Fate, in the present instance, had conspired to place him on the wrong track—but he was following the course with supreme confidence.
[CHAPTER III.]
SHOCK NUMBER ONE.
When Motor Matt and Joe McGlory dropped off that "local" passenger train at the Catskill station they had just finished a series of strenuous experiences. These had to do with the great ruby known as the Eye of Buddha. A cunning facsimile of the gem had been sent by Tsan Ti to Matt, by express, with a letter desiring him to take care of the ruby until the mandarin should call for it. This responsibility, entirely unsought by the king of the motor boys, plunged him and his cowboy pard into a whirl of adventures, and ended in their being decoyed aboard the Iris. Here the ruby was taken from Matt by force—Grattan, who secured it, not learning until some time later that the object Matt had been caring for was merely a base counterfeit of the original gem. And Matt and McGlory did not find this out until they caught the train at Fairview, when they discovered that Tsan Ti and Sam Wing were aboard.
The twenty-mile ride from Fairview to Catskill with the mandarin proved quite an eye opener for the motor boys. They learned how Tsan Ti had deliberately set Grattan on their track to recover the bogus ruby, while he—Tsan Ti—made his escape with the real gem.
This part of the mandarin's talk failed to make much of a "hit" with Matt and McGlory. The mandarin had used them for his purposes in a particularly high-handed manner, keeping them entirely in the dark regarding the fact that the stone intrusted to Matt was a counterfeit.
Although the boys parted in a friendly way with the mandarin on leaving the train at Catskill, yet they nevertheless remembered their grievance and were heartily glad to think that they were done for all time with Tsan Ti and his ruby.
Very often it happens that when we think we are done with a thing we have reckoned without taking account of a perverse fate. This was the case with the motor boys with reference to Tsan Ti and the Eye of Buddha.