MOTOR STORIES

Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1909, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C., by Street & Smith, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.

Motor Matt in Brazil;

OR,

UNDER THE AMAZON.

By the author of "MOTOR MATT."

CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.

Motor Matt, a lad who is at home with every variety of motor, and whose never-failing nerve serves to carry him through difficulties that would daunt any ordinary young fellow. Because of his daring as a racer with bicycle, motor-cycle and automobile he is known as "Mile-a-minute Matt." Motor-boats, air ships and submarines come naturally in his line, and consequently he lives in an atmosphere of adventure in following up his "hobby." Dick Ferral, a young sea dog from Canada, with all a sailor's superstitions, but in spite of all that a royal chum, ready to stand by the friend of his choice through thick and thin. Carl Pretzel, a cheerful and rollicking German boy, stout of frame as well as of heart, who is led by a fortunate accident to link his fortunes with those of Motor Matt. Ensign Glennie, representing the U. S. Government on board the Grampus during her long trip around South America. Tolo, a valiant though unscrupulous Japanese patriot anxious to die for his country. Mr. Brigham, our consul at Para, Brazil, who proves to be the right kind of man for the job. Clackett,

Speake, Gaines, } the crew of the submarine marvel.

CHAPTER I.

THE CACHALOT.

"Look at the chart, Dick. Unless I'm off in my reckoning, those blue things in the distance, that look like clouds, are the mountains of Trinidad."

"Right-o, matey! The Gulf of Paria is to the south, and right ahead of us is the Boca Drago, or Dragon's Mouth, the entrance to the Gulf. What's our first port-of-call?"

"Georgetown. That's where we're to pick up the midshipman."

"But we're two days ahead of time, and he won't be expecting us. Why not put in at Port-of-Spain for a little social call? I was there once, on the old Billy Ruffin, and it's a fine place for getting on your go-ashores and seeing the sights."

"This is a business trip, old chap, and not a sightseeing excursion. Our schedule has been made out for us, and we've got to follow it through. It's a big responsibility we're under, and if anything should happen to the Grampus, there'd——"

At this moment a tremendous shock interrupted Motor Matt. The big steel hulk of the submarine stopped dead, reeled for an instant like a drunken man, and then rebounded sternward against the push of the propeller. Accompanying the weird manœuvre was a fierce thrashing of the waves outside.

Sunk level with the surface of the sea, conning tower awash, the Grampus had been proceeding at a good clip on her southward journey. Motor Matt and Dick Ferral were in the periscope room, Matt with his attention divided between the periscope table, the steering wheel, and the small compass, and Dick on his knees beside a locker on which were a number of admiralty charts.

Dick was thrown sidewise by the shock, and Matt only saved himself a fall by taking a convulsive grip on the spokes of the steering wheel.

"Fore-rudder will not work, sir!" cried Speake through the tube communicating with the engine room.

One admirable thing about the king of the motor boys was that he never got "rattled." Under any and all circumstances he kept his head.

"Stop your motor, Gaines!" he cried instantly through[Pg 2] another of the tubes, then, whirling to still another, he called: "Prepare to empty the ballast, Clackett!"

The ready "Aye, aye, sir!" that came through both tubes proved that those in motor room and tank room were on the alert.

The hum of the engine died slowly, and muffled sounds from the tank room showed that Clackett was calmly attending to his work.

In time of accident no man could leave his post, for the safety of the submarine, and the lives of those within her, might depend upon an instant compliance with orders. Iron-nerved men formed the crew of the Grampus, for each had been selected by Captain Nemo, Jr., with that quality in mind.

Meanwhile Motor Matt had been studying the top of the periscope table carefully.

"So far as I can make out," said he, in a puzzled tone, "there is nothing above."

"The Orinoco brings down a lot of drift, matey," put in Dick, "and we may have struck a log floating between two waves. If our rudder has been damaged——"

He was interrupted by another blow, fully as severe as the first. But this stroke came from the side and not from forward, and hurled the submarine over so far that every loose article slammed to starboard, and it seemed as though the boat must surely turn turtle.

"Start the turbines, Clackett!" roared Matt through the tank-room tube; "empty the ballast tanks!"

"Sorry to report, Matt," came the instant response of Clackett, "that the turbines are disabled an' won't work."

Matt was astounded.

