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's Close Call;

OR,

THE SNARE OF DON CARLOS.

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." 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. 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. Don Carlos Valdez, a Central American trouble-maker and adventurer, who lays a snare for Motor Matt and thereby wrecks a revolution and the fortunes of several of his own friends. Captain Abner Fingal, a ruffianly sea captain who assists the don when the snare begins to tighten.

General Pitou, a little swashbuckler who aimed to steal a government and comes to grief through his two spurs and his sword. Ysabel Sixty, the daughter of the captured filibuster, James Sixty—a loyal friend who dares much for Motor Matt. Pedro, a revolutionist who aids Ysabel. Don Ramon Ortega, the Spanish consul at Belize, British Honduras; a gentleman of high character and ancient lineage, whose name is a thing to conjure with. Gaines, Clackett and Speake, crew of the Grampus.

CHAPTER I.

CARL'S SERENADE.

Carl Pretzel was singing. If any one with an ear for music had heard him they might have guessed that he was selling fish, or buying old clothes, or having an auction with himself, but not, by the wildest flight of fancy, could they have imagined that he had burst into song.

It was a rare evening in old Belize. The moon was like a big yellow topaz pinned to a cushion of blue-black velvet, and around it lay the stars like scattered diamonds. Carl could not see the moon or stars very distinctly, for it was so beastly hot that the perspiration trickled into his eyes and half blinded him.

The zephyrs, laden with spicy fragrance from orange groves and pineapple fields, breathed softly through the tops of the palms; but Carl couldn't enjoy the zephyrs, for a cloud of mosquitoes was pestering him and he had to use both hands on his guitar.

The house before which Carl was playing and singing was a whitewashed bungalow. Between the bungalow and the street ran a high brick wall. The iron gate leading into the yard was locked, and Carl had climbed the wall, skinning his shins and tearing his clothes. But he didn't mind that. He had read somewhere that when a gay young Spanish blade admires a young Spanish lady, he grabs a guitar and goes and sings to her. Carl wasn't going to let any Spaniard back him off the boards, so he grabbed a guitar and stole like a thief into that Belize yard to serenade Ysabel Sixty.

Carl was not very well acquainted with the lay of the land in Belize. By an error of judgment he had got into the wrong yard, and by another conspiracy of circumstances he began pouring out his enraptured soul under the window of a room in which Captain Reginald Charles Arthur Pierce-Plympton, of the local constabulary, was trying to sleep. Miss Sixty was staying with relatives a block farther on, around the corner of the next street.

[Pg 2]

Utterly unaware of his mistake, Carl fought the discomforts of his situation and heroically kept to his labor of love. Ysabel Sixty was a fine girl, and Carl had a warm spot in his heart for her.

This touching bit of sentiment was merely the overture. Carl knew how to play the guitar, for he had once been a member of a knockabout musical team, and he could get music out of anything from a set of sleigh bells to a steam calliope. If he had been able to use his voice as well as he used the guitar, Captain Reginald Charles Arthur Pierce-Plympton would probably have slept on or even have been lulled into deeper slumber; but there were dull spots in Carl's voice where there should have been sharps, and high places where there should have been flats, and whoops, grunts and falling inflections where there should have been trills, grace notes and a soft petal generally.

Captain Reginald Charles Arthur Pierce-Plympton stirred uneasily, sat up suddenly in his bed and knocked his high forehead against the iron bar that supported a canopy of mosquito netting. As he rubbed his temples and said things to himself, he listened with growing anger.

Captain Reginald Charles Arthur Pierce-Plympton blinked his eyes and began forming a plan of campaign. There was a pitcher of water on a table in his room, a bulldog in the yard, and a valiant assistant in the form of Hadji Sing, his Hindoo servant. Getting softly out of bed, the captain prepared for his attack on the enemy.

When Carl climbed over the wall he had dropped into the yard at the foot of a lemon tree. He had jarred the tree and a half-ripe lemon had dropped on him. This omen should have sent him away and postponed the serenade, but it did not.

After slapping at the mosquitoes and drawing his sleeve across his eyes, Carl went on picking the guitar.

"Now for der nexdt spasm," he murmured. "I vill put der German vorts indo English for der leedle gal, yah, so.

Just then the water descended. It was well aimed and Carl caught the whole of it. Probably there was no more than a couple of gallons, but Carl, for the moment, was under the impression that it was a tidal wave.

