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 DARING; OR, TRUE TO HIS FRIENDS.

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." Chub McReady, sometimes called plain "Reddy," for short, on account of his fiery "thatch"—a chum of Matt, with a streak of genius for inventing things that often land the bold experimenter in trouble. Welcome Perkins, a one-legged wanderer who lives with Chub and his sister while their father prospects for gold—Welcome is really a man of peace, yet he delights to imagine himself a "terror," and is forever boasting about being a "reformed road-agent." Dirk Hawley, a sporting man who usually gets whatever he goes after; and being both rich and unscrupulous is reckoned a dangerous character to have for an enemy. Dace Perry, a school companion of young King, who has learned to hate Matt so furiously that he is ready to go to almost any length in order to do our hero an injury. Tom Clipperton, known generally as "Clip," a quarter-blood, who

is very sensitive about his Indian ancestry. Susie McReady, the small sister of Chub. Edith Hawley, the gambler's daughter. Mr. McReady, a prospector. Delray, a watchman in charge of the abandoned "Bluebell" Mine. Jacks, Bisbee, } two ruffians in the employ of Hawley. Pedro Morales, a Mexican wood-hauler.

CHAPTER I.

THE RUNAWAY MOTOR-CYCLE.

"Shade o' Gallopin' Dick! Say, allow me to rise an' explain that I kin ride anythin' from a hoss to a streak o' greased lightnin'. I don't take no back seat fer anythin' on hoofs, 'r wheels, 'r wings. If ye think ye kin make Eagle-eye Perkins, ex-Pirate o' the Plains, take to the cliffs an' the cactus jest by flashin' a little ole benzine push-cart onto him an' darin' him to git straddle, ye're goin' to be fooled a-plenty. Shucks! Here, hold my hat."

"You don't have to shed your hat, Perk."

"Got to cl'ar decks fer action. When a man with a wooden leg goes gallivantin' around on a two-wheeled buzz-wagon, the less plunder he keeps aboard the better. Hold the hat an' hesh up about it. Which crank d'ye turn to make 'er start?"

Ed Penny, on his one-cylinder motor-cycle, had come chug-chugging across the bridge over the town canal and stopped in front of the McReady home. While he was out in front, talking with Chub McReady, Welcome Perkins, the self-called reformed road-agent, had stumped out of the house and walked around the hitching-post against which Penny had leaned the machine. Welcome had snorted contemptuously. Penny had then whirled on the old man and had asked him if he thought he could ride the motor-cycle. This led to Welcome's outburst and the jerking off of his sombrero, which he handed to Chub.

Both boys were enchanted with the prospect ahead of them. There was never anything Welcome hadn't done or couldn't do—to hear him tell about it—and this looked like a good chance to take some of the conceit out of him.

"Ever ride a bike, Welcome?" asked Penny, his enthusiasm palling a little as he thought of what might happen to his machine.

"Ride a bike!" exploded Welcome; "me! Why, I was raised on 'em. Never was scart of a reg'lar bike yet,[Pg 2] so I reckon two wheels an' a couple o' quarts o' gasoline ain't goin' to make me side-step none. How d'ye start 'er, I ask ye? What knob d'ye pull?"

Penny showed him how to start the gasoline and to switch on the spark. Welcome puffed himself up and patted his chest.

"Nothin' to it," he rumbled. "Watch my smoke, will ye, an' see how easy ridin' a contraption like that comes to a feller that's knowed how to do things his hull life."

He pulled off his coat and gave it to Chub to hold, along with his hat. Then he rolled up his shirt-sleeves.

"Snakes alive!" he muttered, with a sudden thought. "How am I goin' to keep that wooden pin on the pedal?"

"We'll tie it there, Perk," answered Chub promptly. "Wait a minute."

He hung the coat and hat on the hitching-post and started off into the yard. While he was gone, Welcome began pulling up the strap that secured the pin to his stump of a leg. By way of showing how calm and self-possessed he was, he sang as he worked.

When Chub got back with a piece of rope, Welcome was astride the saddle, his foot on the ground, with Penny, who was shaking with suppressed joy, helping to hold up the machine.

"Tie 'er tight, son," said Welcome.

"Don't you fret any about that, Perk," answered Chub, with a wink at Penny as he lifted himself erect. "Remember how to start?"

"Think I'm an ijut?" demanded Welcome indignantly. "I got a head fer machinery, anyways, an' I could hev studied it out all by myself if ye'd given me time. Are we all ready?"

Chub helped Penny pull the machine upright.