"Then empty the tanks by compressed air!" he cried. "Sharp's the word, Clackett!"

The hiss of air, fighting with the water in the tanks, was heard. At once the boat began to ascend and presently the slap of waves against the outer shell proved that they were on the surface.

"Take the wheel, Dick," called Matt, and leaped up the iron ladder into the conning tower.

The lunettes, or little windows in the tower, were frosted with spindrift, and Matt threw open the hatch and pushed head and shoulders over the top.

"Great spark-plugs!" he cried; "a whale!"

"A bull cachalot!" exclaimed Dick from below, staring through the periscope.

"Vat iss dot, Tick?"

The voice of Carl Pretzel, none too steady, floated up to Matt from the periscope room. Carl was not on duty and had probably come up to find out what was going on.

"Why," went on Dick, excitedly, "a cachalot is one of the hardest fighters in the whole whale family. We probably ran into that old blubber-head while he was taking his morning nap, and he's got his mad up. By the figurehead of the Old Harry! See him spout! We're going to have trouble with him, Matt! His head's like India-rubber, and he could poke it through the plates of the Grampus and never hurt himself."

Matt had got his head out of the hatch just in time to snatch a glance at the flukes of a big whale disappearing in the sea.

He signaled half-speed ahead by the engine-room jingler. The elevation of the periscope ball gave Dick a much more extensive view of the surface than it did Matt from the top of the conning tower. The whale had come to the top again, and, while Matt was able to see the geyser-like column of water the creature threw up, Dick could take in the cachalot's immense proportions.

"He's lumpy all over," announced Dick, "and every lump is an old harpoon mark. He's a veteran, mates, and he's coming right at us. He'll stave in the plates, Matt! Dodge him!"

"Tell Speake and Clackett to put a Whitehead in the port torpedo-tube!" called Matt.

Dick immediately repeated the order, and Carl clattered below to help.

"They can't get the tube loaded, Matt," cried Dick, "before the cachalot will be on us."

"We'll have to meet his first charge," answered Matt calmly; "there can't be any dodging."

There came a low thump from forward, followed by a gurgling splash. From that Matt knew that the bow port had been closed and that the water was being blown out of the tube by compressed air. Then a faint rattle told him the breech door was being opened preparatory to loading the torpedo.

By then Matt was able to see the charging whale. He was a tremendous fellow, and he was making straight for the submarine with all the force in his great body. The water flashed away from his shining sides, and a long trail of foam unrolled behind his churning flukes.

"I'll do the steering from here, Dick!" shouted Matt, laying hold of the patent device which enabled one to steer from the tower.

Matt headed the boat so as to meet its strange antagonist bow on. Whale and submarine came together with a terrific impact. For an instant the whale seemed stunned, sheered off a little, and the sharp prow raked his side.

The next instant the Grampus was beyond the whale. Matt, looking behind, could see the huge cachalot leaping clear out of the water, and falling into it again with a splash like some mountain dropping into the sea.

The whale was terribly wounded, and bleeding, but the wound seemed only to have increased his pugnacious disposition.

"Watch the periscope, Dick!" roared Matt. "Can you see him? He's out of sight from here."

"He's sounded, mate," answered Dick, his tense voice proving the strain his nerves were under. "I'm hoping he'll leave us now, and—— Sink me! There he is again! He's coming for us like an express train."

A spouting of reddened water gave Matt the location, and he put the Grampus about, so as to face the danger and bring the cachalot in front of the port torpedo tube.

"Tell them to make ready in the torpedo room!" shouted Matt. "They must fire the Whitehead the moment I give the word."

Dick repeated the order. The torpedo was contrived so as to travel at a certain distance under water. If discharged at too great a distance from the whale it would sink to its normal depth, and so miss the charging monster altogether. Matt, watching the cachalot with sharp eyes, awaited the right moment for letting the Whitehead go.

The whale left a bloody track as it hurled itself nearer and nearer.

"Fire!" shouted Matt suddenly.

A gurgling swish, a spluttering cough, and a thud followed. The surface of the sea directly ahead of the[Pg 3] submarine was full of ripples that marked the passing of the deadly infernal machine.

"Full speed astern!" cried Matt.