His song died out in a wheezy gurgle and, for a moment, he was stunned. Then, suddenly, he realized that he had been insulted. Ysabel Sixty, the beautiful maiden who had captured his young fancy, had deliberately thrown—— But his thoughts were interrupted by a voice from the window—a voice that certainly was not Miss Sixty's.

"Bah Jove! I'll throw the pitcher at you, fellow, if you don't clear out!"

Carl was dazed. He knew, then, that he had made a mistake. While he stood there, half drowned and trying to find his voice, the bark of an approaching dog came from the rear of the house.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and it flashed over Carl on the instant that if he wanted to save himself he would have to run. Without standing on the order of his going, he whirled and fled toward the fence. The dog was close and rapidly drawing closer. Behind the dog came a white-turbaned figure that was urging the brute onward with strange language.

The front fence looked altogether too high for Carl, and he turned and made for a wall at the side of the yard. Just as he gained the foot of the barrier the dog was snapping at his heels.

"Dere!" he whooped, turning and smashing the guitar over the dog's head, "how you like dot, hey?"

The dog was rebuffed, but not discouraged. Carl had gained a few valuable seconds, and he grabbed at a vine that covered the wall and climbed frantically upward. He heard a growl below him as he ascended, and felt a shock as the savage teeth closed in his trousers. The dog was heavy, his jaws were as strong as a steel trap, and as Carl hung wildly to the vine he knew that something would have to give way or else that he would be captured. It was with a feeling of joy, therefore, that he heard a tearing sound and experienced a sudden relief from his enforced burden. The next moment he was over the wall and floundering about in a thorny rose-bush covered with beautiful blossoms. But the beautiful blossoms did not make so deep an impression on Carl as did the thorns.

As he rolled out of the bushes his language was intense and earnest; and when he got up in a cleared stretch of ground he felt a sudden coolness below the waist-line that informed him fully of his predicament. He had left an important part of his apparel in the next yard.

"Vat a luck id iss!" he muttered. "I porrowed dot kiddar from der vaider py der hodel, und id vas gone to smash. Meppy I vill haf to pay as mooch as fife tollars for dot. Und den dere vill be anodder fife tollars for some more pands. Fife und fife iss den. Oof I make some more serenadings I vill be busted. Vat a laff Matt und Tick vill gif me! Py shinks, I can't go pack py der[Pg 3] hodel like dis! Vat iss to be dit? Mit some clot', und some neetles und t'read, I could make some patches. Vere vill I ged dem?"

He paused to shake his fist in the direction of the yard he had just left. All was silent on the other side, and the man and the dog, Carl reasoned, must have gone back where they belonged.

A survey of the situation in the moonlight showed Carl another bungalow. It was not so pretentious as the house in the next inclosure, but its walls were as brightly whitewashed and the building stood out clearly against its background of shrubbery. The windows of the house were dark. But this was to be expected, as the hour was past midnight. The noise which Carl had made had not seemed to disturb the inmates.

"Oof I hat der nerf," thought Carl, "I vould go dere und ask der beople for somet'ing to fix meinseluf oop, but meppy I vouldt get soaked mit some more vater, und meppy dere iss anodder tog. No, py shinks, I vill go pack py der hodel und led Matt und Tick laff as mooch as dey vill."

But luck was still against Carl; or perhaps, in the inscrutable way whereby fate occasionally works in order to secure the greatest good for the greatest number, he was merely encountering obstacles in order to gain knowledge of a plot that had been leveled against Motor Matt.

Carl found a tall iron gate, set into the high front wall as snugly as a door in its casing. But the gate was locked. More than that, the wall could not be scaled, for there were no vines or near-by trees to offer a lift upward.

Carefully he made his way around all four sides of the inclosure, only to be balked at every point. Then he hunted for a ladder, a box, or some other movable thing on which he could stand while getting over the wall, but his search was fruitless.

"Py shinks," he muttered, again moving toward the house, "I vill haf to shpeak mit somepody in der blace und dry und ged oudt. I don'd vant to shday here undil morning."

At the rear of the house he rapped. Although he pounded heavily, no one answered his summons. Alarmed by the thought that there was no one at home, he moved around to the front door and rapped again, still without effect. Next he tried the door. To his amazement he found it unlocked.

