MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
NO. 22
JULY 24, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S
ENEMIES
OR A STRUGGLE
FOR THE RIGHT
_BY THE AUTHOR
OF "MOTOR MATT"_
[Illustration: _A hoarse laugh echoed in
Motor Matt's ears as the
burning launch leaped
away through the thick
shadows._]
_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. 22. NEW YORK, July 24, 1909. Price Five Cents.
MOTOR MATT'S ENEMIES;
OR,
A STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. ON THE ROAD TO WAUNAKEE.
CHAPTER II. INTO A NOOSE--AND OUT OF IT AGAIN.
CHAPTER III. GEORGE'S SISTER.
CHAPTER IV. THE "JUMP SPARK."
CHAPTER V. BY EXPRESS, CHARGES COLLECT.
CHAPTER VI. "PICKEREL PETE."
CHAPTER VII. GEORGE AND M'GLORY MISSING.
CHAPTER VIII. SETTING A SNARE.
CHAPTER IX. ENEMIES TO BE FEARED.
CHAPTER X. BETWEEN FIRE AND WATER.
CHAPTER XI. CHUMS TO THE RESCUE.
CHAPTER XII. HOW FATE THREW THE DICE.
CHAPTER XIII. UNDER THE OVERTURNED BOAT.
CHAPTER XIV. A DASH FOR THE OPEN.
CHAPTER XV. THE POWER BOAT--MINUS THE POWER.
CHAPTER XVI. A RECONCILIATION.
THE GUARDIAN OF THE PASS.
WATCH THE SKY.
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.
=Lorry, Sr.=, George's father; a rich man whose attitude toward
Motor Matt, in part of the story, is as incomprehensible as it is
uncalled-for.
=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=, a pal of Big John.
=Ross=, another pal of Big John; a desperate man with a grievance
against Motor Matt.
=Ollie Merton=, a rich man's son with many failings, but rather
deeper than he appears.
=Pickerel Pete=, a superstitious little moke who collects two dollars
from Motor Matt for a day's work and abruptly resigns.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE ROAD TO WAUNAKEE.
"Do you know what you're doing, John?"
"If I didn't, Ollie, I wouldn't be doing it. I'm not one of these
fellows who take a jump in the dark and trust to luck."
"Then it's about time you put me wise. I've been taking jumps in the
dark ever since you showed up in Madison yesterday."
The man with the closely cropped red hair, the smooth face, and the
mole on his cheek laughed softly.
"Back the car off the road and into the bushes," said he, "then we'll
sit where we can look around the bend toward Waunakee and I'll tell you
all you want to know."
The young fellow with black hair and a sinister face threw in the
reverse and backed the big automobile off the road and into the
undergrowth. When he stopped the car it was all but screened from
sight. Jumping down, he walked out to where the man was standing in the
highway thoughtfully smoking a big, black cigar.
Pulling a silver cigarette case from his pocket, Ollie helped himself
to a highly ornamental brand of Turkish poison, each little cylinder
cork-tipped and marked in gilt with his monogram.
Big John looked at him with frank disapproval as he took a silver
matchbox from his vest and fired the imported "paper pipe."
"You're the silver-plated boy, all right," muttered Big John.
"Sterling, you big duffer," grinned Ollie. "Nothing plated about me."
"The dope they roll up in that rice paper and hand you with your cute
little monogram is plate, all right--coffin plate----"
"Oh, splash!" sneered Ollie. "You're a nice one to lecture a fellow, I
must say. Cut it out, John, and tell me what we're here for."
Big John shook his red head forebodingly and moved off toward the bend
of the wooded road. Here he sat down just within a fringe of brush, in
such a position that he had a good view of the straightaway stretch
toward Waunakee, and Ollie pushed in beside him.
"You know George Lorry, all right, eh, Ollie?" Big John observed.
A flush crossed Ollie's sinister face.
"You bet I know him!" said he. "The fellows used to call him 'Sis,'
because he was so nice and ladylike. But I've known for a long time
there was good stuff in George, and that he'd be a first-rate chap if
some one would only cut him adrift from his mother's apron strings. I
got him started right," and a very complacent look drifted over Ollie's
dark features. "He can smoke cigareets as well as the next one, now,
and play as good a game of cards as any fellow in our set. He's got
_me_ to thank for that."
Big John stared at Ollie, and once more shook his head.
"What fools you kids can make of yourselves!" he grunted. "You're the
one that started young Lorry, eh?"
"He was a sissy," asserted Ollie, "and I was making a man of him.
George's folks never treated him right. Old Lorry has got as much money
as my governor, but he's a tightwad, all right, and put the screws
on George's allowance in a way that was scandalous. George bought a
five-thousand-dollar motor launch, and had it sent on here from Bay
City, C. O. D., and his skinflint father wouldn't foot the bill and the
launch had to go back." Ollie fired up to a white heat. "What sort of a
way was that for a man to treat his only son?" he demanded.
"Awful!" commented Big John sarcastically.
"George told me how he was treated," went on Ollie, failing to observe
the sarcasm in Big John's voice, "and I advised him to break away and
show the old folks that he wasn't going to let 'em tramp on him. He
joined our club and got to be one of the best card players we have."
"Beautiful!" expanded Big John. "I suppose his folks were all cut up
about that, eh?"
"I guess they were, only old Lorry took the wrong way of showing it.
What do you think he did?" flared Ollie.
"I'm by. What did he do?"
"Why, he made arrangements to send George to one of these military
academies, that's nothing more or less than a reform school. George
came to me and told me about it, and asked what he ought to do."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I told him to skip, and to take with him all the money of his father's
that he could get his hands on. Old Lorry is a brute, and I didn't make
any bones of telling George what I thought."
