WHAT NEXT?
"An elegant day--for ducks," said Joe McGlory, turning from the window
against which a torrent of rain was splashing. "I'd about got my nerve
screwed up to the place where I was going to take a fly with you in the
_Comet_, pard."
"Well," laughed Matt, "perhaps it will be a clear, still day to-morrow,
Joe."
"The day may be all right, but whether I have the necessary amount of
nerve is a question. It takes sand to sit on a couple of wings and let
a gasoline engine push you through the clouds. Sufferin' jack rabbits!
Why, Ping, that little, slant-eyed chink, has got more sand than me
when it comes to slidin' around through the firmament on a couple o'
squares of canvas. I'm disgusted with myself, and that's honest."
"It's as easy as falling off a log," remarked Lieutenant Cameron, of
the Signal Corps. "I've been up with Matt, and I know. He does all the
work, McGlory. You won't have to do anything but sit tight and hang on."
"'Sit tight and hang on!'" echoed the cowboy. "Sounds easy, don't it?
At the same time, Cameron, you know that if your hair ain't parted in
the middle, the overweight on one side is liable to make the _Comet_
turn turtle."
"Hardly as bad as that," grinned Matt.
The three--Lieutenant Cameron, Motor Matt, and Joe McGlory--were in
Cameron's quarters in officers' row at the post.
One window of the room overlooked the parade ground and, if the weather
had not been so thick, would have given a view of the old barracks,
beyond. Another window commanded a prospect of the lake, just now
surging high and lashing its waters against the foot of the bluff on
which the fort stood.
The post was practically abandoned, and no more than a handful of
soldiers were in possession. Most of these comprised a detail of the
Signal Corps sent there for the try-out of the Traquair aëroplane with
which Matt had acquitted himself so creditably.
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and all day long Matt and
McGlory had been housed up at the post on account of the storm.
Ping Pong, the Chinese boy, was watching the aëroplane, which was in a
big shelter tent not far from the post trader's store.
The cowboy, grumbling over the cheerless prospect from each window of
the room, finally returned to his rocking-chair and sat down.
"What next, Matt?" inquired Cameron. "You don't remain long in any one
place, and I've been wondering when you'd leave here and where you'd
go."
"We're liable to break out in any old place on the map," said McGlory.
"That's what I like about trailing around with Pard Matt. You never
know, from one week to the next, whether you're going to hang up
your hat in Alaska or Panama. It's the uncertainty and the vast
possibilities that hooked me."
"I haven't laid any plans," remarked the king of the motor boys. "The
failure of the government to buy that aëroplane, after Joe and I had
put up a lot of money and time building it, leaves me with the machine
on my hands. It's something of a white elephant."
"It needn't be a white elephant," returned Cameron. "You can crate the
_Comet_ and leave it here at the post until you find a use for it. The
other aëroplane which you and Mrs. Traquair sold the war department is
going to prove such a success that I am sure the government will be
after this one. It will take a little time. There's a certain amount of
red tape connected with the matter, you know."
"I'm hoping the government will buy the machine, but I don't feel like
leaving it in storage while we're waiting for the war department to
make up its mind."
"Why don't you go hunting for Murgatroyd?" inquired Cameron. "The
government has offered a reward of one thousand dollars for his
capture."
Murgatroyd had not only tried to wreck the first Traquair aëroplane
at the time of the government trials at Fort Totten, but he had also
resorted to crime in an attempt to secure, from Mrs. Traquair, a
quarter section of land in Wells County, which, for some mysterious
reason of his own, he was eager to get hold of. A deserter from the
army, Cant Phillips by name, had assisted Murgatroyd in his nefarious
work; and, for that, Phillips was now on his way to Fort Leavenworth to
serve out a long sentence in a government prison, and Amos Murgatroyd
was a fugitive.
Matt and his friends had been drawn into these lawless plots of the
broker's, and Cameron supposed that, apart from the reward offered for
the broker's capture, the young motorist would be eager to see him
brought to book.
"I've lost interest in Murgatroyd," said Matt. "He's a scoundrel, and
the government is dealing with him. What I want to do is to put the
aëroplane to some profitable use. It was damaged considerably, when
Murgatroyd brought it down with that rifle shot, and Joe and I have
had to put up about three hundred more good dollars for repairs. Now
that it's all shipshape and ready to fly once more, I feel as though we
ought to make it earn something for us, instead of leaving it here at
Fort Totten in storage."
