybe our hands will meet.”

“Bush is givin’ ’way,” was the answer. “I can feel it pullin’ out. One thing I want you should do for me, friend.”

“What’s that?”

“Find out who that cimiroon was that was drivin’ that gas cart; then scalp him, and say you done it for James Montague Fortune, which is me. Adios, pard. That blamed bush can’t stand the strain much longer.”

“Oh, take a brace, can’t you?” Clancy answered sharply. “If you’ve got to drop anyhow, you might as well do it while trying to save yourself. Here, look!”

With his left arm around a bowlder at the cliff’s edge, Clancy, flat on the ground, was reaching his right hand downward.

“See if you can’t get hold of my hand,” he went on. “Do that, Fortune, and I’ll pull you up. Come on, now. You can make it if you try.”

“You’re the most persistenest person I ever seen!” grumbled James Montague Fortune. “You can’t even let a feller fall down a cliff in peace! Well, if you’re set on it, I’ll make a stagger to get up, but I’m a-tellin’ you it’s a powerful small piece o’ standin’ ground I got, and it tips the wrong way and is smooth, like it was greased. Here’s where I caper. Reckon I might as well shoot off into the dizzy void as to go rollin’ down the face of them rocks with a measly handful of chaparral.”

Slowly, and while Clancy held his breath and waited, Fortune began twisting himself into a sitting posture. The bush gave a sudden heave, and its top bent until it was sticking straight out at right angles to the cliff wall. Clancy whooped in an agony of fear. The other looked up at him calmly.

“Told you!” he called. “Couldn’t even hang a persimmum on that clump o’ brush without givin’ it the wiggle-waggles, and here I’m tryin’ to balance a hundred and forty pounds on it. Don’t take no head for ’rithmatec to figger out what’s goin’ to happen. I’m givin’ myself a minute and a half. How much do you give me?”

“I’d like to give you a punch,” howled Clancy, “for wasting time when you haven’t an instant to spare! Get up! Reach for my hand! Quick!”

“Ain’t you the funny whopper, though! Here’s where I get up and fall off.”

With a quick, wiry contortion, Fortune hoisted himself erect and hugged the smooth, steep wall with both arms. A bushel of rock and débris went bounding downward from the shelf, booming and echoing into the depths. The bush went, too, and Fortune, in his absurd boots, was balanced on a slippery foothold, with a gulf below and a glassy wall overhead.

“Darned if I can savvy this!” he murmured. “I’m here yet, ain’t I?”

“Take my hand!” shouted Clancy.

This was something Fortune could not do. One reached down and the other reached up, but a foot gap separated their groping fingers.

“Splice out that arm about a foot, pard,” said Fortune, “and we’ll make it.”

“I’ll do it!” declared Clancy. “Hang on a minute longer!”

He drew back from the edge, hastily unbuckled the belt about his waist, removed it, buckled it once more, and then, clinging tightly to the leather loop, lowered it over the cliff.

The maneuver was successful. Fortune gripped the band of stout leather and Clancy, exerting a surprising amount of strength, dragged the chap below back over the brink and to safety.

“Blamed if you didn’t make it!” exclaimed Fortune, in a tone of surprise, as he squatted on the edge of the precipice. “Wouldn’t ’a’ believed it possible nohow. What’s your handle, pard?”

Clancy gave him the “handle,” and the two shook hands.

“Now that you’ve pulled me out o’ that diffukilty,” remarked James Montague Fortune, “what do you opine to do with me, huh?”

CHAPTER II.
JIMMIE FORTUNE.

Fortune had the sort of good-natured face that reflects an easy-going disposition. He was about as handsome as Owen Clancy, which is the same as saying that he would never be hung for his good looks, but his face was attractive for all that. His nose was a “snub,” and his eyes were narrow, and crinkled all around where a perennial smile had puckered them and left its marks.

Handsome is as handsome does, always, and it was safe to say that James Montague Fortune, while a peculiar chap in some respects, possessed a cheerful soul and a nature most companionable.

“What am I going to do with you?” repeated Clancy, studying Fortune with humorous eyes. “That’s not my business, is it? This is a free country, and you’re your own boss.”

“Sure,” was the reply, “but I’m tired of bein’ my own boss. It’s too big a job and I ain’t able to swing it. I’m right smart of a feller, Clancy, and husky and able more’n I can tell, but I’ll be dad-binged if I’m much of a success. How’d you like to sign me on for my board and keep and, say, fifty plunks a month? Huh?”

Clancy threw back his red head and burst into a laugh.

“Where’s the joke?” asked Fortune.

“What use have I got for a chap like you?” Clancy returned. “Why, I’m looking for a job myself. That’s why I’m going to Phoenix, Fortune. And I’m walking to save stage fare from Mesa.”

“Didn’t know but you might be a Vandefeller, or a Rockybilt in disguise,” grinned Fortune. “I’ve worked for purty nigh everybody in southern Arizona, and I jest wanted to add you to my list of employers. I don’t seem able to hold a job long. Shortest time I was ever hired and fired was fifteen minutes, and the longest time was two days. Fortune! That’s a bully name, ain’t it? Never done me no good, though. If you can’t hire me, mebby you’d like me for a pard? I’ll be your compadre jest for my board and keep. How about it?”

Clancy shook his head.

“I’m going to have all I can do to corral my own board and keep, Jimmie,” he answered.

“H’m,” mused Fortune, rubbing his chin. “You’re the blamedest feller! While I was on that ledge, down there, you said somethin’ about punchin’ my head. Reckon you could get away with it?”

“I don’t know,” said the surprised Clancy. “If you’re as good as you look I’d probably have a handful.”

Fortune got his feet under him, stepped into the road, and put up his hands.

“Come on!” he called.

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t you tell what I mean jest by lookin’?” was the cheerful response. “Take holt o’ me and slam me down. Bet you can’t.”

“You want to fight?”

“One or t’other of us goes on his back in about two minutes.” Fortune began hopping around in his high-heeled boots. “Hit me in the eye!” he begged, sawing the air with his fists.

For a few moments Clancy was astounded. Fortune’s grin was wide and inviting—in fact, he was about the pleasantest slugger Clancy had ever seen.

“Cut out the foolishness,” said Owen. “What reason have I got to fight with you?”

“Shucks! You got to have a reason for every blame’ thing? Climb my neck—if you got the sand! Ain’t I beggin’ hard enough?”

Abruptly Clancy made up his mind to enter heartily into the spirit of the affair. So he sprang erect and sailed into Jimmie Fortune, whom he had just saved from being dashed to pieces at the bottom of the cliff.

Thump, thump, thump!

The sodden fall of fists was heard during a sharp give-and-take. Clancy, who had forgotten more of the “science” than Fortune ever knew, had all the best of it. Fortune clinched; and then Clancy, with a fine exemplification of the old reliable “double grapevine,” laid his antagonist on his back in the middle of the road.

Fortune got up with a joyous laugh, caressing a bruise on his chin with one hand, and, with the other, wiping the dust out of his eyes.

“I reckon you’ll do,” said he. “You’re as good as you look, Clancy, and then some. Let’s be pards, huh? We’ll travel together, and I’ll look after my own board and keep. I’m for Phoenix to find a livin’, same as you. Why not make a stab at the old burg in double harness? I could jest love a feller that slammed me down like that!”

Fortune was so delighted that his mirth was infectious. Clancy saw no occasion for all that abandon of happiness, and yet it was impossible not to join in his companion’s rollicking mirth.

“All right, Jimmie,” said he, “we’ll be pards, and we’ll go on together. Suppose we travel?”

“I allow we’ll have to travel if we ever reach Phoenix. Pasear it is, Reddy!”

Side by side they continued on along the treacherous trail.

“I got to uncork,” remarked Fortune, “and tell you more about myself. Some folks calls me a desert rat, but that there’s a libel. I’m jest a rollin’ stone, but I’d stop rollin’ blame’ quick if anybody ’u’d hire me and keep me hired.”

“Why don’t you stay hired?”

“Mainly because I do the wrong thing while ketchin’ onto a new line o’ work. An assayer gave me a chanst in Prescott, and set me to grindin’ at a muller board. I tipped over the table and busted a carboy o’ sulphuric acid, and got run out o’ the place. That’s where I lasted fifteen minutes. ’Nother time I took a throw at a general store in Tempe, and believe me, I was busy-izzy for one hull day. Store was crowded and I had to be in about six places to oncet. The boss reckoned he had a prize, from the way I flew around; but he changed his mind when he diskivered I’d left the spigot o’ the molasses bar’l open. The floor o’ the back room was ankle deep in sweet stuff, and the old man made a pass at me with his foot. I dodged the foot and he slipped and went down in the black strap. He rolled over and over, and when he chased me through the front door of the ‘Emporium’ he had gathered up purty nigh everythin’ in the store like a piece o’ fly paper. A bolt o’ calico, a couple o’ feather dusters, fifteen or twenty pounds o’ crackers—oh, I can’t begin to tell all the stuff that was stickin’ to him. The damage was right considerable, and I ain’t had the nerve to go back to Tempe since.”

Clancy enjoyed Fortune’s reminiscences. There was no doubt that the wanderer drew heavily on his imagination, but that merely made his recital the more interesting.

“It’s been a year since I tackled Phoenix,” went on Jimmie. “I worked that bunch of adobes up and down and across, but maybe some of ’em have kind of forgot me, and I’ll get another show. What field of industry are you aimin’ to hit, Brick Top?”

“Want to get a job in a garage,” said Owen.

The other looked at him with quickened interest.

“You bug on the motors?”

“Well, you might call it that,” laughed Owen.

“Never tried ’em myself. Looks like a promisin’ field. Wonder if we couldn’t get jobs in the same garage?”

“Maybe we could; and then, again, maybe there isn’t a garage in Phoenix that has a place for us. I have a note for a thousand dollars that I want to collect from the proprietor of a garage in—— What’s the matter with you?” demanded Clancy, breaking off suddenly.

Fortune had come to a dead stop in the trail. He stared at his new “pard,” then craned his head forward and put a hand behind his ear.

“Otra vez!” he murmured. “Come again with that, Red. A note for—how much?”

“Thousand dollars.”

“Gee-wollops! I didn’t know there was that much dinero in the world. And here you tune up and allow you couldn’t hire me at fifty plunks a month!”

“The note doesn’t belong to me,” Clancy explained, “but to my father. The folks need the money—and I may have a hard time collecting it. You say you have been in Phoenix, Jimmie?”

“I was there good and plenty for six months.”

“Ever hear of a man named Rockwell—Silas Rockwell?”

Jimmie gave a startled jump. “Wow!” he yelled.

“Know Rockwell?” continued Clancy.

“He’s my Uncle Si, but he never had no use for any the rest of the fambly. Sort of an even thing, Red, ’cause none of the rest of the fambly ever had much use for him. He runs the Red Star Garage, on First Avenue, and he was never knowed to pay a cent if he could dodge or run away. If he owes your folks money, then you better forget it. You can get blood out of a turnip quicker’n you can get cold cash out of Uncle Si. My people knows him by the lovin’ name of ‘Old Rocks,’ and——”

Fortune’s voice trailed off into silence. He and Clancy were standing on the slope of the mountain, near the place where the trail left the uplift and straightened out across the flat desert. Fortune’s eyes were fixed on something at the foot of the descent—something which seemed to hold him spellbound.

Clancy, his wonder aroused by his companion’s behavior, dropped his gaze to the foot of the slope. What he saw there surprised him.

The big automobile, which had so recklessly swept past him and Fortune on the heights, was at a halt at the edge of the brown, dusty plain. A smaller car, facing the other way, was drawn up beside the six-cylinder machine.

Two men had got out of the small car. One of them was stoutly built, well dressed, and of middle age. This man’s panama hat was pushed back on his head and he seemed to be violently agitated. The driver of the large machine was on the ground, and to him the stout gentleman was addressing himself. The other man hovered around in the background.

This third member of the party at the foot of the slope was tall and thin, and wore a linen duster, a cap, and had a pair of goggles pushed up on his forehead.

“Great jumpin’ tarantulas!” gasped Fortune. “Talk of the Old Nick and you hear him a-snorin’. Red, that man in the duster, down there, is Uncle Si! Wouldn’t this rattle your spurs?”

“Who’s the other man, Jimmie?” queried Owen.

“I’m by; but the feller that other chap’s talkin’ to is the one that drove me over the cliff! Whoop-ya! Right here’s where I get even. Watch my smoke!”

With that, Fortune rushed down the sloping trail at top speed. Clancy followed him swiftly, calling out as he went:

“Don’t do anything reckless, Jimmie! Look out, or you’ll get yourself into trouble.”

“Somebody’s goin’ to get into trouble, all right,” Fortune flung back, over his shoulder, and raced on.

CHAPTER III.
THE MOTOR WIZARD.

As Clancy drew nearer the group at the foot of the slope, it became apparent that the stout gentleman was “laying down the law” to the driver of the big car. Rockwell continued to hang discreetly in the background.

Into this group Fortune plunged like a whirlwind. In half a minute he had laid violent hands on the chauffeur, and the two fell to struggling with might and main.

The chauffeur was older than Fortune, although about the same size, and he protected himself with a good deal of vigor. In spite of his utmost efforts, however, the wanderer threw him and dropped on his chest with both knees; then, as he drew back his fist to strike, the stout man grabbed his arm.

“What do you mean, you young savage?” the man cried. “Here, Rockwell! Help me get these two apart.”

Rockwell helped, and so did Clancy. In a little time the two antagonists were dragged away from each other and held firmly at a distance. Their glances crossed angrily.

“If it’s a fight you want,” snarled the chauffeur, “I’m willing to accommodate. No one can jump me like that without takin’ his medicine, by gorry!”

