"It's a bad habit—this of getting too curious. It's dollars and cents for me to have the two with the show. What's more," and his remarks took a more personal turn, "it's money in my pocket to have the Comet go up this afternoon with Haidee shooting Roman candles from the trapeze. When are you going to get busy with the repairs?"
"After I eat something."
"Well, rush the work, Matt. Do the best you can."
"It won't be Haidee who rides the trapeze next time the Comet takes to the air," said the king of the motor boys firmly.
"Well, Archie le Bon, then," returned Burton, with much disappointment.
As he went out, McGlory came in, passing him in the entrance.
"Nothing doing," reported the cowboy. "Where the Hindoo went is a conundrum. I couldn't find anybody about the grounds who had even seen him since he walked Haidee away from the burning aëroplane."
While McGlory, disgusted with his ill success and the turn events were taking, there on the banks of the Wabash, slumped down on a bucket and mopped his perspiring face, Motor Matt dropped into a brown study.
"These Hindoos are crafty fellows, Joe," he remarked, after a while. "They're clever at a great many things we Americans don't understand anything about. I knew one of them once. He was the servant of a man who happened to be the uncle of one of the finest young fellows that ever stepped—brave Dick Ferral. This particular Hindoo I was able to study at close range."
"What are you leading up to by this sort of talk?" asked McGlory, cocking his head on one side and squinting his eyes.