"All ready!" they answered, in one voice, with sly grins at each other behind the old man's back.

"Then see me tear loose."

Welcome worked the requisite levers, the machine began to sputter, and the boys gave it a shove. There was a good deal of wabbling, at first, but as the machine gathered headway it got steadier, and Welcome dwindled away down the road.

"Not so much of a joke, after all, Penny," observed Chub, in gloomy disappointment. "The old freak seems to know how to stay on and keep right side up. I thought he'd scatter himself all over the road right at the start."

"One on us, Chub," returned Penny. "Ah," he added, his eyes on Welcome, "he's turning 'round in that big open space near the canal bridge. Gee-whiz! but that was a short turn. Watch him, will you! He's comin' this way like the cannon-ball limited."

"What's he yellin' about?" queried Chub excitedly. "Something must have gone wrong."

Both boys watched the approaching Welcome with growing wonder. He was coming like a house afire, his long hair blowing out behind him, and he was howling like a Comanche. There was a look of helpless consternation on his face.

"Gosh-all-Friday! How d'ye stop 'er? Ye didn't tell me how ter stop 'er!"

Welcome shot past them like a bullet out of a gun, his voice trailing out behind him and becoming all jumbled up in the distance.

"He can stay on, all right," whooped Chub, "but he can't stop! Why didn't you tell him how to stop, Penny?"

"He never asked me!" answered Penny.

"The thing is runnin' away with him!"

Welcome described another hair-raising turn at another place that allowed him to circle, and came whooping back.

"What'm I goin' to do?" he howled; "how long've I got to keep this thing up?"

"Jump off!" suggested Chub.

"Can't! Ye tied me on! Wow!"

By that time Welcome was out of talking distance again. When he circled back on the next frantic round, it was plain that his gorge was beginning to rise.

"I'll skelp somebody fer this!" he roared. "Ye framed it up between ye, that's what ye done! Dad-bing the pizen ole thing-um-bob!"

Welcome was now tearing toward the bridge over the canal. A man was coming across the bridge on foot.

"Great Cæsar!" exclaimed Chub, staring toward the bridge, "that's Dirk Hawley, the gambler, comin' this way?"

"Welcome ain't makin' any move to turn around," answered Penny. "Looks to me as though he was going to knock Hawley into the canal."

By a common impulse the boys started on a run toward the scene of threatened disaster. Hawley had come to a standstill in the middle of the bridge.

"Slow down, you old catamaran!" he cried. "What d'ye mean by scorchin' like that?"

"Head me off!" begged Welcome. "Can't stop—don't know how to stop! Trip me up 'r somethin'!"

By the time Hawley had got this through his head Welcome was upon him. With a shout of anger, Hawley hurled himself to one side. He escaped being struck, and missed going into the water of the canal by a scant margin; but he had been obliged to throw himself flat down on the bridge, and in doing so he had jarred his body a little and jolted his temper a good deal.

As he picked himself up he said a good many unkind things about Welcome, but the old fellow was plunging on beyond the bridge and had other troubles that took up his attention.

Just as he had about made up his mind to run into the side of a building, or a fence, and bring himself to a halt at any cost, his frenzied eyes caught sight of another motor-cycle, sailing toward him. A thrill of hope darted through his breast.

"Matt!" he yelped. "Stop me! The blamed thing's got the bit in its teeth an' I can't do nothin' with it!"

Matt King slowed down, stared a moment at the frantic old man, laughed a little, then described a half-circle, put on more power, and raced along beside the runaway machine. It took him but a moment to lean over and shut off the engine.

"How did you happen to get in a fix like this, Welcome?" he asked, when both machines were at a halt and the old man was standing on one foot and trying to jerk his wooden leg loose from the pedal.

"Can't ye guess what onnery limb put this up on me?" glared Welcome. "Not sence I reformed hev I ever felt like p'intin' fer All Outdoors an' becomin' a hootin', tootin' border ruffian, as I do this here minit! Wow![Pg 3] The ole sperrit is a-bubblin' an' a-stirrin' around in me like all-possessed, an' I don't reckon I kin hang out agin' it."

"Buck up, Welcome," said Matt, who knew the old fellow's eccentricities as well as any one, and understood just how much of a false alarm he was. "It won't do for you to backslide now, after you've lived a respectable life for so long. Here, I'll get the lashing off that wooden leg of yours."

Leaning his motor-cycle against a tree by the roadside, Matt bent down and got busy with the rope. As soon as Welcome could jerk the pin loose, he whirled and stumped furiously back in the direction of Chub and Penny. Matt grinned a little as he looked after him.

