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 ENEMIES;

OR,

A STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT.

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. George Lorry, a lad who has begun steering a wrong course, and in whom Matt recognizes a victim of circumstances rather than a youth who is innately conceited, domineering and unscrupulous. Lorry, Sr., George's father; a rich man whose attitude toward Motor Matt, in part of the story, is as incomprehensible as it is uncalled-for. Big John, an unscrupulous person who takes his dishonest toll wherever he can find it; but, in crossing Motor Matt's course, he meets with rather more than he has bargained for. Kinky, a pal of Big John. Ross, another pal of Big John; a desperate man with a grievance against Motor Matt. Ollie Merton, a rich man's son with many failings, but rather deeper than he appears. Pickerel Pete, a superstitious little moke who collects two dollars from Motor Matt for a day's work and abruptly resigns.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE ROAD TO WAUNAKEE.

"Do you know what you're doing, John?"

"If I didn't, Ollie, I wouldn't be doing it. I'm not one of these fellows who take a jump in the dark and trust to luck."

"Then it's about time you put me wise. I've been taking jumps in the dark ever since you showed up in Madison yesterday."

The man with the closely cropped red hair, the smooth face, and the mole on his cheek laughed softly.

"Back the car off the road and into the bushes," said he, "then we'll sit where we can look around the bend toward Waunakee and I'll tell you all you want to know."

The young fellow with black hair and a sinister face threw in the reverse and backed the big automobile off the road and into the undergrowth. When he stopped the car it was all but screened from sight. Jumping down, he walked out to where the man was standing in the highway thoughtfully smoking a big, black cigar.

Pulling a silver cigarette case from his pocket, Ollie helped himself to a highly ornamental brand of Turkish poison, each little cylinder cork-tipped and marked in gilt with his monogram.

Big John looked at him with frank disapproval as he took a silver matchbox from his vest and fired the imported "paper pipe."

"You're the silver-plated boy, all right," muttered Big John.

"Sterling, you big duffer," grinned Ollie. "Nothing plated about me."

"The dope they roll up in that rice paper and hand you with your cute little monogram is plate, all right—coffin plate——"

"Oh, splash!" sneered Ollie. "You're a nice one to lecture a fellow, I must say. Cut it out, John, and tell me what we're here for."

Big John shook his red head forebodingly and moved off toward the bend of the wooded road. Here he sat down just within a fringe of brush, in such a position that he had a good view of the straightaway stretch toward Waunakee, and Ollie pushed in beside him.

"You know George Lorry, all right, eh, Ollie?" Big John observed.

[Pg 2]

A flush crossed Ollie's sinister face.

"You bet I know him!" said he. "The fellows used to call him 'Sis,' because he was so nice and ladylike. But I've known for a long time there was good stuff in George, and that he'd be a first-rate chap if some one would only cut him adrift from his mother's apron strings. I got him started right," and a very complacent look drifted over Ollie's dark features. "He can smoke cigareets as well as the next one, now, and play as good a game of cards as any fellow in our set. He's got me to thank for that."

Big John stared at Ollie, and once more shook his head.

"What fools you kids can make of yourselves!" he grunted. "You're the one that started young Lorry, eh?"

"He was a sissy," asserted Ollie, "and I was making a man of him. George's folks never treated him right. Old Lorry has got as much money as my governor, but he's a tightwad, all right, and put the screws on George's allowance in a way that was scandalous. George bought a five-thousand-dollar motor launch, and had it sent on here from Bay City, C. O. D., and his skinflint father wouldn't foot the bill and the launch had to go back." Ollie fired up to a white heat. "What sort of a way was that for a man to treat his only son?" he demanded.

"Awful!" commented Big John sarcastically.

"George told me how he was treated," went on Ollie, failing to observe the sarcasm in Big John's voice, "and I advised him to break away and show the old folks that he wasn't going to let 'em tramp on him. He joined our club and got to be one of the best card players we have."

"Beautiful!" expanded Big John. "I suppose his folks were all cut up about that, eh?"

"I guess they were, only old Lorry took the wrong way of showing it. What do you think he did?" flared Ollie.

"I'm by. What did he do?"

