Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrated book cover.
See 46257-h.htm or 46257-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46257/pg46257-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46257/46257-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Villanova University Digital Library. See
http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:300153
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Motor Stories
Thrilling Adventure Motor Fiction
No. 2 Mar. 6, 1909
Five Cents
MOTOR MATT'S DARING
OR TRUE TO HIS FRIENDS
by
STANLEY R. MATTHEWS
[Illustration: _"Steady!" cried Motor Matt, reaching
for the head of the runaway
horse._]
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. 2. NEW YORK, March 6, 1909. Price Five Cents.
MOTOR MATT'S DARING;
OR,
TRUE TO HIS FRIENDS.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. THE RUNAWAY MOTOR-CYCLE.
CHAPTER II. UNDERHAND WORK.
CHAPTER III. M'READY'S "STRIKE."
CHAPTER IV. DACE PERRY'S DUPLICITY.
CHAPTER V. A DISAGREEABLE SURPRISE.
CHAPTER VI. OVERHAULING THE THIEF.
CHAPTER VII. BACK TO THE BLUEBELL.
CHAPTER VIII. TOO LATE!
CHAPTER IX. HELD AT BAY.
CHAPTER X. A DARING ESCAPE.
CHAPTER XI. A HARD JOURNEY.
CHAPTER XII. A STOUT HEART AND PLENTY OF HOPE.
CHAPTER XIII. MATT WINS--AND LOSES.
CHAPTER XIV. A QUEER TANGLE.
CHAPTER XV. THE LAST SURPRISE.
CHAPTER XVI. MOTOR MATT'S TRIUMPH.
CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.
=Matt King=, concerning whom there has always been a mystery--a lad
of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won
for himself, among the boys of the Western town, the popular name of
"Mile-a-minute Matt."
=Chub McReady=, sometimes called plain "Reddy," for short, on account
of his fiery "thatch"--a chum of Matt, with a streak of genius for
inventing things that often land the bold experimenter in trouble.
=Welcome Perkins=, a one-legged wanderer who lives with Chub and his
sister while their father prospects for gold--Welcome is really a
man of peace, yet he delights to imagine himself a "terror," and is
forever boasting about being a "reformed road-agent."
=Dirk Hawley=, a sporting man who usually gets whatever he goes
after; and being both rich and unscrupulous is reckoned a dangerous
character to have for an enemy.
=Dace Perry=, a school companion of young King, who has learned to
hate Matt so furiously that he is ready to go to almost any length in
order to do our hero an injury.
=Tom Clipperton=, known generally as "Clip," a quarter-blood, who is
very sensitive about his Indian ancestry.
=Susie McReady=, the small sister of Chub.
=Edith Hawley=, the gambler's daughter.
=Mr. McReady=, a prospector.
=Delray=, a watchman in charge of the abandoned "Bluebell" Mine.
=Jacks=, }
=Bisbee=, } two ruffians in the employ of Hawley.
=Pedro Morales=, a Mexican wood-hauler.
CHAPTER I.
THE RUNAWAY MOTOR-CYCLE.
"Shade o' Gallopin' Dick! Say, allow me to rise an' explain that I kin
ride anythin' from a hoss to a streak o' greased lightnin'. I don't
take no back seat fer anythin' on hoofs, 'r wheels, 'r wings. If ye
think ye kin make Eagle-eye Perkins, ex-Pirate o' the Plains, take
to the cliffs an' the cactus jest by flashin' a little ole benzine
push-cart onto him an' darin' him to git straddle, ye're goin' to be
fooled a-plenty. Shucks! Here, hold my hat."
"You don't have to shed your hat, Perk."
"Got to cl'ar decks fer action. When a man with a wooden leg goes
gallivantin' around on a two-wheeled buzz-wagon, the less plunder he
keeps aboard the better. Hold the hat an' hesh up about it. Which crank
d'ye turn to make 'er start?"
Ed Penny, on his one-cylinder motor-cycle, had come _chug-chugging_
across the bridge over the town canal and stopped in front of the
McReady home. While he was out in front, talking with Chub McReady,
Welcome Perkins, the self-called reformed road-agent, had stumped out
of the house and walked around the hitching-post against which Penny
had leaned the machine. Welcome had snorted contemptuously. Penny had
then whirled on the old man and had asked him if he thought he could
ride the motor-cycle. This led to Welcome's outburst and the jerking
off of his sombrero, which he handed to Chub.
