MOTOR STORIES

Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Copyright, 1909, by Street & Smith, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.

Motor Matt On the Wing

OR,

FLYING FOR FAME AND FORTUNE.

By the author of "MOTOR MATT."

CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.

Matt King, otherwise Motor Matt. Joe McGlory, a young cowboy who proves himself a lad of worth and character, and whose eccentricities are all on the humorous side. A good chum to tie to—a point Motor Matt is quick to perceive. Ping Pong, a Chinese boy who insists on working for Motor Matt, and who contrives to make himself valuable, perhaps invaluable. Mrs. Traquair, wife of the inventor, Harry Traquair, who lost his life by a fall from an aëroplane of his own invention. Amos Murgatroyd, a mortgage shark who gets the Traquairs in his clutches and becomes a bitter enemy of Motor Matt. Siwash Charley, a ruffian who becomes the tool of Murgatroyd in his desperate attempts to keep Matt from flying the Traquair aëroplane in the government trials. Lieutenant Cameron, an officer in the Signal Corps, U. S. A., who proves to be the cousin of an old friend of Matt, and who nearly loses his life when the aëroplane is tested. Mr. Black, a friendly real estate man of Jamestown, N. D., who owns an automobile which proves of good service to the king of the motor boys.

Sergeant O'Hara, a good soldier, but who indulges in a game of cards at an inopportune moment. Benner, post trader at Fort Totten, a bluff person who falls into a trap laid by Siwash Charley. Jake, a teamster for Benner, who uses a blacksnake whip in a novel, but effective way.

CHAPTER I.

WANTED: A MAN OF NERVE.

"Mr. Amos Murgatroyd?"

"My name."

Amos Murgatroyd whirled around in his office chair and measured his caller with a pair of little, gimlet eyes. The caller, at the same time, was measuring Murgatroyd.

The young man who had entered the musty office of the loan broker and was now undergoing his scrutiny, stood straight as a plumb line, his shoulders squared, his lithe, well-set-up form "at attention." He wore a cap, and his clothes were of dark blue and of a semi-military cut.

He was prepossessing in appearance, which, most decidedly, the loan broker was not.

Murgatroyd's face was too lean and hard, his eyes too sharp and shifty, to give one a very exalted idea of his character.

The caller drew a folded newspaper from the breast pocket of his coat and laid it on the broker's desk.

"Are you the man who put that 'ad' in the paper?" inquired the youth.

Murgatroyd picked a pair of nose glasses off his vest, carefully adjusted them, and lifted the paper. The following marked paragraph riveted his attention:

Wanted: A man of nerve, one who has had some experience with flying machines and can handle a gasoline motor. To such a person a chance is offered to fly for fame and fortune in a new aëroplane. Sand and sagacity absolutely essential. Call on or address, A. Murgatroyd, Brown Block, Jamestown, North Dakota.

The broker dropped the paper, leaned back in his chair, and swept the glasses off his nose. Tapping the glasses against the knuckles of his left hand, he continued to regard the youth.

"Well?" he growled. "It's my 'ad.' What of it?"

"I've come several hundred miles to answer it in person."

"You? Why, I advertised for a man, not a boy."

"What difference does that make, so long as I can do the work?"

[Pg 2]

Amos Murgatroyd had no answer for this, and his remarks took another tack.

"Had any experience with aëroplanes?"

"No, but I have had a good deal to do with dirigible balloons. If you're hunting for a man who is experienced with aëroplanes, Mr. Murgatroyd, I guess you'll have to hunt for a long time. Heavier-than-air machines are only just beginning to come to the front, and the supply of experienced drivers is limited. It was the chance to familiarize myself with flying of that kind that brought me here."

Murgatroyd continued to tap reflectively with his glasses.

"Do you know that the man who invented the aëroplane fell with one of the machines and was killed?" he inquired.

"I heard that there had been an accident here, recently," was the answer.

"That was ten days ago, over in the park. The aëroplane turned turtle, dropped fifty feet, and Traquair was badly smashed. He lived about fifteen minutes and wasn't able to speak a word. The machine may be wrong in principle, I don't know that, but I've got to get some reliable person, who's not too much afraid of risking his neck, to learn the machine and then give an exhibition for the government, up at Fort Totten. The trial is set for two weeks from to-day. There's not much time, you see, to learn the ropes."

"I believe I could learn the ropes," said the other confidently. "I seem to have a knack for picking up such things."

"If anything happens to you, your relatives may come at me for damages."

"So far as I know, Mr. Murgatroyd, I haven't any relatives."

