MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
NO. 31
SEPT. 25, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S
MARINER
OR FILLING THE
BILL FOR BUNCE
_By
THE AUTHOR
OF MOTOR MATT_
_STREET & SMITH
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK_
[Illustration: _The jolt was terrific. Motor Matt was thrown roughly
against the front seat and Bunce went into the air as though shot from
a gun._]
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. 31.= NEW YORK, September 25, 1909. =Price Five Cents.=
MOTOR MATT'S MARINER;
OR,
Filling the Bill for Bunce.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. "BUDDHA'S EYE."
CHAPTER II. THE GREEN PATCH.
CHAPTER III. MOTOR MATT--TRUSTEE.
CHAPTER IV. BUNCE HAS A PLAN.
CHAPTER V. BUNCE SPEAKS A GOOD WORD FOR HIMSELF.
CHAPTER VI. THE HOMEMADE SPEEDER.
CHAPTER VII. TRAPPED.
CHAPTER VIII. THE CUT-OUT UNDER THE LEDGE.
CHAPTER IX. BETWEEN THE EYES.
CHAPTER X. THE MAN FROM THE "IRIS."
CHAPTER XI. ABOARD THE STEAM YACHT.
CHAPTER XII. GRATTAN'S TRIUMPH.
CHAPTER XIII. FROM THE OPEN PORT!
CHAPTER XIV. LANDED--AND STUNG.
CHAPTER XV. A CRAFTY ORIENTAL.
CHAPTER XVI. THE MANDARIN WINS.
JERRY STEBBINS' HOSS TRADE.
THE PHANTOM ENGINEER.
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.
=Tsan Ti=, Mandarin of the Red Button, who proves adept in the ways
of Oriental craft, and shows how easy it is for a person to shift
his dangers and responsibilities to other shoulders--if only he goes
about it in the right way.
=Philo Grattan=, a talented person who devotes himself to "tricks
that are dark and ways that are vain," and whose superb assurance
leads him to flaunt his most memorable crime in the face of the
authorities through the medium of moving pictures. A man fitted by
nature for a worthier part than he plays, and whose keen mind is not
able to save him from deception.
=Bunce=, the mariner, and a pal of Grattan.
=Pardo=, who charters a power-boat and uses it in forwarding a plot
of Grattan's.
=Bronson=, a railroad superintendent, who appears briefly but
creditably.
CHAPTER I.
"BUDDHA'S EYE."
"It's three long and weary hours, pard, before the boat for New York
ties up at the landing. You don't want to cool your heels in the hotel,
do you, while we're waiting? How about doing something to fill in the
time?"
It was about seven o'clock in the evening, and Motor Matt and his
cowboy chum, Joe McGlory, were sitting on the porch of their hotel in
Catskill-on-the-Hudson. The hotel was on an elevation, and the boys
could look out over the river and see the lights of steamers, tugs,
motor boats, and other craft gliding up and down in a glittering maze.
Matt had been looking down at the river lights, and dreaming. He
aroused himself with a start at the sound of his chum's voice.
"What would you suggest, Joe?" he asked.
"Let's take in the moving-picture shows. Say, they're the greatest
thing for a nickel that I ever saw. Some yap gets into trouble, and
then ladies and gents, and workmen, and clerks, and nurses with baby
cabs take after the poor duffer, and there's a high old time for all
hands. I'm plumb hungry for excitement, Matt. This town has become
mighty tame since we parted company with Tsan Ti."
"If you think the moving-picture shows will furnish what you need in
the excitement line, Joe, we'll go out and take them in."
Matt got up with a laugh, and he and McGlory left the hotel, and laid
a course for the main street of the town. At the first nickel theatre
they came to, they gave up a dime, and moved into the darkened room. An
illustrated song was in the lantern, and a young man with a husky voice
was singing something about a "stingy moon."
The motor boys stumbled around in the dark, and McGlory tried to slip
into a seat that was already occupied. A stifled scream made him aware
of his mistake, and he tumbled all over himself to get somewhere else.
"Speak to me about that!" he whispered to Matt, with a choppy chuckle.
"That's the trouble with these moving-picture honkatonks when you come
in after the lights are out. Oh, bother that stingy moon! I wish the
chap with the raw voice would cut it out, and let the rest of the show
get to climbing over the screen."
"Don't be so impatient, old chap," returned Matt. "You've got to have
something happening to you about once every fifteen minutes, or you get
so nervous you can't sit still. In that respect, you're a lot like Dick
Ferral, a sailor chum I cruised with a while ago. Now----"
"Sh-h-h!" interrupted the cowboy. "The piano has had enough of the
moon, and now here comes the first moving picture."
White letters quivered on the screen. "Buddha's Eye" was the title of
the series of pictures about to be shown. McGlory gulped excitedly, and
Matt stared. The motor boys had just finished a wild entanglement with
a great ruby called the "Eye of Buddha," and this, the first picture in
the first theatre that claimed them, reminded them, with something like
a shock, of recent experiences.
"Sufferin' sparks!" muttered McGlory. "What's the difference between
'Buddha's Eye' and the 'Eye of Buddha,' Matt?"
"No difference, Joe," answered Matt. "This is just a coincidence,
that's all."
The interior of a Buddhist temple was thrown on the screen. The views
were colored, and priests in gray and yellow robes could be seen moving
back and forth and prostrating themselves before a huge gilt idol. The
idol was of a "sitting Buddha" and must have measured full twenty feet
from the temple floor to the top of the head.
With a flash, the interior of the temple gave way to an enlarged view
of the idol's head. The head had but one eye, placed in the centre of
the forehead--a huge ruby, which glowed like a splash of warm blood.
"The Honam joss house, in the suburbs of Canton!" whispered McGlory
excitedly. "If it ain't, I'm a Piute!"
