When McGlory opened his eyes in the first gray of the morning, Matt was tying up the box in which the ruby had come by express.
"What are you going to do, pard?" inquired the cowboy, jumping out of bed and beginning to scramble into his clothes.
"I guess, after all," answered Matt, "that I'll leave this box with the clerk."
"Wish I knew whether that was the proper caper, or not, but I don't. One thing's as good as another, I reckon."
At five-thirty they had a hurried breakfast, and, a little before six, Matt handed the small box to the hotel clerk and asked him to put it away in the office safe. Then the motor boys started for the railroad track and followed it away from the river and into the wooded ravine beyond the yards.
"This is far enough, I guess," said Matt, and began to whistle.
The signal was promptly returned from a place on the left, and the head of the mariner was pushed through a thicket of bushes.
"Ahoy, my hearties!" came from Bunce. "Come up here and bear a fist with the car, will ye?"
Puzzled not a little at this request, Matt and McGlory climbed the bank of the ravine and came alongside the mariner on a small, cleared shelf on the bank side. The "motor car" was before them, and at sight of it McGlory exploded a laugh.
"Speak to me about this!" he exclaimed. "Had you any notion it was this sort of a bubble, Matt?"
What Matt saw was an ordinary hand car equipped with a two-cylinder gasoline engine. Across one end of the car was a bench, tightly bolted to the framework; back of this was a shorter bench for the driver of the queer machine. The king of the motor boys examined the car with a good deal of curiosity. Power was communicated to the rear axle by chain and sprocket. The gasoline tank was under the driver's bench, and he unscrewed the cap and tested the fuel supply by means of a clean twig picked up from the shelf.
"Oh, she's loaded full," wheezed Bunce. "I filled her myself, not more'n ten minutes ago."
"Do you know anything about motors, Bunce?" inquired Matt, giving the mariner a sharp look.
"Ay, that I do--in a way. I can turn on the oil and the spark when I wants to start, an' I can cut 'em off an' jam on the brakes when I wants to stop. That's all ye got to know in runnin' these benzine machines."