THE LOSING CAUSE.
Murgatroyd must have had an extra switch plug with him, for Brackett,
proprietor of the hotel, was authority for the assertion that he
left town shortly after Cameron, McGlory, and Ping had taken their
departure. Murgatroyd, however, went east, while the other car took a
western trail.
What became of Murgatroyd was for some time a mystery. He was not met
along the road between Sykestown and Carrington, and he was not seen in
the latter town.
His niece likewise vanished, taking the train--this, also, on the
authority of Brackett--and presumably returning to Fargo. For her,
Motor Matt and his friends always thereafter treasured a warm regard.
She had turned resolutely against a relative in order to make sure that
right and justice were meted out to a stranger.
Cant Phillips, alias Siwash Charley, was removed to Fort Totten. After
a trial, during which it could not be proved that he had lost the
dagger which Ping had found in the woods, or that he had met Captain
Fortescue by agreement or otherwise and dealt foully with him, or
that he had stolen the suit case and the plans, he was sent to the
government prison at Leavenworth to serve a long term.
Phillips' story was to the effect that he had deserted to go into the
"business" of stealing horses with Pecos Jones, and that the suit case
and the plans were in Jones' possession when he--Phillips--joined him.
But Phillips could not deny his identity, nor the evident fact that
he was a deserter. For this he received a sentence that was the limit
for desertion, lengthened somewhat by the belief of those presiding at
his trial that he had at least a guilty knowledge of the other crimes
imputed to him.
Mrs. Traquair was very much wrought up when she discovered how
Murgatroyd, using her name, had beguiled the king of the motor
boys into a trap destined to free the broker and Siwash Charley of
"persecution" by the military authorities, and, at the same time, to
secure for the broker himself the Traquair homestead.
It was an audacious plan, and a foolish one, but the several steps by
which it was worked were covered in rather a masterly way.
Mrs. Traquair had departed suddenly for a visit with friends in
Fargo. Learning of this, and from this one insignificant fact alone,
Murgatroyd had built up the whole fabric of his plot. It was a losing
cause, and Matt had been caught in it, for, if the audacious scheme was
to be successful, the king of the motor boys would be the one factor
that made it so. Everything hinged on him.
The aëroplane was guarded by Ping until Matt, Cameron, and McGlory
reached Sykestown over the trail to Jessup's and sent a team and wagon
back to bring the damaged machine into town. The same wagon that hauled
it into Sykestown likewise hauled it across country and back to Fort
Totten.
Matt, McGlory, and Cameron, before leaving the dugout to return to
Sykestown with their prisoner, lingered to talk over recent events,
hear each other's account of what had happened, and to make a further
examination of the earthen room.
Nothing of any importance was found, save a slender supply of food in
the box cupboard, which was promptly confiscated. When the friends
left, they closed the door, allowed the painted screens to fall into
place over the door and the broken window, and then marked with
astonishment how, at a little distance, even they were at a loss to
mark the particular place of that lawless retreat.
"It's a regular robbers' roost," declared McGlory, looking back as the
car carried them toward the road.
"It ought to be destroyed," said Cameron. "A knowledge of its presence
is an invitation for some other lawless men to make use of it."
"Pecos Jones, for example," added McGlory. "How much money did that
fellow get from you, Matt?"
"Twelve dollars," answered Matt. "If he hadn't been in such a hurry,
he might have found my money belt and secured three hundred more."
"You got off easy," said Cameron.
"Not so easy, after all, lieutenant. I wouldn't go through that set-to
with Siwash Charley again for all the gold that was ever minted. I
don't like guns, anyway."
"Somethin' queer about that, too," observed McGlory. "Explosive engines
are Matt's hobby, but set off an explosion in a steel tube, with a
piece o' lead in front o' it, an' he shies clear off the road."
The next day, after the aëroplane had been brought in and sent on to
Fort Totten, and the boys had learned various things from Brackett
concerning Murgatroyd and his niece, the little party moved on toward
Devil's Lake in the car, taking Cant Phillips with them.