“Y’ought to have your face pounded in!” shouted Fortune. “You run me down on the narrer trail, up the mountain, and I had to roll over the edge o’ the clift to get away from you. What d’you mean by whalin’ along a road like that, without ever givin’ a feller who’s hoofin’ it a chanst for himself?”

“Look here, Dirk Hibbard,” called the stout man, fastening a stern glance on the chauffeur, “is that what you did?”

“You can’t believe that whelp, judge,” answered Hibbard. “You know I’m a careful driver. He’s making up that yarn out of whole cloth. I slowed up and sounded the Gabriel—and he knows it!”

“Slowed up!” jeered Fortune. “You tore past me at forty miles an hour. Ain’t that so, pard?” and he appealed to Clancy.

“Yes,” said Clancy, “it’s so. He sounded the horn, but never slackened speed at all. I had to be quick to get out of his way.”

The judge favored Clancy with a keen look. Evidently he was impressed by the youth’s appearance and truthfulness.

“Well,” remarked the judge, “maybe Hibbard deserves a licking—but he’ll get worse than that before I’m done with him. You keep hands off,” he added to Fortune; “I’ll not stand for any rough-house.”

He pushed Fortune away and nodded to Clancy to take charge of him and restrain his hostile ardor. Clancy at once passed to the side of his friend and caught his arm restrainingly. Rockwell, who did not seem to recognize Fortune as a relative, got off into the background once more.

“So,” went on the judge, in scathing tones, again giving attention to Dirk Hibbard, “you take my car out without permission and go over mountain trails with it at forty miles an hour! What have you to say for yourself?”

“Judge Pembroke,” answered Hibbard, “these two hoboes are pullin’ the wool over your eyes. I don’t see why you are taking their word against mine. You know me, and they’re strangers. Is that right?”

“Did I, or did I not, tell you never to take that machine out of the garage without permission?” flared the judge.

“Why, yes, but——”

“You knew my wishes. To-day you thought I was going to Prescott, and you deliberately disobeyed instructions. I changed my mind about going north and telephoned the garage for the car. Rockwell told me you had taken the car and gone north by this road. He and I followed you, and found you at the foot of the mountain, with the car disabled. Where have you been, Hibbard?”

The chauffeur wore a guilty look, but he made a show of defending himself.

“The motor wasn’t workin’ well, judge,” said he, “and I took the car over the trail to get it in shape.”

“Oh, you did!” answered the judge. “You took it over the mountain trail at forty miles an hour—just to get the motor in shape! Likely yarn! You seem to have got it in excellent condition, for the car is disabled and can’t turn a wheel. Why don’t you fix it?”

“I’m trying to,” answered Hibbard, “but it promises to be a long job. I don’t know just where the difficulty is.”

The judge whirled on Rockwell.

“Can you locate the trouble?” he asked. “I want to take this car back to the garage—I’m not going away and leave it here.”

The garage proprietor came up to the machine. Both sides of the hood had been lifted, and he stooped down and looked the motor over critically.

“Engine seems all right,” said he. “Maybe there’s no gasoline in the tank.”

“Tank’s half full,” returned Hibbard, with a scowl.

“Then maybe the carburetor——”

“Carburetor’s in apple-pie order,” averred the chauffeur.

“All that being the case,” went on Rockwell reflectively, “I reckon we better hitch a rope to the machine and haul it back to the garage for an overhauling.”

Clancy’s keen eyes had been going over the motor. At a glance he had located the difficulty, and he was amazed to hear the garage owner and the chauffeur assert their ignorance of it.

“The trouble’s plain enough,” he blurted out. “I can locate it from here.”

Instantly the red-headed fellow captured the complete attention of the judge, Rockwell, and Hibbard.

“You must be a wonder!” sneered Hibbard. “I’ve been drivin’ a car for four years, but maybe you know a heap more’n I do. You act like one of these chaps that know it all!”

“Are you a mechanic?” inquired Rockwell.

“Mechanic!” jeered Hibbard. “He’s an expert. Can’t you tell that by lookin’ at him? Regular red-headed fix it. You don’t know what’s wrong, Rocks, and I don’t. Let’s see if he can go ahead and make good.”

Clancy, under this fire of ill-natured talk, kept his temper well in hand. Fortune grew restive, and was plainly eager to give Hibbard as good as he sent, but his “pard” checked him with a look.

“It doesn’t take an expert, nor much of a mechanic, to tell what is wrong with that engine,” said he. “If the rest of the car is in order, I can settle the difficulty in thirty seconds.”

“Wow!” cried Hibbard, with an ugly laugh. “He’s a wizard, a regular motor wizard. He rolls up out of the desert, and——”

“That will do!” cut in the judge sharply. “What is your name, young man?” he asked, turning to Clancy.

Clancy told him. Rockwell, when he heard the name, gave a start and looked at the lad more closely.

“You say,” continued the judge, pulling a gold timepiece from his vest, “that you can make my car ready for the road in thirty seconds. Go ahead and make good. I’ll time you.”

Clancy smiled as he stepped forward.

“All right,” said he.

He bent down and manipulated a couple of wires leading from the magneto to the spark plug. Then he straightened up.

“That’s all,” he remarked.

“You’ve got fifteen seconds more,” said the judge. “Go on.”

“It’s all over, judge. The wires were crossed, that’s all. Easy enough to see and easy enough to fix.”

Rockwell and Hibbard exchanged a quick glance. It was a significant glance and did not escape either Clancy or Fortune, although it was entirely lost upon the judge.

“You mean to say the trouble is remedied?” inquired Judge Pembroke incredulously.

“I think so,” Clancy answered, “providing the rest of the car is in condition. The crossing of wires from magneto to spark plugs will disable any car.”

“See if you can crank the machine.”

Clancy lowered the sides of the hood, fastened them in place, and then walked back and adjusted the spark. One spin of the crank set the engine to humming.

“Well, by George!” exclaimed the judge; “and neither Rockwell nor Hibbard could tell what was wrong! What do you know about that?” he asked, turning to the garage proprietor.

Rockwell merely grunted and began cranking his own machine preparatory to a return to town. Hibbard’s face was like a thundercloud. The animosity he had previously shown toward Fortune had seemingly shifted to Clancy. Like Rockwell, however, Hibbard had nothing to say.

“I suppose you can drive a car, Clancy?” the judge asked.

“Certainly,” was the reply.

“Then I’d like to have you drive me back to town.”

“I don’t want to take the place of your chauffeur, judge,” said Clancy, “and, besides, I’ve a little business with Mr. Rockwell and would like to ride with him. We can transact the business very nicely on the way to town.”

Rockwell, who was behind the wheel of the other machine, shot another quick glance at Clancy.

“I reckon I’ll take the rumble seat o’ the other car, and ride with you, pard,” spoke up Fortune.

“I reckon you won’t,” snapped Rockwell. “You’ll either ride with the judge, young man, or else you’ll walk.”

Judge Pembroke seemed surprised at this ugly show of temper.

“You’re welcome to ride in my car,” said he to Fortune.

“Wait for me at the garage, Jimmie,” said Clancy, “providing you get there before we do. If we get there first, I’ll wait.”

“Correct,” returned Fortune, and climbed into the tonneau of the judge’s machine.

The judge, with no very good grace, motioned Hibbard to climb to the driver’s seat, and then followed and took the seat beside him.

“I’ll see you again, Clancy,” called the judge, as the big car started off. “I want to have a talk with you.”

Clancy got in with Rockwell, and the smaller machine got under way. For several minutes Rockwell sat bowed over the steering wheel and did not speak. At last he thawed out enough to remark:

“I wouldn’t have had that happen for a hundred dollars! What business have you butting into my affairs? If it comes to that, what’s your business with me, anyway? Come across with it.”

CHAPTER IV.
CLANCY GETS A JOB.

There was nothing friendly in Rockwell’s voice. In fact, his very words showed an enmity for which Clancy was at a loss to account.

“I was helping out the judge,” said he. “I didn’t know I was butting into your affairs.”

“You made Pembroke think I didn’t know what was wrong with his car!”

“Well, you didn’t, did you?”

“Think I’m a fool? Think I——” Rockwell broke off suddenly, as though realizing he was going too far. “Pembroke is one of my best customers,” he went on. “He keeps two cars at my garage—that big one and an electric for his wife. You’ve made him think I don’t know my business, and I’m liable to lose his trade. That’s why I’m sore about your butting in.”

There was something here which Clancy could not understand. If Rockwell knew what was wrong with the judge’s car—and it was foolish to think that a man who ran a garage could not locate so simple a difficulty—then why hadn’t he fixed the motor instead of offering to tow the car in for an overhauling?

Clancy, who was quick-witted, fell to wondering if Hibbard and Rockwell might not be in “cahoots” to secure money from the judge for “repairs” that were not needed. The chauffeur had shown that he was not to be trusted, and Clancy had heard stories of Rockwell which were far from being a credit to him.

All this, however, was merely guesswork. Knowing nothing absolutely, Clancy reserved judgment.

“I’m sorry if I did you a bad turn, Mr. Rockwell,” said he, “but it seems queer that Hibbard would misrepresent things to the judge, and——”

“Never mind that,” cut in Rockwell. “You made a show of Hibbard and me before the judge, but that’s done with now, and I’ll see if I can’t smooth things over. Pembroke seems to have taken a fancy for you, and you can help me—and maybe Hibbard, too—by keeping away from him. What’s your business?”

“I like to work with motors and I want a place in a garage. I was going to Phoenix to see you about it. Have you a place for me?”

A look of relief crossed Rockwell’s face and his voice took on a more friendly tone as he answered:

“I’d like to give you a job, but hanged if I see how I can. Got more men now than I know what to do with. Is that all?”

“No,” said Clancy, “there’s something else.”

Rockwell grew uneasy again and his former gruffness came back with a rush.

“What else?” he grunted.

“You know a man named John Clancy, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m John Clancy’s son. Owen Clancy is my name.”

“Your father was killed in Mexico, wasn’t he?”

“No. He went down there to save some of his investments and just managed to escape with his life. He’s sick, and in bad shape, and I’ve sent him back East to recover his health.”

“I see. What about his Mexican investments?”

“He lost everything he had, down below the line. The revolutionists cleaned him out.”

“Too bad, too bad!” murmured Rockwell. “John Clancy was well off, and a good sort of a man. But what’s all this to do with me?”

“The way things are now, Mr. Rockwell,” pursued Clancy, “the governor needs all the money he can get hold of. He let you have a thousand dollars and you gave him a note for it. The note is long past due, and I’m here to collect the money.”

Rockwell’s brows wrinkled in a hard frown.

“Where’s that note?” he demanded.

Clancy drew an old black wallet from the breast of his shirt, opened it, and removed an oblong slip of paper.

“Here,” said he, pushing the paper over the steering wheel and under the eyes of Rockwell.

The latter pushed up his goggles, stared at the note for a moment, and then pulled the goggles down over his eyes again.

“That’s the paper, all right,” he observed. “Why wasn’t it presented when due? I had the money to pay it, then, but I’m pretty badly crowded just now.”

“You’ll pay it?” asked Clancy hopefully.

“Always pay my obligations, if I’m given time enough. But I can’t do it right off, Clancy. You’ll have to give me a week or two to round up the money.”

Clancy returned the note to the wallet and the wallet to the breast of his shirt.

“I want to close the matter up as quickly as possible, Mr. Rockwell,” he answered. “You see, I’ve got to find a job right away, and get busy. I haven’t any money to waste loafing around. If there is no garage in Phoenix that can find a place for me, I’ll have to go to some other town.”

Rockwell remained thoughtful for several minutes.

“Ever work in a garage?” he asked.

“No,” was the answer. “Up to now I haven’t had to work. Dad has had plenty of money, and I was attending an academy and getting ready for college. When the crash came, I had to quit school and look for work. The care of the family now falls on me, and—and I’ve got to make good.”

“Now that I know you’re John Clancy’s son,” said Rockwell slowly, “I’m inclined to do more than ordinary to make a place for you. That thousand I got from your father on my plain note helped me over a mighty tight pinch, and that’s mainly the reason I’d like to be of some use to you.”

Clancy was surprised and delighted at the expression of these sentiments. From what he had heard regarding Rockwell, he expected to find in the man a cunning, unscrupulous person who would be exceedingly hard to deal with. Yet here Rockwell was showing a grateful disposition which did not tally with the reports of his character which had come to Clancy.

If Clancy could have seen the guileful light in Rockwell’s eyes, it is safe to say he would not have been so pleased. But the goggles hid the garage owner’s eyes, and the youth was left in the dark as to what was passing in the man’s mind.

“I’ll appreciate anything you can do for me,” said Clancy, with feeling.

“Are you willing to do what I tell you to, and to keep your mouth shut?” asked Rockwell.

“I’ll obey orders, of course, and do the best I can. As for talking, I’ll close up like a clam about everything that concerns you and your business.”

It was an honest, straightforward answer, but it failed to make the proper impression on Rockwell somehow.

“The garage business is peculiar,” remarked Rockwell. “To make anything at all, the proprietor of a garage has to pull a lot of wires. Now, Judge Pembroke just wallows in money, and he wants his cars in the best condition always. I’ve been at him for a long time to get that big machine overhauled, but as long as it runs fairly well he seems to be satisfied. That’s the way with car owners,” and a complaining note entered the man’s voice. “I know, a heap better than the judge, what’s best for his car, and if I don’t do some tinkering with it before long he’ll have a bad spill on the road. Can’t make him see that, though. In order to get that machine and put it in A-1 order, I had to resort to tact. Get me?”

“Tact?” echoed Clancy.