The beady, gimlet eyes gleamed with undisguised satisfaction.

"You will have to sign a paper," went on Murgatroyd, "releasing me from all responsibility, financial or otherwise, in case any accident happens."

"I'm willing," was the cool response. "It can't be that you have very much confidence in your aëroplane, Mr. Murgatroyd."

"Solid ground is good enough for me. If man was intended to fly he would have been born with wings. That's where I stand in this aëronautical game. Besides, Traquair invented the machine—I didn't; and the fact that Traquair was killed by his own invention doesn't give me superlative confidence in it."

The youth wondered why Murgatroyd was taking such an interest in a machine that did not command his confidence. The next moment the broker explained this point.

"Traquair owed me money, and the machine was the only thing belonging to him that I could get hold of. If the test at Fort Totten is satisfactory, the war department will buy the aëroplane at a good figure. This is the only way I can get back the loan, you see?"

"What are you willing to pay for the work you want done?"

The youth's tone was chilling and business-like. He was anything but favorably impressed with Murgatroyd.

"I won't pay a red cent," declared the broker. "I'll furnish the aëroplane, and you can use it for practice. If you please the war department, and they pay fifteen thousand for the machine, we'll split the amount even. That's fair enough. I won't be throwing good money after bad, and success or failure is put up to you."

"Is the machine you have the one that killed Traquair?"

Murgatroyd gave a choppy laugh.

"I should say not! There was nothing but kindling wood left of that machine. Traquair was intending to fly for the government, and he had a machine constructed especially for the purpose. It's in storage at Fort Totten now. The machine he was using here was the first one he built. By the way, young man, what's your name?"

"King, Matt King."

Murgatroyd gave a grunt of surprise, jammed his glasses on his nose, and stared at his caller with renewed interest; then, suddenly, he pressed a push button at the side of his desk.

A clerk appeared, a wizened, dried-up little man, who came in with a cringing air.

"Yes, Mr. Murgatroyd?"

"File 'K,' Prebbles. And dust it off. Why don't you go around this place with a duster, once in a while? The older you get, Prebbles, the less you seem to know."

The clerk winced. With a deferential bow, he turned and slunk out of the room. He returned in a few minutes, a duster in one hand and a battered letter file in the other. Murgatroyd took the file on his desk and sent Prebbles away with a curt gesture.

After a brief search through the file, the broker developed a number of newspaper clippings.

"That your picture?" he asked, holding up a clipping with an electrotype reproduction of the king of the motor boys at the top of it.

"It's supposed to be," smiled Matt, wondering why this close-fisted broker had gone to so much trouble to collect the clippings.

"You had a flying machine called the Hawk, quite a while ago, didn't you?" pursued Murgatroyd, studying the clippings.

"It was a dirigible balloon," explained Matt. "Correctly speaking, a flying machine is not a motor suspended from a gas bag."

"Quite right. I got these clippings from a clipping bureau in the East, and ever since I found this aëroplane on my hands I've been trying to locate you. Finally I had to give up, and then it was that I put that 'ad' in the paper. And now, here you come answering the 'ad'! Looks like fate had something to do with this, eh?"

"Just a coincidence," answered Matt, "and not such a remarkable coincidence, either. If you knew me better, Mr. Murgatroyd, you'd understand how anxious I am to become familiar with every sort of machine propelled by a gasoline motor. It's the coming power"—Matt's gray eyes brightened enthusiastically—"and as motors are improved, and their weight reduced in direct ratio with the increase in the horse power, the explosive engine will be used in ways as yet——"

"That's all right," cut in Murgatroyd, who was coldly commercial and as far removed from anything like enthusiasm as night is from day. "A gasoline engine is a noisy, dirty machine and smells to high heaven. But that's neither here nor there. Will you take hold of this aëroplane matter, learn how to run the Traquair invention, and then test it out at Fort Totten, two weeks from to-day?"

[Pg 3]

"I'll think it over," said Motor Matt.

He would not have taken a minute to consider the matter if he had been more favorably impressed with Murgatroyd.

"I can't wait very long for you to make up your mind," went on the broker, visibly disappointed. "There's only two weeks between now and the Fort Totten trials."

"I'll give you an answer by to-morrow morning," and Matt turned toward the door.

"Fame and fortune are in your grasp," urged Murgatroyd. "Don't let 'em slide through your fingers."

Without answering, but nodding a good day to the broker, Matt stepped into the outer room.

