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'S REVERSE;

OR,

Caught in a Losing Cause.

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. Amos Murgatroyd, an enemy of Motor Matt, and who cleverly manipulates the various wires of a comprehensive plot only to find that he has championed a losing cause. Amy, Murgatroyd's niece, who helps right and justice, turning against a relative in order to befriend a stranger. Siwash Charley, a ruffianly assistant of Murgatroyd who proves to be one Cant Phillips, a deserter from the army. Pecos Jones, who has no principles worth mentioning, plays a double part with friend and foe, and abruptly vanishes. 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.

CHAPTER I.

PLOTTERS THREE.

"There's no use talkin', Siwash," and Pecos Jones leaned disgustedly back against the earth wall of the dugout; "he's got one o' these here charmed lives, that feller has, and it ain't no manner o' use tryin' to down him."

Siwash Charley was cramming tobacco into the bowl of a black pipe. He halted operations long enough to give his companion an angry look out from under his thick brows.

"Oh, ye're the limit, Pecos!" he grunted, drawing a match across the top of the table and trailing the flame over the pipe bowl. "The cub's human, an' I ain't never yet seen a human bein' that couldn't be downed—purvidin' ye went about it right."

Pecos Jones scowled discontentedly.

"Then I opine," said he, "ye ain't got sense enough to know how to go about it. That last attempt at Fort Totten wasn't nothin' more'n a flash in the pan. What did ye accomplish, huh? Tell me that. Here y' are, holed up in this dugout an' not darin' to show yer face where it'll be seen an' reckernized. The sojers want ye, an' they want ye bad. Ye come purty nigh doin' up a leftenant o' the army, an' that's why the milingtary is on yer trail, but if they knowed as much o' yer hist'ry as I do, they'd be arter ye a lot worse'n what they——"

"Stow it!" roared Siwash Charley, leaning toward his companion and bringing a fist down on the table with force enough to make the flame leap upward in the chimney of the tin lamp. "Ye'll hush arbout my past hist'ry, Jones, or thar'll be doin's between you an' me."

The place where this conversation was going forward was a hole in the hillside—an excavation consisting of a single room with a door and a window in the front wall. A shelf of earth running around three walls offered a place to sit, as well as a convenient ledge for the stowage of food supplies and cooking utensils.

The window was darkened with a blanket, so that the light would not shine through and acquaint any chance passers with the fact that the interior of the hill was occupied.

Pecos Jones was a little ferret of a man. His face had "undesirable citizen" written all over it.

Siwash Charley was larger, and on the principle that[Pg 2] there can be more villain in a large package than in a small one, Siwash was the more undesirable of the two.

He banged the table and scowled so savagely that Pecos Jones pulled himself together with a startled jerk. Before he could say anything, however, a set of knuckles drummed on the door.

Pecos gasped, and stared in affright at Siwash. The latter muttered under his breath, grabbed up a revolver that was lying on the table and stepped to the door.

"Who's thar?" he demanded huskily.

"Murg," came a muffled reply from the other side of the door.

Siwash laughed, shoved a bolt, and pulled the door wide.

"Come in, Murg," said he. "I was sorter expectin' ye."

A smooth-faced man, wearing gauntlets, a long automobile coat, and with goggles pushed up above the visor of his cap, stepped into the room. He carried a rifle over his arm, and for a moment he stood blinking in the yellow lamplight.

Siwash Charley closed the door.

"Got yer ottermobill fixin's on, eh?" said he, facing about after the door had been bolted; "an' by jings, if ye ain't totin' of er Winchester. Them fellers at Totten arter you, too, Murg?"

Murgatroyd's little, gimlet-like eyes were becoming used to the lamplight. They shot a reproving glance at Siwash, then darted to Pecos Jones.

"Who's that?" he asked curtly.

"Him?" chuckled Siwash. "Oh, he's the Artful Dodger. I reckon he does more dodgin' across the international boundary line than ary other feller in the Northwest. Whenever things git too hot fer Pecos Jones in North Dakotay, he dodges inter Manitoby, and vicer verser. Hoss stealin' is his line."

"Never stole a hoss in my life!" bridled Pecos Jones.

"Thunder!" snickered Siwash. "Why, I've helped ye."

"How does Pecos Jones happen to be here?" demanded Murgatroyd.