Both boys were enchanted with the prospect ahead of them. There was
never anything Welcome hadn't done or couldn't do--to hear him tell
about it--and this looked like a good chance to take some of the
conceit out of him.
"Ever ride a bike, Welcome?" asked Penny, his enthusiasm palling a
little as he thought of what might happen to his machine.
"Ride a bike!" exploded Welcome; "_me_! Why, I was raised on 'em. Never
was scart of a reg'lar bike yet, so I reckon two wheels an' a couple
o' quarts o' gasoline ain't goin' to make me side-step none. How d'ye
start 'er, I ask ye? What knob d'ye pull?"
Penny showed him how to start the gasoline and to switch on the spark.
Welcome puffed himself up and patted his chest.
"Nothin' to it," he rumbled. "Watch my smoke, will ye, an' see how easy
ridin' a contraption like that comes to a feller that's knowed how to
do things his hull life."
He pulled off his coat and gave it to Chub to hold, along with his hat.
Then he rolled up his shirt-sleeves.
"Snakes alive!" he muttered, with a sudden thought. "How am I goin' to
keep that wooden pin on the pedal?"
"We'll tie it there, Perk," answered Chub promptly. "Wait a minute."
He hung the coat and hat on the hitching-post and started off into
the yard. While he was gone, Welcome began pulling up the strap that
secured the pin to his stump of a leg. By way of showing how calm and
self-possessed he was, he sang as he worked.
"I oncet knowed a gal in the year o' '83,
A han'some young thing by the name o' Em-eye-lee;
I never could persuade her for to leave me be,
An' she went an' she took an' she married me."
When Chub got back with a piece of rope, Welcome was astride the
saddle, his foot on the ground, with Penny, who was shaking with
suppressed joy, helping to hold up the machine.
"Tie 'er tight, son," said Welcome.
"Don't you fret any about that, Perk," answered Chub, with a wink at
Penny as he lifted himself erect. "Remember how to start?"
"Think I'm an ijut?" demanded Welcome indignantly. "I got a head fer
machinery, anyways, an' I could hev studied it out all by myself if
ye'd given me time. Are we all ready?"
Chub helped Penny pull the machine upright.
"All ready!" they answered, in one voice, with sly grins at each other
behind the old man's back.
"Then see me tear loose."
Welcome worked the requisite levers, the machine began to sputter,
and the boys gave it a shove. There was a good deal of wabbling, at
first, but as the machine gathered headway it got steadier, and Welcome
dwindled away down the road.
"Not so much of a joke, after all, Penny," observed Chub, in gloomy
disappointment. "The old freak seems to know how to stay on and keep
right side up. I thought he'd scatter himself all over the road right
at the start."
"One on us, Chub," returned Penny. "Ah," he added, his eyes on Welcome,
"he's turning 'round in that big open space near the canal bridge.
Gee-whiz! but that was a short turn. Watch him, will you! He's comin'
this way like the cannon-ball limited."
"What's he yellin' about?" queried Chub excitedly. "Something must have
gone wrong."
Both boys watched the approaching Welcome with growing wonder. He was
coming like a house afire, his long hair blowing out behind him, and he
was howling like a Comanche. There was a look of helpless consternation
on his face.
"Gosh-all-Friday! How d'ye stop 'er? Ye didn't tell me how ter stop
'er!"
Welcome shot past them like a bullet out of a gun, his voice trailing
out behind him and becoming all jumbled up in the distance.
"He can stay on, all right," whooped Chub, "but he can't stop! Why
didn't you tell him how to stop, Penny?"
"He never asked me!" answered Penny.
"The thing is runnin' away with him!"
Welcome described another hair-raising turn at another place that
allowed him to circle, and came whooping back.
"What'm I goin' to do?" he howled; "how long've I got to keep this
thing up?"
"Jump off!" suggested Chub.
"Can't! Ye tied me on! Wow!"
