"Bet yer life I ain't," said Pecos for himself. "What's more," he added, nibbling at a slab of tobacco, "I don't want ter be."
"He works mostly around Turtle Mounting," explained Siwash Charley. "Why?"
"I think he can be useful to us," answered Murgatroyd. "Those other two fellows who helped you at Totten—where are they, Siwash?"
"They was nigh skeered ter death, an' made a bee line fer Winnipeg."
"That was a bad bobble you made at Totten," resumed Murgatroyd. "Motor Matt, in spite of you, put Traquair's aëroplane through its paces, met the government's requirements in every particular, and the machine was sold to the war department for fifteen thousand dollars."
"Things didn't work right," growled Siwash. "I tampered with that thar machine the night before the trials—loosened bolts an' screws an' filed through the wire guy ropes—but nothin' happened till the flyin' machine was done sailin' an' ready ter come down; then that cub, Motor Matt, got in some lightnin' headwork an' saved the machine, saved himself, an' likewise that there Leftenant Cameron of the Signal Corps."
"The boy's got a charmed life, I tell ye," insisted Pecos Jones. "I've heerd talk, up around Turtle Mounting, about what he's done."
"Think of a full-grown man like Pecos Jones talkin' that-a-way!" exclaimed Siwash derisively.
"Motor Matt is clever," said Murgatroyd musingly, "and I made a mistake in sizing him up. But there's a way to get him."
"What do you want to 'get' him fer?" inquired Pecos Jones.