take her out home. Abe, please tell her that Cal Thurman is waitin’ at Ryson.”
A long low whistle came over the wire. Then: “My Gawd! the luck of some fellars!”
“Luck? Say, Abe, have any of the boys phoned you—Wess or Tim or Pan Handle?” queried Cal, suspiciously.
“Nary one, Cal. You’ll have her all to yourself. An’ believe me——”
“Cut it out,” almost yelled Cal. “I know what you mean by luck. Somebody had to meet her, an’ that low-down outfit at Green Valley just quit barefaced when they saw her picture.”
“They did! Wal, I’ll be dinged! Say, Cal, mebbe you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree.”
“Say, yourself!” retorted Cal, testily. “You talk sort of queer, Abe. I’ll ring off now, before you make me sore. You’ll tell the lady, please?”
“I shore will. An’ say— Hold on, Cal. Don’t hang up.—Hello!”
“Hello!” replied Cal. “I’m still on, but in a hurry.”
A much lower-toned and hoarser voice continued breathlessly: “Cal, she was jest in here before you called. I seen her. She’s wearin’ socks! Anyway, I seen her bare knees—they’re pink—an’ so help me Moses they’re painted! Cal, she’s shore some——”
“Shut up!” roared Cal, in sudden fury at what he thought his friend’s badinage. “You can’t josh me. You’re a liar, Abe Hazelitt. The boys have put you on.”
“Naw, Cal, I hope to die,” replied Abe, apparently bursting with glee. “I ain’t been put on to nothin’. But I shore know what’s a-comin’ to you, Cal Thurman.”
In mingled anger, fear, and consternation Cal slammed up the receiver and rushed away from the telephone.
“Pink knees! . . . Painted! . . .” fumed Cal. “The idea! What that outfit can’t think of is sure beyond me. . . . Abe, now, they rung him in on it. An’ he knows what’s comin’ to me, huh? . . . All right, boys, I guess none of you savvy what Tuck Merry has up his sleeve. This is sure goin’ to end in a fight.”
CHAPTER THREE
CAL THURMAN did not have very much time to ruminate over the mysterious intimations that had been suggested by his talk with Abe Hazelitt on the telephone. For he had scarcely left the post-office, to walk down the road toward the garage, when he espied the boys from Green Valley. They were grouped with the garage mechanics round his Ford car. If Cal had needed any more to rouse his ire, this fact was enough.
He approached them with long strides. Upon nearer view he found, to his amaze, that the boys were clean-shaven, and all had donned spick-and-span new suits of overalls, and wore their Sunday sombreros and shiny boots. Wonderful to see, Arizona, who was noted for his slovenly dress, appeared arrayed as the others, and he positively shone.
“Howdy, Cal! I’m shore congratulatin’ you,” drawled Wess, placidly indicating the Ford car.
“Pard Cal, yore some driver,” added Arizona.
“Good day, Cal. Looks like you was a-rarin’ to go somewhere,” put in Pan Handle.
“How air you, boy?” queried Tim, serenely.
“Say, you seem mighty all-fired glad to see me,” replied Cal, sarcastically, running his keen gaze from one to another. They were cool, lazy, smiling, tranquil. Cal knew them. The deeper their plot the harder they were to reach! Their very serenity was a mask hiding an enormous guilt. Cal shivered in his boots. How he wished this day was over! At the same instant a warmth stirred in him—the thought of Tuck Merry.
Cal pushed the boys away from the Ford car and began to prowl around it to see if they had done anything to it. Here he was almost helpless. He examined engine, tires, wheel, and the various parts necessary to the operation of the car, but he could not be sure whether they had tampered with it or not. Certainly they had not had much time to do anything. Nevertheless, with the garage mechanics in the secret, they might have accomplished a good deal. Had he missed a bolt in this place? It was impossible to remember. Had he ever before noticed a crack in the floor extending across the front of the car? He could not recall it. The old Ford presented an enigma. Cal distrusted the looks of it, yet had no proof of his suspicions.
“Say, if you hombres have been monkeyin’ with this car!” he exclaimed, glaring darkly at them.
“Cal, you shore are a chivulrus fellar where ladies are concerned,” drawled Wess, “but you ain’t got any but low-down idees for your relations an’ friends.”
“Reckon you ain’t insinuatin’ I’d do some underhand trick?” queried Pan Handle, reproachfully.
“Cal, you’ve been punched more’n onct fer insultin’ remarks,” added Tim Matthews, meaningly.
“Aw!” burst out Cal, exploding helplessly. “You fellows can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You’re up to some deviltry, an’ I’m bettin’, from the looks of you an’ your soft-soap talk, it’s pretty skunky. . . . An’ as for your punch, Tim Matthews, I’d like to know if you think you can go on punchin’ me forever?”
“Wal, mebbe forever would be far-fetched,” replied Tim, dryly. “But jest so long as you live I shore will be able to punch you.”
Cal gazed steadily into the grinning face of his friend.
“Tim, you’re the big gambler of the Thurman outfit, aren’t you?”
“Wal, I reckon thet distinctshun has been forced upon me,” replied Tim, with nonchalance not devoid of pride.
“Ahuh!—You know my black horse Pitch, don’t you, an’ how you’ve tried to buy, borrow, an’ steal him?”
“I’m denyin’ the last allegashun,” retorted Tim, testily.
“Well, I’m bettin’ Pitch against your bronc Baldy that I lick you before I’m a year older.”
All the boys stared, and Tim’s lean jaw dropped.
“Boy, hev you been drinkin’?” he asked, incredulously.
“Bah! You know I never drink,” retorted Cal. “Are you on—or are you afraid to bet?”
“See heah, Cal,” interposed Wess, “thet’s a fool bet! You know you love Pitch an’ he was Enoch’s gift to you—the best hoss ever broke in the Tonto.”
“Sure I know, an’ you can gamble I wouldn’t bet if I didn’t know I could lick Tim,” returned Cal.
Tim came out of his trance to seize his golden opportunity.
“Boys, I call his bluff. The bet’s on—my Baldy ag’in’ his hoss Pitch. An’ all of you paste the date in your hats. Savvy? . . . An’, Cal, I hate to take your hoss, but my pride is ag’in’ such fresh gab as yours.”
“Pride goes before a fall, my friend Timothy,” said Cal, deliberately. “Now, boys, I call on you, too. An’ listen. I know you’re up to some tricks, an’ that Tim is at the bottom of it. I want you all to be around when I lick him.”
This sally brought forth loud laughter from all the listeners except Tim. He looked dubious and astounded.
“We’ll shore be there, Cal,” said Wess.
Without further comment Cal cranked the Ford, finding, to his secret amaze, that the engine again started with unusual alacrity, and then he climbed to the driver’s seat. As he drove off toward the post-office he expected much jest and laughter to be flung after him. In this, however, he was mistaken. Something was wrong with the car, surely. It ran too easily and smoothly, and it gave Cal the impression that it wanted to race. All at once he conceived an absolute conviction that the boys had tampered with it in some uncanny way. He drove to the post-office and turned round,