Originally published: April 10, 1909
Genres: Adventure, Children's
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47625
Chapters: 17
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
A NIGHT MYSTERY
"Oh, py shiminy! Look at dere, vonce! Vat it iss, Matt? Br-r-r! I feel like I vould t'row some fits righdt on der shpot! It's a shpook, you bed you!"
A strange event was going forward, there under the moon and stars of that New Mexico night. The wagon road followed the base of a clifflike bank, and at the outer edge of the road, there was a precipitous fall into Stygian darkness.
A second road entered the first through a narrow gully. A few yards beyond the point where the thoroughfares joined an automobile was halted, its twin acetylene lamps gleaming like the eyes of some fabled monster in the semigloom.
Two boys were in the front seat of the automobile, and one of them had leaned over and gripped the arm of the lad who had his hands on the steering wheel. The eyes of the two in the car were staring ahead.
What the boys saw was sufficiently startling, in all truth.
Out of the gully, directly in advance of them, had rolled a white automobile—springing ghostlike out of the darkness as it came under the glare of the acetylene lights.
The white car was a runabout, with two seats in front and an abnormally high deck behind. It carried no lamps, moved with weird silence, and, strangest of all, there was no one in either seat! Yet, with no hand on the steering wheel, the white car made the dangerous turn out of the gully into the main road with the utmost ease and was now continuing on between the foot of the cliff and the brink of the chasm with a steadiness that was—well, almost hair-raising.
Motor Matt, who had been piloting the Red Flier slowly and carefully along that dangerous course, had cut off the power and thrown on the brake the instant the white car leaped into sight. As he gazed at the receding auto, and noted the conditions under which it was moving, a gasp escaped his lips.
"That beats anything I ever heard of, Carl!" he muttered.
"It vas a shpook pubble!" clamored Carl Pretzel. "I don'd like dot, py shinks. Durn aroundt, or pack oop, or do somet'ing else to ged oudt oof der vay. Shpooks iss pad pitzness, und schust vy dit it habben don't make no odds aboudt der tifference. Ged avay, Matt, und ged avay kevick! Py Chorge! I vas so vorked oop as I can't dell."
Carl released Matt's arm, pulled a big red handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped the perspiration from his face. He was having a chill and perspiring at the same time, and his mop of towlike hair was trying to stand on end.
Matt started the Red Flier. There was gas enough in the cylinders to take the spark so that it was not necessary to get out and use the crank.
To turn around on such a road was out of the question, even if Matt had desired to do so—which he did not. Nor did he reverse the engine and back away, but started along in the trail of the white car.
"Vat you vas doing, anyvay?" cried Carl.
"I'm going to follow up on that phantom auto and see if I can find what controls it."
"You vas grazy, Matt! Meppy ve ged kilt oof ve ged too nosey mit dot machine. It don'd pay to dake some chances in a case like dose. I know vat I know, und dot's all aboudt it. Go pack pefore der shpook pubble hits us und knock us py der cliff ofer!"
Carl was excited. He believed in "spooks" and Motor Matt didn't, and that was all the difference between them.
"Don't lose your nerve, Carl—"
"It vas gone alretty!" groaned Carl, crouching in his seat, hanging on with both hands and staring ahead with popping eyes.
"Nothing's going to happen," went on Matt. "There's no such thing as ghosts, Carl."
"Don'd I know ven I see vone?" quavered Carl. "You t'ink I vas plind, Matt. Dot pubble moofs mitoudt nopody to make it go like vat it does; und it don'd hit der rocks or go ofer der cliff. Donnervetter! I vish I vas somevere else, py grickets. Ach! I vas so colt like ice, und I sveat; und my teet' raddle so dot I don't hardly peen aple to shpeak anyt'ing."
"We've seen the Red Flier moving along without anybody aboard, Carl," said Matt, in an attempt to quiet his chum's fears.
"Yah, so," answered Carl, "aber der Ret Flier vas moofing along some shdraighdt roads, und der veel vas tied mit ropes so dot she keeps a shdraighdt course. Aber dot shpook pubble don'd haf nopody on, und der veel ain'd tied, und yet she go on und on like anyding. Ach, I peen as goot as a deadt Dutchman, I know dot."
While the boys were thus arguing matters the Red Flier was trailing the phantom auto. The white machine, still controlled in some mysterious manner, glided safely along the treacherous trail. It was beyond the glow of the acetylene lights, but the moonlight brought it out of the gloom like a white blur.
