MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
NO. 20
JULY 10, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT
MAKES GOOD
ANOTHER VICTORY
FOR THE MOTOR BOYS
_BY THE AUTHOR
OF "MOTOR MATT"_
[Illustration: _"FIRE away, kevik!" clamored Carl,
and just then Matt pulled the trigger._]
_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. 20. NEW YORK, July 10, 1909. Price Five Cents.
MOTOR MATT MAKES GOOD
OR,
ANOTHER VICTORY FOR THE MOTOR BOYS.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. OFF THE CHILIAN COAST.
CHAPTER II. HURLED INTO THE SEA.
CHAPTER III. SAVED BY A TORPEDO.
CHAPTER IV. WEIGHING THE EVIDENCE.
CHAPTER V. A SURPRISING SITUATION.
CHAPTER VI. ANOTHER ATTACK.
CHAPTER VII. A BAD HALF HOUR.
CHAPTER VIII. CHASING A TORPEDO.
CHAPTER IX. NORTHWARD BOUND.
CHAPTER X. A HALT FOR REPAIRS.
CHAPTER XI. DICK MAKES A DISCOVERY.
CHAPTER XII. A WARY FOE.
CHAPTER XIII. PLUCK THAT WINS.
CHAPTER XIV. A LITTLE WORK ON THE INSIDE.
CHAPTER XV. A STAR PERFORMANCE.
CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION.
THE SPIDER WATER.
GOOD WORDS FOR THE 'GATOR.
VENOMOUS FISH.
CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.
=Matt King=, otherwise Motor Matt, king of the motor boys.
=Carl Pretzel=, a cheerful and rollicking German boy, stout of frame
as well as of heart, who is led by a fortunate accident to link his
fortunes with those of Motor Matt.
=Dick Ferral=, a young sea dog from Canada, with all a sailor's
superstitions, but in spite of all that a royal chum, ready to stand
by the friend of his choice through thick and thin.
=Ensign John Henry Glennie, United States Navy.=
=Sons of the Rising Sun.=
=Captain Pons=, who has come from Havre, France, to deliver the
submarine boat, _Pom_, to the Chilian Government, only to fall into a
net spread by the Sons of the Rising Sun.
=Captain Sandoval=, of the Chilian Navy, who has appeared before, in
the MOTOR STORIES, and appears for the last time and bows himself out.
=Captain of the Port of Lota, Chili=, who plays a small but important
part.
CHAPTER I.
OFF THE CHILIAN COAST.
"Great spark plugs!"
"Strike me lucky!"
"Py shiminy Grismus!"
There were three surprised and excited boys on the rounded deck of
the submarine boat _Grampus_. It was a calm, cloudless night, and the
sea was as smooth as a mill pond; but, for all that, the night was
cloudless, a dank, clinging fog had rolled down from the Andes and
out upon the ocean, blotting out moon and star and rendering their
surroundings as black as Erebus.
The _Grampus_ was proceeding slowly northward along the Chilian coast.
Motor Matt, Dick Ferral, and Carl Pretzel were on the deck forward,
keeping a sharp lookout. The electric projector from the conning tower
bored a gleaming hole into the darkness ahead, giving the lads a
limited view in that direction. Speake was half in and half out of the
conning tower, steering from that position.
The waters gurgled and lapped at the rounded sides of the boat, then
floated rearward in long lines of phosphorescence, spreading out in the
wake like two sticks of an open fan. At the stern of the submarine the
propeller churned up a glittering froth.
What the boys saw, however, that had aroused their startled
exclamations was a cluster as of glowing lights a foot or two under the
surface of the water. This mysterious glow was moving, at a moderate
rate of speed, in a course that crossed that of the _Grampus_.
"Slow down, Speake!" called Matt to the helmsman.
The jingle of a bell, down in the motor room, was heard faintly, and
the submarine's speed fell off perceptibly. The cluster of starlike
points bubbled onward, missed the bow of the _Grampus_ by a few feet,
and vanished in the gloom on the port side.
"Vat it iss?" murmured Carl, rubbing a hand dazedly across his eyes.
