Owen Clancy's Happy Trail Part 12

Clancy stepped to a shelf on the side wall, and took down a candle in a candlestick. Hill touched the match to the wick, and the investigation continued under a better light.

There was a door opening off the rear of the room. Burton glided to it and carefully pushed it ajar. Stygian darkness reigned beyond.

The opening of the rear door had caused the heavy breathing to grow louder. The man--evidently the only one they were to find in the bungalow--must be in that back room. Clancy, with the candle, pushed into the lead, and entered the next apartment.

Hill was watching Burton as keenly as a cat watches a mouse. At the first sign of a treacherous move, or the springing a trap, Hill would have been at Burton in a flash.

Nothing occurred, however, to alarm the investigators. Something was discovered, on the other hand, which certainly, astounded them.

A figure was lying on a cot bed--a figure that was bound wrist and ankle. A towel was tied over the face of the helpless form, and from behind this towel came the labored breathing which had already attracted attention.

The candle revealed the gruesome situation dimly. There seemed no longer any good reason for silence, and startled exclamations dropped from the lips of the three investigators.

"Black work has been going on here!" growled Burton.

"Wonder if that's Hogan?" queried Clancy.

"Whoever it is," spoke up Hill, "if that towel ain't removed he'll soon be smothered to death."

As he spoke, he hastened to the head of the bed, turned the form slightly so he could untie the ends of the towel, and presently removed the suffocating gag. As the head of the bound man fell back on the pillow of the bed, his face was brought clearly into the full light of the candle.

"By thunder!" gasped Clancy, startled.

"What do you think of that?" murmured the bewildered Burton.

"Katz, or I'm a Hottentot!" whispered Hill.

There followed a few moments of silence, during which the three at the cotside exchanged wondering glances. Here was a situation which seemed incomprehensible to all of them.

Katz's eyes were closed, and the breath came and went stertorously between his bloated lips. His face was puffed and of a purplish hue.

"What's the matter with him?" queried Burton.

"He came within one of being suffocated, that's all," Clancy answered.

"Get the ropes off his hands and feet, so he'll be more comfortable. I don't think it will be long before he opens his eyes."

The motor wizard was right. Hardly had Katz been freed of the ropes when his eyelids flickered wide open. He stared up dazedly into the faces bending over him.

"Wynn!" he exclaimed, his wits wandering. "You're double-crossin' me, eh, same as we double-crossed Burton? You and Hogan are going to make off with the swag! Well, it won't do you no good, you can gamble on that. You'll be sorry you did this--some day--and---"

Here his voice trailed off into incoherent mumbling. It was quite evident that there had been a bad "split" in the gang.

CHAPTER X.

PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT.

Burton's eyes glimmered as he listened to these wandering words from the lips of his treacherous friend.

"He got a dose of the same medicine he helped give me!" he said. "Serves him right. Gerald Wynn is a yellow dog! He turned against me, and then he hitched up with Captain Hogan and the two turned on Katz. Wish I knew just how it all happened."

"Bring some water," said Clancy, "and perhaps we can help Katz recover his wits. He's half delirious now."

Burton found some cool water, and brought a basin of it. The bloated, purplish face of Katz was bathed, his limbs were rubbed, and gradually his condition, physical and mental, became more normal. He peered at Burton with blinking eyes.

"Thank you, Hank?" he asked.

"Yes, it's Hank." was the taunting response. "How do you like bein'

double-crossed? You and Wynn put the kibosh on me, and here you've got a taste of it yourself."

"Wynn's a coyote!" snarled Katz.

"He's not the only one."

"What took place here?" struck in Clancy, seeking to direct the talk into more profitable channels.

A s.h.i.+ver convulsed the form of Katz. Slowly his eyes turned to Clancy, and grew round with astonishment.

"That red-headed motor wizard!" he breathed. "However did you get here?"

"I'm here, and that's enough," said Clancy.

"He came on from Phoenix because I wired him to," put in Hill. "He's helpin' me locate my father."

"It was Clancy's judgment, I'll bet," observed Burton, "that kept you from going to San Diego?"

"Now you are shouting. I was bound to go there, but Chancy held me back and steered me toward Catalina island."

Katz's eyes pa.s.sed from Clancy to Hill. Slowly the wonder died out of them, and a grim expression crossed his face.

"You're the clever boy, all right, Clancy," said Katz, "but Wynn is too many for you. He's bit it off with Hogan, who owns the steam yacht _Sylvia,_ and they're off for down the coast with all the money. After we cut you out, Burton, Wynn and I had divided. I had seventy-five hundred, all in the long green, in that d.i.n.ky satchel of mine, when I came to this wikiup to join Wynn and Hogan. Them two were layin' for me.

The minute I stepped in at the door they bowled me over. I went down like a log, and when I came to myself I was lyin' on this bed, lashed hand and foot, and with a towel tied so tight over my face that I could hardly breathe.

"Hogan and Wynn were in the room, and they just laughed at me. 'You're easier'n Burton was,' Wynn says. 'Hogan and I are leavin' the harbor to-night,' he says, 'and we're takin' the hull fifteen thousand with us.

Good night, and happy dreams, Katz,' he winds up, then puts out the light, locks the front door, and leaves me to strangle to death." Katz turned his head and spat contemptuously. "That's the sort, of a jigger this Wynn is," he finished.

"You're no better than he is," snapped Burton.

"If I could come within arm's reach o' him, by thunder, I'd show whether I'm better than he is, or not!" cried Katz, getting up with an effort and sitting on the edge of the cot.

"You say," said Clancy, speaking quickly, "that Hogan and Wynn are intending to get away in the _Sylvia_ to-night?"

"I reckon they've already gone."

"Maybe not! There's a chance that the _Sylvia_ is still in the harbor.

Are you as anxious to get even with Wynn as Burton is, Katz?"

"Try me, that's all!" growled Katz, lifting his arms and working them back and forth to get the cramps out of them. "I'd like a chance to show Gerald Wynn just how I feel!"