Originally published: Sept. 18, 1909
Genres: Adventure, Children's
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200518759-motor-matt-s-mandarin-or-turning-a-trick-for-tsan-ti
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53390
Chapters: 16
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE
"Sufferin' treadmills! Say, pard, here's where I drop down in the shade and catch my breath. How much farther have we got to go?"
"Not more than a mile, Joe."
"We must have gone a couple of hundred miles already."
"We've traveled about six miles, all told."
"Speak to me about that! A mile up and down is a heap longer than a mile on the straightaway. We've been hanging to this sidehill like a couple of flies to a wall. What do you say to a rest?"
"I'm willing, Joe; and here's a good place. Look out for that tree root. It's a bad one, and runs straight across the road."
Motor Matt and his cowboy pard, Joe McGlory, were pop-popping their way up a steep mountainside on a couple of motorcycles. They were bound for the Mountain House, a hotel on the very crest of the uplift.
A day boat had brought them down the Hudson River from Albany, and they had disembarked at Catskill Landing, hired the two machines, and started for the big hotel.
The motorcycles were making hard work of the climb—such hard work, in fact, that the boys, time and time again, had been compelled to get out of their saddles and lead the heavy wheels up a particularly steep place in the trail. This was trying labor, and McGlory's enthusiasm over the adventure had been on the wane for some time.
The big root of a tree, lying across the road like a half-buried railroad tie, was safely dodged, and under the shade of the tree to which the root belonged Matt and McGlory threw themselves down.
The cowboy mopped his dripping face with a handkerchief, pulled off his hat, and began fanning himself with it.
"One of these two-wheeled buzz carts is all right," he remarked, "where the motor does the work for you; but I'll be gad-hooked if there's any fun doin' the work for the motor. And what's it all about? You don't know, and I don't. We made this jump from the middle West to the effete East on the strength of a few lines of 'con' talk. I wish people would leave you alone when they get into trouble. Every stranger knows, though, that all he's got to do is to send you a hurry-up call whenever anything goes crosswise, and that you'll break your neck to boil out on his part of the map and share his hard luck."
McGlory finished with a grunt of disgust.
"I've got a hunch, Joe," answered Matt, "that there's a whole lot to that letter."
"A whole lot of fake and false alarm. Read it again, if you've got breath enough."
"I've read it to you a dozen times already," protested Matt.
"Then make it thirteen times, pard. The more you read it, the more I realize what easy marks we are for paying attention to it. It's fine discipline, pard, to keep thinking where you've made a fool of yourself."
Matt laughed as he drew an envelope out of his coat pocket. The envelope was addressed, in a queer hand, to "His Excellency, Motor Matt, Engaged in aëroplane performances with Burton's Big Consolidated Shows, Grand Rapids, Michigan." Drawing out the enclosed sheet, Matt unfolded it. There was a humorous gleam in his gray eyes as he read aloud the following:
"Honorable and Most Excellent Sir: It is necessary that I have of your wonderful aid in matters exceedingly great and important. I, a mandarin of the red button, with some store of English knowledge, and much trouble, appeal to king of motor boys with overwhelming desire that he come to me at Mountain House, near town named Catskill Landing, in State of New York. Noble and affluent sir, will it be insult should I offer one thousand dollars and expenses if I get my wish for your most remarkable help? Not so, for I promise with much goodness of heart. Let it be immediately that you come, and sooner if convenient. May your days be fragrant as the blossoms of paradise, your joys like the countless stars, and your years many and many. "'Tsan Ti, of the Red Button.'"
"Sounds like a skin game," grumbled McGlory, as Matt returned the letter to its envelope, and the latter to his pocket.
"It's the first time a stranger in trouble ever sent me a letter like that," remarked Matt.
"Regular josh. Button, button, who's got the button? Not us, pard, and we're It. There'll be no mandarin at the end of this blooming trail we're running out. You take it from me. Now—" McGlory broke off suddenly, his eyes fastened on the pitch of the road above. "Great hocus-pocus!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "See what's coming!"
Matt, turning his eyes in the direction of his pard's pointing finger, was likewise brought up standing by the spectacle that met his gaze.
A bicycle was coasting down the steep path, coming with the speed of a limited express train; and some fifty feet behind this bicycle came another, moving at a rate equally swift.
