MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
NO. 30
SEPT. 18, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S
MANDARIN
OR TURNING A TRICK
FOR TSAN TI
_By THE AUTHOR OF
MOTOR MATT_
_STREET & SMITH_
_PUBLISHERS_
_NEW YORK_
[Illustration: _Certainly it was not a time to laugh but Motor Matt
could hardly help it_]
MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION
_Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Copyright, 1909, by_
STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y._
=No. 30.= NEW YORK, September 18, 1909. =Price Five Cents.=
MOTOR MATT'S MANDARIN;
OR,
TURNING A TRICK FOR TSAN TI.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE.
CHAPTER II. THE YELLOW CORD.
CHAPTER III. THE GLASS BALLS.
CHAPTER IV. THE PAPER CLUE.
CHAPTER V. PUTTING TWO AND TWO TOGETHER.
CHAPTER VI. A SMASH.
CHAPTER VII. NIP AND TUCK.
CHAPTER VIII. TSAN TI VANISHES AGAIN.
CHAPTER IX. TRICKED ONCE MORE.
CHAPTER X. THE DIAMOND MERCHANT.
CHAPTER XI. THE OLD SUGAR CAMP.
CHAPTER XII. A TIGHT CORNER.
CHAPTER XIII. A MASTER ROGUE.
CHAPTER XIV. THE GLASS SPHERES.
CHAPTER XV. THE EYE OF BUDDHA.
CHAPTER XVI. THE BROKEN HOODOO.
A REAL PIRATE.
SOME QUEER PHILIPPINE CUSTOMS.
HIGH LEAPS BY DEER.
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.
=Tsan Ti=, Mandarin of the Red Button, who appeals to Motor Matt for
help in a very peculiar undertaking.
=Sam Wing=, a San Francisco Chinaman, member of a _tong_ that is
amiably disposed toward Tsan Ti.
=Kien Lung=, courier of the Chinese Regent, who respectfully delivers
the yellow cord to Tsan Ti.
=Grattan=, a masterful rogue who consummates one of the cleverest
robberies in the annals of crime.
=Bunce=, a sailor who assists Grattan and makes considerable trouble
for the motor boys and the mandarin.
=Goldstein=, a diamond broker with a penchant for dealing in stolen
goods.
=Pryne=, a brother-in-law of Grattan, who plays a short but important
part in the events of the story.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE.
"Sufferin' treadmills! Say, pard, here's where I drop down in the shade
and catch my breath. How much farther have we got to go?"
"Not more than a mile, Joe."
"We must have gone a couple of hundred miles already."
"We've traveled about six miles, all told."
"Speak to me about that! A mile up and down is a heap longer than a
mile on the straightaway. We've been hanging to this sidehill like a
couple of flies to a wall. What do you say to a rest?"
"I'm willing, Joe; and here's a good place. Look out for that tree
root. It's a bad one, and runs straight across the road."
Motor Matt and his cowboy pard, Joe McGlory, were pop-popping their way
up a steep mountainside on a couple of motor cycles. They were bound
for the Mountain House, a hotel on the very crest of the uplift.
A day boat had brought them down the Hudson River from Albany, and
they had disembarked at Catskill Landing, hired the two machines, and
started for the big hotel.
The motor cycles were making hard work of the climb--such hard work,
in fact, that the boys, time and time again, had been compelled to get
out of their saddles and lead the heavy wheels up a particularly steep
place in the trail. This was trying labor, and McGlory's enthusiasm
over the adventure had been on the wane for some time.
The big root of a tree, lying across the road like a half-buried
railroad tie, was safely dodged, and under the shade of the tree to
which the root belonged Matt and McGlory threw themselves down.
The cowboy mopped his dripping face with a handkerchief, pulled off his
hat, and began fanning himself with it.
"One of these two-wheeled buzz carts is all right," he remarked, "where
the motor does the work for you; but I'll be gad-hooked if there's any
fun doin' the work for the motor. And what's it all about? You don't
know, and I don't. We made this jump from the middle West to the effete
East on the strength of a few lines of 'con' talk. I wish people would
leave you alone when they get into trouble. Every stranger knows,
though, that all he's got to do is to send you a hurry-up call whenever
anything goes crosswise, and that you'll break your neck to boil out on
his part of the map and share his hard luck."
McGlory finished with a grunt of disgust.
"I've got a hunch, Joe," answered Matt, "that there's a whole lot to
that letter."
"A whole lot of fake and false alarm. Read it again, if you've got
breath enough."
"I've read it to you a dozen times already," protested Matt.
"Then make it thirteen times, pard. The more you read it, the more I
realize what easy marks we are for paying any attention to it. It's
fine discipline, pard, to keep thinking where you've made a fool of
yourself."
Matt laughed as he drew an envelope out of his coat pocket. The
envelope was addressed, in a queer hand, to "His Excellency, Motor
Matt, Engaged in aëroplane performances with Burton's Big Consolidated
Shows, Grand Rapids, Michigan." Drawing out the enclosed sheet, Matt
unfolded it. There was a humorous gleam in his gray eyes as he read
aloud the following:
"HONORABLE AND MOST EXCELLENT SIR: It is necessary that I have of
your wonderful aid in matters exceedingly great and important. I, a
mandarin of the red button, with some store of English knowledge,
and much trouble, appeal to king of motor boys with overwhelming
desire that he come to me at Mountain House, near town named Catskill
Landing, in State of New York. Noble and affluent sir, will it be
insult should I offer one thousand dollars and expenses if I get my
wish for your most remarkable help? Not so, for I promise with much
goodness of heart. Let it be immediately that you come, and sooner if
convenient. May your days be fragrant as the blossoms of paradise,
your joys like the countless stars, and your years many and many.