When the door swung open a blank darkness yawned beyond it.

"Hello, somepody!" Carl called, thrusting his head inside. "I don'd vas a t'ief, or anyt'ing like dot, aber I vas in drouple. Hello! Come und led me oudt oof der yardt, blease, oof you vill be so kindt."

His voice echoed rumblingly through the interior of the house, but won no response. Hesitatingly, Carl stepped across the threshold. He had matches in his pocket, and they had come through the recent deluge unharmed. With fingers none too steady he scratched one, held the flickering glow above him and peered around.

The next moment his startled eyes encountered an object on the floor that caused him to drop the match from his nerveless fingers and fall back gaspingly against the wall.

CHAPTER II.

DON RAMON ORTEGA.

The object which had so startled the Dutch boy was the figure of a middle-aged man, sprawled at full length on the floor matting. His hands were secured behind him and his feet were bound at the ankles with twisted towels. Over the lower part of his face another towel had been tied, thus effectually preventing outcry.

Carl's own troubles faded into the background. As he slowly got the whip hand of himself, he struck another match and stepped to the man's side. The man gurgled incoherently behind the gag and his dark eyes pleaded for immediate release.

"Dere iss some dricky pitzness here, you bed you!" exclaimed Carl. "Don'd be schared oof me," he added to the man, "I vas a friendt, und I vill helup you. Schust vait a leedle undil I ged some pedder lighdt as vat I haf."

There was an oil lamp on a table, and Carl stepped to it and applied a match to the wick. In the glow that presently flooded the room, the Dutch boy returned to the man, knelt down beside him and removed the towels.

"Ay de mi!" stuttered the man, attempting to rise and falling helplessly back again.

"Vas you hurt some blace?" asked Carl solicitously.

"Hurt?" echoed the man, speaking good English, although with a very perceptible foreign accent. "Not at all, señor; only my limbs—they are so cramped from confinement that I cannot stand. Soon they will be all right. But who are you?" and suspicion suddenly flamed in the dark eyes. "How does it happen that you know of my trouble and have come here? Are you a confederate of the rascally Don Carlos?"

"Ton Garlos?" repeated Carl. "I don'd know dot feller from Atam. I vas a shdranger in dis blace, und all I know iss der Amerigan consul, Misder Hays Chordan und Toctor Armsdrong, und——"

"You are American?" interrupted the other eagerly.

"Yah, so; Amerigan mit a Dutch accent."

"How do you happen to be here?"

"Id vas a plunder, dot's all," answered Carl. "A pulltog chaced me und pooty near caught me, doo. I got ofer der vall from der odder site und couldn't get pack some more. Vat a high vall iss aboudt der blace! Und so smoot' und shlippery as I can't dell."

[Pg 4]

"What were you doing in the other yard?"

Carl didn't want to mention that part of it, but it seemed necessary in order to convince the man of his harmless intentions.

"Vell," he answered diffidently, "I vent der mit meinseluf to serenate a yoong laty py der name oof Miss Sixdy——"

"Miss Ysabel Sixty?" the other again interrupted, even more eagerly than he had done before.

"Yah, so!" beamed Carl. "You know der laty?"

"Indeed, yes. But she does not live in the next house, señor. An English captain lives there—an officer in charge of the constabulary. Miss Sixty is staying with friends a block farther down the street, and around the corner."

"Vell, I t'ought I hat made some misdakes," said Carl, vastly relieved. "A parrel oof vater vas tropped on me, und I vas run off mit a pulltog, und—und—— Blease, haf you some clot' patches und some neetles und t'read? I vouldt like to be respectaple vonce more."

The man got to his feet slowly and then, his eyes gleaming ominously, caught Carl's arm in both hands.

"Let us not think so much of ourselves now, señor," he said thickly, "but of others!"

"Vat aboudt id?" inquired Carl, wondering whether the released gentleman was crazy or excited.

"I am Don Ramon Ortega," answered the man.

This was another surprise. Carl had heard of Don Ramon Ortega. He was the Spanish consul in Belize, a man of high lineage and of much importance.

"How keveer dot I shouldt come py your house like vat I dit, Ton Ramon!" muttered Carl. "I hope," he added, in a tremor, "dot der laties von't come——"

"There are none here but ourselves," cut in the don. "My family and all the servants have gone to Mexico. I myself was intending to go in the morning, but now I shall not leave Belize until I make that scoundrelly Don Carlos Valdez answer for this rascally work he has done!"