When the post was reached there was a disagreeable surprise awaiting
Matt. It came in the shape of a telegram from headquarters, announcing
that the trials at Fort Myer had been indefinitely postponed, and that,
therefore, another of the Traquair aëroplanes would not be needed.
"Bang goes fifteen thousand!" mourned McGlory.
"The department may change its mind," suggested Cameron, "when it hears
about that straight-away flight of the aëroplane into Wells County."
"While the war department is changing its mind," said Matt, smothering
his disappointment with a laugh, "McGlory and I will get busy putting
the aëroplane into shape and then look for fresh fields and pastures
new."
"That hits me, pard," said McGlory. "I've been pining for a change of
scene, but I hate to leave this vicinity while Murgatroyd is at large."
"Forget Murgatroyd, Joe," counseled Matt.
"If he'll forget us, yes, but I don't think he will."
THE END.
THE NEXT NUMBER (26) WILL CONTAIN
Motor Matt's "Make and Break"
OR,
Advancing the Spark of Friendship.
The Skeleton in the Closet--What Next?--Bringing the Skeleton
Out--Marking Out a Course--The Start--A Shot Across the Bows--The
Man Hunters--Fooling the Cowboys--The Trailing Rope--A Bolt from
the Blue--"Advancing the Spark"--The Trail to the River--Unwelcome
Callers--An Unexpected Turn--A Risky Venture--Conclusion.
MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION
NEW YORK, August 14, 1909.
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THE DOCTOR'S RUSE.
One morning in September, 190-, there came to the office of Doctor
Frederic Curtin, a young English physician in Hongkong, a native
junkman from the Chinese city of Swatow, about two hundred miles
northeast of the English city. The junkman brought a letter to the
doctor from an old acquaintance, the Rev. James Burren, a missionary
in the vicinity of Swatow; and the letter begged Curtin to come and
attend the missionary's young son, who was suffering from a puzzling
and lingering illness.
As none of his patients in Hongkong demanded his immediate attention,
Curtin was free to respond to the call. The _Silver Moon_, the trading
junk that had brought the letter of appeal, was to leave on the return
voyage the next day at noon; and as this junk offered the only means
of reaching Swatow for several days, Curtin engaged passage on the
slow-sailing, clumsy vessel.
There had been much activity that summer among the native pirates that
infest the coast waters of the China Sea; and although the doctor did
not expect to encounter any of these gentry, he took the precaution
of placing in his valise two heavy navy revolvers and a quantity of
cartridges.
The _Silver Moon_ sailed on the morrow at midday, as scheduled, and,
driven by a wide spread of canvas, slipped through the deep-blue,
lapping water of this Eastern sea at a much better speed than the
doctor expected. That evening a nearly full moon floated in the
clear sky, and gave a glory to the ocean that Curtin had never seen
surpassed. He sat on deck until late, and when he did go down to his
cramped berth in the cabin below, he dropped into a sleep so profound
that his first intimation of danger was when he was awakened by fierce,
wild cries and the scurrying and trampling of many feet on the deck
overhead.
He sprang to get his revolvers. But while he fumbled with the catches
of the case, there was a rush of footsteps down the passageway outside;
and the next moment the frail door burst in with a crash before the
attack of half a dozen nearly naked Chinamen, who had revolvers and
short curved swords. The _Silver Moon_ had fallen a prey to pirates,
and Curtin calmly submitted himself to the invaders.
He was allowed to dress. In the meantime the pirates rummaged through
his baggage, including the rather portly black leather case in which he
carried his medicines and surgical instruments. When he was hustled
on deck a few moments later he found lying alongside the _Silver Moon_
a huge junk, and swarming over the captured vessel a motley horde of
evil-looking barbarians.
The crew of the _Silver Moon_, awed and cringing, was huddled forward
under guard.
But Curtin was not placed with the other captives. At a word from
the thin, wiry man who appeared to be the leader, two of the pirates
marched the doctor straight aboard the strange junk, where they
proceeded to bind his arms and legs with ropes, and left him near the
foremast, to sprawl or sit on the hard deck, as he chose.
