MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
NO. 28
SEPT. 4, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S
"SHORT CIRCUIT"
OR THE MAHOUT'S
VOW
_BY THE AUTHOR
OF "MOTOR MATT"_
_STREET & SMITH
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK_
[Illustration: _The huge beast towered above Motor Matt like a
mountain, but the king of the motor boys held his ground._]
MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION
_Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Copyright, 1909, by_
STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y._
No. 28. NEW YORK, September 4, 1909. Price Five Cents.
Motor Matt's "Short=circuit"
OR,
THE MAHOUT'S VOW.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. THE SERPENT CHARMER.
CHAPTER II. A BAD ELEPHANT.
CHAPTER III. BURTON'S LUCK.
CHAPTER IV. MOTOR MATT'S COURAGE.
CHAPTER V. DHONDARAM'S EXCUSE.
CHAPTER VI. ROBBERY.
CHAPTER VII. BETWEEN THE WAGONS.
CHAPTER VIII. A PEG TO HANG SUSPICIONS ON.
CHAPTER IX. A WAITING GAME.
CHAPTER X. A TRICK AT THE START.
CHAPTER XI. IN THE AIR WITH A COBRA.
CHAPTER XII. A SCIENTIFIC FACT.
CHAPTER XIII. PING ON THE WRONG TRACK.
CHAPTER XIV. FACING A TRAITOR.
CHAPTER XV. MEETING THE HINDOO.
CHAPTER XVI. A BIT OF A BACKSET.
ON THE BAHAMA REEFS.
THE STORY OF A WILD GOOSE.
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=, a Chinese boy who insists on working for Motor Matt, and who
contrives to make himself valuable, perhaps invaluable.
=Carl Pretzel=, an old chum who flags Motor Matt and more trouble
than he can manage, at about the same time. In the rôle of detective,
he makes many blunders, wise and otherwise, finding success only to
wonder how he did it.
=Dhondaram=, a Hindoo snake charmer and elephant trainer, who is
under an obligation to Ben Ali and gets into trouble while trying to
discharge it.
=Andy Carter=, ticket-man for Burton's Big Consolidated Shows; a
traitor to his employer, and who emerges from his evil plots with
less punishment than he deserves.
=Boss Burton=, manager and proprietor of the "Big Consolidated," who,
in his usual manner, forms hasty conclusions, discovers his errors,
and shows no sign of repentance.
=Archie Le Bon=, a trapeze performer who swings on a flying bar under
Motor Matt's aëroplane--and has a bad attack of nerves.
=Ben Ali=, an old Hindoo acquaintance who figures but briefly in the
story. His vow, and the manner in which he sought its fulfillment,
brings danger to the king of the motor boys.
CHAPTER I.
THE SERPENT CHARMER.
A brown man in a white turban sat by the river. It was night, and a
little fire of sticks sent strange gleams sparkling across the water,
and touched the form of the brown man with splashes of golden light.
The man was playing on a gourd flute. The music--if such it could be
called--was in a high key, but stifled and subdued. Under the man, to
keep his crouching body from the earth, had been spread a piece of
scarlet cloth. In front of him was a round wicker basket, perhaps a
foot in diameter by six inches high.
As the man played, the notes of the flute coming faster and faster, the
lid of the basket began to tremble as by some pent-up force. Finally
the lid slid open, and a hooded cobra lifted its flat, ugly head. With
eyes on those of the serpent charmer, the cobra began weaving back
and forth in time to the music. Now and then the snake would hiss and
dart its head at the man. The latter would dodge to avoid the striking
fangs, meanwhile keeping up his flute-playing.
It was an odd scene, truly, to be going forward in a country like
ours--cut bodily from the mysteries of India and dropped down on
the banks of the Wabash, there, near the intensely American city of
Lafayette.
While the brown man was playing and the cobra swayed, and danced, and
struck its lightning-like but ineffectual blows, another came into
the ring of firelight, stepping as noiselessly as a slinking panther.
He, like the other, wore a turban, and there was gold in his ears and
necklaces about his throat.
The first man continued his flute-playing. The other, with a soft
laugh, went to the player's side, sank down, and riveted his own
snakelike orbs upon the diamond eyes of the cobra. Once the serpent
struck at him, but he drew back and continued to look. With one hand
the newcomer took the flute from the player's lips and laid it on the
ground; then, in a silence broken only by the crackling fires, the eyes
of the man snapped and gleamed and held those of the cobra.
The effect was marvelous. Slowly the cobra ceased its rhythmical
movements and dropped down and down until it retreated once more into
the basket; then, with a quick hand, the lid of the receptacle was
replaced and secured with a wooden pin.
"Yadaba!" exclaimed the first man.
"Not here must you call me that, Dhondaram," said the second. "I am
known as Ben Ali."
Dhondaram spat contemptuously.
"'Tis a name of the Turks," he grunted; "a dog's name."
"It answers as well as any other."
These men were Hindoos, and their talk was in Hindustani.
"You sent for me at Chicago," proceeded Dhondaram; "you asked me to
come to this place on the river, and to bring with me my most venomous
cobra. See! I am here; and the cobra, you have discovered that the
flute has no power to quiet its hostility. Your eyes did that,
Yada--your pardon; I should have said Ben Ali. Great is the power of
your eyes. They have lost none of their charms since last we met."
Ben Ali received this statement moodily. Picking up a small pebble, he
cast it angrily into the fire.
"Why have you brought me here?" inquired Dhondaram, rolling a cigarette
with materials taken from the breast of his flowing robe.
"Because," answered Ben Ali, "I have made a vow."