“That’s the word. I was doing it all for the judge. I knew those wires were crossed, and so did Hibbard. What I was after was to tow the big car back to Phoenix and put it in apple-pie order. Hibbard and I were working together. Of course, I had to give Hibbard a bonus; but then, all chauffeurs draw down a commission on about everything—they expect it, and if a garage proprietor don’t pony up, they’ll work it so the car finally lands in some other garage. When things like that happen, Clancy, I want you to keep your own counsel. If you do that, maybe I can find a place for you. If you can’t be—er—diplomatic, there isn’t much that I can do for John Clancy’s son. What about it?”

Rockwell was plausible, but he was not plausible enough to fool Clancy. The red-headed chap was badly disappointed. Rockwell was crafty, if not downright dishonest.

“I guess you don’t want me, Mr. Rockwell,” said Clancy. “I haven’t been brought up to stand for that sort of thing.”

“Bosh! You’re too thin-skinned. Business is business, young fellow, and nowadays a man has to be mighty shrewd if he makes good. It’s principally the rich men who keep cars in garages, and it’s necessary to keep their machines in trim—even if you have to use tact, once in a while, to get permission to overhaul a car. As for the driver’s end of it—well, maybe that’s plain graft, but it’s legitimate so far as the garage owner is concerned. If he keeps his customers he has to pay the driver his bit.”

“I need work,” said Clancy, “but I’m going to be square. If I can’t make good without stealing, then I won’t make good, that’s all.”

Silence settled down between the two. The car rolled into Washington Street and along it to First Avenue. As it turned into the avenue, the front of the garage was brought plainly into sight. A big red star hung over the door. Above the star were the words, “Red Star Garage,” and, below it, the attractive legend, “Free Air.”

The garage was an adobe structure, but it looked rather imposing and prosperous. A man in greasy overclothes was out in front, filling a radiator. Another car, spick and span from recent grooming, was just sliding through the broad doorway into the street.

In front of the building, on a bench, sat Judge Pembroke and Jimmie Fortune. Evidently they were waiting for Clancy to arrive. Rockwell muttered something under his breath.

“I’ll give you a job as mechanic’s helper at fifty a month to start,” said he, “and I’ll trust you to do the right thing by me. Is it a go?”

“Yes,” Clancy answered. “When am I to begin?”

“To-morrow morning.”

As Clancy got out of the car in the garage, he turned to find Judge Pembroke at his elbow.

“I’ve just discharged Hibbard,” said he, “and I want another driver. I’ll give you seventy-five a month to work for me, Clancy. Will you take the place?”

Clancy, for a moment, was “stumped.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he answered, “but I’ve just hired out to Mr. Rockwell.”

“You’re not half as sorry as I am,” said the judge, turning away. “If you don’t like it here, come and see me.”

Rockwell, just getting out of the car, chuckled, under his breath.

CHAPTER V.
HIBBARD SHOWS HIS TEETH.

It was hard for Clancy to understand Rockwell. At first, he had no place open for Clancy at all; after he saw the thousand-dollar note, he suddenly discovered that he could put him on the pay roll, providing he could do his work and keep his own counsel; and finally, when Clancy declined the position if he must turn his back an his principles, Rockwell “took him on,” anyway.

It did not occur to Clancy that Rockwell might have a design in these shifty tactics, and that the design underwent changes as Clancy developed his aims and intentions.

As the judge walked off, leaving Clancy poorer by twenty-five dollars a month because of his promise to Rockwell, Fortune saw a chance and took quick advantage of it.

“Hold your bronks a minute, judge,” he called, hurrying after Pembroke. “I’m big for my size and old for my age, and I reckon I could pull down that seventy-five allee same Clancy. What do you say?”

The judge paused and cast a reflective eye over Jimmie.

“Can you drive a car?” he inquired.

“Me? Gee-wollops! Say, I invented cars. If the diaphragm gets crossways of the razmataz so that the needle valve back fires, I can fix it in ten seconds with my eyes done up in a cloth.”

“Bosh!” interfered Rockwell. “You don’t want a thing to do with that good-for-nothing, judge. I happen to know him. He can’t tell a radiator from a bale of hay.”

“I don’t think you’ll do,” said the judge to Fortune, and walked off down the street.

“You’re a fine uncle for a wanderin’ boy that’s tryin’ to get a foothold!” cried Fortune, turning on the garage owner. “Out with a hammer and knockin’ the rest o’ the fambly as per usual. If I had a disposition like yourn, blamed if I wouldn’t go down where the boats come in, and jump off!”

“You get out o’ here!” shouted Rockwell.

“When I get good and ready. I ain’t in your old chug-wagon corral, but out in front. You don’t own the street, I reckon. If you don’t like my comp’ny, start your feet and change locations. Whoosh! Say, if I was as mean, and back bitin’, and as full o’ low-down schemes as you, I’d be glad to bob up in straight and honest sassiety oncet in a while jest to ketch a breath o’ good air. I’d——”

Rockwell, red with rage and muttering to himself, did not pause to hear any more, but dived through the front door of the garage. He looked out again to call to his new employee:

“I’ll expect you to sleep here nights, Clancy. If you go away, get back by eight o’clock.”

“All right, sir,” Clancy answered.

Rockwell disappeared, and Fortune dropped down on the bench and drew Clancy down beside him.

“You locoed, pard?” Fortune demanded.

“I hope not,” was the reply. “Why?”

“What’s Old Rocks payin’ you?”

“Fifty a month.”

“Why didn’t you jump at the judge’s seventy-five?”

“Because I had already agreed to work for Rockwell.”

“Why didn’t you turn Rocks down?”

“When I give a promise I try to stand by it.”

“Who’s goin’ to pin a rose on you for that? Old Rocks? Fergit it! He’s workin’ a scheme, and already you’re beginnin’ to get the worst of it. What did he say about that note?”

“Said he’d pay me the money in a week or two.”

“He never will, and all he’s doin’ is playin’ for time. You and me can’t trot in double harness if you stay here, Red. I was sort o’ bankin’ on takin’ your little hand in mine and goin’ out for a look at the universe. And here you’ve cut yourself off from Jimmie and Jonah first clatter out o’ the box.”

“We’ll keep track of each other,” laughed Clancy, “and maybe I’ll be able to help you to a job before long. How are you fixed for money, Jimmie?”

“Money?” gasped Fortune. “What’s that? I ain’t on speakin’ terms with a soo markee.”

Clancy took two silver dollars from his pocket and pressed them into his friend’s hand.

“That’s not much, Jimmie,” said he, “but it’s the best I can do for the present. That ought to keep you going for a short time. I don’t think I’m going to like it at this garage,” he went on, dropping his voice, “but I’ve got to stay here till I collect the money on that note. Drop around occasionally and let me know where you are.”

Fortune looked at the two pieces of silver reflectively.

“You are the clear quill, Red,” he finally observed. “This here’s a grubstake, and that means you got a half interest in any vein o’ pay rock I’m able to unkiver. Maybe I ain’t named Fortune for nothin’, after all, and we go snooks on whatever grows up from these two plunks after I’ve planted ’em. Hoop-a-la!”

The queer chap got up from the bench with a wide smile, jingling the money in his trousers pocket. Just as he started away, Dirk Hibbard darted around the corner of the garage and rushed up to Clancy. The fellow’s manner was distinctly hostile, and, in a flash, Clancy was on his feet.

“I reckon you’re plumb satisfied now!” exclaimed Hibbard, bitterly resentful.

Fortune, on his way toward Washington Street, halted and faced around.

“Well, yes,” drawled Clancy, looking the discharged chauffeur squarely in the eyes, “I’ve got a job and I suppose I ought to be satisfied!”

“You laid your plans to get old Pembroke to fire me!”

“It’s nothing to me whether the judge keeps you or fires you, and I didn’t lay any plans. I’m working for Rockwell and not for Judge Pembroke.”

“You wanted to get my job for that muttonhead friend of yours!” breathed Hibbard, through his teeth.

“Who’s the muttonhead?” demanded Fortune, stepping forward truculently. “Me?”

“Keep off, Jimmie!” said Clancy. “Hibbard’s business is with me, not with you. I don’t care a rap about you, one way or the other,” he went on to Hibbard, “but it’s my private opinion that the judge did a good piece of work when he pulled the pin on you. I’ve an idea that you have been double crossing him right along, and that he has just begun to find it out.”

“Mean to say I’m a thief?” asked the other hotly.

“Any fellow who will disable a car just to get a commission for having it overhauled isn’t giving much attention to the interests of his employer; what’s more——”

Hibbard’s face was full of wrath. With a muttered oath, he struck at Clancy with his fist.

The red-headed chap was not taken by surprise. He had kept his eyes on the chauffeur’s face, and he knew that blow was coming an instant before it was launched.

Clancy side-stepped with the swiftness of lightning, and the clenched hand found only space. Before Hibbard could recover his balance, Clancy had struck him and sent him to his knees.

“Gle-ory to snakes, and all sashay!” piped Fortune jubilantly. “Pard, you found him! That little surprise party was somethin’ of a jolt. The cimiroon went gunnin’ for more’n he expected.”

With a bellow of rage, Hibbard regained his feet and plunged into the garage. The next moment a monkey wrench came sailing through the door, but Clancy saw it in time to dodge. Hibbard followed the monkey wrench in person, armed with a hammer. His face was working convulsively, and he seemed absolutely beside himself.

“I’ll kill you!” he cried huskily.

Fortune leaped to take a hand in the set-to, but Clancy ordered him back.

“Leave Hibbard to me,” he said; “I can handle him.”

Fortune, his eyes wide with apprehension for his “pard,” retreated slowly, and watched.

What he saw was something of a revelation to him in the art of self-defense. The red-headed chap gave a pretty demonstration of coolness and skill as opposed to brute strength and unreasoning rage.

Whirling the hammer in short, vicious circles, Hibbard executed a furious attack. Clancy stood his ground until the fellow was close, then he sprang high into the air. His feet shot out, and the toe of one shoe landed on the wrist of the hand that held the hammer. The heavy weapon went clattering to the cement walk.

Then, while the driver stood disarmed, Clancy sailed into him with vigor and determination. In almost less time than it takes to tell of it, Hibbard was tripped, flung from his feet, and cast against the adobe wall.

The force of his fall dazed him, and he sat in a quivering heap, his back to the adobe and his eyes blinking up at Clancy.

“What’s this?” called the sharp voice of Rockwell, who came hurrying through the door.

“Hibbard picked a quarrel with me,” answered Clancy calmly. “His fists weren’t good enough, and he went after a monkey wrench and a hammer.”

The garage owner looked down on the driver.

“Haven’t you got any sense at all?” he asked sternly. “Do you think you’re helping yourself any by this kind of work?”

Hibbard shook his head, as though to clear the fog from his brain, and got up slowly.

“That red-headed skunk has euchered me out of a job,” he growled. “I’ll get even with him, by thunder! If I can’t get him one way, I will another.”

“My advice to you, Hibbard, is to sing small,” said Rockwell. “Don’t want to get yourself in the lockup, do you?”

“I don’t care a whoop where I get myself, if I can saw off even with that dub!”

He made another pass at Clancy with his fist, but Rockwell grabbed the doubled arm and pulled the baffled chauffeur off along the walk toward the main street. The two presently turned the corner and were lost to sight.

“Hibbard’s no match for you, Reddy,” said Fortune, “but you look out for him, jest the same. He’s the sort that’ll hit from behind, and strike in the dark. Mind that!”

Clancy laughed lightly.

“Hibbard can’t scare me,” he answered. “He’s sore because he lost his job—and he’s blaming everybody but himself.”

“While you’re watchin’ him, pard,” said Fortune, “keep a weather eye out for old Rocks. He allers has a few tricks up his wide and flowin’ sleeve, and I don’t like the looks o’ things around these diggin’s. That’s honest.”

CHAPTER VI.
ROCKWELL’S SCHEME.

Hibbard sputtered wrathfully while Rockwell led him across the street and to a bench in the city hall plaza. The bench was partly screened from passers-by by a clump of tall oleanders.

“Sit down, Hibbard,” said Rockwell. “I want to talk a little sense into that foolish brain of yours, if I can.”

“I don’t want to do any chinning,” protested Hibbard. “I lost a good job, and I want to get even with the chap that stole it away from me. Pembroke paid me seventy-five a month, but the ’coms’ and—er—other things brought me in a hundred and fifty, and sometimes two hundred. I ain’t a-going to be pried loose from that snap without makin’ that red-headed robber smart for it!”

“Oh, hush!” returned the garage owner impatiently. “You’re talking at the top of your voice, and it would be easy for some one to overhear you. That wouldn’t do, Hibbard; you know pesky well it might get you into trouble.”

“Me?” was the grim response. “I allow there are some others that would get into trouble, too.” He peered at Rockwell significantly. “Eh?”

“Never mind about that,” was the uneasy response. “Just cool off, will you, so we can talk sensibly.”

Hibbard seemed to get himself better in hand. His voice dropped, his manner changed, and he sank down on the bench.

“Did you give that red-headed buttinsky a job?” he asked resentfully.

“Yes.”

“If you’ve got any jobs to throw around you might toss one my way. Why in blazes did you want to hire that other yap?”

“I hired him to keep him away from Pembroke. The judge was waiting when we got back to the garage. But he was too late. I had already taken Clancy into my employ at fifty dollars a month.”

“Didn’t the judge offer him what I was getting?”

“Yes,” chuckled Rockwell, “but the fellow has got peculiar ideas about business. He wouldn’t accept the judge’s offer of seventy-five a month when he had hired out to me for fifty.”

“I thought he was a fool!” grunted Hibbard.

“He’s easy. He wants to be straight and square, he says, and——”

“And work for you!” struck in the other significantly.