Then as soon as everything of value on the _Silver Moon_ had been
transferred to the robber junk, the crew returned to their own vessel,
and cast off, leaving their countrymen to go their way in peace. The
pirate junk now headed to the northeast, following the coast.
Curtin, sprawling on the bare deck in his bonds, could only conjecture
what was to be his fate. He knew that the native pirates often made
a practice of holding prisoners for ransom, and he fancied that his
captors intended to do so in his case, otherwise they would not have
singled him out from all those on the captured junk. It did not
reassure him to reflect that his bank account in Hongkong was an
extremely modest one, and that he had few friends in the city who could
place any large sum at his disposal.
About the middle of the forenoon his attention was attracted to one
of the pirate crew--a big man who was restlessly pacing up and down
the sun-scorched deck not far away, apparently in intense agony. On
observing the fellow closely, the doctor saw that there was an angry,
unhealed wound in the muscles of his bare left forearm, and noted that
the arm itself was swollen to nearly twice its normal size.
At once Curtin's professional instinct was stirred. On the impulse of
the moment he stood up awkwardly on his pinioned legs, and said in
Chinese:
"That is a bad wound you have in your arm. I am an English doctor of
Hongkong. Perhaps if you will let me see your arm I can relieve the
pain."
The big Chinaman stopped his uneasy striding to stand and look
doubtfully at the speaker. The pirate leader happened to be near, heard
what Curtin said, and, the wounded sailor continuing to hesitate,
signed him to allow the doctor to examine his arm.
The sufferer obeyed stolidly, and one glance at the inflamed wound,
which evidently had been made by a sword thrust, was enough to tell
Curtin that he had to deal with a case of threatened blood poisoning.
But he thought that if the arm was immediately lanced the Chinaman
would have a good chance for speedy recovery.
This he told the pirate captain, who had come over to stand beside
his fellow cutthroat. He said that if the black case that had been
seized among his other baggage that morning was brought and his arms
were released, he would at once treat the wound, although he would not
guarantee to cure the man.
To the doctor's surprise, the captain answered that he had lived in
Hongkong, and knew of the skill of the English doctors, and that he
would be much gratified if Curtin could save the sailor, as the fellow
was one of his best men.
The medicine case was quickly produced, and the doctor's hands
were untied. First ascertaining that the contents of the case were
undisturbed, he prepared the wounded arm by pouring a little alcohol
upon it. Then he took out his instruments and quickly performed the
operation.
The look of relief that came into the sufferer's face was apparent,
but neither the captain nor the other members of the pirate crew,
who had gathered round to watch, made any comment. Curtin carefully
dressed and bandaged the wound, and as soon as he had finished, his
hands were rebound. His patient moved away without a word of thanks or
appreciation, yet the doctor did not neglect to say that as often as
was necessary he would attend the arm again. He was anxious to make
a friend of this Chinaman; for a friend, he felt, would not be a bad
thing to have among that barbarous crew.
Shortly after sunset that evening the junk reached the mouth of a
narrow river, and a quarter of a mile from the entrance to this stream
the sails were lowered and anchor was dropped. Curtin gathered from the
talk of some of the crew who stood near him that the junk was to be
taken up this river to an outlaw retreat, but that they would not enter
the narrow channel until the high tide of the next morning.
Not long after the evening meal was over the pirates began to turn in
for the night. Most of them merely threw themselves down on the hard
deck. By nine o'clock all were asleep, with the exception of a single
watchman, whom Curtin could see strolling back and forth across the
afterdeck.
Hours passed, and as the doctor lay outstretched on the bare deck, he
tried to work his hands out of the hempen cord that bound them together
behind his back. He thought that if he could free himself from his
bonds, the watchman might nap, and thus give him opportunity to slip
over the side of the vessel into the sea and swim ashore. But he was
unable to release his hands.