As he passed through this other office, he saw Prebbles on a high stool, humped over a ledger. The clerk's eye shade and little bald head, and his thin, crooked body, gave him the grotesque appearance of a frog, roosting on a stone, and getting ready to jump.

Matt passed on into the hall. Before he could descend the stairs he heard a hissing sound behind him. Turning, he saw the clerk standing in the open door, touching his lips with a finger in token of silence.

Matt paused with his hand on the stair rail, and the clerk came gliding toward him.

"Don't have anythin' to do with him," said Prebbles, in a tremulous whisper; "he's a robber."

"Who's a robber?" returned Matt.

"Murgatroyd. He's a skinflint and hasn't any more heart than a stone. He's a robber, I tell you; and, anyhow, if you try to run that machine you'll get killed. Traquair got killed, and he invented it, and knew more about it than you can ever learn. If——"

A buzzer began to sound its call in the outer office. Prebbles whirled and shuffled away. Pausing at the door, he turned to repeat, in a stage whisper:

"Leave him alone, I tell you. He's a robber, and you'll get killed."

Then Prebbles vanished, and Matt went thoughtfully down the stairs.

CHAPTER II.

FOILING A SCOUNDREL.

Near Jamestown the "Jim" River forms a loop, encircling a generous stretch of timber. Wherever there is timber, in any prairie country, there is an invitation for men to make a park; so the ground encompassed by this loop of the river was beautified and obtained the name of "City Park."

After leaving the broker's office, Matt started for the park. In the outskirts of town he met a youngster walking in the direction of the river, with a fishpole over his shoulder.

"Hello," said Matt.

"Hello yourself," answered the boy.

"Do you know where Mr. Traquair lost his life in that flying machine?"

"I guess yuh don't live in Jimtown, do yuh?" returned the boy. "Everybody around here knows where that happened."

"No," said Matt, "I only reached Jamestown last night."

"Well, the' was a hull crowd o' us seen Traquair when his flyin' machine flopped over. He come down like a piece o' lead, all mixed up with ropes, an' canvas, an' things. Gee, but that was a smash. I was one o' the kids that went to tell Mrs. Traquair. She was allers afeared Traquair 'u'd git a drop, so she never went to see him do his flyin', an' she never let any o' the kids go, nuther. I wisht I hadn't gone. Say, I dream about that there accident 'most ev'ry night, an' it skeers me stiff."

"I'll give you half a dollar," went on Matt, "if you'll take me to the scene of the accident. Will you?"

"You've bought somethin', mister," grinned the boy. "I was goin' fishin', but I'd pass up a circus if some un offered me half a dollar."

They pushed on toward the park.

"Fellers that try to fly ain't got as much sense as the law allows, I guess," remarked the boy. "Ever'body said Traquair 'u'd break his neck, an' that's what happened."

"What kind of a machine did he have?" queried Matt.

"Doggone if I know. It had wings, an' machinery, an' a thing that whirled behind, an' three bicycle wheels, an' rudders, an' I dunno what-all."

"What were the bicycle wheels for?" asked Matt, interested.

"Traquair had to take a runnin' start afore he got wind enough under his wings to lift him. When the wheels begun to leave ground, he turned the power onto the whirlin' thing behind, an' that made him scoot up into the air; then, somehow, he folded the bicycle wheels up under the machine."

"Did Traquair ever do much flying?"

"Did he? Well, I guess! The day before he got killed he was in the air as much as two hours, twistin' an' turnin' an' floppin' ev'ry which way, jest like a big chicken hawk. The' wasn't much wind, that time, an' people say that's how he was able to keep right side up. The day he dropped, the wind was purty middlin' strong from the west."

"How did the accident happen?"

"That's more'n anybody knows. Traquair was skimmin' over the tops o' the trees, an' a big crowd was down on the ground lookin' at him; then, all to oncet the' was a snap, like somethin' had busted. The wind grabbed holt o' them canvas wings an' slammed it plumb over, the hull bizness droppin' so quick we hadn't much more'n time to git out o' the way."

By this time Matt and the boy had reached a cleared space among the trees. In the middle of it was a level, grassless stretch, almost as hard as a board floor.

"There, mister," said the boy, pointing, "is where Traquair used to start. He'd git his bicycle wheels to whirlin' at one end o' that tennis ground, an' when he reached t'other end o' it he was in the air. He was comin' back to the startin' place when he dropped. Here's the place."

The boy stepped off to the left and pointed to a spot where the earth was grewsomely gouged and torn.

"Traquair was crazy," observed the boy, as Matt stepped toward the bruised turf, and stood there reflectively. "Ev'rybody says his flyin' machine was a fool killer."