"I never saw the old chap stirred up as bad as he is now," he muttered. "I wonder what Dirk Hawley is doing over in this direction? Welcome came within one of knocking him into the canal. If that had happened there'd sure have been fireworks."

After leaning Penny's machine against the tree, Matt mounted his own and started for the bridge. As he crossed the bridge he saw something white lying on the planks, and halted to pick the object up. It proved to be an old envelope with an enclosure of some sort, and was addressed to James McReady, Phœnix, A. T. This address was in ink, but the "James McReady" had been scratched out and the name of "Mark McReady" penciled above it.

James McReady was a prospector, and was in the hills looking for gold most of the time. He was Mark's father, and Mark's nickname was "Chub." Evidently this letter was intended for Chub, and had fallen from Dirk Hawley's pocket when he threw himself out of the way of Welcome and the charging motor-cycle. But how was it that such a letter happened to be in the possession of Hawley, the gambler? While Matt was puzzling over that phase of the question, a heavy step sounded on the bridge, and a gruff, commanding voice called out:

"What are you doin' with that letter? Hand it over here; it belongs to me!"

CHAPTER II.

UNDERHAND WORK.

That was not the first time Matt King had met Dirk Hawley. The man was highly successful in his nefarious profession, owned a gambling-house in Phœnix, and Matt knew, from personal observation, that he was both tricky and unscrupulous. During the recent Phœnix-Prescott athletic meet Hawley had tried to bribe Matt to withdraw from the bicycle-race, and had even gone so far as to have him abducted from Phœnix, in order to keep him out of it. The gambler, in conjunction with an enemy of Matt's named Dace Perry, had "plunged" heavily on the Prescott contestant, and only Matt's timely arrival at the track had saved the day for Phœnix.[A]

[A] See Motor Matt Weekly No. 1 for an account of Matt's exciting dash of twenty miles from the hills into Phœnix, and his arrival at the track in time to race with O'Day, the Prescott champion, and win the prize in the bicycle contest—a seven-horse-power motor-cycle. The story was entitled "Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel."

Because of all this, there was little love lost between Hawley and Matt. The gambler's face, as he stood on the bridge with one hand outstretched, was full of anger and determination. Matt eyed him coolly. With a muttered imprecation, Hawley snatched at the letter, but Matt stepped back quickly and thrust the missive behind him.

"What d'you mean?" panted Hawley savagely.

"I mean that this letter isn't yours," replied Matt. "It's addressed to my chum, Mark McReady."

"Never you mind who it's addressed to. I say it's mine, and that's all you need to know. Give it here! This ain't the first time your trail's crossed mine, young feller, an' I'm gittin' mighty tired of havin' you butt in an' try to give me the double-cross. If you know when you're well off you'll mind your own business—if you've got any to mind. Gi'me that, an' no more foolishness!"

Hawley finished with a snap of his big, protruding lower jaw. He was a man accustomed to having his way, and from his manner it was plain that he intended to have it now. But if he was determined, so was Matt; and there was a glint in Motor Matt's gray eyes which Hawley would have done well to heed.

Chub and Penny had approached the bridge from behind the gambler, drawn to the scene by the other's loud voice and blustering manner. Matt's face was toward the boys, but Hawley had his back to them and did not know they were so close.

As Hawley made his last fierce demand for the letter, he sprang forward, intending to take it by force if he could not get it in any other way. Matt, who was watching him warily, leaped back and jerked his motor-cycle in front of him. Hawley came into violent collision with the hundred-and-fifty-pound machine, barking a shin on one of the pedals and getting a sharp dig in the stomach with one of the handle-bars. Matt hung to the motor-cycle and kept it from going over, for he was not taking any more chances with the Comet than he was obliged to.

Breathless and fairly boiling with wrath, Hawley fell back.

"Confound you!" he fumed, doubling up with both hands on the pit of his stomach, "I'll make you sorry for this! If you don't give me that letter, I'll——"

"There it goes!" cried Matt, flipping the letter deftly over the gambler's head. "Catch, Chub!" he added. "That's addressed to you, but it dropped out of Hawley's pocket, here on the bridge. Take care of it."

Chub grabbed the letter out of the air.

"You bet I'll take care of it," he answered. "It was dad who scratched out his own name and wrote mine over it—I can tell his fist as far as I can see it. How in Sam Hill did Hawley happen to have this?"

The gambler turned on Chub with an angry snarl.