“No comments, Dirk. I do as legitimate a garage business as I can, but, with the commissions demanded by you drivers, I have to figure close and use tact in order to make a living. If chauffeurs would play fair, garage keepers wouldn’t have to scheme so confounded hard to make both ends meet.”

“Piffle!” sneered Hibbard. “Everybody knows you’re a skinner, Rocks, and if the drivers didn’t make you whack up with them you’d stuff all the ‘velvet’ into your own pocket.”

“That’s your way of looking at it,” Rockwell answered patiently, “but you’re wrong. That has nothing to do with this case, though.”

“That red-headed chump beat me out of a big commission on overhauling the judge’s machine, didn’t he? I was to get twenty-five per cent of the bill you ran up on the judge, in addition to ten and five on extra parts for repairs. Whose scheme was that, eh? You hatched it up and asked me to work it out for you. Your new employee got next to the crossed wires. Now I’m out of a job, and the judge don’t even suspect that you had a hand in putting the car out of commission! Is that right? You ought to find a place for me, Rockwell.”

The garage owner did not reply at once. He appeared to be turning something over in his mind.

“Why didn’t you let Pembroke take him on?” continued Hibbard. “Then I could have had this place you’ve given him.”

“I had to give Clancy a job,” Rockwell answered.

“Why?”

Rockwell peered around cautiously. There was no one on the graveled walks of the plaza, in their vicinity.

“There’s something you can do for me, Hibbard,” he proceeded. “I’ll give you a couple of hundred if you pull it off. If you have a grouch against young Clancy, you can wipe it out at the same time.”

Hibbard was profoundly interested on the instant.

“Tell me about it,” said he. “I’d do anything to play even with Clancy.”

Rockwell’s face grew stern and uncompromising as he went on:

“If I let you in on this, and you betray my confidence in any way, you’ll get yourself into a peck of trouble, Hibbard.”

The chauffeur looked at him curiously.

“When it comes to handing out trouble, Rocks,” he returned grimly, “I allow two can play at that game. We know too much about each other to do any double-crossing. Play square with me and I’ll do the same with you.”

“You’ve got such a blooming temper,” the garage man hesitated, “that I don’t know whether it would be wise to trust you. The minute you lose the whiphand of yourself, you fly all to pieces, and blurt out everything you know.”

“Don’t you believe it! I never blurt out anything that’s liable to get me into hot water. But why did you bring this matter up, if you think I can’t be trusted?”

“Well, I’m going to take a chance. You’re about the only one that fills the bill for this particular piece of work, and circumstances have shaped themselves so that you are the logical man. I’ll have to explain a few details so that you’ll get the matter straight. This Owen Clancy, the fellow I have just hired, is the son of a man named John Clancy. John Clancy hired cars from the garage a good many times, and we got to know each other pretty well. He’s a mining engineer, and picked up a pot of money. I understand, though, that he has lost most of it in Mexico, and that he has now gone back to his home in the East, a physical and mental wreck. Young Clancy is taking care of the family.”

“What has all that to do with my work?”

“It has a bearing on it. Several months ago I was pretty hard pressed, and needed a thousand dollars to see me through. I got the money of John Clancy, giving him my plain, unendorsed note. The note became due, but was not presented for payment. I heard Clancy had been killed by Mexican revolutionists, and I naturally believed I never would have to pay that note. Now,” and the sharp lines gathered in Rockwell’s face, “young Clancy turns up with the paper, and wants the money.”

Hibbard laughed softly.

“And you don’t want to cough up, eh?” he asked.

“Not just at present. What’s more, Hibbard, I don’t want any trouble on account of that note.”

“You’ll not have any trouble. Everybody knows that all your property is in your wife’s name. She didn’t sign the note with you, did she?”

“No.”

“Then let Clancy whistle.”

“I can’t do that. If young Clancy sues and tries to collect, the publicity would be a bad thing for the business.”

“Why didn’t Clancy’s father deposit the note in the bank before he went to Mexico?”

“I don’t know. The thing that concerns me is that young Clancy is here with the note, and demands payment. I have told him that I would try and give him the money in a couple of weeks.”

“So,” remarked Hibbard, “in order to keep him quiet and comfortable, you have given him a job. Is that the way of it?”

“That is partly the way of it. So long as he has the note, he possesses a weapon which he can use against me at any time. Frankly, Hibbard, I don’t see how I can get the money together in a couple of weeks.”

“Borrow it of Mrs. Rockwell.”

The garage owner winked.

“That is out of the question,” he answered. “I borrowed the money of Clancy to pay a gambling debt, and I want to keep the whole thing quiet.”

“Where do I come in? What do you want me to do?”

“Here’s the way of it,” returned Rockwell. “If I had that note in my possession—if I could get hold of it without young Clancy’s knowledge—I could——”

“You could tear it up, and save yourself a thousand dollars, plus the interest,” said Hibbard, with an evil grin. “I get you, old Rocks!”

The other frowned.

“No, you don’t get me,” he growled. “You’re too ready to think me crooked. If I had the note in my own hands, and if it got to me without young Clancy’s knowledge, I could hold it until I was ready to pay over the money. And, while I was getting ready, Clancy couldn’t make me any trouble at all. He’d simply think he lost the note, see? I’d be white with him, too. While I was getting the money together to take up the note, I’ll let him work for me at fifty a month.”

“Then, coming down to cases,” observed Hibbard, “you want me to steal that note from young Clancy, turn it over to you, and get a couple of hundred for my trouble.”

“I’m not interested particularly in how you secure the paper from Clancy. The moment you put it into my hands I will give you two hundred dollars. It will be worth that to me to have two or three months’ extension of time on the obligation.”

“Does Clancy carry the note around with him?” asked Hibbard, already beginning to figure on ways and means for his rascally exploit.

“Yes. It is in a black wallet in the breast of his flannel shirt.”

“Where does he hang out nights?”

“He’ll be in the little room back of the garage,” was the significant rejoinder. “I’m having him sleep there to help out the night man in case there is a rush of work. You know all about the garage, Hibbard. The trick ought to come easy for you. All I want is a little more time on that note—and this is about the only way I can get it.”

Hibbard, knowing Rockwell so well, felt positive in his own mind that the note, once in the signer’s hands, would be destroyed. The garage man had a way of giving a plausible touch to his rascally undertakings that fooled very few of those who understood his character.

“Are you going to help me, or aren’t you?” demanded Rockwell.

“I’m going to earn that two hundred, and get even with Clancy, providing——”

Hibbard paused, looking at Rockwell out of the tails of his eyes.

“Providing what?” the other asked.

“Providing you give me young Clancy’s job, or another where the chance of a rake-off is as good, after the thing is over. I’ve got to live—and where, in this burg, can I get another job as chauffeur without a recommendation from Pembroke?”

“I’ll take care of you, Hibbard,” said Rockwell.

CHAPTER VII.
IN THE RED STAR GARAGE.

As soon as Rockwell and Hibbard had disappeared, Jimmie Fortune took rather an abrupt leave of Owen. He walked rapidly in the direction taken by the garage man and the chauffeur, jingling his silver dollars as he went.

“I’ll bet something handsome he’s going to keep an eye on Rockwell and Hibbard,” muttered Clancy. “Those two fellows trouble him a lot more than they do me. Jimmie’s a pretty good sort of a chap, though, if I’m any hand at reading character.”

Truth to tell, Owen had taken a great liking to the irresponsible, happy-go-lucky Jimmie. The wanderer had shown no great capacity for anything but celerity in losing the various jobs which he managed to secure, and yet his oddness and good nature made him likable and a good companion.

Clancy went into the garage and looked around with considerable interest. One corner of the huge room was partitioned off for an office. A couple of young fellows, who looked as though they might be chauffeurs, sat at a table in the office, smoking cigarettes and playing cards.

The interior walls of the garage were painted white, and marked off with perpendicular black lines, six or seven feet apart. Cars of many different makes were berthed between these lines. Other cars were drawn out toward the middle of the floor and workmen were tinkering with them.

In an “L” opening off the rear end of the big room machines were being washed. In another L on the opposite side a sandy-whiskered man was vulcanizing a tire. His face was smudged with oil and grease, but the flame, striking his features sharply, revealed eyes that captured Owen’s confidence.

“You’re the mechanic here?” the new employee asked, approaching the bench where the man was at work.

“You’ve hit it, son,” was the reply.

“I’m going to begin work here to-morrow, and I’m sort of looking around to get an idea of the place.”

The man leaned back against the side of the bench, picked up a pipe, lighted it, and surveyed Clancy thoughtfully through wreaths of smoke.

“Don’t do it,” said he, shaking his head. “I don’t know why in blazes Rockwell is hiring more help, but that’s his business. I suppose it’s none of my business, either, where you work or what you do, but you look to be as square as a die. If that’s the case, then the Red Star Garage is no place for you.”

Clancy was surprised at this bit of advice coming from one of Rockwell’s men. He must have shown how he felt, for the other went on quickly:

“Of course, I’m not yellin’ my advice to you in Rockwell’s ears. What I’m saying to you is strictly on the q. t. If you’ve got a job here, chuck it!”

“But Mr. Rockwell made me an offer, and I accepted it,” returned Clancy.

“Did he say anything to you about ‘tact,’ and all that?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re going into the game with your eyes open. I guess I didn’t read you right.”

“I guess you did,” said Owen. “I won’t stand for the kind of ‘tact’ Rockwell mentioned, and I told him so.”

“Sufferin’ snakes! And then he hired you after that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m by! You must have some kind of a hold on him, I reckon. This garage is a good place for a young fellow to start on the down grade. If you can work here and keep square you’re entitled to a medal. My name is Barton, Andy Barton. In case you bump into anything here where you think a little advice would help, call on me.”

“Much obliged, Andy. My name’s Owen Clancy, and I guess I’m to take hold as one of your helpers.”

“Ever worked with cars any?”

“Not in a garage. This is my first job.”

Andy Barton shook his head gruesomely.

“I reckon I hadn’t better talk to you much, just now,” said he. “The boss will want to do that. There he comes,” and Barton went back to his work.

Clancy looked around, and saw Rockwell just coming into the shop wing of the building.

“Getting the lay of the land, Clancy?” the garage man asked, pleasantly enough.

“Yes,” was the reply. “This looks like a pretty good-sized establishment.”

“There are bigger ones in town, but I don’t think you’ll find any much better. You’ve met Barton? Good! He’ll tell you what to do when you show up for work in the morning. Of course,” he added, as Owen strolled away with him, “there are a lot of cars stored here that are looked after by the owners themselves. We get six dollars a month for space between two of those black lines. The rent, along with the sale of gasoline and oil, is about all the revenue we get from that class of customers. It’s the big bugs, like Judge Pembroke, who make the business worth while.”

He opened a door at the rear of the big room and ushered Owen into a small apartment equipped with a bunk, washstand, and chair, and having a single window for light and air.

“My night man’s name is Pruitt,” continued Rockwell. “He takes care of the business during the off hours. Occasionally—not very often—he is rushed, and needs help. That’s why I want you to sleep in this room, Clancy, and I wish you’d sleep here to-night.”

“If Pruitt has much for me to do,” said Owen, “I can see where I’m not going to be of much help to Barton.”

“You may never be routed out during the night, but I want some one around in case Pruitt has to leave the garage with a car. You’ll show up here this evening?”

“Yes.”

“All right, I’ll depend on you. I’ll tell the helper, who has been sleeping here, that he can begin berthing at home. Give me faithful service, Clancy, and I’ll see that your wages are raised from time to time. I reckon that will be all. You’d better go and hunt your supper. Where’s your baggage?”

“I’ve got a grip coming over from Tempe on the stage.”

“Why didn’t you bring it with you?”

“Because I walked to save stage fare.”

Rockwell stared, and whistled.

“Your old man must be pretty badly crimped, if you had to do that,” he remarked. “Show up here at eight o’clock. You’ll not be on duty, you understand, except in case you’re needed. You can turn in at eight, or light up and read, or spend your time in the office—please yourself about that. Report to Barton in the morning.”

Clancy went away to find a place where he could get his supper. As he went, he wondered a little why it was necessary for the proprietor of such a prosperous establishment to take so much time getting together a thousand dollars.

“I guess Rockwell’s a bandit, all right,” he muttered, “but I’m going to be on my guard and see that he doesn’t get the better of me. That note is a thing he can’t dodge, and I’m going to keep it right in my hands until he takes it up.”

Clancy found a modest restaurant in Washington Street where the food was good and prices reasonable. Although it was still early in the evening, the electric lights were sparkling up and down the business thoroughfare as he came out of the short-order place.

He felt like a stranger in a strange land, and would have given a good deal for the companionship of Jimmie Fortune just then. Never before had he been so impressed with the responsibilities that had been heaped upon his shoulders, and he was hungry for a little friendly talk—and Fortune was his only friend in that big town.

In better and happier times, the money represented by that note of Rockwell’s would have had small bearing on the fortunes of the Clancys. But now, with his father sick and his financial affairs gone to wreck and ruin, a thousand dollars was a lot of money. Clancy had been told that collecting the amount of that note from Rockwell was a hopeless undertaking, that the garage man would exercise every resource of an unscrupulous nature to get out of paying. So he had been surprised and pleased when promised the money in a week or two.

Perhaps—he told himself—Rockwell wasn’t so bad, after all. He appeared to want to do the square thing, and maybe he was not so prosperous as he seemed, and would have to hustle a little to get the money to take up his note.

“I’ll wait on him,” murmured Clancy, “and while I’m waiting I’ll be earning something and getting a start in this garage business. The Clancys are about due for a run of luck, and maybe this is where it starts.”