Motor Matt kept silence, wondering.
The boys were next afforded a view of two men, plotting aboard a
sampan near the island of Honam. One was tall and had a dark face and
sinister eyes. He wore a solar hat with a pugree. The other had on
sailor clothes, had a fringe of mutton-chop whiskers about his jaws
and a green patch over his right eye. McGlory grabbed Matt's arm in a
convulsive grip.
"What do you think of that?" demanded the cowboy, in a husky whisper.
"The tinhorn in the sun hat is Grattan, and the webfoot is Bunce. Am I
in a trance, or what?"
"Watch!" returned Matt, fully as mystified as was his chum.
The next picture was labeled, "The Egyptian Balls--view of excavations
at Karnak, on the Upper Nile."
Ponderous ruins were brought into view, showing Egyptian fellahs
digging in a subterranean chamber. An urn was lifted up and uncovered.
From this urn the wondering workmen removed a number of crystalline
spheres. One of the spheres dropped from an awkward hand, crashed to
fragments on the floor of the chamber, and instantly all the workmen
staggered, flung their hands to their faces, and fell sprawling, lying
on the stones prone and silent.
Two men stole in upon them, covered with flowing Arab robes, and their
faces masked in white. Swiftly they gathered up some of the balls, and
the camera followed them as they left the chamber and stood under the
broken columns of the ancient temple of Karnak. The robes were flung
away, and the masks removed. Grattan and Bunce, the sampan plotters,
stood revealed.
"I've got the blind staggers, I reckon!" mumbled McGlory, rubbing his
eyes. "It was in Egypt Grattan got his dope balls--the glass spheres
filled with the knock-out fumes. This--this--sufferin' brain twisters!
It's more'n I can savvy."
After Grattan and Bunce had gone through a pantomime expressive of
their wild delight on securing the balls, the films entered into
another series, entitled, "The Theft of the Great Ruby from the Honam
Joss House, near Canton, China."
The walls outside the temple were shown, and an avenue bordered with
banyan trees, with rooks flapping among the branches. Grattan and Bunce
were seen making their way along the avenue, entering the temple court,
and coming into the chamber which had been flashed on the screen at the
beginning.
Here was the huge idol again, and the yellow-robed priests moving
about. For a space, Grattan and Bunce stood and gazed; then, suddenly,
Grattan pulled a hand from his coat, held one of the glass balls over
his head for a space, then sent it crashing among the priests. The
priests started up in amazement, recovered their wits, and rushed
toward the foreign devils. But the priests were suddenly stricken
before Grattan and Bunce could be roughly dealt with.
White masks had been pushed over the faces of the two plotters, and
the pair watched while the priests, overcome by the paralyzing,
sense-destroying fumes from the broken balls, reeled to the temple
floor, and lay there in inert heaps. The masks protected Grattan and
Bunce from the baneful influence of the balls.
As soon as the priests were stretched silent upon the floor, Grattan
unwound a ladder of silk from about his waist. One end of the ladder
was weighted with a bit of lead, and this end was thrown over the
idol's head. Thereupon, Grattan mounted the ladder, and dug out the
ruby with a knife. Upon descending, he and Bunce went through another
pantomime, suggesting their joy over the success of their shameless
work, and then passed quickly from the court, stuffing their white
masks into their pockets as they went.
The next scene was in the room of a house in the foreign quarter, on
the sea wall, called Shameen. Grattan was secreting the ruby in the
head of a buckthorn cane. Barely was the secreting done, when a fat
mandarin burst in on them with a number of armed coolies at his heels.
The mandarin seemed to be accusing Grattan. Grattan could be seen to
shake his head protestingly. Then Grattan and Bunce were searched
thoroughly, and the room ransacked. In the utmost chagrin, the mandarin
and his coolies left, without having been able to discover anything. A
few minutes later, the thieves took their triumphant departure, Grattan
exultantly waving the buckthorn stick.
Scarcely breathing, and with staring eyes, the motor boys continued to
watch the pictures as they raced over the white screen. What wonder
work was this? From Grattan's own lips Matt had heard of the robbery
at the Honam joss house, in which Grattan had played such an important
part. So far, the pictures had shown it substantially as the details
had come from Grattan; there were a few minor differences, but they
were insignificant.
From this point, however, Grattan's story and the story as told by the
pictures were at variance.
The thieves got into a couple of sedan chairs, each chair carried by
four coolies. Apparently, Grattan and Bunce were on their way to the
river to embark for other shores. When near the landing, one of the
poles supporting the chair in which Grattan was riding broke. The chair
fell, the bamboo door burst open, and Grattan tumbled out. One of the
coolies picked up the buckthorn cane, and another the sun hat with the
pugree. Grattan, in anger, knocked down the coolie who had picked up
his hat. The other, coming to his countryman's aid, struck at Grattan
with the head of the cane. Grattan dropped to his knees. The cane
passed over his head, and the force the coolie had put into the blow
carried the stick out of his hand, and sent it smashing against the
side of a "go-down."
The head of the cane was broken, and the great ruby rolled over the
earth out of the débris, and lay gleaming in the sun under the eyes
of the astounded coolies. Then, with the inexplicable timeliness
so prevalent in motion pictures, the fat mandarin and his coolies
came upon the scene, the mandarin gathering in "Buddha's Eye" with
extravagant expressions of joy, and Grattan and Bunce writhing
desperately in the hands of the chair men and the mandarin's guard.
That was all. The scenes to follow were of a humorous order, and
probably had to do with some unfortunate getting into trouble and
leading a varied assortment of people a gay chase, but McGlory had lost
interest in the show. So had Matt.
As by a common impulse, the boys got up and groped their bewildered way
out of the room and into the street. They were dazed, thunderstruck,
and hardly knew what to think.