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Read Ebook: Motor Matt's Engagement; or On the Road with a Show by Matthews Stanley R
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Ebook has 844 lines and 34058 words, and 17 pages
"Dere don'd vas anyt'ing else to chump ad," returned Carl. "Dis vas a dark case, you bed you, und dere has to be some guessings. Dot's vat I make now, der guessings."
McGlory broke off abruptly to follow a sudden movement on Matt's part. The canvas forming the side of the menagerie tent had shaken, as though there was some one on the other side of it. Matt, seeing the shiver of the canvas, leaped for the wall. The next moment he had lifted the canvas and was looking into the other tent.
A tall, brown-faced man, wearing a turban and an embroidered jacket, was just vanishing through the tent entrance. Matt dropped the canvas and turned away, a thoughtful look taking the place of the smile with which he had listened to Carl's talk.
"What was it, pard?" asked McGlory.
"An eavesdropper," replied Matt.
"Speak to me about that!" exclaimed McGlory. "If some one thought the Dutchman's yarn worth listening to, then perhaps there's something in it."
"Perhaps." Motor Matt's brow wrinkled perplexedly.
"Who was the fellow? Could you recognize him?"
"It was Ben Ali."
McGlory bounded up, excited, and his own face reflecting some of the perplexity that shone in his friend's.
Before the conversation could be continued, however, a man thrust his head into the calliope tent.
"They're waiting for you fellows," he announced. "Hustle!"
QUEER PROCEEDINGS.
The place occupied by the a?roplane in the procession was almost at the end, and just behind the herd of four elephants. Rajah, owing to his freakish disposition, was always the fourth elephant of the string, Delhi his mate, immediately preceding him. With peaceable brutes ahead, Rajah might usually be depended upon not to cut any capers.
The parade was almost in readiness for the start when Matt, McGlory, and Ping reached the a?roplane. Hostlers were running about placing plumes in the head-stalls of the horses, drivers were climbing to their seats, the wild animal trainer was getting into the open cage, and the members of the band were tinkering with their instruments.
Haidee was standing by the a?roplane when Matt, McGlory, and Ping reached the machine.
"All ready, Haidee?" asked Matt.
The girl turned and looked at him blankly. Her face was unusually white, and there was a vacant stare in her eyes.
"What's to pay, sis?" asked McGlory, with a surprised look at Matt. "Don't you feel well?"
"I am well."
The words came in an unnatural voice and with parrot-like precision.
Boss Burton came hustling down the line in his runabout.
Matt stepped over to the runabout.
"What's the matter with the girl?" he asked, in a low tone.
"Is she subject to spells of that kind?"
"She used to be. There's something queer about them, but they don't last long."
"We shouldn't put her on the upper wing, then. There's no seat there, and nothing to hold on to."
The sharp, impatient notes of a trumpet came from the head of the line.
"Well, put her somewhere," said Burton impatiently, and whirled his horse.
"Awri'," chirped Ping, and McGlory gave him a leg up.
Haidee, moving like an automaton, made no objection to this arrangement. She took her place obediently on the lower wing of the machine, between Matt and McGlory, and the engine was started.
Matt, McGlory, and Haidee, on account of the wings of the a?roplane being turned lengthwise of the street, rode facing the sidewalk on the left. In order to see them, Ben Ali was obliged to keep Rajah somewhat out of the line.
Matt shook his head, and met steadily the piercing eyes of the Hindoo until they were turned forward again.
"What is your uncle looking this way for, Haidee?" he asked.
"I don't know."
The girl expressed herself in the same mechanical way she had done before.
"Haidee isn't herself," said Matt, "and I guess her uncle is worried. Change seats with her, Joe."
Matt wanted to talk with his cowboy chum and did not want to be under the necessity of passing his words around the girl.
"Move over, sis," requested McGlory, standing up and balancing himself on the foot-rest.
The girl quietly slipped along the plane.
Cheer after cheer greeted the a?roplane and the king of the motor boys as soon as the crowded thoroughfares were reached. Ping, on the upper wing, and clad in all his barbaric finery, was as proud as a peacock. Haidee, on the other hand, paid absolutely no attention to the crowds. She sat rigidly in her place, like a girl carved from stone, keeping her unblinking eyes straight ahead of her.
"I'm plumb beat, and no mistake," breathed McGlory, in Matt's ear. "I never saw Haidee like this before. She acts to me like she was locoed."
"Boss Burton told me, just before we started," answered Matt, in a low tone, "that she was subject to 'spells.' This is the first one she has had in a month, Burton says."
"Can you savvy it?"
"No."
"Ben Ali seems worried out of his wits. Watch how he keeps Rajah zigzagging back and forth across the trail, so he can get a look at the girl every now and then. I wonder if Haidee knows what she's about?"
"She must. If she didn't she wouldn't be riding in the a?roplane."
The bands played, the crowds waved hands and handkerchiefs and cheered, the clowns carried out all their funny stunts, and the procession moved on through the city of Lafayette. Students from Purdue University followed the paraders and blew long blasts through tin horns. Rajah showed signs of becoming restless, and Ben Ali's attention had to be given entirely to the big brute.
Matt, with one hand on the steering lever, kept the unwieldy machine moving in a straight track.
"Sh-h-h!" Matt interrupted. "I had the same notion, Joe, but it was only a wild guess, at the most. He's a prying chap, that Ben Ali, and he might have had only a casual interest in what Carl was saying."
"I'll bet a ten-dollar bill against a chink wash ticket that there was something more to it than that."
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