"He got ter know this place o' mine while we was workin' tergether. Arter that flyin' machine was tried out at Fort Totten, o' course I had ter slope ter some quiet spot whar I could go inter retirement, an' this ole hang-out nacherly suggested itself. When I blowed in hyer, lo! an' behold, hyer was Pecos."

Murgatroyd appeared satisfied. Standing his rifle in one corner, he pulled off his gauntlets and thrust them in his pockets, sat down on the earth shelf, and hooked up one knee between his hands. For a while he sat regarding Siwash reflectively.

"Is Pecos Jones known at Fort Totten?" he asked.

"Bet yer life I ain't," said Pecos for himself. "What's more," he added, nibbling at a slab of tobacco, "I don't want ter be."

"He works mostly around Turtle Mounting," explained Siwash Charley. "Why?"

"I think he can be useful to us," answered Murgatroyd. "Those other two fellows who helped you at Totten—where are they, Siwash?"

"They was nigh skeered ter death, an' made a bee line fer Winnipeg."

"That was a bad bobble you made at Totten," resumed Murgatroyd. "Motor Matt, in spite of you, put Traquair's aëroplane through its paces, met the government's requirements in every particular, and the machine was sold to the war department for fifteen thousand dollars."

"Things didn't work right," growled Siwash. "I tampered with that thar machine the night before the trials—loosened bolts an' screws an' filed through the wire guy ropes—but nothin' happened till the flyin' machine was done sailin' an' ready ter come down; then that cub, Motor Matt, got in some lightnin' headwork an' saved the machine, saved himself, an' likewise that there Leftenant Cameron of the Signal Corps."

"The boy's got a charmed life, I tell ye," insisted Pecos Jones. "I've heerd talk, up around Turtle Mounting, about what he's done."

"Think of a full-grown man like Pecos Jones talkin' that-a-way!" exclaimed Siwash derisively.

"Motor Matt is clever," said Murgatroyd musingly, "and I made a mistake in sizing him up. But there's a way to get him."

"What do you want to 'get' him fer?" inquired Pecos Jones.

Murgatroyd drew three gold pieces from his pocket and laid them in a little stack on the table, just within the glint of the lamplight.

"Pecos Jones," said he, "Siwash, here, has vouched for you. In the little game I'm about to play we need help. You can either take that money and obey orders, or leave it and get out."

There was a silence, while Pecos eyed the gold greedily. After a little reflection he brushed the coins from the table and dropped them clinking into his pocket.

"I'm with ye," said he. "What's wanted?"

"That's the talk," approved Murgatroyd. "Our plans failed at the aëroplane trials,[A] but I've got another scheme which I am sure will win. You know, Siwash, and perhaps Pecos knows it as well, that Motor Matt was demonstrating that aëroplane for Mrs. Traquair, who lives in Jamestown. Motor Matt came meddling with the business which I had with the woman, and the fifteen thousand, paid by the government for the aëroplane, was divided between Mrs. Traquair and Matt. Half——"

[A] What Murgatroyd's plans were, and why they failed, was set forth in No. 24 of the Motor Stories, "Motor Matt on the Wing; or, Flying for Fame and Fortune."

"We know all that," cut in Siwash.

"Well, then, here's something you don't know. Mrs. Traquair has a quarter section of land near here, on which her husband borrowed one thousand dollars of me while perfecting his aëroplane. After Traquair was killed by a fall with his flying machine, I felt sure I could get that quarter section of land on the mortgage. Now Motor Matt, by helping Mrs. Traquair, has made it possible for her to pay off the mortgage. She hasn't done it yet, because I haven't been in Jamestown since your failure to wreck the aëroplane at Fort Totten. I've been traveling around in my automobile with my niece, who is in poor health. She is in Sykestown now, while I am making this night trip out here. I visited this place once before, you remember, and I kept its location so well in mind that I was able to find it without much trouble. I felt fairly certain, Siwash, that you would be here, so——"

"Well, what's your scheme?" interrupted Siwash Charley.

"I'm getting to that," went on Murgatroyd. "Motor Matt and his friend Joe McGlory, together with the Chinese[Pg 3] boy, Ping Pong, have been at Fort Totten ever since the aëroplane was sold to the government. The war department will take another of the Traquair aëroplanes at the same price paid for this one in case it can be finished and delivered by the first of the month, in time to go to Washington for trials of dirigible balloons and other devices at Fort Myer. Motor Matt is building an aëroplane for this order, and it is nearly completed. I don't care anything about that. What concerns me is that quarter section of land. For reasons of my own, I want it—and I am going to have it, if not in one way, then in another."