The big clock on the courthouse in the plaza was booming the hour of eight as Clancy got back to the Red Star Garage. At that time there was not much doing about the place, and Clancy passed through the wide doors and made his way to the rear room. A man—Pruitt, no doubt—was smoking a pipe in the office. Clancy did not stop to speak with him, but went directly to his own quarters.

He had bought a “jumper,” a pair of overalls, and a pair of gloves. These he took out of the paper in which they were wrapped, and laid them to one side.

“In the morning,” he thought whimsically, “I’ll get into them and begin rooting for the family. I’m going to make good, too, although I wish I was starting out with any other fellow than Rockwell.”

For a long time he sat in that dingy little room, thinking over the past, and trying to forecast the future. There was a man’s work ahead of Owen Clancy, but he faced it with an indomitable spirit. Collecting that note was only the beginning. After that had been accomplished, bigger things lay ahead.

An hour or two passed while he sat in the little room wrapped up in his reflections. Then, suddenly, he heard a sound that caused him to start bolt upright in his chair. Some one was tapping on the window. He turned to look, and saw a face pressed against the glass. It was the face of Jimmie Fortune, and Jimmie had a warning finger laid against his lips.

Clancy got to his feet and slowly approached the window. Fortune motioned upward with his hands, and Clancy carefully raised the sash.

“Somethin’ doin’, pard!” said Fortune, in a husky whisper. “I got to come in and tell you about it. Lock the door over there. I don’t want nobody buttin’ in on us. Make everythin’ tight, and then I’ll crawl in and bat the hull propersition up to you.”

Clancy secured the door, sliding the bolt softly. Meanwhile, Fortune had been climbing into the room. As soon as he was inside, he lowered the sash noiselessly and pulled down the shade.

“What’s the matter, Jimmie?” Owen inquired excitedly.

“I don’t know jest what’s the matter, compadre,” was the guarded response, “but I allow I’ve got the tail end of a whalin’ big mystery. I’ve come to you for help in figgerin’ it out.”

CHAPTER VIII.
FORTUNE’S MYSTERY.

Jimmie walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I’m all in a takin’ over what I’ve found out,” he remarked, “but in spite o’ that, I could slop down on this bunk and sleep to beat four of a kind. Er-wow!” and he threw up his arms and yawned. “Ain’t it orful,” he went on, “to be so chock full of agitatin’ things and yet feel like layin’ right down on ’em and poundin’ your ear?”

“If you’ve got anything in your system, Jimmie,” said Owen, “now is your chance to get it out. When you’ve done that, you can crawl in between those blankets and sleep as long as you please.”

“Mebby I won’t have no chanst to sleep. It all depends on how you figger out my diskiveries. Fust off, pard, I’ve found where Dirk Hibbard went when he hiked off with the jedge’s car. It wasn’t no joy ride, you can gamble, and he wasn’t jest tryin’ out the machine to see what was wrong with it. He was acrost the mountain palaverin’ with Tom Long, who’s got a past like a bandit.”

“Tom Long? Never heard of him.”

“That cimiroon has been keepin’ purty quiet for some sort of a while, and I opine he’s about due to break out. If there’s a train robbery or any other kind of a hold-up anywheres on this part o’ the range, fust thing the sher’ff does is to go inquirin’ for Tom Long, otherwise Chantay Seeche Tom. That’s the sort of a maverick he is. Whyever d’you suppose Hibbard went acrost the mountain to talk to a feller like that?”

“Give it up.”

“That ain’t all. Mebby I’ve got somethin’ that’ll help us git a twist on this little game o’ muggins. But I sort o’ begun my yarnin’ wrong end to. I ort to have commenced at the start, ’stead o’ goin’ along down toward where you write finish. When your trail and mine forked, a spell ago, I had a notion I’d keep track o’ Uncle Si and the shuffer. I seen ’em on a bench in the plaza, thick as two thieves, but I couldn’t get nigh enough to catch the run o’ their conversation. I’ll bet it was crooked palaver, though, ’cause old Rocks ain’t no better than Hibbard, and you and me sabe what Hibbard is.

“I didn’t linger long around the plaza when them two got up and hiked. Two silver dollars was burnin’ a hole in my pocket, so I moseyed over to the Palace and played ’em on the red——”

“You gambled with that money?” Owen demanded sharply.

“I didn’t think it was gamblin’, pard—I reckoned it was a cinch. You’d saved my scalp on the cliftside, hadn’t you? And you and me was pards, wasn’t we? And that thatch o’ yours is carmine! Figgerin’ from all that, I allowed I’d drop two cases on the red and pull out four, then I’d stake the four on red to win and corral eight, leave the eight on the same color and grab sixteen. I was plannin’ to keep this up till I had dinero sufficient to buy a garage for you and a private yacht and a few other things for myself, but—dog-gone it! red didn’t win that fust time, and the croupier juggled my little two bones into the till. Ain’t it scandalous?”

“I should say so!” muttered Clancy. “I didn’t give you that money to use in gambling, Fortune, but to keep you going till you landed a job. Now your money’s gone, and you haven’t a thing to show for it!”

“Easy, pard! Sure I’ve got somethin’ to show for it. If I hadn’t gone to the Palace I wouldn’t ’a’ met Slim Simmons, would I?”

“Who is Slim Simmons?”

“Desert rat. I’ve seen him a heap o’ times, and we sabe each other a hull lot. He come over the same trail we did, but he was ahead of us. I got to palaverin’ with Slim, and refers incidental to Hibbard and the way he forked me over the cliffs. Simmons allows Hibbard was the same juniper he’d seen gassin’ with Long Tom, otherwise Tom Long. You see, Slim stopped at Chantay Seeche’s for a drink, and he glimpsed Hibbard and Long powwowin’ cautious and careful by the ranch corral. Slim asked Hibbard for a ride into town, and Hibbard wouldn’t have it. Hibbard must have stayed at Tom Long’s quite a while, for Slim was able to get pretty well over the trail afore Hibbard came along and passed you and me. That’s how I diskivered where Hibbard had been. There’s more, though. While Slim and me was gassin’ in one corner o’ the Palace, who rolls into the place but Chantay Seeche himself?”

“This Long Tom came to the gambling house?”

“Surest thing you know. He walked in, big as life, and twicet as ornery, and dropped down at a table behind the pianner. I allowed I’d walk over to him, pass the time o’ day, and inquire as to what Hibbard was doin’ at his ranch. That was my idee, and jest as I was goin’ to carry it out, in comes Hibbard and sits down at the same table with Long. Neither of ’em saw me, so I jest hung back and watched.

“They got real confidential, them two. Bymby, Hibbard takes a pencil and paper from his pocket and makes a diagram. Chantay Seeche considers it. There’s more talk, a little drinkin’, then the two shakes hands and separates. They leave the table together, and they fergit to take the diagram. I ain’t more’n a minute freezin’ to that paper and lookin’ it over.

“I haven’t got savvy enough to make head or tail to it, but I thinks of my red-headed pard, and hikes for here. Not bein’ what they call persona gratter to the front of the establishment, I sneak up to your room from the rear. So here I am, gappin’ like Rip Van Winkle gettin’ ready for thirty years o’ sleep; and here’s the paper, and you’re welcome to tell me what it’s about—if you can.”

Jimmie handed over the paper. It was a small sheet, and seemed to have been torn from a memorandum book. It was marked with lines in the form of a rough, oblong square. This square was crossed and recrossed with other lines, and there were subdivisions indicated here and there. Clancy studied the diagram closely.

“Looks like a chink puzzle, eh?” said Fortune. “Can you make anythin’ of it, Red?”

“Seems to be the ground plan of a house,” Clancy answered thoughtfully.

“Well, now!” murmured the other. “Blamed if I’d thought o’ that! It might be the ground plan of a house, or the picter of tracks in a chicken yard. What makes you think it’s a diagram of a ’dobe?”

“The plan is divided into rooms, and there are little marks in the outside walls that may indicate doors and windows. But the best proof that this is a diagram of a house is given by the only written words on the paper. Along one side is the word ‘second,’ and along the other side we find the two words, ‘Cerro Gordo.’ Is there a street in this town called Cerro Gordo Street, Jimmie?”

“By glory!” gulped Fortune. “You’ve hit it right between the eyes! Sure there’s a street called Cerro Gordo, and it’s the best residence street in town. Corner of Cerro Gordo and Second Av’noo is right in the middle of Magnateville and Upper-tendom! You’ve cracked the shell of the mystery, Red!”

Clancy smiled, and shook his head.

“We’re a good way yet from cracking the shell of the mystery,” said he. “If this is really the ground plan of a house at the corner of Second and Cerro Gordo, why did Hibbard draw it and show it to Chantay Seeche? That’s the mystery, Jimmie, and we haven’t begun to solve it.”

Fortune’s face went blank.

“That’s you! I missed the p’int, and no mistake. But Hibbard and Chantay wasn’t considerin’ that plan for any good purpose, believe me. There’s a hen on, and trouble’s hatchin’. How we goin’ to find out what’s in the wind?”

“I believe I’ll go over on Washington Street, and see if I can find out anything. You stay here, Jimmie. Get in bed and go to sleep, if you want to.”

“Don’t go out by the front, pard,” begged Fortune.

“I’ll go out the way you came in.”

“Suppose somebody wants you for somethin’ while you’re gone? I might help out, but, not bein’ on good terms with the boss o’ this establishment, I reckon I hadn’t better try.”

“No,” said Clancy, “don’t try. We’ll take chances, and hope the night man won’t call on me for anything. Anyhow, I’ll not be gone long. Crawl into the blankets and go to sleep. The bed’s big enough for two, and I’ll make use of my half of it when I get back.”

Fortune had already kicked off his boots and removed his flannel shirt. He was out of his trousers in a jiffy and had rolled up head and ears in a blanket.

“Buenas noches, pard!” came in muffled tones from the depths of the blanket.

Clancy turned off the light, passed to the window, raised the shade, and then the sash, and softly climbed through and dropped to the ground. By a roundabout course he gained First Avenue, went by the front of the garage on the opposite side of the street, and so came into the main thoroughfare of the town.

Clancy did not intend to be gone long for he believed that he could discover all he wanted to know in a very few minutes. He was longer in his quest, however, than he had supposed he would be.

He went into a hotel across from the courthouse plaza, and approached the desk in the lobby. Eleven o’clock was just chiming from the courthouse bell.

The night clerk, after surveying Clancy rather uncertainly, pushed the register around and handed him a pen.

“No,” said the youth, “I’m not going to put up here. All I want is a little information.”

“Fire away,” said the clerk.

“Can you tell me who lives at the corner of Second Avenue and Cerro Gordo Street?”

“Hanged if I can! I haven’t been here long, and don’t know this town very well. Why don’t you go to the place and find out?”

Clancy didn’t care to do that, and carried his search farther. Place after place was visited fruitlessly, until it seemed that the only way for him to learn what he wanted to know was by really going to the house and making his inquiries on the spot. At last, however, he found himself in the same restaurant where he had taken supper, and the cashier gave him the required information.

“Cerro Gordo and Second?” repeated the cashier. “That’s easy. Judge Pembroke lives there and—— What’s the matter with you?”

A sudden whiteness had flashed into Clancy’s face, and he had drawn a quick, rasping breath.

“Nothing,” he answered, turning away, “nothing at all. Much obliged.”

He ran out of the restaurant and started back to the Red Star Garage, greatly excited. Twelve o’clock came booming from the courthouse plaza as he turned into First Avenue from Washington Street.

“It has taken me an hour to find out what I wanted to know,” he murmured. “If there is lawlessness going on, I wonder if we’re too late to stop it? Maybe here’s a chance for Fortune and me to do something for the judge! My guesses may be all wrong, but if they’re right Jimmie and I will have to do some quick work.”

CHAPTER IX.
A WEIRD STATE OF AFFAIRS.

Clancy regained the rear of the garage by the same devious course he had taken in leaving it. All was dark and silent within the little room.

“Jimmie!” he whispered, thrusting his head through the window.

There was no answer, and he repeated the call as loudly as he dared. Still there was no response from Fortune.

“He’s sleeping like a log,” thought Clancy. “I’ll have to get in and give him a shaking.”

With great care, he climbed through the window, groped his way through the dark to the bed, and laid both hands on the blanketed form.

“Jimmie!” he muttered, and shook the form briskly.

A stifled gurgle came from Jimmie, but no words which Owen could understand. In some alarm, the red-headed chap whirled to the window, drew the shade, and snapped on the light. What he saw startled him.

Jimmie’s trousers lay on the floor. Beside them lay his shirt, fairly torn to ribbons. The door leading into the garage was unbolted and swinging open by a couple of inches.

Jimmie, entirely swathed in a blanket, lay on the bed. He was wrapped, outside the blanket, with coil on coil of stout rope, and looked more like a mummy than anything else. The blanket covered his head and face, so that it was impossible for him to talk, and it must have been almost impossible for him to breathe. Jimmie, in his helplessness, was twisting and writhing about on the bed.

Clancy, astounded by all this, hurried to Jimmie and began removing the rope. First he freed his friend’s head, pulled back the blanket, and Jimmie began gasping like a stranded fish. While he was pumping the fresh, cool air into his lungs, Clancy removed the rest of the rope and pulled the blanket away entirely.

Fortune lay on his back, looking up at his pard with astonished eyes.

“What the deuce has been going on here?” demanded Owen.

Jimmie sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed his arms.

“Whoosh!” he answered. “Here’s a fine kittle o’ fish, I must say! A couple o’ plug-uglies was here and raisin’ Cain, pard. They thought I was you, and they was after that note.”

“After the note?”

“Ain’t I tellin’ you? Gee-wollops, but this is fierce! I took all that was comin’ to you, that trip. You see, I was all kivered up with the blanket, and them junipers couldn’t tell the diff’rence between Jimmie, the Jonah, and Red Owen—so they handed it to me proper.” He chuckled. “But they got fooled,” he added.

