MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
NO. 21
JULY 17, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S
LAUNCH
OR A FRIEND
IN NEED
_BY THE AUTHOR
OF MOTOR MATT_
[Illustration: _"Steady!" cried Motor Matt;
"you'll be all right in
a minute."_]
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. 21. NEW YORK, July 17, 1909. Price Five Cents.
Motor Matt's Launch
OR,
A FRIEND IN NEED.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. NEW FRIENDS AND NEW FORTUNES.
CHAPTER II. THE RAFFLE.
CHAPTER III. PING PONG OBJECTS.
CHAPTER IV. ANOTHER RESCUE.
CHAPTER V. AN ODD TANGLE.
CHAPTER VI. THE RICH MAN'S SON.
CHAPTER VII. A PLAN THAT FAILED.
CHAPTER VIII. A CHASE ACROSS THE BAY.
CHAPTER IX. THE LION'S MOUTH.
CHAPTER X. THE MOUTH CLOSES.
CHAPTER XI. SURPRISING EVENTS.
CHAPTER XII. M'GLORY'S RUN OF LUCK.
CHAPTER XIII. WAITING AND WORRYING.
CHAPTER XIV. PING STARS HIMSELF.
CHAPTER XV. A NEW TWIST--BY GEORGE.
CHAPTER XVI. ANOTHER TWIST--BY MATT AND M'GLORY.
THE MAN-EATER.
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.
=George Lorry=, a lad who has begun steering a wrong course, and in
whom Matt recognizes a victim of circumstances rather than a youth
who is innately conceited, domineering and unscrupulous.
=Ping Pong=, a young Chinese who wins a motor launch in a raffle and
insists on working for Motor Matt. Full of heathen vagaries, he drops
mysteriously out of the story--but is destined to be heard from again.
="Red-whiskers,"= otherwise "Big John," an unscrupulous person who
takes his dishonest toll wherever he can find it; but, in crossing
Motor Matt's course, he meets with rather more than he has bargained
for.
=Kinky and Ross=, two pals of Big John.
=Landers=, another pal who proves treacherous.
CHAPTER I.
NEW FRIENDS AND NEW FORTUNES.
"What next?"
Not often does a boy put that question to himself and receive an answer
as quickly as Motor Matt received his.
The king of the motor boys was out among the sand dunes on the Presidio
Military Reservation. He had started to walk to the old fort at the
Golden Gate, but had dropped down on one of the sand heaps, thinking--a
little moodily, it must be admitted--over his present situation, and
what lay ahead.
It was a fine morning. The sky was pale blue and without a cloud,
and the bay was as blue as indigo. The trade wind blew over him, and
tempered the heat, and the salt tang in the air reminded him of the
long voyage around the Horn which he and his chums had completed no
more than a week before.
Alcatraz was so close that it almost seemed to Matt as though he could
take a running jump from the shore and clear the intervening stretch
of water, and beyond Alcatraz, like a purple pyramid, arose Tamalpais,
looking westward across the Pacific.
Matt was gloomy because, early that morning, he had separated from his
two chums, Dick Ferral and Carl Pretzel. Dick had received a telegram
from his uncle, in Denver, asking him to come east at once. At his
invitation, Carl had gone with him. Both lads urged Matt to accompany
them, but he had declined, thinking more seriously than he had ever
done of some "prep" school and a course at Leland Stanford. If he was
to take that step, seeking new friends and new fortunes, why not take
it now?
There was something more in life, Matt told himself, than just knocking
around the world, meeting all kinds of trouble and getting the upper
hand of it.
But there were the motors, the explosive engines Matt loved so well,
and had worked among so long. If he entered some academy, he would have
to turn his back on the humming cylinders, the rushing wheels, and the
racing propellers.
That thought gave him a pang. The gasoline motor was just coming into
its own, and the field that lay before it was so wide as to stagger
the imagination. Could Matt tear himself away from the fascination
of terminals, commutators and spark plugs, from differential and
transmission gear, from spray nozzles and float feeds, from the steady
explosion, the perfect mixture of air and gasoline, the humming of the
coils, and the beautifully balanced reciprocity of a running motor?
Well, after a while, perhaps, but not--not right away.
"What next?" he asked himself.
"Huh!" came a sound, half-grunt and half-greeting, from directly in
front of him.
During his reflections, Matt's head had bowed forward and his eyes
had fixed themselves vacantly on the gray sand. He raised his glance
abruptly, and saw within a yard of him a young fellow in dingy
sombrero, faded blue flannel shirt, and corduroy trousers.
The lad could not have been more than seventeen. His face was tanned a
deep bronze, and his eyes were as black as midnight. His nose was what
is termed a "snub," and gave his face a droll, humorous look. As he
slouched in front of Matt he had his hands in his pockets.
For a full minute Matt and the stranger surveyed each other.
"Huh!" said the stranger again, pulling a hand out of his pocket to
jerk the brim of his hat down over one eye. "Got any sand?" he inquired.
"Sand?" echoed Matt.
"Sure--s-a-n-d, sand. I'm game as a hornet myself, and I reckon I can
lay holt of you and wind you up like an eight-day clock. Say, try me a
whirl, catch-as-catch-can. If I can't put you on your back in a brace
of shakes, I'll eat my spurs. Dare you!"
The stranger backed off, and pushed up his sleeves. A wide grin crossed
his face and his black eyes twinkled.
"What have you got against me?" asked Matt. "Why do you want to fight?"
"Shucks! You got to have a reason for every blamed thing? Come at me.