"Aëroplanes are built to sell, aren't they?" asked the lieutenant
quizzically. "How can you make any profit off them if you don't sell
them?"
"Well, for one thing," replied Matt, "aëro clubs, in different parts
of the world, are offering prizes for flights in flying machines.
This machine of Traquair's, as you know, Cameron, is the best one yet
invented. It can go farther and do more than any other aëroplane on the
market."
"I guess that's right," agreed Cameron.
"However, I'm not thinking of flying for a prize. We'd have to go to
Europe in order to get busy with a project of that sort, and I don't
want to leave the United States--at least, not for a while yet."
"I wouldn't go out of the country, Matt," said Cameron earnestly.
"You're under contract, you know, not to dispose of any of the Traquair
patents to foreign governments."
"I wasn't thinking of such a thing as that, Cameron. What I was
thinking of is this: Yesterday I received a letter from a show----
one of these 'tented aggregations,' as they're called in the
bills--offering five hundred dollars a week if we would travel with the
outfit and give two short flights each day from the show grounds----"
McGlory was on his feet in an instant, waving his hand above his head
and hurrahing.
"That hits me plump!" he cried. "I've always wanted to do something in
a show. Whoop-ya! Matt, you old sphinx, why didn't you say something
about this before?"
"I've been turning the proposition over in my mind," answered Matt.
"Frankly, I don't like the idea of traveling with a show so much as I
do the prospect of earning five hundred a week. I'll have to find out,
too, whether the manager of the show is good for the money before I'll
talk with him."
"Are we going to St. Paul for an interview?"
"No, to Fargo. The show will make that town in about a week, and I
wired the manager that we would meet him there. The _Comet_ will carry
two light-weight passengers in addition to the operator, so you and
Ping, Joe, will have to fly with me to Fargo. We can save railroad fare
by going in the aëroplane, and that's why I want to get you accustomed
to being in the air with the machine."
Cameron listened to Matt with an air that showed plainly his
disapproval.
"You won't like the show business, Matt," he declared.
"I understand that," was the response, "but it's the salary that
appeals to me."
"Furthermore," continued Cameron, "the manager of the show will
probably dock your salary every time you fail to pull off a flight. You
know how hard it is to bank on the weather. At least half of each week,
I should say at a guess, you will find it too windy to go up."
"We'll have to have an understanding with the manager about that. It
will have to be a pretty stiff wind, though, to keep me from flying.
I've got the knack of handling the aëroplane, now, and a moderate
breeze won't bother me at all."
"The show's the thing!" jubilated McGlory. "Speak to me about
that, will you? The king of the motor boys and the _Comet_ will be
top-liners. And _draw_? Well, I should say! Why, they'll draw the
people like a house afire."
The first Traquair aëroplane--the one sold to the government after the
Fort Totten trials had been christened the _June Bug_ by McGlory; but
this one, built by Matt after the Traquair model, he had himself named
the _Comet_. This name was to perpetuate the memory of a motorcycle
which Matt had owned and had used with telling effect in far-away
Arizona.
"I'm sure I wish you all the luck in the world, Matt," said Cameron
heartily, "although I tell you flat that this show project of yours
doesn't commend itself to me worth a cent. However, you know your
own business best. You have demonstrated, beyond all doubt, that
the Traquair aëroplane can travel across country equally as well as
around a prescribed course. This makes it possible for you to take
your friends aboard and fly to Fargo, or to New York, if you want
to--providing the wind isn't too strong and nothing goes wrong with the
machinery, but----"
Cameron did not finish. Just at that moment a rap fell on the door, and
he turned in his chair to ask who was outside.
"O'Hara, sor," came the response from the hall.
"What is it, O'Hara?"
"There's a little old man wid me, sor, who has just rained in from
Minnewaukon. He's as damp as a fish and about all in, sor, an' he's
afther wantin' t' spake wid Motor Matt."
"Bring him in, at once."
The door opened and Sergeant O'Hara entered the room, half dragging and
half carrying a water-soaked individual who dropped feebly into a chair.
"Prebbles!" exclaimed the king of the motor boys, starting back in
amazement.