"Why, he made arrangements to send George to one of these military academies, that's nothing more or less than a reform school. George came to me and told me about it, and asked what he ought to do."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I told him to skip, and to take with him all the money of his father's that he could get his hands on. Old Lorry is a brute, and I didn't make any bones of telling George what I thought."

"And George skipped, taking ten thousand dollars from his father's safe," said Big John. "He went to Chicago first, then bought a ticket to 'Frisco. When he got there he had made friends with three men, and one of those men was me. I'm a villain, Ollie, and ought to be a horrible example to every young fellow who's got sense enough to know right from wrong, and the minute I learned Lorry had ten thousand dollars I planned with my two pals, Kinky and Ross, to get it. We'd have got away with it, too, on a boat to the Sandwich Islands, where I could have bought a pineapple plantation and, mebby, have lived honest for the rest of my life, but something happened."

Big John looked through the bushes, out along the road, and scowled blackly.

"What happened?" demanded Ollie.

"A chap named Joe McGlory——"

"I've heard of him," interrupted Ollie. "He's a cousin of George's, and lives in Arizona. A cowboy and a rowdy—nothing refined or genteel in his make up. Go on."

"Well, McGlory got a message from young Lorry's father asking him to go to 'Frisco and hunt for George. McGlory went, but he'd never have found George in a thousand years if it hadn't been for some one else who butted into the game."

Big John scowled again, this time more fiercely than he had done before.

"Who was it?" queried Ollie.

"Hold your horses a minute," proceeded Big John. "McGlory and this other fellow took after Kinky, Ross, and me, and dropped on us like a thousand of brick. My, oh, my! Say, that other lad was the clear quill, all right. I've seen a good many likely younkers, but never one to match him. I guess you'd call him a 'sissy,' seeing as how he don't smoke, or drink, or gamble, but just trains his muscle to keep in form and cultivates his brain along the line of motors, gasoline motors. And muscle! Son, that fellow's got a 'right' any man would be proud to own, and what he don't know about chug-engines nobody knows."

Ollie's upper lip curled.

"I don't believe in paragons," said he. "But what has all this got to do with our being here?"

"I'm getting to that. With this young fellow's help, McGlory got the ten thousand away from us; not only that, but we had to get out of 'Frisco on the jump to keep the law from layin' hold of us. But Big John wasn't throwing his hands in the air, not as anybody knows of. I knew what would happen. Young Lorry would have to be brought back to Madison, and this motor boy would have to help McGlory bring him back. Also, the ten thousand dollars would be brought back—and I was still yearnin' for that money and the pineapple plantation. I had Ross dodge back to 'Frisco and watch. When McGlory and the other chap took the cars with Lorry, Ross was on the same train, but he had changed himself so no one would have known him. Ross is good at that sort of thing, and that's the reason I made him do the shadowin'. Kinky and me hurried right on to Madison, where I called on you and reminded you of the way I'd once given you a tip on a hoss race in New York and helped you win a thousand. You remembered old times"—Big John grinned widely—"and you wasn't leery of me."

"I always liked you, Big John," averred the misguided youth, "because you're so free and easy."

"Thanks," was the dry response. "Well, to proceed," he went on, "Ross dropped in on Kinky and me, last night, and said that young Lorry and t'other two hadn't come to Madison, but had got off the train at Waunakee and had gone to a little cabin on the bank of a creek that empties into the Catfish. Ross hung around the cabin, listenin', until he found out that one of the outfit was to walk into Madison, this morning, to have a talk with Mr. Lorry. I don't know what the talk's to be about, but this motor boy must have something up his sleeve." Big John gave an ill-omened grin. "As near as I can find out from Ross," he continued, "this chug-engine chap thinks he can make a man out o' Lorry—but he's going about it a little different from what you did, Ollie. Now, I don't care a whoop about anything but that money, and I rather believe I've fixed things so the motor boy won't have easy sailin' with Mr. Lorry. But that's neither here nor there. I got you to bring me out[Pg 3] here in your benzine buggy, this mornin', so I could lay

for the chap that goes into town and take the ten thousand. After I get it, you're to take me to Dane, or Lodi, or Barraboo, and leave me there. That'll settle the debt you owe me on account of the tip I gave you on that hoss race, see? Are you willin'?"