By that time Welcome was out of talking distance again. When he circled
back on the next frantic round, it was plain that his gorge was
beginning to rise.
"I'll skelp somebody fer this!" he roared. "Ye framed it up between ye,
that's what ye done! Dad-bing the pizen ole thing-um-bob!"
Welcome was now tearing toward the bridge over the canal. A man was
coming across the bridge on foot.
"Great Cæsar!" exclaimed Chub, staring toward the bridge, "that's Dirk
Hawley, the gambler, comin' this way?"
"Welcome ain't makin' any move to turn around," answered Penny. "Looks
to me as though he was going to knock Hawley into the canal."
By a common impulse the boys started on a run toward the scene of
threatened disaster. Hawley had come to a standstill in the middle of
the bridge.
"Slow down, you old catamaran!" he cried. "What d'ye mean by scorchin'
like that?"
"Head me off!" begged Welcome. "Can't stop--don't know how to stop!
Trip me up 'r somethin'!"
By the time Hawley had got this through his head Welcome was upon him.
With a shout of anger, Hawley hurled himself to one side. He escaped
being struck, and missed going into the water of the canal by a scant
margin; but he had been obliged to throw himself flat down on the
bridge, and in doing so he had jarred his body a little and jolted his
temper a good deal.
As he picked himself up he said a good many unkind things about
Welcome, but the old fellow was plunging on beyond the bridge and had
other troubles that took up his attention.
Just as he had about made up his mind to run into the side of a
building, or a fence, and bring himself to a halt at any cost, his
frenzied eyes caught sight of another motor-cycle, sailing toward him.
A thrill of hope darted through his breast.
"Matt!" he yelped. "Stop me! The blamed thing's got the bit in its
teeth an' I can't do nothin' with it!"
Matt King slowed down, stared a moment at the frantic old man, laughed
a little, then described a half-circle, put on more power, and raced
along beside the runaway machine. It took him but a moment to lean over
and shut off the engine.
"How did you happen to get in a fix like this, Welcome?" he asked, when
both machines were at a halt and the old man was standing on one foot
and trying to jerk his wooden leg loose from the pedal.
"Can't ye guess what onnery limb put this up on me?" glared Welcome.
"Not sence I reformed hev I ever felt like p'intin' fer All Outdoors
an' becomin' a hootin', tootin' border ruffian, as I do this here
minit! Wow! The ole sperrit is a-bubblin' an' a-stirrin' around in me
like all-possessed, an' I don't reckon I kin hang out agin' it."
"Buck up, Welcome," said Matt, who knew the old fellow's eccentricities
as well as any one, and understood just how much of a false alarm
he was. "It won't do for you to backslide now, after you've lived a
respectable life for so long. Here, I'll get the lashing off that
wooden leg of yours."
Leaning his motor-cycle against a tree by the roadside, Matt bent down
and got busy with the rope. As soon as Welcome could jerk the pin
loose, he whirled and stumped furiously back in the direction of Chub
and Penny. Matt grinned a little as he looked after him.
"I never saw the old chap stirred up as bad as he is now," he muttered.
"I wonder what Dirk Hawley is doing over in this direction? Welcome
came within one of knocking him into the canal. If _that_ had happened
there'd sure have been fireworks."
After leaning Penny's machine against the tree, Matt mounted his own
and started for the bridge. As he crossed the bridge he saw something
white lying on the planks, and halted to pick the object up. It proved
to be an old envelope with an enclosure of some sort, and was addressed
to James McReady, Phoenix, A. T. This address was in ink, but the
"James McReady" had been scratched out and the name of "Mark McReady"
penciled above it.
James McReady was a prospector, and was in the hills looking for gold
most of the time. He was Mark's father, and Mark's nickname was "Chub."
Evidently this letter was intended for Chub, and had fallen from Dirk
Hawley's pocket when he threw himself out of the way of Welcome and the
charging motor-cycle. But how was it that such a letter happened to be
in the possession of Hawley, the gambler? While Matt was puzzling over
that phase of the question, a heavy step sounded on the bridge, and a
gruff, commanding voice called out:
"What are you doin' with that letter? Hand it over here; it belongs to
me!"