"I reckon it is yours," said he, with a puzzling change of tactics that Matt could not understand, "but that's no reason I should give it up to that young cub," and he turned to glare at Matt. "The letter came into my hands by accident, an' I was takin' the trouble to walk out here an' bring it to you when that old freak, Perkins, came within an ace of running me down."

"Why didn't you give it to me, then?" demanded Chub. "You had plenty of chance while Matt was racin' after Welcome an' stoppin' the other machine."

"How could I give it to you," scowled Hawley, "when it was layin' on the bridge?"

[Pg 4]

"You never made a move to take it out of your pocket," scored Chub, "an' you didn't know you'd dropped it on the bridge till you'd turned around an' saw Matt pickin' it up."

"Aw, what's the use of chewin' the rag with a lot o' kids, anyhow?" snapped Hawley, whirling around and starting across the bridge toward town. As he passed Matt he gave him a hostile look. "I've got a big score to settle with you, my bantam," he said, between his teeth, "an' you can chalk it up that you're goin' to get all that's comin' before I'm done."

Matt did not reply, but returned the gambler's look steadily. Then he watched him as he limped off down the road.

"Here's a go!" exclaimed Chub, as soon as Hawley was out of ear-shot. "He never intended to give me the letter. I'd never have got it if Welcome hadn't come so near runnin' him down, an' if you hadn't seen it, Matt, an' got hold of it first. What sort of a game do you calculate he was tryin' to play?"

"What did he say to you while I was sailing after Welcome?" asked Matt.

"Why, he asked if I had heard anythin' from dad lately—wanted to know if anythin' had come by wireless from Delray at the Bluebell."

Chub was of an inventive turn, and had constructed a wireless apparatus that enabled him to communicate with the Bluebell Mine, twenty miles away in the hills. Delray, the watchman at the Bluebell, was an old telegraph-operator, and a good friend of Chub's and Matt's.

"He didn't say anything about having a letter for you?"

"Not a yip. What's he developed such a sudden an' overwhelmin' interest in dad for? Why, he wouldn't even pass the time of day with dad, even if dad was willin'—which he wouldn't be, not havin' a very high opinion of Hawley anyhow. And yet, here's Dirk Hawley, walkin' 'way out here to bat up a few questions concernin' dad. But he wasn't intendin' to give me that letter, that's a cinch."

"I'm dashed if I think he was, either," mused Matt. "He made a sudden shift, after I got the letter into your hands, Chub."

"Take it from me," chimed in Penny, "Dirk Hawley's up to some underhand work. Mebby you two can figure it out, but I've got to be goin'. Hope old Perk'll get over his mad spell, Chub," he added, with a grin.

"Susie'll smooth him down, Ed," laughed Chub, "but I guess he won't buy that gasoline push-cart of yours for me, now."

"Was Welcome thinking of doing that?" put in Matt.

"That's what he had in his mind, but after that wild ride, and the way he felt when he got through with it, I guess that little Reddy McReady will have to pass up the motor-cycle."

"Well," said Penny, starting off, "a hundred takes 'er, Chub, if the reformed road-agent changes his mind."

When Penny got over the bridge, and had headed for the place where his motor-cycle had been left, Chub and Matt went on with their talk about Dirk Hawley and the letter.

"It's the biggest mystery I ever went up against," declared Chub.

"Maybe there's a way you can clear it up," said Matt.

"How?"

"Why, by reading the letter," laughed Matt, "instead of standing there and bothering your head about it."

"Sure," returned Chub. "That's the one thing to do, and it's the one thing I hadn't thought of."

Just as he started to take the letter out of the envelope, a shrill voice reached the boys from along the road.

"Mark! Come here, Mark—and hurry!"

Chub and Matt shifted their gaze to the front of the house. Chub's sister Susie was standing by the gate and seemed to be considerably excited. As she called to her brother, she waved her hands frantically.

"Gee-whiskers!" exclaimed Chub, pushing the letter into his pocket. "What's to pay now?"

"Perhaps Welcome refuses to be smoothed down," suggested Matt.

"It's somethin' besides that," declared Chub.

Matt mounted the Comet and kept abreast of Chub as he hurried back toward the house.

"Come around to the kitchen—quick!" called Susie, retreating hurriedly through the gate as the boys came close.

Matt took his machine into the yard and leaned it against the wall. Chub had already followed Susie into the kitchen, and they were standing in one corner of the room, looking down at the wreck of Chub's wireless apparatus when Matt ran in.

"What d'ye think of that?" wailed Chub, waving his hand toward the smashed instrument.

"Who did it?" queried Matt.