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 Clue;

OR,

THE PHANTOM AUTO.

By the author of "MOTOR MATT."

CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.

Matt King, concerning whom there has always been a mystery—a lad of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won for himself, among the boys of the Western town, the popular name of "Mile-a-minute Matt." Carl Pretzel, a cheerful and rollicking German lad, who is led by a fortunate accident to hook up with Motor Matt in double harness. Uncle Jack, a wealthy Englishman, with ways and means of his own for accomplishing things, who leads a hermit's life in the wilds of New Mexico. Dick Ferral, a Canadian boy and a favorite of Uncle Jack; has served his time in the King's navy, and bobs up in New Mexico where he falls into plots and counter-plots, and comes near losing his life. Ralph Sercomb, a cousin of Dick Ferral, and whose sly, treacherous nature is responsible for Dick's troubles. Joe Mings, Harry Packard, Balt Finn, } three unscrupulous friends of Sercomb, all motor-drivers, and who come from Denver to help Sercomb in his nefarious plans.

CHAPTER I.

A NIGHT MYSTERY.

"Oh, py shiminy! Look at dere, vonce! Vat it iss, Matt? Br-r-r! I feel like I vould t'row some fits righdt on der shpot! It's a shpook, you bed you!"

A strange event was going forward, there under the moon and stars of that New Mexico night. The wagon-road followed the base of a clifflike bank, and at the outer edge of the road there was a precipitous fall into Stygian darkness.

A second road entered the first through a narrow gully. A few yards beyond the point where the thoroughfares joined an automobile was halted, its twin acetylene lamps gleaming like the eyes of some fabled monster in the semigloom.

Two boys were on the front seat of the automobile, and one of them had leaned over and gripped the arm of the lad who had his hands on the steering-wheel. The eyes of the two in the car were staring ahead.

What the boys saw was sufficiently startling, in all truth.

Out of the gully, directly in advance of them, had rolled a white automobile—springing ghostlike out of the darkness as it came under the glare of the acetylene lights.

The white car was a runabout, with two seats in front and an abnormally high deck behind. It carried no lamps, moved with weird silence, and, strangest of all, there was no one in either seat! Yet, with no hand on the steering-wheel, the white car made the dangerous turn out of the gully into the main road with the utmost ease, and was now continuing on between the foot of the cliff and the brink of the chasm with a steadiness that was—well, almost hair-raising.

Motor Matt, who had been piloting the Red Flier slowly and carefully along that dangerous course, had cut off the power and thrown on the brake the instant the white car leaped into sight. As he gazed at the receding auto, and noted the conditions under which it was moving, a gasp escaped his lips.

"That beats anything I ever heard of, Carl!" he muttered.

"It vas a shpook pubble!" clamored Carl Pretzel. "I don'd like dot, py shinks. Durn aroundt, or pack oop,[Pg 2] or do somet'ing else to ged oudt oof der vay. Shpooks iss pad pitzness, und schust vy dit it habben don't make no odds aboudt der tifference. Ged avay, Matt, und ged avay kevick! Py Chorge! I vas so vorked oop as I can't dell."

Carl released Matt's arm, pulled a big red handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the perspiration from his face. He was having a chill and perspiring at the same time; and his mop of towlike hair was trying to stand on end.

Matt started the Red Flier. There was gas enough in the cylinders to take the spark, so that it was not necessary to get out and use the crank.

To turn around on such a road was out of the question, even if Matt had desired to do so—which he did not. Nor did he reverse the engine and back away, but started along in the trail of the white car.

"Vat you vas doing, anyvay?" cried Carl.

"I'm going to follow up that phantom auto and see if I can find what controls it."

"You vas grazy, Matt! Meppy ve ged kilt oof ve ged too nosey mit dot machine. It don'd pay to dake some chances in a case like dose. I know vat I know, und dot's all aboudt it. Go pack pefore der shpook pubble hits us und knock us py der cliff ofer!"

Carl was excited. He believed in "spooks" and Motor Matt didn't, and that was all the difference between them.

"Don't lose your nerve, Carl——"

"It vas gone alretty!" groaned Carl, crouching in his seat, hanging on with both hands and staring ahead with popping eyes.

"Nothing's going to happen," went on Matt. "There's no such thing as ghosts, Carl."

"Don'd I know ven I see vone?" quavered Carl. "You t'ink I vas plind, Matt. Dot pubble moofs mitoudt nopody to make it go like vat it does; und it don'd hit der rocks or go ofer der cliff. Donnervetter! I vish I vas somevere else, py grickets. Ach! I vas so colt like ice, und I sveat; und my teet' raddle so dot I don't hardly peen aple to shpeak anyt'ing."