"By Krishna," and Dhondaram threw himself forward to light
his cigarette at the fire, "vows are evil things. They bring
trouble--nothing less."
"This one," hissed Ben Ali, "will bring trouble to an enemy of mine."
"And to yourself, it may be," added Dhondaram, resuming his squatting
attitude on the scarlet cloth and whiffing a thin line of vapor into
the air.
"The goddess Kali protects me," averred Ben Ali. "It is written in my
forehead."
"What else is written in your forehead?" asked Dhondaram after a space.
"What was it that caused you to send for me, and to ask me to leave my
profitable work in the museum, come here, and bring the worst of my
hooded pets?"
Ben Ali, in the silence that followed, picked up more pebbles and cast
them into the fire.
"During the feast of Nag-Panchmi," he observed at last, "years since,
Dhondaram, a mad elephant crushed a boat on the Ganges. You were in the
boat, and I snatched you from certain death."
Dhondaram's face underwent a swift change.
"That, also," he said in a subdued tone, "is written in my forehead. I
remembered it when your letter came to me. I owe you obedience until
the debt is paid. I am here, Ben Ali. Command me."
"_Such baht!_ You, with the cobra, Dhondaram, will go against my enemy
and fulfill my vow. That will repay the debt."
A look of fear crossed Dhondaram's face. It passed quickly, but had not
escaped the keen eyes of Ben Ali.
"You are afraid!" and he sneered as he spoke.
"And if I am?" protested the other. "I am bound to obey, and lose my
life, if I must, in paying for the saving of it during the feast of
Nag-Panchmi. Who is your enemy, Aurung Zeeb?"
Ben Ali struck the ground with his clinched fist.
"Aurung Zeeb is a coward!" he exclaimed. "He fled and left me to work
out my vengeance alone. _Hurkutjee!_ Let us speak no more of him. You
knew of my brother, the rajah? How our sister married the _feringhi_,
Captain Lionel Manners, of the English army? How he died, and his
wife perished in the _ghats_, by _suttee_? Of the daughter they left,
Margaret Manners? How, out of hatred to the rajah, I brought the girl
to this country and destroyed her will by the power of the eyes? How we
traveled with the show of Burton Sahib?"
Dhondaram nodded gravely.
"I know," he replied.
"But you do not know of the _feringhi_ boy, the one who flies in the
bird machine, and who is called Motor Matt. Because of him I have lost
the girl, and she was making much money for me. I was _mahout_ in the
show for Burton Sahib's worst elephant, Rajah. No other could drive
him, or take care of him. You are a _sapwallah_, a charmer of serpents,
but you are also a charmer of elephants. You can drive them, Dhondaram,
as well as I. You can take care of this Rajah beast as well as I."
"I learned to work with the elephants from my brother, the _muni_,"
observed Dhondaram. "You have lost the niece you called Haidee?"
"She is under the care of the British ambassador, but she is staying in
this town. Perhaps I may get her back--that I do not know. But my vow,
Dhondaram, against this _feringhi_ boy, Motor Matt. That is for you to
carry out. He has wrecked my plans. I will wreck his. He has put me in
danger of my life. Through me, he shall be in danger of his own."
"What am I to do?" queried Dhondaram.
"The show of Burton Sahib is some distance from here, but I will tell
you how to find it. The cobra will help you join it, for Burton Sahib
is always watching for performers. You must learn to do better with
this cobra. By performing with the serpent before Burton Sahib, you
will please him. He must have some one to take care of the elephant,
Rajah. You will apply for the place. Ha! Do you follow me?"
Dhondaram nodded.
"When you have applied for the place I will tell you what to do. The
air machine must be wrecked. Rajah will do that. The _feringhi_ boy
must be put where he will not interfere with my plans for my niece--the
cobra _must do that_."
Dhondaram stirred restlessly.
"The law of this country," he murmured, "has a long arm and a heavy
fist."
"If you do as I say," went on Ben Ali, "you will not be reached by the
arm nor caught by the fist. You will be safe, and so will I; and the
vow of Ben Ali will have been carried out."
"You cannot do this yourself?"
"I should be seized if I showed my face again in the show of Burra
Burton! I should be thrown into the strong house of the _feringhis_ if
I appeared among the tents. Motor Matt has said this, and he has the
power to carry out his threat."
"Had Motor Matt the power to do this when he saved Haidee?"
"He had."
"And he held his hand! Why?"
"Because Haidee was under the spell of my eyes. In order to free her,
he had to bargain with me. The bargain was that I should go free, but
never to trouble Motor Matt or the girl any more. With the girl in my
hands, I could secure many rupees from my brother, the rajah, for her.
And I hate that brother. He is rich, but he made me the keeper of his
elephants! He lived in luxury, but I herded with the coolies."
Again Ben Ali struck his clinched fist on the earth.
"It may be," said Dhondaram, "that Burton Sahib has secured another
keeper for the bad elephant, Rajah? In that case, he would not want me."
"It is not likely," returned Ben Ali. "All the other keepers are afraid
of Rajah. Aurung Zeeb was the only Hindoo who could have managed Rajah,
and he dare not return to the show any more than I. Burton Sahib will
want some one, and he will take you. You will go to him, perform with
the cobra, win his favor. Then, and not till then, you will ask for the
post of elephant keeper. Burton Sahib, my word for it, will give you
Rajah to look after. Then, my friend, you can carry out the terms of
my vow. You will pay your debt, and we shall be quits. I shall have no
further claim on you."
"And I shall escape the arm of the _feringhi_ law?"
"Even so."
"Tell me what I am to do, and how."
Then, as the little tongues of flame threw their weird play of lights
and shadows over the dusky plotters, the talk went on.