Dick repeated the order to Gaines. Barely was the motion of the propeller reversed when whale and torpedo met. There was a dull roar, and the sea lifted high in a veritable flurry. The Grampus slid backward rapidly, rocking on the troubled waters. Then, the lifted waves having descended, the whale was seen torn cruelly and lying on his back. Already the triangular fins of sharks were in evidence, rushing from every direction upon the prey.

Matt descended to the engine room and found Dick steering with one hand and wiping the perspiration from his face with the other.

"A tight squeak, matey!" Dick muttered. "We're out one torpedo, but you saved the boat."

Speake, meanwhile, had been taking the turbine to pieces. He now appeared in the periscope room with a wooden sieve half full of small fish.

"Mullet for dinner, Matt!" he laughed. "A shoal of fish was bein' chased by the cachalot. The draught-holes of our turbines was open an' the fish run in. No wonder the turbines wouldn't work!"

"Good enough," answered Matt laughing, "if you can call anything good that put our turbines out of commission at a time when we needed them. Have some of them for dinner, Speake." He turned to Dick. "Lay our course for the Port-of-Spain, old chap," he added. "We'll put into the harbor and look the submarine over to see whether her bow has been damaged any. I'll go below and have a look at the fore-rudder. Possibly we can tinker that up temporarily. It would never do to pick up the midshipman with the Grampus at all out of commission."

"Aye, aye, old ship!" responded Dick heartily.

They were to call at the Port-of-Spain, after all, and Dick Ferral was mightily pleased with the prospect.

CHAPTER II.

JOHN HENRY GLENNIE, U. S. N.

The anchor of the steamship Borneo splashed into the yellow waters of the Gulf of Paria, the boat continuing onward until the anchor had taken a grip on the muddy bottom. The Borneo was from Venezuelan ports, and at La Guayra had picked up no less a personage than John Henry Glennie, Ensign, U. S. N.

The steamer carried a queer assortment of passengers, and they were all around Ensign Glennie as he sat well aft on the grating beside the hand-steering gear.

Venezuelans were chattering like magpies; little brown youngsters were rolling over and over around Glennie's feet; a British engineer was talking with a Jew pearl buyer from Margarita Island—the Spanish coming queerly from their alien lips; a German coffee-planter was exchanging small talk with the wife of a Dutch officer who lived in Curaçoa; and there was the usual ragtag and bobtail of English and Brazilians, all of whom gave the youth in the naval uniform more or less curious notice.

But the youth, his suit case on a table at his elbow, seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. Judging merely by appearance, Ensign Glennie's thoughts were far from pleasant. His fingers drummed sharply on the table top, and there was a frown of discontent on his face as his eyes fixed themselves gloomily on the Trinidad hills that lay back of the town of Port-of-Spain. In all conscience, the ensign had enough to trouble him.

Several days previous, he had been detached from the United States cruiser Seminole at La Guayra on special duty. Incidentally, the commander of the Seminole had entrusted him with a packet of important papers to be delivered to Mr. Brigham, the United States consular representative at Para, in the mouth of the Amazon River. In the course of his duty, Ensign Glennie was to call at Para; also the course of his duty demanded that he proceed to Georgetown, British Guiana, and there await the arrival of a certain boat in which he was to take passage around "the Horn."

Ensign Glennie, let it be known, was descended from a line of Massachusetts notables who first came over in the Mayflower. His father was a Boston nabob, and there was a good deal more pride and haughtiness about Glennie than was good for him. No sooner had he been cut loose from the Seminole on detached duty, than he proceeded to hire the services of a body servant—a sphinx-like little Jap by the name of Tolo.

How Tolo came to be in La Guayra at the very time the ensign landed there, and why he should insinuate himself into the particular notice of Glennie and ask for a job, were mysteries not destined to be solved for some time. The prime thing to be taken account of here is that Tolo did present himself, and was hired.

For two days he brushed the ensign's clothes, polished his boots, and performed other services such as fall to the lot of a valet who knows his business. Then, after two days of faithful service, Tolo disappeared; and, about the same time, the packet of important papers likewise vanished.

Glennie led the authorities in a wild hunt through La Guayra, and after that through Caracas, but Tolo was not to be found. What on earth the little Jap wanted with the papers, Glennie could not even guess, but that he had them seemed a certainty.