"We've seen the Red Flier moving along without anybody aboard, Carl," said Matt, in an attempt to quiet his chum's fears.

"Yah, so," answered Carl, "aber der Ret Flier vas moofing along some shdraighdt roads, und der veel vas tied mit ropes so dot she keeps a shdraighdt course. Aber dot shpook pubble don'd haf nopody on, und der veel ain'd tied, und yet she go on und on like anyding. Ach, I peen as goot as a deadt Dutchman, I know dot."

While the boys were thus arguing matters the Red Flier was trailing the phantom auto. The white machine, still controlled in some mysterious manner, glided safely along the treacherous trail. It was beyond the glow of the acetylene lights, but the moonlight brought it out of the gloom like a white blur.

In advance of the runabout Matt saw a place where the road curved around the face of the cliff. The phantom auto melted around the curve.

Hardly had it vanished when a loud yell was wafted back to the ears of the boys.

Carl nearly jumped out of his seat, and a frightened whoop escaped his lips.

"Ach, du lieber!" he wailed. "Ve vas goners, Matt, ve vas bot' goners. I can't t'ink oof nodding, nod efen my brayers! Vat vas dot? I bed you it vas der teufel gedding retty to chump on us. Whoosh! I never had some feelings like dis yet."

"Don't be foolish, Carl," said Matt. "There was no spook back of that yell, but real flesh and blood. Keep a stiff upper lip and we'll find out all about it."

Just then the Red Flier rounded the turn. A long, straightaway course lay ahead of the boys, lighted brightly by the lamps and, farther on, by the moon and stars. But the phantom auto had vanished!

Matt was astounded, and brought the Red Flier to a halt once more. With a high wall of rock on one side of the road, and an abyss on the other, where could the white car have gone?

"Ach, chiminy!" chattered Carl. "Poof, und avay she goes. Der pubble vas snuffed oudt, und schust meldet indo der moonpeams. Dis vas a hoodoo pitzness, all righdt. Ve ged der douple-gross pooty soon, I bed you someding for nodding!"

"But that yell——"

"Der teufel make him! Id don'd vas nodding but der shpook feller, saying in der shpook languge, 'Ah, ha, I ged you pooty kevick!' I vish dot I hat vings so I could fly avay mit meinseluf."

Matt got down from the car and started to walk forward. Carl let off a yell and scrambled after him.

"Don'd leaf me, Matt! It vas goot to be mit somepody ad sooch a dime. Misery lofes gompany, und dot's vat I need."

"Come on, then," laughed Matt.

"Vere you go, hey?"

"I'm going to see if I can discover what became of that car."

"It vent oop on der moonpeams," averred Carl earnestly. "You can look, und look, und dot's all der goot it vill do. Dake it from me, Matt, dot ve don'd vas——"

"Ahoy, up there!"

The words seem to come from nowhere—or, rather, from everywhere, which was equivalent to the same thing.

Carl gave a roar and tried to push himself into the face of the cliff.

"Vat I tell you, hey?" he groaned. "Dere it vas again. Matt, more und vorse dan der odder dime. Righdt here iss vere ve kick some puckets; yah, leedle Carl Pretzel und Modor Matt King vill be viped oudt like a sponge mit a slate."

"Keep still, Carl!" called Matt. "There's no ghost back of that voice. Listen a minute."

Turning in the road, Matt lifted his head.

"Hello!" he called.

"Hello, yourself!" came the muffled but distinct response.

The voice seemed to float out of the blackness of the chasm, and Matt stepped closer to the edge.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name'll be M-u-d, Mud, if you don't man a line an' give me a boost out of this."

"Where are you?"

"Down the wall, hanging like a lizard to a piece of scrub. Can't you tell by my talk where I am? From the looks, I'm about a fathom down; but I'll be all the way down if you don't get a move on. Shake yourself together, mate, and be lively!"

Carl's fear, as this conversation proceeded, was gradually lost in curiosity. The voice from over the brink[Pg 3] had a very human ring to it, and the Dutch boy was beginning to feel easier in his mind.

"Get the rope out of the tonneau, Carl," called Matt. "Hurry up!"

"Bully!" came from below, the person on the wall evidently hearing Matt's order to Carl. "That's the game, matey. If you've got a rope, reeve a bowline in the end and toss it over. I'm a swab if I don't think it's up to you to do it, too. I wouldn't have slid over the edge if your white devil-wagon hadn't made me dodge out of the way. How'd it—Wow!"

The voice below broke off with a startled whoop.

"What's the matter?" called Matt.