"Ton Carlos Valdez?" repeated Carl. "I don'd know der feller. Vat has he dit?"

"I will tell you," answered the don. "Come, let us sit down for a moment. My limbs are not strong yet, and there is much to be done."

Carl, excited and curious, dropped into a chair. The don, after giving a cautious look outside, closed the door and returned to Carl. Drawing a chair close, he seated himself.

"Tell me," said he, "do you know of a submarine boat in the harbor called the Grampus? You are American, and the boat is owned by Captain Nemo, Jr., an American. You should know of her."

"Vell, py chiminy Grismus," boomed Carl, "you bed you! Vy, ton, I vas vone oof der crew oof der Grampus! I come mit her ven she arrifed, und I vas mit her ven she got der American consul avay from der repels in der rifer Izaral. Vy, Modor Matt, who vas boss oof der poat ven she dit dot, iss my friendt, my bard! Und so iss Tick Ferral! Know der Grampus! Py chincher, I know her insite und oudt, oop und down und sitevays. My name is Pretzel, Carl Pretzel."

Don Ramon Ortega was astounded, but happily so. Reaching out his hand, he clasped Carl's convulsively.

"Ah, what good fortune!" he murmured, "what amazing luck! Destiny is at work in all this. Fate guided you to me to-night, amigo mio!"

"A pulltog hat more to do mit it as fate," answered Carl simply.

"Listen!" proceeded the don hurriedly. "I was here alone in the early evening. Some one rang the bell at the gate. I went out and admitted"—anger throbbed in the Spaniard's voice—"Don Carlos Valdez! He is, what you Americans call, a trouble maker. I call him a pestilence, an evil spectre who stalks through the devoted countries and helps revolutionists overthrow established governments. I am Spanish, but I love law and order! I hate violence and bloodshed! I am for peace! But Don Carlos is always for war, and more war, for in that he finds unholy profit. Well, it was he who called on me to-night. He declared that he wanted a passport, for he was going abroad. I told him to go to my secretary, at the legation. He said he had been there, but that the secretary was not in. I could not refuse him the passport if his intentions were peaceable and he paid the fee, so he came back into the house with me. As I seated myself and leaned over the table, the demon struck me from behind. I fell unconscious. When I recovered, I was bound as you saw me, and I have laid so for hours.

But Don Carlos had not left when I regained consciousness. He and I have long been at swords' points, and he taunted me with the base plans he intended to carry out."

Don Ramon writhed in his chair in a spasm of fierce anger.

"Vat it vas he iss going to do?" asked Carl.

"He has designs on the submarine!" proceeded the don. "He thinks the boat would be valuable to the revolutionists to the south of us. They are threatening Port Livingston, at the mouth of the Izaral, and are seeking to secure the fort there. The lawful authorities of the state will send ships of war to defeat the revolutionists, and Don Carlos wants the submarine to destroy the war vessels."

"Himmelblitzen!" gasped Carl. "Aber," he added soothingly, "don'd you be vorked oop, ton. Der schemer von't ged der supmarine. Captain Nemo, Jr., iss sick, aber Modor Matt iss on der chob, und you bed you he von't let Don Carlos haf der Grampus to helup oudt der repels."

"Diable, no! Motor Matt will not hire the boat to the rascally Don Carlos, but he is a serpent for craft. He[Pg 5] intends to get the boat away from Belize by a ruse—and will use my name, my honorable name, to help him prosecute his villainous plot! Think of that, amigo!"

"How vill he do dot, ton?"

"I do not know, but such is his miserable intention; he flaunted it in my face as I lay on the floor at his feet, helpless to move or to speak. We must prevent him from carrying out his contemptible designs. I have told you so much, because it was necessary that you should understand. Come! Let us go at once to Motor Matt! Let us warn him, and put him on his guard."

"Dot's me, ton!" agreed Carl heartily, "aber haf you a pair oof drousers vat I couldt vear?"

"That is a small matter, Señor Pretzel," demurred the don on his way to the door, "and we have other and larger matters to claim our instant attention."

"Some more drousers iss kevite imbortant mit me," insisted Carl. "Id von't dake more as a minude, ton."