"I'm over my head," muttered McGlory. "But, if the mandarin is so hungry to have us help him, what's the reason he's making himself absent? Why isn't he here?"
"Let's give him time to get here. We weren't on that mountainside for more than two hours. It was nine when we left Catskill Landing, and about half-past ten, I should say, when we met Tsan Ti. It's nearly one, now."
"Well, what's the next move, pard? Are you going to that Purling place and ask for Pryne at the general store?"
"Not right away. We'll give Tsan Ti a chance to present himself, first."
"You don't think"--and here McGlory assumed a tragic look--"that Tsan would go off into the timber and use that yellow cord, do you?"
"He has two weeks before he has to do that."
"_Has_ to do it! Why, he don't have to do it at all, except to be polite to that squinch-eyed boss of the Flowery Kingdom. Honest, these chinks are the limit."
Matt got up and pulled his motor cycle away from the tree.
"Let's go into the hotel, and have dinner, Joe," he suggested. "If we don't hear anything from Tsan Ti by four, this afternoon, we'll return to Catskill."
"And not do anything about that paper you got out of the sailor's hat?" asked the cowboy.
"If Tsan Ti doesn't think we're worth bothering with, after we've come all the way from Grand Rapids to lend him a hand, we'll let him do his own hunting for the ruby."
"Keno, correct, and then some," agreed the cowboy heartily. "I've thought, all along, there'd be some sort of bobble about this Eastern trip. But let's eat. I've been hungry enough to sit in at chuck-pile any time the last three hours."
The boys left their wheels in charge of a man who looked after the motor cars belonging to guests, and went into the office for the second time. The clerk surveyed McGlory with pronounced disfavor while Matt was registering. The cowboy met the look with an easy grin, and, after he and Matt had washed their faces, brushed their hair, and knocked the dust out of their clothes, they went into the big dining room and did full justice to an excellent meal.
Neither had much to say about Tsan Ti. Matt was half fearing the mandarin's business was a good deal of a wild-goose chase, and that the ponderous Celestial, for reasons of his own, had absented himself permanently.