“When did this happen, Jimmie?” asked Owen, trying to keep down his excitement.

“No sabe, pard. I was sleepin’ like old Rip Van when I felt some un ropin’ me. The blanket was twisted about my head and tied close to my neck, and I couldn’t talk and couldn’t hardly breathe. Then my hands was lashed to my sides and my feet tied at the ankles, and there wasn’t a thing I could do.” Again he chuckled, rubbing his throat tenderly. “But they sure got fooled plumb out of their eye teeth!” he finished.

“They thought you were me, and they were trying to get that thousand-dollar note?”

“I wasn’t so badly wrapped up that I couldn’t hear a little o’ what went on,” proceeded Fortune. “The feller that was tyin’ me says to some un else, ‘Get that note out o’ the wallet in his shirt,’ he says.

“‘It ain’t here,’ the other comes back.

“‘Look in his pants,’ says Number One.

“‘Not there, nuther,’ says Number Two. ‘See if he ain’t got it under his piller.’

“Then Number One throws me around and looks under the piller, and he don’t find a thing. I heerd somebody swear good and hearty.

“‘Ask him what he’s done with it,’ says Number Two. ‘Blow his head off for him, if he don’t tell.’

“Somethin’ hard was poked ag’inst my head, and I allow it was the muzzle of a six-gun, although, o’ course, I ain’t able to see a thing.

“‘Where’s that note?’ says Number One, real cross. ‘Speak out, or I’ll start you for Kingdom Come.’

“‘You don’t get it,’ I says, pantin’ for air. ‘I put it in the bank.’

“They couldn’t tell, pard, that it wasn’t you talkin’, the blanket gagged me so, and my voice was low and husky. After that there was more piratical langwidge, then them fellers went at somethin’ else.

“‘Now’s our chance,’ says Number One, ‘to carry out the other scheme. If we can’t make good at this game we will at that one.’

“‘We got to have a car,’ says Number Two, ‘and we got to get it from this garage.’

“‘How’ll we work it?’ asked the juniper who stands clost to me.

“‘You go out to a telephone,’ says the other, ‘and call up this place. Pruitt’ll answer. Tell him you got to have a car for a night trip some’r’s and that you’ll furnish your own driver. Say it’s Job Arnold, or Colonel Chiswick, or any o’ them big bugs, talkin’. Pruitt’ll bite. As soon as he leaves, I’ll steal a car and pick you up on First Av’noo, cornder Hackberry. That’s clost, and you can get there easy.’

“‘I’m off,’ says Number One, and I hear him crossin’ the room and gettin’ through the winder. Bymby—seemed like a year to me, fighting for air in that blanket—some un pounds on the door leadin’ into the garage.

“‘Hey, you helper!’ calls a voice.

“Number Two answers, right off, ‘What’s wanted?’

“‘I’ve got a call to take a car to Mr. Arnold’s,’ says Pruitt, ‘and I want you to keep an eye on the garage till I get back. I won’t be gone more’n twenty minutes.’

“‘All right,’ says Number Two.

“Right after that I hear a car hummin’ and glidin’ away. The machine was hardly out o’ the garage afore the bolt on that door was shoved back. Then another car began to hum, and that slipped away, too. By then, I was wide awake, you better believe, and right excited. I tried to yell, but the best I could make of it was a gasp and a gurgle. Tried to get up, too, but it was no go. Right after that, pard, you got here. What d’you suppose is goin’ on?”

“Those two men are going to commit a crime of some sort,” answered Clancy.

“I wouldn’t put it past ’em none. I reckernized their voices, pard.”

“You did? Who were they?”

“One was Hibbard—Number Two—and t’other—Number One, the feller that done the telephonin’—was Chantay Seeche Tom. They’re a fine pair to turn loose at the dead o’ night in a stolen automobile! Somebody’s due for a holdup.”

“Yes,” said Clancy, “and that somebody is Judge Pembroke!”

“It never ain’t!”

“He lives at the corner of Second Avenue and Cerro Gordo Street. As soon as I discovered that, I came right back to the garage. Can’t you see what is going on, Jimmie?”

Clancy paced the floor of the little room nervously while he talked.

“I know somethin’ of what’s goin’ on, pard,” returned Fortune, “because I was right in the middle o’ the excitement. I can’t see ahead very far, though, and that’s allers been the trouble with me. How does the business stack up to you?”

“Why, Hibbard was the judge’s driver. He must have known a good deal about the judge’s affairs, and probably could have traveled all around his residence blindfolded. Hibbard has some reason for wanting to be at the judge’s house to-night. What it is we don’t know, but the business looks black. The fact that Hibbard got this rascal, Long Tom, to help him, gives the whole thing a criminal appearance.”

“Who put Hibbard up to get that note away from you?”

“Never mind that, now. We——”

“It was old Rocks, and I’ll bet a bushel of pesos. That must have been what them two was chinnin’ about in the plaza. But Hibbard didn’t get the note,” and Fortune laughed gleefully, “because I was here in place o’ you! By glory, them fellows got hocused good!”

“We’ve got to do something to help the judge, Jimmie, and time is limited. Long Tom and Hibbard have stolen a car and gone to Second Avenue and Cerro Gordo Street. How long since Hibbard left with the machine?”

“Not such a blamed long while, pard. Not many minutes passed since he left and you got here and took the lashings off me.”

Clancy pulled the door wide and stepped out into the garage.

“I can’t see anything of Pruitt,” he reported.

“’Cause why,” returned Fortune. “’Cause he’s waitin’ at Arnold’s for some un to come out and take the car off’n his hands. He’ll keep waitin’ and honkin’ the horn till somebody shows up and tells him there’s nothin’ doin’. Reckon we ort to put the police wise to this, eh?”

“By the time we got the police on the trail, Hibbard and Long Tom might be able to do their work and rush for the hills in that stolen car. Do you know how to get to Second and Cerro Gordo?”

“If I don’t, pard, nobody does. Didn’t I tell you I worked for people here? I can take you right to the place by the shortest cut.”

“Then let’s be moving. The quicker we reach the judge and tell him what is going on, the better.”

Fortune pulled on his boots and trousers. There was no use trying to put on the flannel shirt, for it was literally torn in pieces. He slipped into his coat, however, and buttoned it up.

“All ready, compadre,” he announced.

They went out through the front of the garage. Clancy hated to leave the place alone, but he reflected that Pruitt would soon be back, and that this was a case of facing circumstances as they were, and not as he would like to have them. He took the precaution of closing the big garage doors.

“I don’t like to start till Pruitt comes back,” remarked Clancy, “but there’s no help for it.”

“Don’t you care,” said Fortune. “Jest think what old Rocks tried to do to you to-night, pard! You don’t owe that old schemer nothin’. Anyway, I don’t reckon anybody will run away with the old shebang.”

Fortune turned out of First Avenue into a cross street that ran parallel with the main business thoroughfare. A block brought them into Second Avenue, and they started along it in the direction of Cerro Gordo Street.

Very soon pretentious houses showed themselves on either hand, and, after a time, Fortune slowed his pace and dropped a hand on Clancy’s arm.

“That’s Cerro Gordo Street jest ahead,” he whispered, “and the judge’s house must be on the cornder. I never knowed where he lived, but if your information is kerect we’re clost to the place.”

CHAPTER X.
HELPING THE JUDGE.

Cerro Gordo Street was a wide, paved thoroughfare, with date palms bordering it on both sides between walk and curb. There were four corners, of course, to the intersection of the two streets, and the two youths halted in the shadow of a palm to decide which corner was the one that ought to claim their attention.

“How we goin’ to know which casa is the judge’s?” murmured Fortune blankly.

“According to that diagram of Hibbard’s,” Owen returned, “there’s an addition jutting out from the Pembroke house toward Cerro Gordo Street. Maybe that will give us a clew.”

“Look for the automobile. That’ll be a clew.”

“I don’t think so, Jimmie. They’d be foolish to leave the machine too close to the house. You stay here while I do a little quiet investigating.”

“If you need me, yell. I’ll come hotfoot.”

Leaving Fortune in the black shadow of the palm, Clancy moved off cautiously along Cerro Gordo Street, toward the right. In that direction he failed to find the house that seemed to tally with Hibbard’s roughly drawn plan.

Returning on the opposite side of the street, creeping like a wraith from the shadow of one palm to the shadow of another, he crossed Second Avenue and reconnoitered in another direction.

Here he had better success. On the other side of Cerro Gordo Street was a house with a glass conservatory jutting out. The yard was a mass of dark shrubbery which the faint glow from the electric light on the corner could not penetrate.

“That must be the place,” thought Clancy. “I’ll go down a little farther and cross over. If I’m careful, I may find out what Hibbard and Long Tom are doing.”

From palm to palm he skulked along Cerro Gordo Street, and then, suddenly, came to a halt. Ahead of him, at the curb, stood a motor car. It did not show a light.

“There’s the machine Hibbard took from the garage,” thought Clancy, “and it proves we’re on the right trail.”

He investigated the car and found that it was Pembroke’s big six-cylinder machine, the one that had figured in events earlier in the day. There was no one around the car, and this proved that both plotters were giving their attention to the house.

“Here’s nerve!” muttered Clancy. “Hibbard is using the judge’s car for his night’s work, and will run away with it when he gets through at the house, unless—— Well, I’ll fix the machine so he won’t run away with it.”

Getting up on the running board, Clancy reached over to the dash and removed the switch plug. After that he sped lightly to the opposite side of the street and returned along the side of the judge’s premises.

Getting down on his knees under the lee of an iron fence, he crawled past the house, listening sharply as he proceeded. He could hear nothing. Not a sound reached his ears that would indicate that anything unusual was taking place around the house or inside it.

At the corner, Clancy arose to his feet. A few seconds later he was with his comrade again.

“Find out what you wanted to know?” queried Fortune eagerly.

“I’ve spotted the house,” Clancy answered, “and the car. Fixed the car so it can’t be used. If those chaps try to get away in it, they’ll have their trouble for their pains.”

“That’s you! Where’s the house?”

Clancy faced Fortune in the right direction, and pointed.

“Are them coyotes around the place?” asked Fortune.

“I came past the yard but couldn’t hear or see anything of them. We’ll have to get over the iron fence and prowl through the shrubbery, Jimmie. Of course, they’re there—they must be. And it’s up to us to find them and block their game, whatever it is.”

“Wisht I had a gun,” said Fortune. “Both them fellers are heeled, and I’ll bet my spurs! What’ll we do if they poke a muzzle in our faces, huh?”

“Dodge,” answered Clancy shortly. “Come on!”

Clancy led the way to the Cerro Gordo Street side of the Pembroke property, and he and Fortune crouched under the iron fence and listened intently. Still there was not a sound to be heard.

“Mebby we’ve made a mistake, pard,” whispered Fortune. “Like enough it’s another house. Wisht I knowed more about the jedge and the wigwam where he camps. What if we’re wrong? While we’re loafin’ here, Hibbard and Chantay Seeche may be doin’ their work on one of the other three cornders.”

“I don’t think we’re wrong,” returned Clancy, in a tense undertone. “This is our best bet, anyway. We’ve got to get over the fence and look around, Jimmie. Make as little noise as you can, and keep close to me.”

“It ’u’d take a hull lot to pry me loose from you at this stage o’ the game, Red,” answered Fortune. “Two’s comp’ny, jest about now, and I’m right hongry for comp’ny.”

Laying hands on top of the iron fence, Clancy bounded lightly over and into the yard. Fortune tried to vault, but his boots handicapped him. The toe of one of them caught on an iron picket and he came down among the bushes in a sprawl. He started to sputter, but Clancy laid a quick hand over his lips.

“Sh-h-h!” hissed Clancy warningly.

So far as they could discover, Fortune’s floundering had not aroused any one. After a few moments, they began crawling toward the side wall of the house.

They reached the wall about midway of the length of the house. There they paused and continued to listen and peer around them.

“Wrong trail, pard,” murmured Fortune.

“Let’s make sure of it before we leave,” returned Clancy. “You crawl toward the front and I’ll go toward the rear. If you hear or see anything suspicious, don’t try to let me know. I’ll join you before long, and then you can tell me.”

Clancy’s maneuvers brought him point-blank against the glass side of the conservatory. He had found not the least sign of intruders. Half convinced that he and Fortune were really on the wrong trail, he crawled forward along the wall to get his friend and carry investigations elsewhere.

Fortune, however, had made a discovery which caused Clancy to change his plans for leaving the premises.

“I’m next to somethin’, Red,” Jimmie whispered.

“What is it?”

“Open winder—right over my head. See for yourself.”

Clancy arose to his knees. Fortune was right. There was a window, there, with the lower sash raised.

“By Jove!” murmured Clancy, in his companion’s ear. “It’s a case of robbery, and both those fellows are inside!”

“We’ll wait till they come out, pard,” said Fortune excitedly, “and nab ’em one at a time, as they drap. They won’t be able to shoot, if we’re quick.”

“But suppose they leave by a door and don’t come through the window?”

“That’s me and my fool headwork, ag’in!” grunted Fortune. “You boss this job, Red, and I’ll foller orders. What’s the next move?”

“I’m going inside.”

“Don’t you! Mebby the winder’s only open fer air, and you’ll be grabbed for a thief yourself. I wouldn’t go inside that estakazol for a farm!”

“If the window was opened for air, Jimmie, the screen wouldn’t have been taken off, would it?”

“I don’t reckon it would.”

“Hibbard and Long Tom are inside, and I’m going to make sure they don’t get out through a door with any boodle.”

“What’ll I do?”

