A "DARK HORSE."
Ollie Merton was the only son of a millionaire lumberman. The
millionaire and his wife were making an extensive tour of Europe, and
while they were away the son was in complete charge of the big Madison
mansion, with a large fund in the bank subject to his personal check.
Never before had such a chance to "spread himself" came young Merton's
way, and he was making the most of it.
The lad was commodore of the Winnequa Yacht Club, which had its
headquarters near Winnequa, on Third Lake. Another institution, known
as the Yahara Motor Boat Club, had its boathouse on Fourth Lake; and
between the Winnequas and the Yaharas there was the most intense
rivalry.
Twice, in two years hand running, the Winnequas had contested against
the Yaharas for power-boat honors. By winning the first race the
Winnequas had secured a trophy known as the "De Lancey Cup," and by
winning the second race they still retained possession of the cup.
By winning a third time the cup would pass to them in perpetuity. The
Yaharas, feeling that their very existence as a club was at stake,
were bitterly determined to snatch the prize from their rivals. A vast
amount of feeling was wrapped up in the approaching contest.
George Lorry was vice commodore of the Yahara Club. In a secret
session, months before, the Yaharas had commissioned Lorry to carry
the honors of the club and secure a boat which would outrun any the
Winnequas might put in the field.
Lorry, no less than Merton, was the son of a rich man. Without
consulting his father, Lorry ordered a five thousand-dollar hydroplane,
and, at the last moment, parental authority stepped in and denied the
young man such an extravagance.
George Lorry at this time had rather more pride and conceit than were
good for him. His father's action, in the matter of the hydroplane,
stung him to the quick. He felt that he had been humiliated, and that
his comrades, the Yaharas, were giving him the cold shoulder on account
of his failure to "make good" with a winning boat.
George had been wrong in this, but, nevertheless, he resigned from
the boat club and went to the other extreme of making a friend and
associate of Ollie Merton.
Merton, recognizing in Lorry the only source of danger to the prestige
of the Winnequas, had advised George to do certain things with the
object of clearing a rival from the field during the forthcoming race.
That Merton had advised unscrupulous acts, and that Lorry had tried to
carry them out, matters little. Motor Matt met Lorry at just the right
time to keep him from doing something which he would have regretted to
the end of his days.
Very recently Lorry had discovered the false friendship of Merton, and,
coming to see the folly of what he had done in a misguided moment, had
gone back to the Yaharas and requested a renewal of the commission to
furnish a boat for the coming race that would regain the De Lancey cup
for his club. Lorry had been received by his former comrades with open
arms, and they had immediately acceded to his request.
From this it will be understood how great a stake George Lorry had
in the third contest with the Winnequas. Apart from the intense club
spirit which prompted a winning boat at any cost, there was a personal
side to the issue which meant everything to Lorry.
Merton's specious counsel, given for the purpose of getting Lorry out
of the race, had almost brought Lorry to ruin. Now, to best Merton
in the contest had come to be regarded by Lorry as almost a personal
justification.
To Motor Matt young Lorry had turned, and the king of the motor boys
had promised a boat that would regain the lost prize for the Yaharas.
Matt felt that the _Sprite_, with certain changes, could beat anything
on the lakes. Lorry shared his confidence, and Matt was working night
and day to get the swift little eighteen-foot launch in shape for
"warming up" on the water before the regatta.
The theft of the drawings was the first backset Matt and Lorry had
received. Well aware of Merton's questionable character, it was easy
for the lads to believe that he had slipped into the boathouse while
they were up the bank and had taken the plans; or he need only have
come to the window and reach in in order to help himself to them.
Lorry was terribly cut up.
"Merton has got the better of us," he muttered disconsolately. "He'll
know just what we're going to do with the _Sprite_ now, and will make
changes in the _Wyandotte_, or else arrange for another boat to stack
up against us. It's too late for us to order another boat, and we'll
have to go on with the _Sprite_ and look at Merton's heels over the
finish line. Oh, thunder! I wish this Chink and that Pickerel Pete were
in the bottom of the lake!"
Noticing the scowl Lorry gave him, Ping slunk away from his vicinity,
and came closer to where Matt was walking thoughtfully back and forth
across the floor of the boathouse.
"Don't lose your nerve, Lorry," counseled Matt, coming to a halt and
leaning against the work-bench. "No fellow ever won a fight unless he
went into it with confidence."
"It's all well enough to talk of confidence," grumbled Lorry, "but this
is enough to undermine all the hopes we ever had."