"'TSAN TI, OF THE RED BUTTON.'"
"Sounds like a skin game," grumbled McGlory, as Matt returned the
letter to its envelope, and the latter to his pocket.
"It's the first time a stranger in trouble ever sent me a letter like
that," remarked Matt.
"Regular josh. Button, button, who's got the button? Not us, pard,
and we're _It_. There'll be no mandarin at the end of this blooming
trail we're running out. You take it from me. Now----" McGlory broke
off suddenly, his eyes fastened on the pitch of the road above. "Great
hocus-pocus!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "See what's coming!"
Matt, turning his eyes in the direction of his pard's pointing finger,
was likewise brought up standing by the spectacle that met his gaze.
A bicycle was coasting down the steep path, coming with the speed of
a limited express train; and some fifty feet behind this bicycle came
another, moving at a rate equally swift.
In the saddle of the leading machine was a fat Chinaman--a Chinaman
of consequence, to judge by his looks. He wore a black cap, yellow
blouse and trousers and embroidered sandals. His thin, baggy garments
fluttered and snapped about him as he shot down the road, and his
pigtail, fully a yard long, and bound at the end with a ribbon, stood
out straight behind him.
The Celestial behind was leaner and dressed in garments more subdued.
It was exceedingly plain to the two boys that his heart was in his
work, and that the end and aim of his labors was the overhauling of the
man ahead.
"Wow!" wheezed the fat fugitive. "Wow! wow! wow!"
For about two seconds this stirring situation was before the eyes of
Matt and McGlory. Then the tree root insinuated itself into proceedings.
The fugitive saw the root heaving across his path with a promise of
disaster, but going around it was out of the question, and stopping the
speeding wheel an impossibility.
The inevitable happened. Matt and McGlory saw the bicycle bound into
the air and turn a half somersault. The fat Chinaman landed on his back
with the wheel on top of him; then machine and Chinaman rolled over and
over until the impetus of the flight was spent.
The two boys ran to the unfortunate bicyclist, gathered him up, and
separated him from the broken wheel. The Celestial refused to be lifted
to his feet, but contented himself with sitting up.
"My cap, excellent friend," he requested, pointing to where the cap was
lying.
"Gee, but that was a jolt!" commiserated McGlory. "How do you feel
about now?"
"Kindest regards for your inquiry," said the Chinaman, extracting a
small stone from the collar of his blouse, and then emptying a pint of
dust from one of his flowing sleeves. "I am variously shaken, thank
you, but the terrible part is yet to come. Kindly recede until it is
over, and add further to my obligations."
Matt had picked up the black cap. As he handed it to the Chinaman, he
observed that there was a red button in the centre of the flat top.
He was astonished at the Chinaman's manner, no less than at his use of
English. His clothes were all awry, and soiled with dust, but he seemed
to mind that as little as he did his bruises.
Putting the cap on his head, he took a fan from somewhere about his
person, waved the boys aside with it, then opened it with a "snap," and
proceeded methodically to fan himself. His eyes were turned up the road.
Matt and McGlory exchanged wondering glances as they stepped apart.
The other Chinaman, having a greater space in which to manoeuvre, had
managed to avoid the tree root. By means of the brake he had caused his
machine to slow down, and had then leaped off. After carefully leaning
the bicycle against a tree, he approached his fat countryman in a most
deferential manner. The latter nodded gravely from his seat on the
ground.
The pursuer thereupon flung himself to his knees, and beat his forehead
three times in the dust.
After that, the fat Chinaman said something. Presumably it was in his
native tongue, for it sounded like heathen gibberish, and the boys
could make nothing out of it.
But the lean Chinaman seemed to understand. Lifting himself and sitting
back on his heels, he pushed a hand into the breast of his coat, and
brought out a little black box about the size of a cigarette case.
This, with every sign of respect and veneration, he offered to the
other Celestial.
The fat man took the box, waved his fan, and eased himself of a few
more remarks. The lean fellow once more kotowed, then arose silently,
regained his wheel, and vanished from sight down the road. The fat
Mongolian was left balancing the black box in his hand and eying it
with pensive interest.
"Well, speak to me about this!" breathed McGlory. "What do you make out
of it, Matt?"
"Not a thing," whispered Matt. "That fellow has a red button in his
cap."
McGlory showed traces of excitement.
"Glory, and all hands round!" he gasped. "Have you any notion that the
chink we're looking for has lammed into us in this violent fashion,
right here on the mountainside?"
"Give it up. Watch; see what he's up to."
The fat Chinaman, laying aside his fan, took the box in his left palm,
and, with the fingers of his right hand, pressed a spring.
The lid flew open. On top of something in the box lay a white card
covered with Chinese hieroglyphics. The Chinaman lifted the card and
read the written words. His yellow face turned to the color of old
cheese, his eyes closed spasmodically, and his breath came quick and
raspingly. McGlory grabbed Matt's arm.
"There's something on that card, Matt," said he, "that's got our fat
friend on the run."
While the boys continued to look, the Chinaman laid aside the card, and
drew from the box a pliable yellow cord, a yard in length.
That was all there was in the box, just the card and the cord.
Feeling that there was a deep mystery here, and a mystery in which he
and his chum were concerned, the king of the motor boys stepped forward.
"Tsan Ti?" he queried.
Box and cord fell from the fat Chinaman's hands, and he turned an
eagerly inquiring look in Matt's direction.