Not long after this, the watchman came forward and silently passed
close to Curtin, and he was rather surprised to see that the lone guard
was no other than the man whose arm he had lanced that morning. He
wondered idly if the fellow had been chosen for the post of watchman
for the reason that suffering had rendered him sleepless.
Then suddenly, as he looked up at the big yellow man, a new idea
for escape germinated, grew to a hazy outline, and in a moment took
definite shape in Curtin's mind.
In his medicine case was a vial containing a quantity of a certain
very powerful anæsthetic. He had told the pirate that he would dress
the wound again when necessary. If on this excuse he could get his
hands freed and the case in his possession, why would it not be easy
to administer a few drops of the drug by a hypodermic injection, and
almost immediately send the watchman into a coma that would last for
hours--render him unconscious before he could rebind his captive's
hands or think to make outcry?
Curtin fully realized the danger attendant upon so audacious a scheme.
But he felt that as long as he was in the hands of these ruthless and
merciless men his life was not safe from one hour to the next.
Immediately he hailed the watchman and asked him about his arm. The
tall pirate paused and replied that it still pained him considerably.
Curtin suggested that he should bring the medicine case and have his
arm treated there in the bright moonlight.
The watchman was slow in answering. Curtin began to think that
the natural craftiness of his race had counseled him against the
proposition, when with a gesture of consent he went to the companionway
and disappeared. In a few moments he came back, carrying the familiar
case in his hand. Then the doctor's heart gave a joyous leap.
As soon as his hands were loosened, he quickly opened the case and took
out the vial he needed and the hypodermic syringe. He poured into the
syringe a few drops of the colorless fluid from the vial. Next, with
hands that trembled with eagerness, he unwound the bandage from the
wounded arm.
Curtin picked up the syringe nonchalantly, but it gave him a shock to
note at this instant that the huge pirate had his right hand resting on
the carved hilt of the short, naked sword slipped through his belt.
However, the doctor did not hesitate. He resolutely grasped the
proffered arm, and carefully inserted the needle point of the
instrument into the flesh so far above the wound that the powerful drug
could have but little harmful effect upon the irritated region. Then,
with even pressure upon the plunger, he completely emptied the vial.
He withdrew the syringe, and keeping a strong grip upon his victim's
arm, began to replace the bandage.
He worked slowly, methodically, occupying as much time as possible in
each step of the operation. The Chinaman soon began to show signs of a
strange, unnatural drowsiness. His head nodded on his broad shoulders,
his eyes were half closed, and he opened them with difficulty. All at
once the doctor's vigilant eye saw a startled, apprehensive look flit
across the countenance of the pirate. The next instant the man gave a
half-inarticulate cry and snatched out his sword.
Curtin threw up his hand to arrest the fall of the blade, but suddenly,
in the twinkling of an eye, the Chinaman wavered, the uplifted arm
dropped nerveless, the sword fell clattering to the deck from the
grasp of the relaxed fingers. As the watchman toppled over under the
influence of the drug, the doctor caught him in his arms and lowered
him to the deck.
Then Curtin snatched up the sword, and, with one slash of the keen
blade, severed the ropes that bound his ankles loosely together. He
listened just a moment. All was still on the junk. He stooped down and
finished adjusting the bandage to the senseless outlaw's wounded arm.
But he did not linger long on the pirate craft. Throwing a rope over
the side of the junk, he slid down into the water and swam away.
No mishap occurred to him in the water, and soon he was following the
sands of the beach to the northeast.
At daybreak he came upon a British gunboat lying a little way off the
shore, and in response to his signals, a boat put out and took him
aboard. That evening he was landed in Swatow. He found the missionary's
son very ill with a stubborn fever; but Curtin took up the battle just
in time, and at the end of a week had the satisfaction of witnessing
the boy's recovery.
STRANDED ON A CHIMNEY.
"Unravel your stocking, John; begin at the toe," was a sentence which
many an old-time schoolboy learned well, for it appeared in the
school readers of a generation ago. It was the solution found by a
quick-witted wife for the problem of rescuing her husband from the top
of a tall chimney. When he had let down an end of a raveling, she tied
a piece of string to it, and eventually sent him up a rope.