"What's yer scheme?" asked Siwash Charley impatiently.

"My scheme is to give Motor Matt such a reverse that Mrs. Traquair will have to come to his rescue and buy his safety with the quarter section."

"Ye never kin do it!"

"I believe that I can." Murgatroyd took a letter from his pocket and laid it on the table. "That," said he, nodding toward the letter, "is to be delivered to Motor Matt at Fort Totten by Pecos Jones, and Jones is to tell a story which will run substantially like this."

Thereupon Murgatroyd entered into a more lengthened review of his crafty scheme, Siwash Charley's eyes gleaming exultantly as he proceeded.

"It's goin' ter win!" declared Siwash, thumping a fist down on the table to emphasize his declaration. "I've got ter saw off even with that young cub, an' I'm with ye, Murg, chaps, taps, an' latigoes! So's Pecos. Ye kin count on the two of us."

"Very good," responded Murgatroyd, getting up and drawing on his gauntlets. "Succeed in this, Siwash, and I'll not only secure the quarter section, but you and Pecos will get more money and, what's better, a promise from the government not to trouble you because of what happened at Fort Totten—or what's going to happen. You understand what you're going to do, so no more need be said. I'll get away before my absence from Sykestown arouses any remarks. So long."

The door closed, and presently the two in the dugout heard the muffled "chugging" of a distant motor car fading into silence in the direction of Sykestown.

CHAPTER II.

THE NEW AEROPLANE.

Motor Matt was as happy as the proverbial bee in clover—and fully as industrious.

A quarter of a mile below the post trader's store, on the Devil's Lake Indian Reservation, a tent, with its sides rolled up, was being used as a workshop. Outside the tent there was a portable forge, anvil, and full outfit of blacksmith's tools. Inside there was a bench with an ironworker's vise, and also a carpenter's bench and well-equipped chest.

For two weeks Matt had been laboring about Camp Traquair, as the little rendezvous was called, assisted in his work by his cowboy chum, Joe McGlory, and with the Chinese boy, Ping, in charge of the culinary department.

Immediately after Matt had finished the aëroplane trials, with so much credit to himself, an order had been given for a new aëroplane at the same price the government had paid for the first one, providing only that it should be finished and tried out by the first of the month. This would enable the machine to be taken apart, crated, and forwarded to Fort Myer for a competitive test in an event that was to determine the abilities of an aëroplane for signal corps' services, as against other types of machines, such as dirigible balloons.

Matt and his two friends had plunged zealously into the work. While McGlory and Ping were erecting the work tent, and furnishing it with wood and iron-working tools, Matt had made a trip to Jamestown for a talk with Mrs. Traquair, and then to St. Paul after materials.

The tough spruce needed for the wings, or "planes," every bolt, screw and wire guy, and the motor, Matt had secured in St. Paul. At a large cost for expressage these materials had been shipped direct to Fort Totten and had arrived there on the same day that witnessed Matt's return.

Then began a season of feverish activity, during which Lieutenant Cameron and others from the post had watched the king of the motor boys with wonder and admiration.

That Motor Matt was possessed of mechanical skill the officers at the post had long known, but that his genius in construction was fully equal to his ability as an aviator became evident from day to day, and was in the nature of a revelation.

"You're the best all-around chap at this business I ever saw in my life," Lieutenant Cameron had declared.

Matt laughed.

"Why, Cameron," he answered, "I used to work in a motor plant, in Albany, New York."

"That may be, Matt, but building a motor is a different proposition from building a flying machine."

"Traquair laid down the plans. All I have to do is to follow them. It's really very simple. An aëroplane, you know, is nothing more than two oblong pieces of canvas, fastened together one above the other and pushed against the air by a motor and propeller. If the motor drives the wings fast enough, they're sure to stay up."

But Cameron shook his head and continued to believe that Motor Matt was something of a phenomenon, whereas Matt knew that he had merely the "knack" for the work, just as he had acquired the "knack" for using the aëroplane in the first place.

"The machine," he declared to Cameron, "is only a big toy."

"Toy?" echoed Cameron. "It's more than that, Matt."