"The bush pulled out a little," was the answer, "and I thought I was gone. Rush things up there, will you?"

At that moment Carl came with the rope, and Matt, standing above the place where he supposed the unseen speaker to be, allowed the noosed end to slide down to him.

"I've got it!" cried the voice. "Are you ready to lay on?"

"Catch hold, Carl," said Matt, "and brace yourself. All ready," he shouted, when he and Carl were planted firmly with the rope in their hands.

"Then here goes!"

The rope grew taut under a suddenly imposed weight, and Matt and Carl laid back on it and hauled in.

CHAPTER II.

DICK FERRAL.

A young fellow of seventeen or eighteen crawled over the brink of the chasm and sat on the rocks to breathe himself. The lamps of the Red Flier shone full on him, so that Matt and Carl were easily able to take his sizing.

He wore a flannel shirt, cowboy-hat and high-heeled boots. His trousers were tucked in his boot-tops. His bronzed face was clean-cut, and he had clear, steady eyes.

"Wouldn't that just naturally rattle your spurs?" he asked, looking Matt and Carl over as he talked. "I thought you fellows had put a stamp on that rope and were sending it by mail. It seemed like a good while coming, but maybe that was because I was hangin' to a twig and three leaves with the skin of my teeth." He swerved his eyes to the Red Flier. "You've lit your candles," he added, "since you scared me out of a year's growth by flashin' around that bend. If you'd had the lights going then, I guess I could have crowded up against the cliff instead of makin' a jump t'other way and going over the edge."

"You vas wrong mit dot," said Carl. "It vasn't us vat come along und knocked you py der gulch."

"That's the truth," added Matt, noting the stranger's startled expression. "We were following that other automobile, and stopped when we heard you yell."

Without a word the rescued youth got up and went back to give the Red Flier a closer inspection. When he returned, he seemed entirely satisfied that he had made a mistake.

"I did slip my hawser on that first idea, and no mistake," said he. "As I went over, I saw out of the clew of my eye that the other flugee was white. Yours is bigger, and painted different. What are your names, mates?"

Matt introduced himself and Carl.

"I'm Dick Ferral," went on the other, shaking hands heartily, "and when I'm at home, which is about once in six years, I let go the anchor in Hamilton, Ontario. I'm a sailor, most of the time, but for the last six months I've been punching cattle in the Texas Panhandle. A crimp annexed my money, back there in Lamy, and I'm rolling along toward an old ranch my uncle used to own, called La Vita Place. It can't be far from here, if I'm not off my bearings. Where are you bound, mates, in that steam hooker?"

"Santa Fé," answered Matt.

"Own that craft?" and Dick Ferral nodded toward the car.

"No; it belongs to a man named Tomlinson, who lives in Denver. Carl and I brought it to Albuquerque for him. When we got there, we found a line from him asking us to bring the car on to Santa Fé. If we got there in two weeks he said it would be time enough, so we're jogging along and taking things easy."

"If you've got plenty of time, I shouldn't think you'd want to do any cruising in waters like these, unless you had daylight to steer by."

"We'd have reached the next town before sunset," Matt answered, "if we hadn't had trouble with a tire."

"It was a good thing for me you were behind your schedule, and happened along just after I turned a handspring over the cliff. If you hadn't, Davy Jones would have had me by this time. But what became of that other craft? I didn't have much time to look at it, for it came foaming along full and by, at a forty-knot gait, but as I slid over the rock I couldn't see a soul aboard."

"No more dere vasn't," said Carl earnestly. "Dot vas a shpook pubble, Verral. You see him, und ve see him, aber he don'd vas dere; nodding, nodding at all only schust moonshine!"

"Well, well, well!" Ferral cast an odd glance at Motor Matt. "That old flugee was a sort of Flying Dutchman, hey?"

"I don'd know somet'ing about dot," answered Carl, shaking his head gruesomely, "aber I bed you it vas a shpook."

"There wasn't any one on the car," put in Matt, "and it's a mystery how it traveled this road like it did. It came out of a gully, farther back around the bend, right ahead of us. We followed it, and when we had come around that turn it had vanished."

"What you say takes me all aback, messmates," said Ferral. "I'm no believer in ghost-stories, but this one of yours stacks up nearer the real thing in that line than any I ever heard. Say," and Ferral seemed to have a sudden idea, "if you fellows want a berth for the night, why not put in at La Vita Place?"

"Sure, Matt, vy nod?" urged Carl.

"How far is it, Ferral?" asked Matt.