Something of the same sort happened not long ago to two chimney
builders on Staten Island, N. Y.
They were up on the top of a big new concrete chimney, over one hundred
and sixty feet tall, and started to complete their job by tearing away
the scaffolding on the inside as they worked down. There was a ladder
running all the way down. The men stood on some planks about ten feet
down from the top. They ripped up the planks one by one, and shot them
down inside the shaft.
The next to the last one, however, went a little crooked, glanced from
the wall, hit the ladder, and in a twinkling tore several sections out
and left the men standing on a single plank, six feet long and two feet
wide, with no means of going up or down.
It was then noon, and for more than four hours they alternately
whistled and shouted in a vain attempt to attract attention. It was
nearly five o'clock when another workman happened to come into the
chimney at the bottom and heard their cries.
A crowd quickly gathered, and began to wonder what they could do to
help. Meanwhile, the prisoners had not been idle: they had torn their
flannel shirts to narrow strips and made a rope of them, and this they
sent down the chimney slowly.
Firemen were soon at hand, and attached a light line to the improvised
rope, and sent it up. The chief's idea was that if they threw it over
the top of the chimney and let it down to the ground, he could anchor
it there, and they could safely slide down the inside.
They threw it over the top, but there it stuck, fastened in the soft
concrete, and soon they could neither pull it toward them nor pay it
out; yet they dared not trust their weight on it. For some time the
rescue was halted, but at last another rope was secured, and with the
line already in hand this was hauled up and thrown over the chimney
rim. It went without sticking, and was secured on the outside.
The scaffolding that had held in place was only about fifty feet below
the men, but they had used so much of their clothing in making ropes
that they were both badly burned in sliding that distance.
However, they reached ground in safety, and in a few days were back at
work none the worse for the adventure.
A SCRIMMAGE OF LIONS.
Captive lions, like fire flames, are fine things when under control,
but when once they get the upper hand then indeed they are terrible.
In her book, "Behind the Scenes with Wild Animals," Ellen Velvin
describes a battle between a number of these brutes which took place in
a showroom at Richmond, Virginia. It came off at a rehearsal, so that
the public lost the chance to see it.
Only one man was concerned in the fight. That was Captain Bonavita, who
had managed twenty-seven lions at one time. The cause of the fight was
the arrival of newcomers from their native jungles.
When the arena was ready for the rehearsal, Bonavita had considerable
trouble in getting the animals out, and when the first one finally
appeared, it was not in the slow, stately manner in which he usually
entered, but in a quick, restless way, which showed that he was in an
excitable state. He was followed by seventeen others, all in the same
nervous condition.
Instead of getting on the pedestals in their usual way, the lions, with
one exception, a big, muscular fellow, began to sniff at the corners of
the arena, where the newcomers had been exercising, and every moment
added to their rage. Their fierce natures were excited by jealousy,
so that when one lion presumed to go over to a corner and follow up
the sniffing of another, the first one turned upon him and bit him
savagely. The other promptly retaliated, and in the twinkling of an eye
they were fighting fiercely.
The temper of the others flashed up like gunpowder, and almost
instantly seventeen lions were engaged in a wild, free fight.
The one big fellow who had climbed on his pedestal when he entered
still sat there, but at this moment the remaining nine lions appeared
in the arena, followed by Bonavita.
The animals rushed forward into the battle; the big lion with an ugly
snarl leaped from his pedestal into the thick of the fray, and in an
instant twenty-seven lions were fighting with teeth and claws. In the
midst of it all stood one man, calm, self-possessed, but with every
nerve and muscle at their highest tension, for he knew better than any
one else that his life hung in the balance.
Bonavita vainly tried to regain mastery over the fighting beasts. The
lions were no longer the puppets of a show; they were the monarchs of
the wild, turbulent and savage.
