Murgatroyd drew three gold pieces from his pocket and laid them in a little stack on the table, just within the glint of the lamplight.
"Pecos Jones," said he, "Siwash, here, has vouched for you. In the little game I'm about to play we need help. You can either take that money and obey orders, or leave it and get out."
There was a silence, while Pecos eyed the gold greedily. After a little reflection he brushed the coins from the table and dropped them clinking into his pocket.
"I'm with ye," said he. "What's wanted?"
"That's the talk," approved Murgatroyd. "Our plans failed at the aëroplane trials,[A] but I've got another scheme which I am sure will win. You know, Siwash, and perhaps Pecos knows it as well, that Motor Matt was demonstrating that aëroplane for Mrs. Traquair, who lives in Jamestown. Motor Matt came meddling with the business which I had with the woman, and the fifteen thousand, paid by the government for the aëroplane, was divided between Mrs. Traquair and Matt. Half——"
[A] What Murgatroyd's plans were, and why they failed, was set forth in No. 24 of the Motor Stories, "Motor Matt on the Wing; or, Flying for Fame and Fortune."
"We know all that," cut in Siwash.
"Well, then, here's something you don't know. Mrs. Traquair has a quarter section of land near here, on which her husband borrowed one thousand dollars of me while perfecting his aëroplane. After Traquair was killed by a fall with his flying machine, I felt sure I could get that quarter section of land on the mortgage. Now Motor Matt, by helping Mrs. Traquair, has made it possible for her to pay off the mortgage. She hasn't done it yet, because I haven't been in Jamestown since your failure to wreck the aëroplane at Fort Totten. I've been traveling around in my automobile with my niece, who is in poor health. She is in Sykestown now, while I am making this night trip out here. I visited this place once before, you remember, and I kept its location so well in mind that I was able to find it without much trouble. I felt fairly certain, Siwash, that you would be here, so——"
"Well, what's your scheme?" interrupted Siwash Charley.
"I'm getting to that," went on Murgatroyd. "Motor Matt and his friend Joe McGlory, together with the Chinese boy, Ping Pong, have been at Fort Totten ever since the aëroplane was sold to the government. The war department will take another of the Traquair aëroplanes at the same price paid for this one in case it can be finished and delivered by the first of the month, in time to go to Washington for trials of dirigible balloons and other devices at Fort Myer. Motor Matt is building an aëroplane for this order, and it is nearly completed. I don't care anything about that. What concerns me is that quarter section of land. For reasons of my own, I want it—and I am going to have it, if not in one way, then in another."