The sinister face of the youth glowed with a fierce light.

"I'm willing to help you get away, Big John," he answered, "and I'm even willing to help you get the money. This motor boy you speak about is trying to undermine my influence with George, and, by Jupiter, I won't have it. I know what's the best thing for George."

"We won't talk about that part of it," said Big John, who was a strange mixture of right principles and evil actions, "because I might say something you wouldn't like. As I was saying, I've got my heart set on an honest life and a pineapple plantation, and ten thousand ain't any more to Lorry, the millionaire, than ten cents is to me. I'm going to get that money—and here's where I turn the trick. You can go farther back into the bushes and watch, for I don't need your help."

Unbuttoning his coat, Big John began unwrapping coil after coil of light rope from around his waist. When he was through he had a thirty-foot riata in his left hand and was holding the noose in his right.

Ollie, who had never been the confederate of a man before in such a rascally piece of work, stared with wide eyes at Big John; then, before pushing farther back into the brush, he turned his eyes down the wooded road.

A young fellow, lithely built, and with the grace and freedom of movement that marks the perfect athlete, was swinging toward the bend from the direction of Waunakee.

"Is that McGlory?" asked Ollie in a whisper.

"Nary it ain't McGlory," replied Big John, with a snap of the jaws. "It's Matt King, otherwise Motor Matt, and here's where he gets what's comin' for meddlin' in affairs that's none of his business. Get back, I tell you, and give me a free hand."

CHAPTER II.

INTO A NOOSE—AND OUT OF IT AGAIN.

Motor Matt, swinging along the road toward Madison, that morning, was particularly light-hearted. He and his new chum, Joe McGlory, had accomplished something worth while; and whenever a young fellow does that he is pretty sure to be on good terms with himself.

The long railroad journey from San Francisco to a point within a few miles of Madison had been safely accomplished. Young Lorry had not been a willing traveler, at first, but Matt had gradually won him over by suggesting a plan which carried an appeal to Lorry's heart. This plan had to do with the three boys leaving the train at Waunakee, taking to the little cabin in the woods, and then Lorry and McGlory staying there while Matt went on to the city for a talk with the elder Lorry and to deliver the ten thousand dollars.

Motor Matt and McGlory had had some exciting experiences with Big John and his two pals, Kinky and Ross, but those experiences had been passed through safely, and the end of the journey, if not of Matt's work, was in sight.

Matt had faith to believe that there was "good stuff" in George Lorry. The boy had fled from Madison, and had committed a dishonest act before doing so. Having far and away too much pride for his own good, the thought of being brought back, virtually under guard and in disgrace, was more than he could bear. Matt had tried to think of a plan for giving Lorry's return a different look—hence the reason for McGlory and Lorry remaining in the cabin while Matt went on to the city.

The morning was fresh, the sun was bright, and the clear weather seemed a good augury for what lay before. Matt always made it a point to look on the bright side of things, anyway.

Ahead of him lay a bend in the road. When he rounded the bend he felt sure that he would be able to catch a glimpse of the white dome of the capitol, and from that point onward he would not be long in covering the ground.

He halted abruptly just before he got to the bend. The peculiar corrugated marks of automobile tires lay under his eyes in the dust of the road. It wasn't so much the marks themselves that claimed his attention as the strange way they curved from the roadside and entered the brush. Why should an automobile be taking to the woods in that unaccountable fashion?

From ahead of him, around the bend, he heard a car. The car was on the move, plainly enough, but the motor was in distress, pounding badly; not only that, but there was a smell of fried engine in the air, as though some reckless driver were burning up his transmission.

Was the car Matt heard the one that had left its tracks there by the roadside? He presumed that this must be the case; so, instead of investigating the bushes, he started to run around the bend. If he could help the injured car, then perhaps the driver might give him a lift the rest of the way into town.

As he started on, after a moment's pause, a sinuous, snakelike thing leaped noiselessly from the bushes behind him, unwound itself in the air, and a loop fell over his head and dropped on his shoulders.

Motor Matt jumped as though he had been touched with a live wire. He half turned and lifted his hands to remove the coil, but it tightened before he could free himself, and a rough jerk from behind landed him on his back in the dust.