Seeing his power gone, Bonavita did his best to save his own life. He
succeeded in getting out, thanks to his wonderful nerve--for he had
to jump over the backs of the fighting animals, and in doing so he
received a deep wound in the shoulder.
There was nothing to be done but to let the lions fight it out, which
they did. For nearly two hours that awful battle raged; but, when the
lions were exhausted, Bonavita, wounded as he was, went in and drove
them into their cages.
Many of the lions after this terrible fight were seriously injured,
and had to be treated for wounds, cuts, and tears; but they had fought
themselves out, and the next week they went through their performances
as mildly as kittens.
DREDGING FOR GOLD.
The many varying conditions under which gold is found is not the least
interesting feature of the history of the yellow metal. In rock, sand,
and sea it has been discovered, and even in the deposit of hot springs
now in activity. Large nuggets have been discovered in dry gravels,
while prospectors have acquired much wealth by extracting gold from
river beds, by the process known as panning--i. e., separating the dirt
and mud from the metal by shaking the gold-bearing earth or gravel with
water in a pan.
While, however, many rivers have been thus exploited, explorers and
scientists are agreed that there are still millions of dollars' worth
of gold waiting to be unearthed from the bottom of rivers in different
parts of the world. In New Zealand and South America, for instance,
convincing proof has been obtained that rich deposits of the precious
metal still lie at the bottom of many of the rivers of those countries.
The gold is usually found in the form of grains at some depth below the
surface, imbedded in mud and clay.
There are only two ways of recovering it--namely, either the river bed
must be dredged by floating dredgers, or the river must be diverted
into another channel while its bed is being stripped. The former
method is the one generally adopted, dredgers having been used with
considerable success on the Pacific Slope.
Attention has been attracted of late years to the possibilities of
recovering gold from the rivers of Peru. For ages the gold-laden quartz
of the land of the Incas--the people who covered the walls of their
temples with plates of gold and used the precious metal to fashion
cooking utensils--has been broken down by the denuding agencies of
frost, rain, and snow, and carried into rivers, where it has remained
undiscovered, until recent explorations revealed an astonishing source
of wealth.
Take the River Inambari and its tributaries, for instance. An
examination of 30 miles of this river revealed the fact that it
contained gold to the average value of $1.75 per cubic yard, which
could be extracted at a cost of 12 cents only. The result of this
examination led to the formation of the Inambari Gold Dredging
Concessions, Limited.
Sir Martin Conway some time ago explored upper Peru and the famous
gold-producing valleys from which the Incas gained most of their great
store of wealth. He came to the conclusion that in a certain area no
less than $10,000,000 profit was to be made by extracting gold from the
rivers, and in order to begin obtaining this gold it was only necessary
to have a dredge on the spot. The same hour in which the dredge first
begins to turn, gold will be won.
The dredges used up to the present have been almost exclusively of the
endless-chain bucket or steam-shovel pattern. At one end of the boat
is a powerful endless-chain bucket-dredge, which scrapes the gravel
from the bottom and elevates it to a revolving screen in the boat. This
in turn sifts out the bowlders, which are at once thrown to the bank
of the river, while the fine material flows over tables covered with
cocoanut matting, which acts like fine riffles, catching the gold in
the interstices. The matting is periodically lifted up and thoroughly
rinsed off, the rinsings are panned for gold, and the matting returned
for another charge.
In the case of the Inambari Gold Dredging Company, a modern steel
dredger has been made, which it is confidently estimated will work far
quicker and in a much more effective and inexpensive manner than any
other dredger which has yet been used.
LATEST ISSUES
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14--Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of the _Hawk_.
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19--Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn.
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684--Dick Merriwell at the "Meet"; or, Honors Worth Winning.
685--Dick Merriwell's Protest; or, The Man Who Would Not Play Clean.
686--Dick Merriwell In The Marathon; or, The Sensation of the Great
Run.
687--Dick Merriwell's Colors; or, All For the Blue.
688--Dick Merriwell, Driver; or, The Race for the Daremore Cup.
689--Dick Merriwell on the Deep; or, The Cruise of the _Yale_.
