THE RAFFLE.
"There she is, Matt; and it's apples to ashes she's the fastest thing
that floats. Why, she can run like a scared coyote makin' for home and
mother. I've seen her perform, pard, and when she goes any place she
arrives just before she starts. Speak to me about that, please. Squint
at her good and hard, and tell me what you think."
Motor Matt and Joe McGlory had eaten their dinner at a restaurant in
Market Street, and had caught the one-o'clock boat across the bay to
Tiburon. It was now a quarter to two, and they were standing on a small
wharf, not far from the ferry landing, looking down on a trim little
boat. There were about a dozen others, men and boys, lounging on the
wharf. The raffle was to come off at two, and most of the idlers,
presumably, had bought tickets, and were waiting to "put their fortune
to the touch."
The boat was an eighteen-footer, some three feet beam, and looked as
though she could "git up and git" if enough ginger were thrown into her
propeller. She was in charge of a boy who had let her drift out to the
end of a ten-foot painter.
"Pull her in," called Matt to the boy. "I'd like to look at her engine."
The boy laid hold of the painter, and drew the boat up alongside the
wharf. Matt dropped into her, and lifted one side of the hinged hood
that protected the motor.
He found that the engine consisted of two horizontal opposed cylinders,
and was as neat, simple, and compact a marine motor as any he had ever
seen. The gasoline tank was in the nose of the boat.
"Ten horse power," mused Matt.
"You've struck it," said the boy.
After a five-minute examination the only fault Matt had to find with
the machinery lay in the reversing gear. The brake band was not
properly adjusted, but was set so that it dragged on the drum, which
could hardly fail to result in a reduction of speed.
When Matt climbed up on the wharf again McGlory met him with an eager
question as to what he thought of the _Sprite_, which was the name of
the little craft.
"She's all right," answered Matt, "and ought to run like a singed cat."
"Worth a couple of hundred plunks?"
"The motor alone is worth a hundred and fifty, and seems to be as good
as new."
"Whoop!" exulted McGlory. "Somebody's going to get her for a
cartwheel--one single, solitary piece of the denomination of eight
bits. Mebby it's me? _Quien sabe?_"
"There were two hundred tickets, you say, and they were sold at a
dollar each?"
"Keno, correct, and then some."
"And you have sixty tickets, Joe?"
"Again your bean is on the right number, pard."
"Well, if you get the boat she will have cost you sixty dollars."
"But it's only one ticket out of the sixty that wins her, Matt.
Fifty-nine plunks are squandered, and it's one big dollar that pulls
her down to me. I'd have bought more, if I'd had the _dinero_."
"I might take a chance myself," observed Matt, "although I haven' any
more use for a motor launch here in 'Frisco than has a stray cowboy by
the name of McGlory."
"Nary, you won't, Matt," said McGlory. "Tickets are all gone."
"What in the world are you going to do with the craft if you win her?"
"I can't tell how nervous you make me, wanting a reason for every
blooming thing. The notion hit me plumb between the eyes, Matt, and
that's all there is to it. But if I can't use the _Sprite_ I can sell
her, can't I? And if I did want to go cruising, I've got you to run
her for me! Oh, speak to me about that. But," and here McGlory's face
fell, "I'm not going to get her. Johnny Hardluck has been running neck
and neck with me ever since I was knee-high to a clump of cactus. If
I'd have bought a hundred and ninety-nine tickets, the pasteboard I
failed to corral would be the one that bobbed up when the wheel stopped
runnin'. That's me, but I'm so plumb locoed that I keep trying to bust
this hard-luck blockade. What's that--a twenty-dollar gold piece?"
Matt had stooped down while McGlory was talking, and picked up a flat
object from the ground in front of him.
"A baggage check," answered Matt. "Some of the crowd here must have
dropped it. If we could find----"
Just then, a man appeared carrying his derby hat in his hand. The hat
was filled with numbered slips.
"Gents," called the man, "this here drawin' for the _Sprite_ is now
a-goin' to take place. Somebody's a-goin' to get that little streak o'
greased lightnin' for a dollar. She's a good boat, an' wouldn't be sold
for twice two hundred if her owner hadn't tumbled into a stretch of
hard luck. She's done her mile in four minutes, the _Sprite_ has, right
here in the bay. This here hat is filled with slips o' paper numbered
from one to two hundred, like the tickets. One of 'em's goin' to be
drawed by the kid, who'll be blindfolded for the occasion. The lucky
number the kid first pulls from the hat takes the boat."
Cheers from the assembled crowd greeted the "kid" as he climbed out of
the boat and allowed a handkerchief to be tied over his eyes. Then,
with much formality, and while the breathless crowd watched, the
youngster's grimy hand went into the hat and pushed around wrist-deep
among the slips.
"If the feller that gets the boat lives over in 'Frisco," pursued the
man, while the boy dallied provokingly with the slips, "he won't have
to wait for the next boat back. All he's got to do is to jump into the
_Sprite_, head her where he wants to go, and cut loose. She's full o'
oil and gasoline, an' could go from here to Vallejo without takin' on
any more."