“Stay here and wait for something to happen.”

“S’pose more happens than I can take care of? What then?”

“Do the best you can, that’s all.”

“Gee-wollops! I’m so narvous I feel as though I wanted to yell. But go on. I’ll stay here.”

Clancy had been pulling off his shoes. Fortune did not have to tell him what disagreeable consequences would follow if he crawled into Judge Pembroke’s house and failed to find Hibbard and Long Tom there. Clancy’s imagination was good enough to picture his plight in such a condition of affairs. But, nevertheless, he was determined to go in.

Carefully he placed his hands on the sill, drew himself upward and wriggled through into the darkness of the room beyond. Fortune had many tremors as he watched his pard vanish.

“By glory,” said Jimmie to himself, as he crouched downward and made himself as small as possible, “Red has got a heap more nerve than me. I don’t allow I could do a thing like that, noways.”

As for Owen, whenever he made up his mind that it was necessary to do a thing, he banked on his judgment and did it. He might be wrong. If he was, he could explain to the judge.

Once inside the room with the open window, Clancy found himself in surroundings totally unfamiliar. And he dared not strike a light for fear of betraying himself—not only to Hibbard and Long Tom, but also to the judge’s household. Either might spell disaster for him.

As he stood in the gloom, he recalled as distinctly as possible, the diagram which Hibbard had drawn for Chantay Seeche Long. He wished, then, that he had paid more attention to that rude drawing.

As near as he could remember, this room had two doors, one in the front wall and another in the rear. If he was right, through which of those doors had Hibbard and Long Tom passed?

He reflected that they would not go toward the front of the house, providing they could get what they were after by keeping more to the rear of the building.

“I’ll chance the rear door,” thought Clancy, and groped his way in that direction.

He went slowly, avoiding chairs, and passing around a table. At the wall, he ran his hands carefully over the blank surface until they came to a swinging curtain. He pulled the curtain aside and reached out. His hand encountered only space beyond, and his eyes stared into pitchy darkness.

“I’m headed right,” he said to himself. “Those fellows went this way and left the door open. Now I’ll——”

His thoughts suddenly left him. Out of the blank gloom two arms stretched themselves, enfolded him in a viselike embrace, and wrenched his feet out from under him. He fell soddenly on a thick carpet, with a knee on his chest and pinning him down.

CHAPTER XI.
CAUGHT RED-HANDED.

That sudden attack was a big surprise to Clancy. Sure that Hibbard and Long Tom had turned the tables on him, he tried to yell and arouse the house and convey a warning to Fortune. A hand was clapped over his mouth, however, and outcry was impossible.

“Stop your struggling!” a voice hissed in Clancy’s ear. “And don’t try to call out. It will be the worse for you, if you do. I am holding a revolver to your breast, and, if I have to, I will use it.”

Here was another surprise for Clancy. A refined voice, although with a crisp, businesslike ring, had done the talking. Certainly it was not Hibbard’s voice, and it could not possibly be Chantay Seeche Tom’s. Whose, then, was it?

The hand was withdrawn from Clancy’s lips.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“That’s none of your affair,” came the sharp answer. “How many of your pals are in this house? I heard them, a while ago, and came downstairs. What are you after, anyhow?”

The man, whoever it was, evidently belonged in the place.

“I’m not one of the thieves,” protested Clancy. “I——”

“That’s a likely story! What are you doing in here if you don’t belong to the gang?”

“I came here to do what I could to prevent the villains from robbing the judge. Judge Pembroke knows me. A friend of mine and I blundered upon a tip that something was going to happen here to-night. There wasn’t time to call the police, and we came to see what we could do for the judge.”

Clancy’s captor was a cool one. He gave a low, incredulous laugh.

“You can’t expect me to believe any such stuff as that,” he answered. “How many, besides yourself, are in this house?”

“Two—Dirk Hibbard and a fellow called Tom Long, Chantay Seeche Tom.”

“Hibbard! He knew about that Prescott money, and he’s probably trying to get hands on it. We’ll give them a jolt, I guess. Don’t move—stay right where you are!”

The man reached away from Clancy and half arose. Snap! An electric switch was pressed and a glow of light flooded the room.

For a second, Clancy was blinded, and could see little. As his vision cleared, he discovered that the man who had made a prisoner of him was a young fellow, who bore a striking facial resemblance to the judge. He wore a blanket robe and slippers, and held a small, automatic pistol in his right hand.

“Jove!” murmured the chap with the gun. “You don’t look much like a tough, and that’s a fact. But circumstances are against you, my lad. See that door yonder?”

They were in what was evidently the dining room. As the young man spoke, he nodded toward a door on the other side of the apartment.

“I see it,” Clancy answered.

“That door leads into a hall, and the hall leads to the governor’s study. There is a safe in the study, and the Prescott money is in the safe. Your pals are there, I presume. Walk ahead of me. I’m going to pay them a visit and use you as a screen against any bullets they send in my direction. Start!”

Clancy got up from the floor.

“Hibbard has no love for me,” said he, “and he’ll probably be glad to shoot when he sees who I am. There are two of them, and they must be armed. You don’t want them to get away, do you?”

“I don’t want them to get away with the money. I guess I’ll be able to save that. Stir yourself—we can’t lose any more time.”

The curtain of the doorway through which Clancy had just come was pushed back. The bright glow in the dining room shone out through the doorway and into the room with the open window.

Clancy, shifting his eyes toward the drawn curtain, whirled like lightning. In a flash he had knocked aside the pistol in his captor’s hand and had overthrown him. As the young man dropped, fire streamed through the curtained doorway. A revolver roared in the other room and a bullet crashed into a piece of china on the sideboard and then broke the heavy French mirror behind it into a thousand fragments.

If Clancy had not been quick, that bullet would have struck the young fellow with the gun, for it traversed a line that crossed the exact point where he had been standing.

The young fellow was quick-witted, and, while at first he may have misunderstood Clancy’s action, the crash of the bullet gave him knowledge of the true state of affairs.

“There they go!” cried Clancy.

“Keep back, if you’re not armed!” shouted the other, bounding erect and dashing through the door.

Clancy was ahead of him, but, swift as they were, they were too late. The prowlers had flung themselves through the window, and wild yells were coming from the yard, where Fortune, single-handed, was having all and more than he could attend to.

There was excitement in other parts of the great house. Voices were calling, doors were opening and closing, and feet could be heard running down the stairs and over hardwood floors.

The young fellow stood in the window with the automatic revolver in his hand.

“I’ll give one of them his gruel, anyway,” he muttered.

Before he could shoot, Clancy grabbed his arm.

“Don’t fire!” he exclaimed. “A friend of mine is out there—you might hit him. Are you the judge’s son?”

“Yes,” was the answer, “and I want to get this over with before the governor presents himself. He might get hurt. Are you game to follow those fellows?”

“Of course!”

“Come on, then!”

There was the flutter of a bath robe in the open window, then the space cleared for Clancy. He landed on the ground beside Pembroke.

“They’ve skipped,” said Pembroke. “Even your friend isn’t here! Which way do you think the scoundrels went?”

“I know—they’ve got a car waiting for them. This way!”

Clancy darted for the fence and cleared the iron pickets at a bound. Young Pembroke was tight at his heels.

“If they’ve got a car,” he panted, “they’re bound to get away from us.”

“I’ve fixed the car so they can’t use it.”

Pembroke laughed choppily as he followed Clancy down the street.

“You’re a wonder, old man!” he cried. “And I thought, when I nailed you, that I had one of the thieves!”

Two dark figures could be seen rushing across the street toward the dark bulk of the car.

“There they go!” exclaimed Clancy. “They’ve got a surprise in store for themselves! Look, they’re trying to crank the engine.”

One of the forms could be seen working at the front of the car. He started up with a frantic oath.

“Take to your heels, Chantay! They’ve tampered with the car! Run!”

A figure jumped from the tonneau of the machine and flung off through the night. Hibbard, who had been pulling the crank, ran back along the line of palm trees.

Clancy took after him, and, for a minute, there was an exciting chase. Clancy, however, was far and away the better sprinter. As he came close to Hibbard, the latter turned and brandished a revolver.

“Keep off,” he yelled, “or I’ll drop you!”

Clancy ducked, lurched forward, and came up under the extended arm whose hand gripped the revolver. There was a bit of a struggle, and then Hibbard fell, the red-headed chap on top of him.

“Have you got one of them?” asked Pembroke, coming up.

“Yes—Hibbard,” said Clancy.

“Has he got a canvas bag?”

“No.”

“Then the other scoundrel has the money. I couldn’t find it in the car. Dash it! We’ll have to call in the police—and maybe it’s too late. We’ll take Hibbard to the house, where we can use the telephone. Let him up, old chap.”

Clancy drew away from Hibbard, while Pembroke caught his arm and leveled the “automatic.”

“You’re a nice sort of a chap, aren’t you?” sneered Pembroke. “Robbing the man for whom you used to work! Get up!”

Hibbard got sulkily erect.

“Pick up that revolver,” said Pembroke to Clancy.

The latter stooped and gathered in the weapon, which had fallen from the chauffeur’s hand when he fell.

“Come on to the house, Hibbard,” said young Pembroke. “We’ll let the governor talk with you.”

“I don’t want to talk with the judge,” growled Hibbard. “Take me to jail, if that’s what you’re plannin’ to do.”

“Not much! You’ll face the governor. Step lively, and don’t try to get away. If you make a move to run, the bullets will chase you!”

Between Clancy and Pembroke the rascally chauffeur was led back toward the house.

“You’re responsible for this, Clancy!” snarled Hibbard.

“I don’t know whether I am or not,” Clancy answered. “I guess Mr. Pembroke was next to what you were doing before we reached the house.”

“You’d better jug me,” said Hibbard to Clancy, through his teeth, “or I’ll camp on your trail and settle for you. You’re running up a pretty big score.”

“Your name Clancy?” queried Pembroke.

“Yes,” Owen answered.

“Then you’re the fellow who repaired the governor’s car, out on the trail. He told us about you. Sorry I mistook you for a burglar, Clancy!”

“I hardly see how you could help it,” Clancy returned. “Wonder where the deuce Fortune is?” he added, as he and Pembroke and Hibbard mounted the front steps of the house.

“He was in this, too, eh?” growled Hibbard.

The front door of the house was open, and the judge, in shirt, trousers, and slippers, stood in the entrance.

“What in the world is the matter, Larry?” the judge queried, staring at his son. “Has there been a robbery?”

“That’s the size of it, dad,” answered young Pembroke. “Your Prescott money has gone to Ballyhack, I reckon. There were two of the scoundrels, and the other fellow gave us the slip. He must have had the canvas bag.”

“Never mind the money,” said the judge, “if you’re not hurt. Who’s that you have there?”

“One of them is young Clancy, the chap who repaired your car out in the hills. He came here to prevent the robbery, if he could. The other is Hibbard. He knew about that Prescott money, and came here after it.”

The judge led the way into the drawing-room. A number of the women members of the household were clustered there, shivering with fright. The judge reassured them, and sent them upstairs. After they were gone, he turned to his son, Clancy, and the prisoner.

“I can’t understand this,” said he. “Hibbard, did you come to this house to rob me?”

“I don’t look as though I was here of my own free will, do I?” the chauffeur replied, with an ugly leer.

“I heard some one in the house,” explained Larry, “and went down to the dining room. Some one was just coming through the window, and I waited for him at the door leading from the den into the dining room. When I grabbed him, he proved to be Clancy, there.”

“Clancy!” exclaimed the judge. “Is it possible that——”

“No, dad, it isn’t possible that he’s one of the thieves. He came to warn us about the robbery, but got to the house a little too late. He saved me from getting nipped by a bullet—upset me just as one of the robbers pulled a trigger; after that, he joined in the chase and downed Hibbard single-handed. Clancy has proved a good friend of ours this night.”

“Who was the fellow that got away with the money?” inquired the judge.

“Tom Long,” spoke up Clancy, “the fellow they call Chantay Seeche Tom.”

“He’s equal to a thing like this! I can easily believe that he had a hand in it. I’m out five thousand dollars, but——”

“Jedge, you ain’t out a cent! I happened to grab the bag in the yard, and I ran off with it like a streak o’ greased lightnin’. James Montague Fortune has done somethin’, at last, that didn’t have a bobble in it! Whoop!”

All eyes turned toward the broad doorway that led from the drawing-room into the hall. Fortune stood there, striking an attitude, and holding high a small canvas bag. His face wore a broad and complacent grin.

“Well, here’s luck!” exclaimed Larry Pembroke. “Clancy and his friend have saved the day for us, after all!”

CHAPTER XII.
HIBBARD WEAKENS.

Clancy was mightily relieved to know that Fortune had not only kept himself from being injured, but had also covered himself with glory by saving the five thousand dollars.

“Good for you, Jimmie!” Clancy exclaimed. “How did you ever manage to get away with that bag of money?”

“Plumb easy!” returned Fortune, swaggering into the room. “I was waitin’ under the open winder, where you left me, Clancy, and I was all of a shake on account o’ hearin’ that revolver shot. While I was still in a quiver, them cimiroons drapped the money out and started to foller it. I jumped for the bag. While I was pickin’ it up, one of the junipers fell on me. We had a mix, but I tore loose and sloped for the iron fence. Say, I got over that fence with about six feet in the clear. Then I ran till I was clean winded. By then, I allowed it was safe to turn around and come back. I was in sight when some o’ you came in the front door—so I trailed along. Jedge,” and he turned to Pembroke, “allow me to fork over the missin’ dinero!” With that, he placed the bag in the judge’s hand.

“Explain this to me,” said the judge. “With so many of you concerned in what happened it is a little difficult to follow the sequence of events. Clancy, how did you and Fortune come to learn that my house was to be robbed?”