"Traquair was a great man, my lad," answered Matt, "and a martyr to science. He gave up his life trying to help the human race conquer the air. Don't call him crazy."

"Gee, mister," scoffed the boy, "he'd better have helped[Pg 4] his folks 'stead o' givin' so much time to the human race. Mrs. Traquair had to take in washin' to keep the fambly in grub."

Matt kicked up a twisted bolt.

"That's a momentum," said the boy.

"I guess you mean memento," laughed Matt, tossing the bolt away.

"Mebby it's that where you come from," persisted the boy doggedly, "but it's momentum out here in Dakoty. Things is diff'rent in the Northwest to what they is in the East."

"Where does Mrs. Traquair live?" asked Matt.

"What hotel yuh stoppin' to, mister?"

"Gladstone House."

"Then you can pass Mrs. Traquair's shack right on the way back to the hotel," and the boy proceeded to give Matt minute instructions as to the way he should go in order to reach the house.

Matt flipped a silver coin to the youngster, and turned and started back toward the town. The boy pushed the coin into his pocket and went whistling in the direction of the river.

Several things were drawing Motor Matt in the direction of the Traquair home. Mainly, he distrusted Murgatroyd, and thought that perhaps Mrs. Traquair might be able to tell him something about the man. Then, too, Matt was anxious to learn what he could about the Traquair aëroplane, and felt sure there were papers containing drawings or descriptions at the house which would give a tolerably clear idea of the machine.

The Traquair home was in a squalid neighborhood. Most of the houses were tumbledown structures with windows ornamented with old garments wherever a pane of glass happened to be missing. But, despite its unpainted walls and sagging roof, the Traquair house had about it an air of neatness that distinguished it from its neighbors. There was no rubbish in the front yard, and two pieces of broken sewer pipe, set on end near the gate, had been filled with earth and were blooming with flowers.

In the rear were two long lines of drying clothes. A pang of pity went to Matt's heart. No matter how heavily the hand of grief had fallen on Mrs. Traquair, she could not neglect the toil necessary to supply the needs of herself and of her fatherless children.

Three youngsters—a boy and two girls, the boy being the oldest and not over six—stood in a frightened huddle on the front walk, near the gate. The smaller of the two girls was crying.

"What's the matter?" asked Matt, halting beside the forlorn little group.

"We're 'fraid to go in the house," answered the boy, looking up at Matt.

"Do you live there?"

"Yes'r, but we're 'fraid. He's in there with mom, an' he's talkin' like he was mad."

"Who are you?"

"Teddy Traquair. I'm six, an' sis, here, is risin' five. Mary Jane's only three."

"Who's talking with your mother, Ted?"

"Murg. I hate him, he's so mean to mom. He was mean to pap, too. But pap's dead—he got kilt when the flyin' machine dropped."

There was a pathetic side to this for a lad with a heart as soft as Matt's, but just then he had no time for that phase of the matter. The windows of the front room of the house were open, and covered with mosquito net. Voices could be heard coming from the front room—a woman's voice, tearful and full of entreaty, and a man's sharp, clean-cut, and almost brutal.

Quietly Matt passed through the gate and took up his post near one of the windows.

"You sign this paper," Murgatroyd was saying, "and I'll give you a receipt for two years' interest. What more do you expect?"

"I can't sign away all my rights to my husband's invention, Mr. Murgatroyd!" a woman's voice answered. "The interest for two years is only three hundred dollars, and that machine he sent to Fort Totten cost nearly a thousand dollars to build. It isn't right, Mr. Murgatroyd, for you to take the machine the government is thinking of buying, and all my interest in poor Harry's invention, for just three hundred dollars."

"Oh, you know a heap about business, you do, don't you?" snarled Murgatroyd. "What good's the flying machine, anyway? It killed your husband, and it's likely to kill anybody else that tries to run it. By taking over the invention, I feel as though I was loading up with a white elephant, but I've got a chance to get a young fellow to try and fly in that aëroplane at Fort Totten. I'll have to pay him a lot of money to do it, and before I make an arrangement with him I've got to have your name down in black and white to this paper. Do you think for a minute I'm going to spend my good money, paying this young fellow two or three thousand dollars to risk his neck in that machine, when I haven't got any writing from you to protect me? Sign this paper. If you don't, I'll come here and take everything you've got in the house to pay that hundred and fifty, interest. Don't whine around about it, because it won't do any good. If you want to keep a roof over your head, you do what I say—and do it quick."