The Auto Boys' Mystery

CHAPTER XVI

CONCLUSION

Through the nearer passages under the leaning rocks, approaching footsteps were heard, hurried steps, that even Murky had to heed. Then came Link Fraley, followed by Phil, Dave, Billy–the Auto Boys. Behind those was Mr. Beckley, breathing heavily as if tired by undue haste.

No sooner had Murky seen who they were than he sprang up from the scramble wherein he, the Swede and Paul were engaged, and made a break for another passage. But Link, who happened to be nearest, thrust out one long leg. With another cry of rage Murky went prostrate.

For a few minutes–or was it seconds?–a struggle went on. But Murky's day of probation was at last over. Actually weeping with anger, Anderson strove to reach his late opponent. Paul, though somewhat bruised from his own struggles, also tried to do his bit in securing the scowling man. But it was not necessary. In another short space of time Murky lay there helpless. His arms were bound behind his back, his legs and feet also secured.

One of the first things Mr. Beckley did was to walk up to Anderson and shake his nerveless hand with great vigor. Then he did the same thing to Paul, who was also being congratulated by the other boys. Then Beckley turned to Anderson, saying:

"It was brave and faithful of you, Nels, to start out all by yourself. But it was you and this–this lad who really rounded up the rascal."

"You forget Chip Slider, Mr. Beckley, don't you?" Paul Jones liked to be fair, though at times he was too forward. "Chip was along–why, where is Chip? I'd forgot him for the moment."

Link Fraley and Phil Way were bending over Chip's still prostrate form where he lay after being so maltreated by the scowling villain who now lay bound not more than ten feet away.

Attention thus drawn, the entire party devoted themselves to the task of reviving young Slider, who it appeared was only stunned and bruised by his treatment at the hands of the robber.

Presently Mr. Beckley again took the lead in questioning. "Of course I–we feel deeply grateful. The Longknives will do almost anything for those who were most active in securing this fellow and his ill-gotten booty. He'll have to face a murder charge too, as there is little doubt but that he dragged Grandall to his death inside that burning building. And now that we have the thief and the money–"

"Are you sure we've got the money, sir?" It was MacLester who asked this for, Scotch-like, Dave was always ready to cast doubt upon most anything that was not proved before all men. "I don't see any money!"

"Of course we may not see it right now, yet I don't doubt but that you and Murky know where it is?" This to Nels and Paul, who both looked rather nonplussed. "Where is it, Nels?"

"I–I–" Anderson was stammering and confused in manner. "I bane not sure I can tell. That feller, he know." He pointed at Murky who glared evilly at the crowd in general.

"Ye needn't look for me to tell anything," he snarled. "I got no money!"

"If you had, you'd lie about it," was Beckley's comment that seemed to meet the general opinion among his captors.

Murky relapsing into sullen silence, Beckley resumed his queries.

"Do you mean that having gotten this scoundrel here," indicating Murky, "you don't know where his plunder is?"

"Wish I did, sir," said Paul Jones, turning from Chip who was just beginning to be conscious of outward things.

"And you, too, do not know where the money is?" Beckley turned again to Anderson, who squirmed rather uneasily.

"Wush I did," the latter muttered. "I bane coom after the boys. Ven I coom oop wid 'em, dey vass in mix-oop wid heem," pointing at Murky.

"That fellow must 'a' had the money hid out somewhere," said Paul. "We followed him for miles. Finally we lost the trail, then we came on him by accident, as it were. He was about to get the best of Chip and me when in came Nels, here, and Murky disappeared. It was in the night. In the morning we struck his trail again. But he never seemed to have the money with him. It is all a mystery to me. Isn't that the way of it, Nels?"

Nels gave a sheepish nod of assent.

"Well, it's something big to have apprehended this fellow. Before we are through with him I dare say we will know where that stolen money is."

Mr. Beckley spoke with grim purpose which, however, did not belie his apparent disappointment that the stolen twenty thousand dollars was not forthcoming, or at least some knowledge gained as to its present whereabouts.

Here Chip Slider, reclining against Link Fraley, who was still solicitously supporting the boy's dizzy head, blinked and strove to raise himself. Clearing his throat, he asked in a shaky voice:

"Is it the money they want to know about?" This, apparently, to Link.

"Why, yes, boy! We've got hands on the thief," meaning Murky. "But what Mr. Beckley wants to know now, is what's become of the swag, the boodle, the stuff Murky stole. He won't tell, and you chaps don't seem to know."

"Yes, we do!" replied Chip unexpectedly. Then he sat up unaided.

"What do you mean, my lad?" queried Beckley, a quizzical smile on his face for he had not fully determined the reason of Chip's being here except in a casually superfluous way.

"I mean that–" glancing at Paul and Nels, "–that we know where the money is. At least it looks like the money and Murky seemed mighty anxious to get his paws on it."

Giving little heed to the wonder in the faces of the Swede and Jones, the boy tried to get to his feet. "Help me up, please. I'll be all right in a minute. There! Now if you will all go with me, I'll show you what I mean."

Still supported by Fraley, though Chip was almost himself again, he led the party to a deep crevice where some dirt had been hastily pawed out.

"Right here I saw Murky on his knees trying to pull out something from this hole. About that time he saw us again, and the way he went for us kep' him busy with Nels and Paul. It flashed through me what Murky was after. I left them fightin'. It was two to one, anyhow. When I got to this hole I pulled out a wet bundle that I took to be the money. Seemed like I could see the bills or the corners of them in bundles."

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Beckley eagerly. "They would be apt to be in packages. You were right; I feel sure you were right!"

"But where are those bills now? Where is the bundle?" asked Link.