690--Dick Merriwell in the North Woods; or, The Timber Thieves of the
Floodwood.
691--Dick Merriwell's Dandies; or, A Surprise for the Cowboy Nine.
692--Dick Merriwell's "Skyscooter"; or, Professor Pagan and the
"Princess."
693--Dick Merriwell in the Elk Mountains; or, The Search for "Dead
Injun" Mine.
694--Dick Merriwell in Utah; or, The Road to "Promised Land."
695--Dick Merriwell's Bluff; or, The Boy Who Ran Away.
696--Dick Merriwell in the Saddle; or, The Bunch from the Bar-Z.
697--Dick Merriwell's Ranch Friends; or, Sport on the Range.
_For sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt
of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by_
STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
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from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct.
Fill out the following Order Blank and send it to us with the price
of the Weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail.
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________________________ _190_
_STREET & SMITH, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City._
_Dear Sirs: Enclosed please find_ ___________________________
_cents for which send me_:
TIP TOP WEEKLY, Nos. ________________________________
NICK CARTER WEEKLY, " ________________________________
DIAMOND DICK WEEKLY, " ________________________________
BUFFALO BILL STORIES, " ________________________________
BRAVE AND BOLD WEEKLY, " ________________________________
MOTOR STORIES, " ________________________________
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A GREAT SUCCESS!!
MOTOR STORIES
Every boy who reads one of the splendid adventures of Motor Matt, which
are making their appearance in this weekly, is at once surprised and
delighted. Surprised at the generous quantity of reading matter that we
are giving for five cents; delighted with the fascinating interest of
the stories, second only to those published in the Tip Top Weekly.
Matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures are
unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can
clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them.
_HERE ARE THE TITLES NOW READY AND THOSE TO BE PUBLISHED_:
1--Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel.
2--Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends.
3--Motor Matt's Century Run; or, The Governor's Courier.
4--Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the "Comet."
5--Motor Matt's Mystery; or, Foiling a Secret Plot.
6--Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On the High Gear.
7--Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.
8--Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.
9--Motor Matt's Air Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.
10--Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.
11--Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen Brady.
12--Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas.
13--Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the Iron Chest.
14--Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of the "Hawk."
15--Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of the "Grampus."
16--Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in Strange Waters.
17--Motor Matt's Close Call; or, The Snare of Don Carlos.
18--Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under the Amazon.
19--Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn.
20--Motor Matt Makes Good; or, Another Victory for the Motor Boys.
21--Motor Matt's Launch; or, A Friend in Need.
22--Motor Matt's Enemies; or, A Struggle for the Right.
23--Motor Matt's Prize; or, The Pluck that Wins.
24--Motor Matt on the Wing; or, Flying for Fame and Fortune.
To be Published on August 9th.
25--Motor Matt's Reverse; or, Caught in a Losing Game.
To be Published on August 16th.
26--Motor Matt's "Make or Break"; or, Advancing the Spark of
Friendship.
To be Published on August 23d.
27--Motor Matt's Engagement; or, On the Road With a Show.
To be Published on August 30th.
28--Motor Matt's "Short Circuit"; or, The Mahout's Vow.
PRICE, FIVE CENTS
At all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt
of the price.
STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
Transcriber's Notes:
Added table of contents.
Italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=.
Converted oe ligatures to "oe" for this text version; ligatures
retained in HTML edition.
Retained inconsistent hyphenation from original ("straightaway" vs.
"straight-away").
Page 9, changed "science of variation" to "science of aviation."
Page 11, added missing apostrophe to "can't catch up."
Page 14, changed "aim" to "air" ("high into the air.").
Page 15, corrected "pratically" to "practically."
Page 17, changed "waster" to "was ter" ("cowboy feller was ter").
Page 18, corrected "earthern" to "earthen" ("pail on the earthen
shelf").
Page 21, corrected "himstlf" to "himself" ("How was he to free
himself?").
End of Project Gutenberg's Motor Matt's Reverse, by Stanley R. Matthews