"For the army and navy, yes. Aëroplanes can be used for scouting purposes and for dropping bombs down on hostile armies and war ships—providing they can keep clear of bullets and shells fired from below; but, even for such work, the aëroplane has its limitations."

"The government," laughed Cameron, "is buying these Traquair aëroplanes in spite of their limitations."

"Our war department," answered Matt, "has got to keep abreast of other war departments, and poor Traquair has given you fellows the best aëroplane so far invented."

"Don't you think the Traquair machine will ever be used for commercial purposes? Won't there be fleets of them carrying passengers and merchandise between San Francisco and New York and making the trip at the rate of sixty or one hundred miles an hour?"

"That's a dream," averred Matt; "still," he added, "dreams sometimes come true. My old dirigible balloon,[Pg 4] the Hawk, was a wonder. She could be sailed in a pretty stiff wind, and a fellow didn't have to use his head and hands every blessed second to keep a sudden gust of air from turning his machine upside down. I traveled thousand of miles in the Hawk, but there was always a certain amount of worry on account of the gas. If anything happened to the silk envelope, no amount of work with your head and hands could keep you from a tumble."

"Well, anyway, you're in love with air ships."

"I'm in love with this," and Matt's gray eyes brightened as he touched the motor which he was at that moment installing in the new aëroplane, "and I'm in love with every novel use to which a motor can be put. Explosive engines will furnish the power for the future, and every new way they're used helps that coming time along. But I'm giving a lecture," he smiled, going back to his work, "and I couldn't tell you exactly how I feel on this gas-engine subject if I talked a thousand years. The motors have got a strangle hold on me—they're keeping me out of college, keeping me from settling down, and filling my life with all sorts of adventures. But I can't help it. I'm under the spell of the gas engine, and that's all there is to it."

It was during this talk of Matt's with Cameron, along toward the last days of the busy two weeks, that Ping came into Camp Traquair with a dagger.

"You savvy knife, Motol Matt?" asked Ping, offering the dagger for inspection.

Matt dropped his wrench and took the weapon from the Chinaman.

It was not more than seven inches in length from the end of the handle to the tip of the blade. The blade was badly rusted, and the handle was incrusted with earth.

"Where did you get this, Ping?" inquired Matt, beginning to clean the dagger with the edge of a file.

"My makee find in woods. You savvy place Siwash cally Ping one piecee night he fool with Flying Joss?"

"Flying Joss" was Ping's name for the aëroplane. His heathen mind made a joss of things he could not understand, and this machine of Traquair's had impressed him more than anything else he had ever encountered.

"I remember," answered Matt. "Siwash Charley carried you off into the timber, near the lake shore. You found the dagger there?"

"All same."

"Some Indian must have dropped it," put in Cameron. "From the way it's rusted, it looks as though the redskin must have dropped it a hundred years ago."

"Hardly as long ago as that," returned Matt. "It's a pretty dagger, as daggers go, although I don't admire things of the kind. The blade is of mighty fine steel, and the handle is of sterling silver, set with a ruby, or a piece of colored glass to represent a ruby, at the end. And here are some initials."

A little scraping with the file had bared a flat plate in the handle. Matt studied the initials.

"No," he remarked, "this couldn't have belonged to an Indian, Cameron. Redskins are not carrying silver, ruby-mounted daggers with initials engraved on them."

"Some red may have traded pelts for it," suggested the lieutenant.

"Possibly."

"What are the initials? Can you make them out?"

"There are two letters, sort of twined together," answered Matt. "I make them out to be 'G. F.,' although I——"

An exclamation escaped Cameron.

"Let me see it!" he cried, stepping forward and showing an astonishment and eagerness which bewildered Motor Matt.

For several minutes Cameron turned the blade around and around in his hands, staring in amazement and muttering to himself.

"Will you let me have this for a little while, Matt?" asked the lieutenant when he had finished his examination. "This may be a most remarkable find—remarkable as well as of tremendous importance. I can't tell about that, though, till I have a talk with some of the others at the post."

"Of course you can take it," said Matt. "But what makes that rusty piece of steel so important?"

"I'll tell you—later."

Thereupon the lieutenant whirled in his tracks and made off at speed in the direction of the post.

McGlory had been under the aëroplane fitting in the pipe that led from the tank to the carburetor. He had overheard the talk, however, and had caught a glimpse of the dagger while the lieutenant was examining it.