The boy's hand lifted from the hat and held up a slip.
"Number seventy-three," read the man; "number seventy-three is the
lucky ticket, an' gets the _Sprite_. Who's got number seventy-three?"
"Stung again!" said McGlory gloomily, taking a handful of tickets from
his pocket and tossing them into the air. "I might just as well say moo
and chase myself. Sixty _pesos_ gone where the woodbine twineth, and
McGlory's got another lesson in the way luck's cut him out of her herd.
Mebby it's just as well. I've got about as much use for a motor launch
as a yaller dog for the tin can tied to the end of his tail, but the
notion that I wanted the thing sure hit me hard."
"You ought to put a curb on those notions of yours, Joe," said Matt.
"They seem to be pretty expensive."
"Shucks! Well, I get a couple o' square miles of fun nursing the
notions along, anyways. It's hoping for things that makes a feller feel
good; he never steps so high, wide, and handsome after he gets 'em.
Now----"
Just here there came an excited chirp, followed by a shrill cackle of
joy. A Chinese boy, not more than fifteen or sixteen, broke through
the disappointed throng of whites, his queue flying, and his blue silk
blouse fluttering.
"My gottee! Hoop-a-la! My ticket him seventy-tlee! My gottee chug-chug
boatee."
"Happy days!" scowled McGlory, his eyes on the young Chinaman. "If that
washee-washee yaller mug hasn't pulled down the prize I'm a sick Injun.
And here's me with sixty tickets, and him with only _one_! Speak to
me about that! What sort of a low-down thing is luck, anyway, to pass
up a respectable white, with sixty chances, and dump that boat onto
a Chink with only one! Sufferin' sister! Let's go some place, Matt,
where we can be away from the crowd and by ourselves. I'm in a mood for
reflection--like old Jack Bisbee was when the government mule kicked
at him and set off a box of dynamite. I've got it in the neck, as per
usual, and I want to say things to myself."
"Wait a minute, Joe," returned Matt. "Let's watch the Chinaman."
The man who had "bossed" the drawing examined the Chinaman's ticket.
"It's seventy-three, all right," he remarked. "Where you gettee,
Charley?"
"'Melican man no gottee dol pay fo' laundry," the Celestial answered;
"him givee China boy ticket."
"It was sure a good play for you. There's your boat. Take her."
The yellow boy ran down to the edge of the wharf, dancing around in his
wooden shoes, and crooning ecstatically to himself.
"My gottee boat, my gottee boat! Hoop-a-la! Where row sticks?" he
demanded, turning to the man who had been in charge of the raffle.
"That's a motor boat, Charley," grinned the man. "You don't need any
row sticks."
The yellow boy, still chattering to himself, slipped from the wharf
into the boat. One of the men, alive to the humor of the situation,
pulled the painter off the post and threw it into the craft after him.
"How you makee lun?" inquired the new owner of the _Sprite_, taking his
seat at the steering wheel.
The bystanders began nudging each other in the ribs. There was
a delightful prospect ahead of them, in watching this guileless
Celestial, who knew nothing about motors, trying to run a motor boat.
Half a dozen voices called down directions for switching on the spark,
starting the flow of gasoline, and getting the engine to going.
"He'll get into trouble," cried Matt, pushing his way through the crowd.
"What's the diff?" guffawed a blear-eyed individual, with a husky
laugh. "It's only a chink, anyhow."
Matt paid no attention to this remark.
"You'd better look out, Charley," he called to the Chinaman.
"My gottee, you no gottee," the yellow boy answered. "You no savvy
China boy's pidgin; him savvy plenty fine. Hoop-a-la!"
The motor began to pop, and then to settle down into a steady hum. The
China boy was fairly palpitating with excitement. Grabbing at a lever,
he threw the power into the propeller and the _Sprite_ jumped ahead
along the wharf, rubbing her gunwale against the planks. Frantically
the Celestial yanked at the steering wheel. The _Sprite_ turned her
nose into the wharf and tried to climb out of the water.
"She ain't no bubble wagon, chink!" roared the delighted crowd; "don't
bring her ashore!"
"Turn the wheel the other way!" shouted some one else. "If we can head
the rat-eater right, he'll go plumb through the Golden Gate to China."
In the confusion of yells, the yellow boy caught the suggestion and
whirled the wheel the other way. In answer to this sudden twist of the
helm, the boat made a hair-raising turn, going over so far that she
almost showed her garboard strake, then she flung away like a race
horse.
A group of three piles arose out of the water, half a cable's length
from the wharf. The _Sprite_ caught them a glancing blow. There was a
terrific jolt, and those on the landing had a glimpse of a Chinaman
in the air, his hat and sandals flying in three different directions.
He came down headfirst in fifteen feet of water, while the _Sprite_
sheered away from the piles and struck a bee line for Sausalito.
Matt, seeing that disaster was sure to happen, had jumped into a
rowboat, and was bending to the oars. There might be fun in baiting a
Chinaman in that way, but he could not see it.