In the saddle of the leading machine was a fat Chinaman—a Chinaman of consequence, to judge by his looks. He wore a black cap, yellow blouse and trousers, and embroidered sandals. His thin, baggy garments fluttered and snapped about him as he shot down the road, and his pigtail, fully a yard long, and bound at the end with a ribbon, stood out straight behind him.
The Chinaman behind was leaner and dressed in garments more subdued. It was exceedingly plain to the two boys that his heart was in his work, and that the end and aim of his labors was the overhauling of the man ahead.
"Wow!" wheezed the fat fugitive. "Wow! wow! wow!"
For about two seconds this stirring situation was before the eyes of Matt and McGlory. Then the tree root insinuated itself into proceedings.
The fugitive saw the root heaving across his path with a promise of disaster, but going around it was out of the question, and stopping the speeding wheel an impossibility.
The inevitable happened. Matt and McGlory saw the bicycle bound into the air and turn a half somersault. The fat Chinaman landed on his back with the wheel on top of him; then machine and Chinaman rolled over and over until the impetus of the flight was spent.
The two boys ran to the unfortunate bicyclist, gathered him up, and separated him from the broken wheel. The Chinaman refused to be lifted to his feet but contented himself with sitting up.
"My cap, excellent friend," he requested, pointing to where the cap was lying.
"Gee, but that was a jolt!" commiserated McGlory. "How do you feel about now?"
"Kindest regards for your inquiry," said the Chinaman, extracting a small stone from the collar of his blouse, and then emptying a pint of dust from one of his flowing sleeves. "I am variously shaken, thank you, but the terrible part is yet to come. Kindly recede until it is over, and add further to my obligations."
Matt had picked up the black cap. As he handed it to the Chinaman, he observed that there was a red button in the center of the flat top.
He was astonished at the Chinaman's manner, no less than at his use of English. His clothes were all awry and soiled with dust, but he seemed to mind that as little as he did his bruises.
Putting the cap on his head, he took a fan from somewhere about his person, waved the boys aside with it, then opened it with a "snap," and proceeded methodically to fan himself. His eyes were turned up the road.
Matt and McGlory exchanged wondering glances as they stepped apart.
The other Chinaman, having a greater space in which to manœuvre, had managed to avoid the tree root. By means of the brake he had caused his machine to slow down, and had then leaped off. After carefully leaning the bicycle against a tree, he approached his fat countryman in a most deferential manner. The latter nodded gravely from his seat on the ground.
The pursuer thereupon flung himself to his knees and beat his forehead three times in the dust.
After that, the fat Chinaman said something. Presumably, it was in his native tongue, for it sounded like gibberish, and the boys could make nothing out of it.
But the lean Chinaman seemed to understand. Lifting himself and sitting back on his heels, he pushed a hand into the breast of his coat and brought out a little black box about the size of a cigarette case. This, with every sign of respect and veneration, he offered to the other Chinaman.
The fat man took the box, waved his fan, and eased himself of a few more remarks. The lean fellow once more kotowed, then arose silently, regained his wheel, and vanished from sight down the road. The fat Mongolian was left balancing the black box in his hand and eying it with pensive interest.
"Well, speak to me about this!" breathed McGlory. "What do you make out of it, Matt?"
"Not a thing," whispered Matt. "That fellow has a red button in his cap."
McGlory showed traces of excitement.
"Glory, and all hands round!" he gasped. "Have you any notion that the Chinese we're looking for has lammed into us in this violent fashion, right here on the mountainside?"
"Give it up. Watch; see what he's up to."
The fat Chinaman, laying aside his fan, took the box in his left palm, and, with the fingers of his right hand, pressed a spring.
The lid flew open. On top of something in the box lay a white card covered with Chinese hieroglyphics. The Chinaman lifted the card and read the written words. His yellow face turned to the color of old cheese, his eyes closed spasmodically, and his breath came quick and raspingly. McGlory grabbed Matt's arm.
"There's something on that card, Matt," said he, "that's got our fat friend on the run."
While the boys continued to look, the Chinaman laid aside the card and drew from the box a pliable yellow cord, a yard in length.
That was all there was in the box, just the card and the cord.
Feeling that there was a deep mystery here, and a mystery in which he and his chum were concerned, the king of the motor boys stepped forward.
"Tsan Ti?" he queried.
Box and cord fell from the fat Chinaman's hands, and he turned an eagerly inquiring look in Matt's direction.
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