Dare you--dare you! I'm hungry to caper--and you ain't going to hold
back on a feller when he's _hungry_, are you?"
Matt laughed.
"Well, no," he answered, getting up.
Then, without any ifs, ands, or whyfors, the king of the motor boys and
the stranger rushed together.
It was the "double grapevine" that did the business for the stranger.
In ten seconds, by the watch, he went into the air and dropped down on
the soft sand with a _chug_ that left him dazed and bewildered. Then he
sat up and stared.
"Well, well, well!" he sputtered. He was still grinning, and his black
eyes traveled over Matt with wonder and admiration. "You the Tur'ble
Turk in disguise?" he inquired.
"Hardly," laughed Matt. "You must have learned wrestling in an
Agricultural School."
"Mebby," answered the other, picking himself up, "but I ain't diving
into my wannegan any, at that. You can't give me another jolt like
that, pard. Two out of three, you know. First fall for the gent in the
leather cap--but the next one's mine. Whoop-ee!"
The stranger, bareheaded and sleeves rolled to his elbows, rushed
at Matt like a hurricane. Matt side-stepped, whirled, caught his
antagonist from behind and shouldered him like a bag of meal. The next
instant he had dropped him, and squirmed out from under his gripping
fingers.
"Gee, man!" gasped the stranger, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "Speak
to me about that, oh, _do_! He lifts me up and sets me down, and all my
caperin' don't amount to shucks. Ain't it scandalous to be hip-locked
with like that?"
"Got enough?" asked Matt.
"Plenty, _amigo_." The stranger climbed to his feet, picked up his hat
and reflectively slapped the sand out of it. "Down where I come from, a
feller can 'most always tell when he's got enough. When did you break
out on this part of the map?"
"A week ago."
"What label do you tote?"
"King, Matt King."
The strange youth came within one of dropping his hat.
"Speak to me about _that_!" he gasped, his eyes widening. "Why, I might
as well have wrestled with a locomotive and tried to stand it on its
headlight in the right of way! Say, I've read about _you_! You're the
king of the motor boys--the big high boy who brought that submarine
around South Americy, and turned her over to Uncle Sam here in 'Frisco.
_Gracias!_"
"What are you thanking me for?"
"Because you could have tied me into a bowknot and tossed me into
the bay--and you didn't. Next time I hip-lock with a cyclone I hope
somebody will put a tag on me and ship me to an asylum for the
feeble-minded. My name's McGlory, Joe McGlory, and when I'm to home I
hang up my lid in Tucson. Shake, Motor Matt. You sure stack up pretty
high with me."
"Glad to know you, McGlory," said Matt, highly edified, giving the
youth's hand a cordial pressure. "Is it your custom to take a fall out
of every acquaintance you make?"
"Well, it's sort of satisfyin', when you make friends with a galoot, to
know which is the best man. It shows you what he's got in him that you
can depend on in a pinch, see? I reckon you think I've got everything
but the long ears, eh? Don't make a mistake about that, pard. I'm not
so foolish as you might think. Tell me something!"
"What?"
"While you've been in 'Frisco have you seen anything of a feller about
my heft and height, scar an inch long over his right eyebrow, answerin'
to the name of George Lorry?"
Matt shook his head.
"Haven't seen him," he answered. "Are you looking for a fellow
answering that description?"
"I am, a heap."
The grin, which seemed almost perpetual on McGlory's face, faded into
an earnest expression as he mentioned the lad he was looking for.
"Did you come to this reservation looking for him?" went on Matt.
"Nary, pard." McGlory faced the boy, and waved his hand toward the
life-saving station ahead, and to the left of them, on the shore.
"I'm mortal fond of boats," he went on. "Kind of queer, that, don't
you think, for a galoot that's passed pretty near his whole life in
the mines and in the cattle ranges? Anyway, that's me. I can't cross
the ferry without gettin' seasick, but, all the same, everything
that floats tickles me more than I can tell. I've been down to the
life-saving station looking at the surf boat."
"I'm fond of boats myself," said Matt, "especially motor boats. There's
something on the ground that must belong to you, McGlory," he added,
pointing to the sand near where McGlory had fallen, the first time.
The young cowboy looked at the object, and then recovered it with a
whoop. The object was a small, oblong square of pasteboard.
"It's a ticket for the raffle," McGlory explained. "There's two hundred
of 'em out, and I've got sixty."
"Raffle?" queried Matt.
"Sure. A little old motor launch is goin' to be raffled off, over at
Tiburon, this afternoon. Say, that boat's a streak! She can show her
heels to anythin' in San Francisco Bay. Speak to me about that, will
you! I've got sixty chances out of two hundred for baggin' her. Come
over with me to the raffle, pard. I've cottoned to you, and you're my
style from the ground up. What say?"
"Can you run a motor launch?" asked Matt.
"Don't know the first thing about it."
"What do you want with such a boat, then, if it makes you seasick to
ride on the water, and if you don't know how to run a motor?"
"Shucks! Whenever I get a notion I play it up strong, no matter whether
there's any reason in it or not. That's Joe McGlory from spurs to
headpiece, and everybody in Tucson will tell you the same. Are you with
me, Matt? If you are, we'll slide back through the reservation, and
jump the cars."
Matt had already conceived a liking for young McGlory. There was
something mysterious about him, and a mystery is always attractive.
A few moments later the king of the motor boys was strolling along
the old board walk between the big Presidio barracks and the row of
officers' houses, side by side with his new friend.
New friends and new fortunes, ran his thoughts. How were they to turn
out, and what were they to be?