"And George skipped, taking ten thousand dollars from his father's
safe," said Big John. "He went to Chicago first, then bought a ticket
to 'Frisco. When he got there he had made friends with three men,
and one of those men was me. I'm a villain, Ollie, and ought to be a
horrible example to every young fellow who's got sense enough to know
right from wrong, and the minute I learned Lorry had ten thousand
dollars I planned with my two pals, Kinky and Ross, to get it. We'd
have got away with it, too, on a boat to the Sandwich Islands, where I
could have bought a pineapple plantation and, mebby, have lived honest
for the rest of my life, but something happened."
Big John looked through the bushes, out along the road, and scowled
blackly.
"What happened?" demanded Ollie.
"A chap named Joe McGlory----"
"I've heard of _him_," interrupted Ollie. "He's a cousin of George's,
and lives in Arizona. A cowboy and a rowdy--nothing refined or genteel
in his make up. Go on."
"Well, McGlory got a message from young Lorry's father asking him to go
to 'Frisco and hunt for George. McGlory went, but he'd never have found
George in a thousand years if it hadn't been for some one else who
butted into the game."
Big John scowled again, this time more fiercely than he had done before.
"Who was it?" queried Ollie.
"Hold your horses a minute," proceeded Big John. "McGlory and this
other fellow took after Kinky, Ross, and me, and dropped on us like
a thousand of brick. My, oh, my! Say, that other lad was the clear
quill, all right. I've seen a good many likely younkers, but never one
to match him. I guess you'd call him a 'sissy,' seeing as how he don't
smoke, or drink, or gamble, but just trains his muscle to keep in form
and cultivates his brain along the line of motors, gasoline motors. And
muscle! Son, that fellow's got a 'right' any man would be proud to own,
and what he don't know about chug-engines nobody knows."
Ollie's upper lip curled.
"I don't believe in paragons," said he. "But what has all this got to
do with our being here?"
"I'm getting to that. With this young fellow's help, McGlory got the
ten thousand away from us; not only that, but we had to get out of
'Frisco on the jump to keep the law from layin' hold of us. But Big
John wasn't throwing his hands in the air, not as anybody knows of. I
knew what would happen. Young Lorry would have to be brought back to
Madison, and this motor boy would have to help McGlory bring him back.
Also, the ten thousand dollars would be brought back--and I was still
yearnin' for that money and the pineapple plantation. I had Ross dodge
back to 'Frisco and watch. When McGlory and the other chap took the
cars with Lorry, Ross was on the same train, but he had changed himself
so no one would have known him. Ross is good at that sort of thing, and
that's the reason I made him do the shadowin'. Kinky and me hurried
right on to Madison, where I called on you and reminded you of the way
I'd once given you a tip on a hoss race in New York and helped you win
a thousand. You remembered old times"--Big John grinned widely--"and
you wasn't leery of me."
"I always liked you, Big John," averred the misguided youth, "because
you're so free and easy."
"Thanks," was the dry response. "Well, to proceed," he went on, "Ross
dropped in on Kinky and me, last night, and said that young Lorry
and t'other two hadn't come to Madison, but had got off the train at
Waunakee and had gone to a little cabin on the bank of a creek that
empties into the Catfish. Ross hung around the cabin, listenin', until
he found out that one of the outfit was to walk into Madison, this
morning, to have a talk with Mr. Lorry. I don't know what the talk's to
be about, but this motor boy must have something up his sleeve." Big
John gave an ill-omened grin. "As near as I can find out from Ross,"
he continued, "this chug-engine chap thinks he can make a man out o'
Lorry--but he's going about it a little different from what you did,
Ollie. Now, I don't care a whoop about anything but that money, and
I rather believe I've fixed things so the motor boy won't have easy
sailin' with Mr. Lorry. But that's neither here nor there. I got you
to bring me out here in your benzine buggy, this mornin', so I could
lay for the chap that goes into town and take the ten thousand. After I
get it, you're to take me to Dane, or Lodi, or Barraboo, and leave me
there. That'll settle the debt you owe me on account of the tip I gave
you on that hoss race, see? Are you willin'?"
The sinister face of the youth glowed with a fierce light.
"I'm willing to help you get away, Big John," he answered, "and I'm
even willing to help you get the money. This motor boy you speak about
is trying to undermine my influence with George, and, by Jupiter, I
won't have it. I know what's the best thing for George."
"We won't talk about that part of it," said Big John, who was a strange
mixture of right principles and evil actions, "because I might say
something you wouldn't like. As I was saying, I've got my heart set on
an honest life and a pineapple plantation, and ten thousand ain't any
more to Lorry, the millionaire, than ten cents is to me. I'm going to
get that money--and here's where I turn the trick. You can go farther
back into the bushes and watch, for I don't need your help."
Unbuttoning his coat, Big John began unwrapping coil after coil
of light rope from around his waist. When he was through he had a
thirty-foot riata in his left hand and was holding the noose in his
right.
Ollie, who had never been the confederate of a man before in such a
rascally piece of work, stared with wide eyes at Big John; then, before
pushing farther back into the brush, he turned his eyes down the wooded
road.
A young fellow, lithely built, and with the grace and freedom of
movement that marks the perfect athlete, was swinging toward the bend
from the direction of Waunakee.
"Is that McGlory?" asked Ollie in a whisper.
"Nary it ain't McGlory," replied Big John, with a snap of the jaws.
"It's Matt King, otherwise Motor Matt, and here's where he gets what's
comin' for meddlin' in affairs that's none of his business. Get back, I
tell you, and give me a free hand."