In advance of the runabout, Matt saw a place where the road curved around the face of the cliff. The phantom auto-melted around the curve.
Hardly had it vanished when a loud yell wafted back to the ears of the boys.
Carl nearly jumped out of his seat, and a frightened whoop escaped his lips.
"Ach, du lieber!" he wailed. "Ve vas goners, Matt, ve vas bot' goners. I can't t'ink oof nodding, nod efen my brayers! Vat vas dot? I bed you it vas der teufel gedding retty to chump on us. Whoosh! I never had some feelings like dis yet."
"Don't be foolish, Carl," said Matt. "There was no spook back of that yell, but real flesh and blood. Keep a stiff upper lip and we'll find out all about it."
Just then the Red Flier rounded the turn. A long, straightaway course lay ahead of the boys, lighted brightly by the lamps and, farther on, by the moon and stars. But the phantom auto had vanished!
Matt was astounded and brought the Red Flier to a halt once more. With a high wall of rock on one side of the road, and an abyss on the other, where could the white car have gone?
"Ach, chiminy!" chattered Carl. "Poof, und avay she goes. Der pubble vas snuffed oudt, und schust meldet indo der moonpeams. Dis vas a hoodoo pitzness, all righdt. Ve ged der douple-gross pooty soon, I bed you someding for nodding!"
"But that yell—"
"Der teufel make him! Id don'd vas nodding but der shpook feller, saying in der shpook languge, 'Ah, ha, I ged you pooty kevick!' I vish dot I hat vings so I could fly avay mit meinseluf."
Matt got down from the car and started to walk forward. Carl let off a yell and scrambled after him.
"Don'd leaf me, Matt! It vas goot to be mit somepody ad sooch a dime. Misery lofes gompany, und dot's vat I need."
"Come on, then," laughed Matt.
"Vere you go, hey?"
"I'm going to see if I can discover what became of that car."
"It vent oop on der moonpeams," averred Carl earnestly. "You can look, und look, und dot's all der goot it vill do. Dake it from me, Matt, dot ve don'd vas—"
"Ahoy, up there!"
The words seemed to come from nowhere—or, rather, from everywhere, which was equivalent to the same thing.
Carl gave a roar and tried to push himself into the face of the cliff.
"Vat I tell you, hey?" he groaned. "Dere it vas again. Matt, more und vorse dan der odder dime. Righdt here iss vere ve kick some puckets; yah, leedle Carl Pretzel und Modor Matt King vill be viped oudt like a sponge mit a slate."
"Keep still, Carl!" called Matt. "There's no ghost back of that voice. Listen a minute."
Turning in the road, Matt lifted his head.
"Hello!" he called.
"Hello, yourself!" came the muffled but distinct response.
The voice seemed to float out of the blackness of the chasm, and Matt stepped closer to the edge.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"My name'll be M-u-d, Mud if you don't man a line an' give me a boost out of this."
"Where are you?"
"Down the wall, hanging like a lizard to a piece of scrub. Can't you tell by my talk where I am? From the looks, I'm about a fathom down; but I'll be all the way down if you don't get a move on. Shake yourself together, mate, and be lively!"
Carl's fear, as this conversation proceeded, was gradually lost in curiosity. The voice from over the brink had a very human ring to it, and the Dutch boy was beginning to feel easier in his mind.
"Get the rope out of the tonneau, Carl," called Matt. "Hurry up!"
"Bully!" came from below, the person on the wall evidently hearing Matt's order to Carl. "That's the game, matey. If you've got a rope, reeve a bowline in the end and toss it over. I'm a swab if I don't think it's up to you to do it, too. I wouldn't have slid over the edge if your white devil wagon hadn't made me dodge out of the way. How'd it—Wow!"
The voice below broke off with a startled whoop.
"What's the matter?" called Matt.
"The bush pulled out a little," was the answer, "and I thought I was gone. Rush things up there, will you?"
At that moment Carl came with the rope, and Matt, standing above the place where he supposed the unseen speaker to be, allowed the noosed end to slide down to him.
"I've got it!" cried the voice. "Are you ready to lay on?"
"Catch hold, Carl," said Matt, "and brace yourself. All ready," he shouted when he and Carl were planted firmly with the rope in their hands.
"Then here goes!"
The rope grew taut under a suddenly imposed weight, and Matt and Carl laid back on it and hauled in.
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