"It can't be far from here, although I'm a bit off soundings on this part of the chart. I've never been to Uncle Jack's before—and shame on me to say it—and likely I wouldn't be going there now if the old gentleman hadn't dropped off, leaving things in a bally mix. They say I'm to get my whack from the estate, if a will can be found, although I don't know why anything should come to me. I've always been a rover, and Uncle Jack didn't like it. My cousin, Ralph Sercomb—I never liked[Pg 4] him and wouldn't trust him the length of a lead line—stands to win his pile by the same will. Ralph is at the ranch, and, I suppose, waitin' for me with open arms and a knife up his sleeve."

"When did your uncle die?" inquired Matt.

"As near as I can find out, he just simply vanished. All he left was a line saying he was tired of living alone, that he never could get me to give up my roaming and come and stay with him, and that while Ralph came often and did what he could to cheer him up, he had always had a soft place in his heart for me, and missed me. He said, too, in that last writing of his, that when he was found his will would be found with him, and that he hoped Ralph and I would stay at the ranch until the will turned up. That's what came to me, down in the Texas Panhandle, from a lawyer in Lamy. As soon as I got that I felt like a swab. Here I've been knockin' around the world ever since I was ten, Uncle Jack wanting me all the time and me holding back. Now I'm coming to the ranch like a pirate. Anyhow, that's the way it looks. If Uncle Jack was alive he'd say, 'You couldn't come just to see me, Dick, but now that I'm gone, and have left you something, you're quick enough to show up.'"

Ferral turned away and looked down into the blackness of the gulch. He faced about, presently, and went on:

"But it wasn't Uncle Jack's money that brought me. Now, when it's too late, I'm trying to do the right thing—and to make up for what I ought to have done and didn't do in the past. A fellow like me is thoughtless. He never understands where he's failed in his duty till a blow like this brings it home to him. He's the only relative Ralph and I had left, and I've acted like a misbemannered Sou'wegian.

"When I went to sea, I shipped from Halifax on the Billy Ruffian, as we called her, although she's down on the navy list as the Bellerophon. From there I was transferred to the South African station, and the transferring went on and on till my time was out, and I found myself down in British Honduras. Left there to come across the Gulf of Galveston, and worked my way up into the Texas Panhandle, where I navigated the Staked Plains on a cow-horse. Had six months of that, when along came the lawyer's letter, and I tripped anchor and bore away for here. As I told you, a crimp did me out of my roll in Lamy. He claimed to be a fellow Canuck in distress, and I was going with him to his hotel to see what I could do to help him out. He led me into a dark street, and somebody hit me from behind and I went down and out with a slumber-song. Then I got up and laid a course for Uncle Jack's. If you'll go with me the rest of the way, I'll like it, and you might just as well stop over at La Vita Place and make a fresh start for Santa Fé in the morning."

"We'll do it," answered Matt, who was liking Dick Ferral more and more as he talked.

"Dot's der shtuff!" chirped Carl. "Oof you got somet'ing to eat at der ranch, und a ped to shleep on, ve vill ged along fine."

"I guess we can find all that at the place, although I don't think the ranch amounts to much. Uncle Jack was queer—not unhinged, mind you, only just a bit different from ordinary people. He never did a thing in quite the same way some one else would do it. When he left England, a dozen years ago, he stopped with us a while in Hamilton, and then came on here and bought an old Mexican casa. He wanted to get away from folks, he said, but I guess he got tired of it; if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been so dead set on having me with him after my parents died. The bulk of his money is across the water. But hang his money! It's Uncle Jack himself I'm thinking about, now."

"We'll get into the car," said Matt, "and go on a hunt for La Vita Place."

Matt stepped to the crank. As he bent over it, Carl gave a frightened shout.

"Look vonce!" he quavered, pointing along the road with a shaking finger. "Dere iss some more oof der shpooks!"

Matt started up and whirled around. Perhaps a hundred feet from where the three boys were standing, a dim figure could be seen, silvered uncannily by the moonlight.

"Great guns, Carl!" muttered Matt. "Your nerves must be in pretty bad shape. That's a man, and he's been walking toward us while we were talking."

"Vy don'd he come on some more, den?" asked Carl. "Vat iss he shtandin' shdill mit himseluf for? Vy don'd he shpeak oudt und say somet'ing?"

"Hello!" called Ferral. "How far is it to La Vita Place, pilgrim?"

The form did not answer, but continued to stand rigid and erect in the moonlight.

"Ve'd pedder ged oudt oof dis so kevick as ve can," faltered Carl, crouching back under the shadow of the car. "I don'd like der looks oof dot feller."

"Let's get closer to him, Ferral," suggested Matt, starting along the road at a run.

"It's main queer the way he's actin', and no mistake," muttered Ferral, starting after Matt.