"Dere iss lighdning pugs on der land, und I vonder iss dere lighdning
pug fishes in der sea? Dot looked schust like a shark mit some search
lights on his headt."
"I'm a Fiji if there was any fish about that," averred the bewildered
Dick. "Can you rise to it, matey?" he asked, turning to Matt. "What
sort of a sizing do you give it?"
The king of the motor boys was puzzled.
"It might be a piece of drift from the shore," he answered, "or the
fragment of a wreck."
"Aber it _moofed_!" exclaimed Carl. "It moofed droo der vater schust
like it vas alife!"
"The current may have caused that. There are all kinds of currents in
this part of the ocean."
"Und der lights, Matt. Pieces oof wreck don'd haf lights like dot!"
"That was a trick of the phosphorescence. There were probably nails or
spikes in the timber, and wherever they projected and caused a ripple
there was a glow in the water."
Matt turned to Speake.
"Make a turn to the left, Speake," said he. The submarine swerved
slowly to the port tack. "There," said Matt; "hold her so."
Dick gave a low laugh.
"You don't take much stock in that explanation of yours, matey," he
remarked, "or you wouldn't be following that bit of supposed flotsam
and jetsam."
"I've explained it in the only way I know how, Dick," returned Matt,
"but I'm still a good deal in doubt. We'll see if we can overhaul the
thing and make a further examination. I don't like to take the time,
but it may turn out to be time well spent."
Motor Matt knelt well forward, just where the V-shaped waves parted
over the sharp nose of the _Grampus_, and while he knelt he peered
fixedly into the water ahead.
"You're such a cautious chap," spoke up Dick, hanging to one of the
flagstaff guys and likewise staring ahead, "that I've been all ahoo
wondering why you were doing this night cruising. The night's as black
as a pocket, and this coast is about as dangerous as you can find
anywhere, and yet here we are, groping our way along, never knowing
what minute we may bounce upon a reef or say how do you do to a sharp
rock."
"Remember that Pacific Mail boat we spoke yesterday?" inquired Matt,
over his shoulder.
"The one that told us they had news, in Santiago, that a Japanese boat
had got away from the Chilian, Captain Sandoval, below the Strait of
Magellan?" responded Dick.
"Exactly. When we left English Reach, at the western end of the strait,
we know Captain Sandoval, of the Chilian warship _Salvadore_, was
pursuing the mysterious Japanese steamer; and we also know that that
steamer had on board our enemies, the Sons of the Rising Sun. The mail
boat said the news that the steamer had escaped the _Salvadore_ had
been flashed by wireless from Punta Arenas, and had been repeated by
telegraph to Santiago and Valparaiso."
"I don'd pelieve dot Chap poat efer got avay from der _Salvatore_!"
declared Carl.
"It may be that she did, Carl," went on Matt, "and we've got to make
sure of it just as soon as we possibly can. That's the reason we're
traveling through this thick fog, and taking our chances on hitting a
reef or sunken rock. We've got to reach Lota and find out for sure if
those Japs are again free to bother us. You know what it means if the
Sons of the Rising Sun got away from Sandoval. Those misguided Japs
have sworn that the _Grampus_ shall never be turned over to the United
States Government at Mare Island Navy Yard. They're a desperate and
fanatical lot, and we've got to know just what we're up against, so far
as they are concerned. Lota is on the railroad and telegraph line, and
we'll get news there, if anywhere."
"As usual," observed Dick, "that head of yours has been working, old
ship, while the rest of us have been wondering what you were trying to
do. I don't think you'll catch up with that piece of drift."
"Nor I," Matt answered, getting to his feet and coming aft. "Whatever
that was, I suspect we'll never be able to discover, so my guess will
have to stand. Put her on the starboard tack, Speake," he added to the
man in the conning tower.
The submarine once more resumed her course toward Arauco Bay and Lota.
"You fellows go below and turn in," Matt went on to Dick and Carl. "I
can con the ship, all right, and there's no need of the two of you
staying awake and helping me on the lookout."
"You'd better let Glennie relieve you, mate," suggested Dick. "You've
been on deck duty for six hours."
"I'm going to stay right here," said Matt, "until we get safely into
Arauco Bay."