Without a word Chip, unaided, led the group to the nearby recess where he had hurriedly stowed them. Pointing, he continued:

"That there is what I drug out of yonder hole, sir. I guess it's the money, or Murky wouldn't 'a' been so anxious about gittin' it."

It was the missing money, of course. Practically intact, too, although it was wet and in places mud-soaked. The bags of coin were there. One had a small rip in the seam, doubtless where the coin had escaped that Paul found near the dilapidated suit-case.

Here Paul's enthusiasm at last broke loose.

"Oh, you Chip!" he cried. "You're the goods, ain't you? That then was the reason you didn't stop and help us fight Murky!"

"Yah–he had good reesons–heh!" This from Nels, now rejoicing like the rest. "I bane like you, Cheep; zat I does!"

After that nothing apparently was too good for young Slider. Even Mr. Beckley, dropping his previous air of good-humored toleration, declared that Chip deserved real commendation.

"You have showed pluck and perseverance, for you were about to start after that skunk Murky alone when our young friend Paul Jones joined you. And Nels, our good old Nels, crippled though he was, came swiftly on the trail of you both, arriving just when help was needed."

"Yes, Paul," remarked Phil, "our crowd came just in time too; but if it had not been for you three, I guess we would not have both prisoner and money in our hands right now."

"That reminds me," interrupted Link, starting off on a run. "Who stayed behind to watch that devil Murky?"

As with one accord the others, except Mr. Beckley and Chip Slider, started after Fraley, leaving those two to bring along the money. A moment later they broke into the passage where Murky had been left, and found that the wily rascal had already loosed his hands by rubbing the cords that bound his wrists against a sharp edge of the rocks, and was at work upon the bindings that held his feet. These were only partially freed. Seeing his captors approach, he jumped up, made a reckless bolt for freedom, but fell sprawling on the earth. In a trice the others were upon him and after a brief struggle had him tied hard and fast again.

"You'll not get away again, old chap," was Billy's comment as he tied the last knot. "There's a thing called law and justice you've got to face before you're done with this crowd!"

While Mr. Beckley, with Anderson's aid, and with sundry others looking on, carefully counted over the wet, draggled, yet still good contents of the package thus found, there came a rattle of wheels. Presently two teamsters from Staretta appeared, with word that they had managed to bring their teams thus far, but the mud and thickening tree trunks might prevent their going farther.

"Guess you won't have to go farther, my men," spoke up Mr. Beckley. "Can we get back to Staretta by night–with a prisoner, and also three more of our friends who came on before?"

"Sure we can! We've broke such road as there is in comin'." The speaker, a red-faced, burly looking man, was shaking hands with Nels, for he was one of the old gravel road workers whom the Longknives had never paid as yet.

"Well then," remarked Beckley to whom all deferred as the leader in their subsequent proceedings, "we will get a move on at once. I am anxious to reach town where I can telephone. It is lucky that I changed my mind and did not go on by rail, when I found that these boys were already after the prisoner yonder," indicating Murky, "and that the other Auto Boys, with Mr. Fraley, were going at once in pursuit. I may state here that, though the clubhouse is gone and Grandall along with it, we have recovered the twenty thousand dollars. If I know the Longknives Club, they will now be more than willing to pay all claims against them by those who trusted them. It was long delayed, yet it could not be helped. I trust to put all things straight before I leave your hospitable little town."

Needless to state good, clean Staretta beds were occupied by the Andersons, the Auto Boys, the golfing man, his servant Daddy O'Lear, and Chip Slider that night. Even Murky, though guarded in the village lock-up, had a more comfortable place to sleep than he had enjoyed for some time. Later, under a warrant duly drawn, charging him with murder and robbery, he was conveyed to the jail at the county seat to await the grand jury and the court.

Before Mr. Beckley left, and after he had wired particulars of these recent events to the Longknives Club, he received by wire the hearty acquiescence from them in the plan already formulated for the disposition of the stolen and rescued twenty thousand dollars.

First, there was to be medical aid for Nels Anderson, and a restoration of the money losses he had sustained in the building of that gravelled road. Also Chip Slider was to be helped and aided for the plucky way he had acted, especially in removing the money from where Murky, had he come back in a hurry, would have found it. Next those workmen who had been employed three years before must receive the money due them.

Lastly a new automobile should be provided without undue delay for the Auto Boys. It certainly was due them. Had it not been for their bravery and devotion to duty the tragedy making up the last chapter of the gravel road's history would have been far, far more terrible.

It was not long until all Mr. Beckley's plans were carried out. Legally the Longknives Club had never been disbanded and the funds were unanimously voted as he proposed.

But how about poor Chip Slider?

There is today no more contented boy in Lannington, the home city of the Auto Boys, than he.

Without loss of time the chums returned home, taking Chip with them. He's working for Con Cecil in a newspaper office there and going to night school. All his questioning if peace and plenty might not be found somewhere, sometime, has been most pleasingly answered.

There was gladness and thanksgiving in the homes of all the boys' families when the telegrams telling of their escape from the great forest fire were received. A most happy homecoming it was for all, a day or so later.

Scarcely a week had passed when Henry Beckley and a committee of Longknives drove up to the green and yellow garage the Auto Boys called their own, and there delivered a truly splendid new car.

On part of the boys' families and their friends there was much ado about it all. A dinner by the Lannington Automobile Club, and a great many more fine speeches than the four chums relished hearing about themselves, was one such thing.

"And I will venture to say," spoke Mr. Beckley, in the course of his after dinner address, on this occasion, "that whatever the future has in store for our friends, they will be found active and alert in time of play, in time of work or in time of danger."

"The Auto Boys' Big Six," a book wherein the later experiences of the chums will be reported, should in due time enable you to judge whether Mr. Beckley was correct.