"To Gardenville."
"Then we'll make a fast run to Gardenville. Will you go along?"
"Yes," said Matt. "Come on, Joe."
And McGlory dutifully went. As he, and Matt, and Martin passed out of the hotel, the down-river boat from Albany whistled for Catskill Landing. The cowboy looked at it.
"We'll never get to New York," he murmured; "not in a thousand years. We're out for two different kinds of trouble, and we'll be into both of 'em up to our eyes before we're many hours older."
[CHAPTER V.]
A HOT STARTER.
Motor Matt disliked any further entanglements with Tsan Ti and the fateful ruby fully as much as did his cowboy pard, and he was greatly perturbed over the unexpected developments which had again drawn him and McGlory into the plots and counterplots hovering around the valuable gem. But it was impossible for the king of the motor boys to turn his back upon an appeal from any one in distress when it was in his power to be of help. Nevertheless, Matt might have cut loose from the mandarin, for he did not like his Oriental methods, but his temper was stirred by that half-veiled threat in the note from Grattan.
Matt and Grattan had been at swords' points ever since the motor boys had been in the Catskills. It was largely a battle of wits, with now and then a little violence thrown in for good measure, and up to that moment neither Matt nor Grattan had scored decisively.