There was no use arguing with Motor Matt when he made up his mind that
duty commanded him to do a certain thing, and Dick and Carl wished him
luck and went below.
Ensign Glennie was lying on the locker in the periscope room.
"You shifted the course," said he, rising on one elbow and peering at
Dick and Carl as they dropped off the iron ladder. "What was up?"
"Somet'ing mit a shiny headt vent past us," replied Carl, dropping down
on a stool and beginning to draw off his shoes.
"Something with a shiny head?" queried the nonplused ensign.
"Yah, so. It vas a funny pitzness."
"What was it, Dick?"
"I'm by," answered Dick, shaking his head. "I've seen a good many queer
things afloat, but that was the queerest. It was too dark to see much,
though. Mayhap if we'd had a little more light, we could have made a
closer examination and the mystery would have been explained."
Thereupon he went into details, telling Glennie all that he and Carl
knew.
"Can you make anything out of it, Glennie?" Dick finished.
"I'm over my head, like the rest of you," answered the ensign.
"Probably Matt hit it off pretty well when he said it was a bit of
water-logged drift, floating between two waves, with spikes cutting
the water and throwing off gleams of phosphorescence. This part of the
Pacific is full of cross-currents. And it's a mighty dangerous stretch
of water, too, I'm telling you. Matt is certainly anxious to reach
Lota, or he'd never persist in pushing through waters like these in
such a fog."
"He's worrying again over those Sons of the Rising Sun."
Dick pulled off one of his shoes and swung it reflectively in his hand.
"I don't think it is possible that that Jap steamer got away from
Sandoval," said Glennie. "The officers on that mail boat must have got
it wrong."
"Our old raggie is bound to find out just how much truth there is in
the yarn, anyhow," continued Dick. "We're what you might call on the
last leg of our cruise, and the little old _Grampus_ has covered the
east coast of two continents and is well up the west coast. We have
dodged trouble in pretty good shape, so far, and Matt don't intend to
let the Sons of the Rising Sun put us down and out at this late stage
of the game."
"The Japs can't put Motor Matt down and out," averred Glennie, with
suppressed admiration. "He has met them at every point, and has given
them the worst of it. They'll never be able to destroy the _Grampus_.
Mark what I say, my lads, Motor Matt is going to 'make good' with
ground to spare, and chalk up another victory for the motor boys."
Dick and Carl would have cheered this warm sentiment, but before they
had a chance to do so, a wild yell came from Speake.
"Tumble up here, you fellows! Quick, now!"
Speake, as he spoke, crushed himself against the side of the
conning-tower hatch, in order to make room for those in the periscope
room to pass him and reach the deck.
Startled by the words and wildly excited manner of the helmsman, Dick,
Carl, and Glennie lost not an instant in rushing up the ladder and
dropping over the side of the conning tower.
"Where's Matt?" cried Dick.
"That's just what I want to know," answered Speake, his consternation
growing and a tremulous awe finding its way into his voice. "He was on
the deck a few minutes ago, but he isn't here now. The last I saw of
him he went aft, around the conning tower. The next thing I knew, when
I turned and looked for him, he wasn't aboard."
All three of the lads were stricken dumb. For a brief space none of
them spoke, but looked toward each other in the gloom, frantically
alarmed and vaguely fearing--they knew not what.
"He couldn't have fallen overboard," spoke up Glennie, first to break
the silence that held them as by an uncanny spell, "and yet it's
certain he's not on the boat."
"Matt!" roared Dick, making a trumpet of his hands and calling into the
blank darkness. "Ahoy, Matt!"
No answer was returned. All that could be heard was the hum of the
submarine's motor, the swish of the propeller, and the lap and gurgle
of waves along the rounded side.
Carl began to whimper.
"Ach, du lieber! Oof anyt'ing has habbened py dot bard oof mine, I
don'd know vat I shall do, py shinks! He vas der pest friendt vat I
efer hat, und----"
"Put about, Speake!" cried Dick, now thoroughly alive to the situation.
"If Matt went overboard, then we're rushing away from him, and he's
swimming somewhere in our wake."
The shaken helmsman immediately turned the _Grampus_ in a wide circle
and rang for full speed.