Matt had not been expecting such lawlessness on that peaceable country road. Who was back of it, and what was the purpose?

To escape, half-strangled as he was and with enemies bearing down on him, was out of the question—at that moment. The lad's resourcefulness suggested a trick, whereby he hoped to gain time and discover a chance for escape.

Although the fall backward had not injured him in the least, yet he gave a groan, tried to lift himself, and then fell back and lay still and silent.

In his ears the pounding of the motor around the bend continued to echo, but, from the noise, he could not discover that the car was coming in his direction. A quick tramp of feet and a rustle of bushes were heard, and two figures bounded to his side. One of the figures was that of a man, and the other of a well-dressed, dissipated-looking youth.

[Pg 4]

Matt, peering from half-closed eyes, could scarcely restrain an exclamation at sight of the man. When he had seen the man last, in San Francisco Bay, he had worn a red beard. Although the beard was gone, Matt recognized the scoundrel instantly—and the mole served to make his identification complete.

"Confound it, John!" grumbled the youth, "now what have you done? If he's badly hurt——"

Big John laughed.

"Hurt! Motor Matt badly hurt by a little drop like that! Why, he's tougher'n whalebone and you couldn't damage him with a sledge hammer. He's just stunned and strangled, that's all. A good thing for me, too, because he'll never know who roped him and we can get away before he comes to himself. Pull out that noose so he can breathe, Ollie. I'll get what I want out of the younker's pocket and——"

"There's another machine!" Ollie muttered, staring toward the bend as he was about to stoop over Matt and release the noose.

"Just heard it?" answered Big John. "Well, don't let it worry you. I've heard it for some time, and it's coming into this road from a branch and is bound for town. Look sharp, now, for we've got to hustle."

While Ollie, with trembling fingers, pulled out the loop and drew it over Matt's head, Big John went down on one knee to search his pockets.

Matt knew, then, what Big John was after. The rascal was foolish enough to think Matt was carrying Lorry's money in cash. This was not the case, for Matt and McGlory had bought a draft in San Francisco. Matt, however, did not intend to lose even the draft.

Suddenly, and most unexpectedly, he became very much alive. With a quick move he hoisted himself upward, catching Ollie by the shoulders and hurling him, with terrific force, against Big John.

Both the youth and the man were caught at a disadvantage. Ollie gave a startled cry as he carromed against Big John, and the latter, as he staggered back, said something more forcible than polite.

As for Matt, if he had any comments to make, he preferred to send them by mail. Without hesitating an instant, he took to his heels and tore around the bend.

He could see the dome of the capitol, far off and embowered by trees, but he was thinking more, at that moment, of the other car than he was of the capitol.

A hundred yards ahead was another road, coming from the timber into the one he was following. The moment Matt raced around the bend a swagger little runabout was jumping from one road into the other.

The car was not headed toward Madison, although it was proceeding in that direction. It was on the reverse gear, and a young woman in the driver's seat was craning her head around in order to see the way and do the guiding.

There was only the young woman in the car, and Matt, in spite of his dangerous situation, felt a distinct sense of disappointment. He had been hoping to meet a man, in that emergency, and now to meet a young woman——

But he had no time to waste in vain regrets. A look over his shoulder showed him Big John hurrying after him at top speed.

Matt knew that Big John was one of those lawless persons who carry weapons in their hip pockets, and, although Matt's legs could outdistance Big John's, the young motorist would hardly be able to keep ahead of a bullet.

But Big John held his hand and determined to trust to his sprinting ability. To use a revolver would, perhaps, have carried the matter farther than he wanted to see it go.

Besides, Ollie was cranking up the big car and making ready to bring it along in pursuit.

The smell of sizzling engine became stronger as Matt drew closer to the runabout. The girl, with a very white face, had turned in her seat and was staring toward Matt with startled eyes. At the same moment she had brought the car to a stop.

Big John, on seeing Matt draw abreast of the runabout, halted and looked around for Ollie and the touring car.

"Will you give me a ride into Madison?" Matt asked of the girl, as respectfully as he could in the circumstances.

"What's—what's the matter?" asked the girl.