Clancy explained, and in that explanation he did his friend full credit. Fortune, however, put in a few words to the effect that Clancy’s brains in following up the clew, helped out more than any work of his own.

“I stumble onto a heap o’ things,” observed Jimmie, grinning, “but I ain’t got the sabe to figger ’em out. My red-headed pard is the feller who does that.”

During Clancy’s recital the fact had developed that Fortune was occupying Clancy’s bed at the rear of the garage when Hibbard and Tom Long came hunting for the note. This was a revelation which Hibbard listened to with wide eyes.

“Thunder!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “I deserve all that’s comin’ to me for makin’ that bobble!”

“Hibbard,” said the judge, sternly facing the chauffeur, “this is pretty bad business for you. I suppose you know what this means to you?”

“I’m not doing any sobbing,” snarled Hibbard. “Put on the screws—I reckon I can stand it.”

“Give him the limit, dad,” urged Larry. “He deserves it—treating you like this after the way you’ve treated him for the past six months.”

The judge frowned at his son.

“You knew, did you, Hibbard,” he went on to the chauffeur, “that I was expecting to get this five thousand from Prescott for the sale of a ranch there?”

“Sure, I knew it!”

“You thought I’d gone to Prescott after the money, but you did not know that the purchaser of the ranch brought it to Phoenix to me, and that I received it after banking hours?”

“I didn’t know that, but I figgered that you couldn’t return from Prescott till after the bank had closed, and would have to keep the money in the study safe,” answered Hibbard. “The only difference your not goin’ to Prescott made, was that you caught me out with the car.”

“You slipped off to tell Chantay Seeche Tom about the money and to get his help in robbing me?”

“I’m not goin’ to talk.”

“Hibbard,” said the judge, “I don’t want to be hard on you. Make a clean breast of everything, and I’ll let you go. You’ve got a father and mother in Mesa, and they’re good friends of mine. I don’t want to do anything to bring disgrace upon them. But,” and the judge’s face grew stern, “I’ll put you through for this if you don’t tell me everything about the affair.”

A gleam of hope flickered in the chauffeur’s eyes.

“Do you mean that, judge?” he asked.

“I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean,” was the quiet reply.

“Then ask your questions, and I’ll come across with straight answers.”

“You sneaked out of town to get Chantay Seeche Tom to help you rob me?”

“Yes. Tom was to come in to Phoenix and meet me at the Palace. After that, we were to get the note from Clancy and make a grab for your five thousand.”

“Why were you going to get the note from Clancy?”

“Because Rockwell offered me two hundred dollars for it.”

“Rockwell?” burst from Clancy. “Do you mean to say that Rockwell hired you to steal that note from me?”

“That’s what I mean to say,” said Hibbard.

“Why?” asked the judge. “What was his reason?”

“He don’t want to pay the note. If Clancy hasn’t got it, how can he collect on it?”

“Oh, he’s a shark, Uncle Si is,” struck in Fortune. “That’s what I told Red. Maybe he’ll believe me, now.”

The judge turned to Clancy.

“It was an unindorsed note?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Clancy, “it was a note for a thousand dollars, given to my father. I came to Phoenix to collect it. Rockwell said the note was all right, and that he would get the money together, in a week or two, and take it up. Meanwhile, I was to work in his garage at fifty dollars a month.”

“That was just a scheme,” put in Hibbard, “to get Clancy in a place where it would be easy to take the note away from him.”

“And you and Chantay Seeche Tom,” said Larry, with a laugh, “tied up the wrong fellow, and couldn’t find the note!”

“That’s where they got fooled!” chuckled Fortune. “I was all wrapped up in a blanket, and they didn’t know the difference between me and my pard. Funniest thing that ever happened; only it wasn’t so blame’ funny for me while it was happenin’.”

“Clancy,” said the judge, “you had better let me take that note and keep it for you. To-morrow I’ll see that you get justice from this scoundrel, Rockwell. I owe you that, and more.”

Clancy had made a powerful friend. He realized that, and was quick to take the note from the wallet and put it in the hands of Judge Pembroke.

“I’m sorry,” went on the judge, “that you agreed to work for Rockwell and turned down my offer. I hired a driver an hour after I left you——”

Jimmie gave a hollow groan.

“And here was me, bankin’ on gettin’ that job!” he wailed. “Oh, jedge, this here is what I call blame’ tough!”

“Maybe I can do something for you,” said the judge, smiling, “or do something for Clancy so he can help you. I’ll come to the Red Star Garage to-morrow morning, at ten. Meet me there, Clancy, and we’ll see what can be done.”

“I’ll be there, judge,” answered Clancy, “and I’ll be mighty grateful for anything you can do that will help me.”

“I’ll wring that thousand dollars out of Rockwell, you may be sure of that.” The judge once more turned to Hibbard. “How did you and Long Tom get into the safe? You didn’t blow it open.”

“Worked the combination. You had the combination changed, a spell ago, and I stole the paper from your pocketbook, one day, when I had you out in the car. After I copied the number, I put the paper back in the pocketbook, and got the leather into your pocket again without your knowin’.”

“Hibbard,” observed the judge, more in sorrow than in anger, “you’re a bad one! You’ve gone down grade pretty fast since you went to work for me and had dealings with Rockwell.”

“Any one will hit the toboggan that gets mixed up with Rockwell,” declared Hibbard. “Anything else you want to know, judge?”

“No, Hibbard; you can go. For the sake of your people, I hope you will live a different life from now on.”

He pointed to the door, and Dirk Hibbard, with head bowed, passed through it and out of the house.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE JUDGE TAKES A HAND.

Clancy did not return to the Red Star Garage that night. He went to a hotel with Jimmie Fortune, and the two of them slept late the next morning, had breakfast at a restaurant at nine o’clock, and, when ten strokes boomed from the courthouse clock, made their way to the garage.

The judge and Rockwell were alone in the office when the two youths entered the place.

“Get out of here, both of you!” shouted Rockwell. “I know that young scalawag, Fortune, and I don’t want him around, on general principles. As for you, Clancy, I have no use for a fellow who can’t be trusted. You didn’t stay in the back room last night, and you didn’t show up here in time for work this morning. That’s what lets you out.”

“Just a minute,” interposed the judge, taking a long wallet from his pocket. “Before Clancy leaves this place, Rockwell, you’d better settle your account with him.” He took the note from the wallet and laid it down on the desk in front of the garage owner. “Give him a check for a thousand dollars,” finished the judge, “and no words about it.”

Rockwell appeared astounded. His startled eyes traveled to the judge and then returned to the note.

“I—I told Clancy I’d take this up in a week or two,” he muttered shiftily.

“You’re going to take it up now,” said Judge Pembroke. “I know you have the money in the bank, and that note is long past due. Be sure and add the interest when you make out the check.”

“You don’t know about this note, judge,” continued Rockwell. “I don’t reckon I owe the money or——”

“Why did you just say you had told Clancy you’d pay it in a week or two, if you questioned the validity of the note?”

“Well, I—I——”

“Don’t hem and haw and side-step with me,” said the judge sternly. “You have been trying to beat young Clancy out of the money. Do you want me to tell your customers how you hired Hibbard to steal that note from Clancy so you could get out of paying it? Would that sound well?”

Rockwell fell back in his chair, limp and dumfounded. His lips moved, but no sound came from them.

“You see,” pursued the judge relentlessly, “that I know what I am talking about. I’ll publish your contemptible methods far and wide if you don’t instantly settle this debt. I’m not here to waste words on you. Write that check!”

With his face ashen and his hands trembling, Rockwell, thoroughly cowed, bent over his desk. Fishing a check book out of a pigeonhole, he opened it, picked up a pen, and did a little figuring on a scratch block. When he wrote the check, it was for one thousand one hundred and twenty dollars.

“There, Clancy,” said the judge, handing the check to Owen. “Now you are square with Rockwell, and need have nothing more to do with him. There is a young fellow in this town who has recently opened a garage. He is square as a die, and I happen to know that you can buy a half interest in his place for that money. Of course,” and the judge smiled, “it isn’t a big place like this, but the business is growing. I’d advise you to buy in with Lafe Wynn.”

“Wynn?” murmured Rockwell. “He’s one of my competitors. I didn’t think, judge, that you’d do anything to help Lafe Wynn.”

“I’ll do everything to help Lafe Wynn,” said Judge Pembroke, getting up from his chair. “Clancy will buy a half interest, give a job to his friend, Jimmie Fortune, and it won’t be many months, Rockwell, until Clancy & Wynn run you out of business. They’ll treat their patrons on the square—and that’s a principle that will help them to grow. Don’t think for a minute,” he added, “that I don’t know how I have been robbed here. I’ve suspected what was going on, and now I’m no longer in doubt. My two cars are going over to the Square-deal Garage—and I guess I know a few more cars that will follow them.”

“You might be easy with me,” whimpered Rockwell, “now that I’ve given Clancy that money.”

“Easy with you for paying an honest debt?” returned the judge contemptuously. “Why, man, if you had your deserts you would be in jail.” He moved toward the door. “Come on, Clancy,” said he, “you and Fortune. We’re through here.”

The judge left the place, Clancy and Fortune trailing along behind him. The two pards were smiling happily, and Fortune was hanging to Clancy’s hand and working his arm up and down like a pump handle.

Rockwell watched them through the dingy window of his office.

“We’ll see about this,” he muttered, between his teeth, shaking his fist. “I’ll break that new firm of Clancy & Wynn. You’re a keen one, Pembroke, but you’ll find that I can go you one better. I—I reckon I shouldn’t have trusted that fellow, Hibbard, after all,” he added, as he turned heavily away from the window.

THE END.

Continuing to follow the fortunes of Owen Clancy, Burt L. Standish has written a cracking good story, which you will find in the next issue of this weekly. It is entitled “Owen Clancy’s Square Deal; or, The Motor Wizard and the Black Thunderbolt.” Owen buys a half interest in Lafe Wynn’s garage and settles down to make good. The Black Thunderbolt is an automobile, and it is “some car.” There are some mighty exciting doings in it, too. The issue in which this story will be found will be out next week, on January 24th. It is No. 78.

HALL OF SHELLS.

An English traveler who has recently returned from Berlin gives an interesting account in one of the local papers of his visit to the new palace of the kaiser, at Potsdam.

There are many things which make the palace interesting to the privileged visitor, not the least among which is the kitchen, which stands in a separate building. Frederick the Great hated the smells of the kitchen and he had that most necessary adjunct to every house moved away from the palace. The eatables were conveyed to the royal dining hall by an underground passage. Emperor William still keeps up the custom of his predecessor.

The dining hall of the palace is small, as palace dining rooms go, and contains some very valuable paintings, but for formal events and even for family affairs, now that the kaiser’s family is getting to be so large, the great marble hall upstairs is used. Three hundred can dine at one time in this hall. Here have gathered nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, and on those occasions huge candles are used for lighting instead of the more modern electric light.

Other rooms of interest are the kaiser’s smoking room, to which some wonderful vases have recently been added, the gift of a visiting Chinese prince. The private palace of the theater holds about 350 persons and the stage is arranged to produce all the latest scenic effects. The kaiser prefers light comedy, and this is the kind of entertainment he gives his guests.

The most interesting apartment in the entire palace, however, is undoubtedly the hall of shells. The room is most beautiful, its walls adorned with thousands of shells of all kinds. They have been arranged deftly in charming patterns, while other shells in grottoes give a wonderful effect when lighted by electricity. It was in this room that Colonel Roosevelt, when ex-president, was entertained by the kaiser. The famous Imperial Christmas tree is set up in this room.

The kaiser has his own railway station at Wildpark, which is only a short distance from the palace.

The Wonderful Adventures of Cap’n Wiley.

Written by Himself. Edited by Burt L. Standish.

Transcriber’s Notes:

OWEN CLANCY’S RUN OF LUCK;Or, THE MOTOR WIZARD IN THE GARAGE.

CHAPTER I.OVER THE RIM ROCK.

CHAPTER II.JIMMIE FORTUNE.

CHAPTER III.THE MOTOR WIZARD.

CHAPTER IV.CLANCY GETS A JOB.

CHAPTER V.HIBBARD SHOWS HIS TEETH.

CHAPTER VI.ROCKWELL’S SCHEME.

CHAPTER VII.IN THE RED STAR GARAGE.

CHAPTER VIII.FORTUNE’S MYSTERY.

CHAPTER IX.A WEIRD STATE OF AFFAIRS.

CHAPTER X.HELPING THE JUDGE.

CHAPTER XI.CAUGHT RED-HANDED.

CHAPTER XII.HIBBARD WEAKENS.

CHAPTER XIII.THE JUDGE TAKES A HAND.

HALL OF SHELLS.

The Wonderful Adventures of Cap’n Wiley.

OWEN CLANCY’S RUN OF LUCK;
Or, THE MOTOR WIZARD IN THE GARAGE.

CHAPTER I.
OVER THE RIM ROCK.

CHAPTER II.
JIMMIE FORTUNE.

CHAPTER III.
THE MOTOR WIZARD.

CHAPTER IV.
CLANCY GETS A JOB.

CHAPTER V.
HIBBARD SHOWS HIS TEETH.

CHAPTER VI.
ROCKWELL’S SCHEME.

CHAPTER VII.
IN THE RED STAR GARAGE.

CHAPTER VIII.
FORTUNE’S MYSTERY.

CHAPTER IX.
A WEIRD STATE OF AFFAIRS.

CHAPTER X.
HELPING THE JUDGE.

CHAPTER XI.
CAUGHT RED-HANDED.

CHAPTER XII.
HIBBARD WEAKENS.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE JUDGE TAKES A HAND.