"Looked at in one way, yes. Those were my working drawings. They
contained all the measurements of the _Sprite's_ hull, my plans for
changing the gasoline tanks from the bow aft where they would not
bring the boat down so much by the head, also my arrangement for a new
reversing-gear, the dimensions of the motor, and the size and pitch of
our new propeller."
Lorry groaned.
"Why, confound it!" he cried, "Merton will be able to figure out just
what the _Sprite's_ speed should be--and he can plan accordingly for
another boat. There's a way of getting those plans away from him, by
Jupiter!" He started angrily to his feet.
"How?" asked Matt quietly.
"The police," returned Lorry.
"No, not the police! We don't know that Merton has the plans; it's a
pretty safe guess, all right, but we don't absolutely know. When you
call in the law to help you, George, you've got to be pretty sure of
your ground."
Lorry dropped back in his chair dejectedly, and Matt resumed his
thoughtful pace back and forth across the room.
"I've thought for the last two days," Matt went on finally, "that
Merton was rather free in showing off the _Wyandotte_. He has her over
here in Fourth Lake when she belongs in Third, and he's trying her out
on the other side of Picnic Point, almost under our noses. I'm not sure
but that Merton wants us to see his boat's performances."
"Then he's not running the _Wyandotte_ at her racing speed, Matt,"
averred Lorry. "He's only pretending to, hoping that we'll watch her
work and get fooled."
"He'll not fool us much. The _Wyandotte_ is a thirty-seven-footer,
five-foot beam, semi-speed model. She has a two-cylinder, twenty-horse,
two-cycle engine, five-and-three-quarter-inch bore by five-inch stroke.
The propeller has elliptical blades, and is nineteen inches in diameter
by twenty-eight-inch pitch----"
Lorry looked up in startled wonder. Motor Matt had reeled off his
figures off-hand as readily as though reading them from a written
memorandum.
"Where, in the name of glory, did you find out all that?" gasped Lorry.
Matt smiled.
"Why," said he, "I got them in a perfectly legitimate manner from the
builder of the boat, who lives in Bay City. The name of the builder
was easily learned, and a letter did the rest. The _Wyandotte_ can log
fourteen or fifteen miles--no trouble to find that out with pencil and
paper, since we have all those dimensions. Now, the _Sprite_, as she
was, could do her mile in four-twelve--possibly in four--and Merton
knows it. Why, then, is he showing off a boat that is not much better
than the _Sprite_ has been all along? Take it from me, Lorry," and Matt
spoke with supreme conviction, "the _Wyandotte_ is not the boat the
Winnequas will have in the race. _There's another one_, and I've felt
morally sure of it all along."
"You're a wonder!" muttered Lorry. "Why, you never told me you'd
written to Bay City about the _Wyandotte_."
"I intended to tell you at the proper time."
"Well, if Merton is going to spring a surprise boat on us the day of
the race, that makes it so much the worse."
"I have other plans for changing the _Sprite_, but I have been holding
them back until I could make sure Merton was holding another speed
boat in reserve. Those plans weren't in that roll that was stolen,
George; as a matter of fact, they're not down on paper at all. From the
drawings and memoranda Merton has secured he can figure the improved
_Sprite's_ speed at a little less than sixteen miles an hour. Let him
figure that way. The other plans I have will enable her to do twenty."
Lorry bounded off his chair.
"Twenty?" he cried. "Matt, you're crazy!"
Before Matt could answer, Joe McGlory staggered into the boathouse,
dragging a motor cycle after him. Both he and the wheel were splashed
with mud, and bore other evidences of wear and tear, but the cowboy's
eyes were bulging with excitement.
"You've been gone two hours longer than I thought you'd be, Joe," said
Matt, studying his chum with considerable curiosity. "What's happened?"
"That's it!" exploded McGlory, breathlessly, leaning the motor cycle
against the bench. "Speak to me about that! Sufferin' thunderbolts! but
I've made a whale of a discovery."
"What is it?" demanded George, wildly impatient.
"Why," cried McGlory, "Merton's got another boat, and she's certainly
a blue streak, if I know the brand. The fat's in the fire, pards. If
the poor old _Sprite_ gets into a race with this new boat of Merton's,
she'll be in the 'also ran' column."
Lorry collapsed.
"A dark horse!" exclaimed Matt. "I'd have bet a farm Merton was
planning to spring something like that. Buck up, Lorry! Perhaps this
isn't so bad, after all. Tell us about it, Joe."