Returning to La Guayra, Glennie found that the authorities there had discovered that Tolo had taken passage, on the very morning he had turned up missing, on a tramp steamer bound for Trinidad and Port-of-Spain; and the authorities further stated that Tolo had formerly been employed as a waiter in the fonda Ciudad Bolivar, which fronted the esplanade of the capital city of the island.

Ensign Glennie changed his plans forthwith. Instead of proceeding direct to Georgetown he would gain that port by way of Trinidad, stopping long enough in Port-of-Spain to hunt up the enterprising Tolo and secure the papers.

So this was why Glennie happened to be on the Borneo; and it was also the reason he was not so comfortable in his mind as he might otherwise have been.

As a commissioned officer in the United States Navy he had been entrusted with important dispatches. If he did not recover the dispatches, and then proceed with the rest of the duty marked out for him, a black mark would be set against his name that would interfere with his promotion.

Glennie was worried as he had never been before in[Pg 4] his life. His one desire was to serve Uncle Sam with a clean and gallant record. His father, the Boston nabob, expected great things of him, and Glennie, being puffed up—as already stated—with rather high ideas regarding his family, expected them of himself. Therefore the loss of that packet of official papers caught him like a slap in the face. It made him squirm, and he was squirming as he sat by that table on the grating, felt the Borneo reach the end of her scope of cable and come to a stop with her mud-hook hard and fast.

The water was too shoal for a large boat to get very far inshore, and Glennie was among the first to tumble into the launch that soon hove alongside. When he had scrambled off the launch at the landing, he hailed a queer-looking cab and ordered the dusky driver to carry him, as rapidly as possible, to the fonda Ciudad Bolivar.

The ensign did not pay much attention to the scenery as he was jostled along—his mind was too full of other things for that—and presently he went into the wood and stone building that faced the plaza and proceeded to make frantic inquiries regarding a waiter by the name of Tolo.

To all of these eager questions the Venezuelan proprietor of the hotel gave a negative shake of the head.

"There must be some mistake—the Señor Americano has surely been wrongly informed. There has never been such a person as the Japanese employed in the fonda. The waiters were all Venezuelans, and no Japs were ever employed. Perhaps this Tolo had worked in the old hotel that had been burned during the great fire?"

Glennie's trail, faint enough at best, had run into thin air. He was at the end of it, and it had led him nowhere. Going off into one corner of the wineroom, the ensign dropped down at a table in an obscure corner, rested his chin in his hands, and wondered dejectedly what he should do next.

He was not very well acquainted with Orientals, or the brand of guile they used. He had heard of Japs insinuating themselves into fortifications flying the United States flag and making drawings and jotting down memoranda of the guns, stores, and number of men. He had laughed contemptuously at such yarns, although heartily agreeing with the expediency that had suggested such a move on the part of the men from Nippon. Like all others in the sea and land service of the Great Republic, Ensign Glennie knew that it wasn't so much the forts, or the guns, or the ammunition, as it is the unconquerable spirit of the men behind the guns that count.

But where was the tactical advantage to be gained by a Jap in stealing an envelope addressed to a consular agent tucked away in a Brazilian town at the mouth of the Amazon? The only advantage which Glennie could think of was that of pecuniary gain. Tolo had stolen the packet in order to demand money for its return. Glennie had plenty of money, and he began to think he had fallen into a grievous error by running away from La Guayra without giving Tolo a chance to communicate with him.

And yet there was the information developed by the La Guayra police, to the effect that Tolo had sailed for Port-of-Spain. However, this might be as unreliable, as that other supposed discovery, namely, that Tolo was working at the fonda Ciudad Bolivar.

Nevertheless, no matter what theories Glennie might have, now that he was in Port-of-Spain, and could not get out of the town again until the next steamer sailed, it would be well to look around and thus make assurance doubly sure that Tolo was not on the island.

Although Ensign Glennie was not at all sanguine, he immediately left the fonda and conferred with the city officials. A description of Tolo was given, handbills offering a reward for his apprehension were struck off and posted in conspicuous places, and the island telegraph lines and the cables to the mainland were brought into requisition.

Glennie had to work fast and thoroughly. Before many days he must be in Georgetown, ready to go aboard the ship that was to carry him south, and if he did not recover the important packet before he was picked up, then there would be a reprimand, and perhaps a trial for dereliction of duty. He winced at the thought and redoubled his efforts.