MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
NO. 17
JUNE 19, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S
CLOSE CALL
_OR_ THE SNARE OF
DON CARLOS
_BY THE AUTHOR
OF MOTOR MATT_
[Illustration: _"Up with the colors, Dick!" shouted Motor Matt.
"Let's see if they dare fire on that flag."_]
_STREET & SMITH,
PUBLISHERS,
NEW YORK_
MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION
_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._
No. 17. NEW YORK, June 19, 1909. Price Five Cents.
Motor Matt's Close Call;
OR,
THE SNARE OF DON CARLOS.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. CARL'S SERENADE.
CHAPTER II. DON RAMON ORTEGA.
CHAPTER III. THE SHADOW OF TREACHERY.
CHAPTER IV. DON CARLOS LAYS HIS SNARE.
CHAPTER V. A MUTINY.
CHAPTER VI. A LESSON IN "WHO'S WHO."
CHAPTER VII. THE SNARE TIGHTENS.
CHAPTER VIII. THE DON'S PROPOSAL.
CHAPTER IX. YSABEL SIXTY'S LOYALTY.
CHAPTER X. AN OPPORTUNITY.
CHAPTER XI. EXCITING WORK.
CHAPTER XII. CAPTURING THE GENERAL.
CHAPTER XIII. OFF FOR THE GULF.
CHAPTER XIV. RUNNING THE BATTERY.
CHAPTER XV. THE "SEMINOLE."
CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION.
PHILIP'S WAY.
PERILOUS OCCUPATIONS.
POI THEIR STAFF OF LIFE.
A CITY BEGUN ON A RAFT.
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.
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.
"Der rose iss ret,
Der fiolet's plue,
Oof I lofe me
As you lofe you,
No knife can cut us togedder!"
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.
"_Du hast diamanten und perlen_--
(Chimineddy, vat a hotness!)
_Hast alles was menschen begehren_--
(Whoosh! Der muskedoodles vas vorse as der heat!)
_Du hast ja die schönsten augen,
Mein liebchen was willst du noch mehr?_"
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.
"You haf plendy oof tiamonts und bearls,
Haf all vat a laty couldt vant,
You haf likevise der peautiful eye-es,
My tarling vat more----"
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 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.