MOTOR STORIES
THRILLING
ADVENTURE
MOTOR
FICTION
NO. 9
APRIL 24, 1909
FIVE
CENTS
MOTOR MATT'S
AIR SHIP
_OR_ THE RIVAL
INVENTORS
[Illustration: _Motor Matt, as he drove
the air ship steadily
against the wind, kept
close watch of the
captured aeronauts._]
_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. 9. NEW YORK, April 24, 1909. Price Five Cents.
MOTOR MATT'S AIR-SHIP;
OR,
The Rival Inventors.
By the author of "MOTOR MATT."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. CAPTURING AN AIR-SHIP.
CHAPTER II. A QUEER "FIND."
CHAPTER III. THE BALLOON HOUSE.
CHAPTER IV. THE KETTLE CONTINUES TO BOIL.
CHAPTER V. 2109 HOYNE STREET.
CHAPTER VI. CARL INVESTIGATES.
CHAPTER VII. JERROLD, BRADY'S RIVAL.
CHAPTER VIII. JERROLD'S GRATITUDE.
CHAPTER IX. ABOARD THE HAWK.
CHAPTER X. WILLOUGHBY'S SWAMP.
CHAPTER XI. A FOE IN THE AIR.
CHAPTER XII. BRADY CHANGES HIS PLANS.
CHAPTER XIII. INTO THE SWAMP.
CHAPTER XIV. A DESPERATE CHANCE.
CHAPTER XV. A DARING ESCAPE.
CHAPTER XVI. THE END OF THE MID-AIR TRAIL.
THE BIG CYPRESS.
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."
=Carl Pretzel=, a cheerful and rollicking German lad, who is led by a
fortunate accident to hook up with Motor Matt in double harness.
=Hamilton Jerrold=, an honest inventor who has devoted his life to
aeronautics, and who has built a successful air-ship called the Eagle.
=Hector Brady=, a rival inventor who has stolen his ideas from
Hamilton Jerrold. His air-ship is called the Hawk and is used for
criminal purposes. Brady's attempt to secure Motor Matt's services as
driver of the Hawk brings about the undoing of the criminal gang.
=Whipple, Needham, Grove, Harper and Pete=, members of the Brady's
air-ship gang of thieves.
=Helen Brady=, Hector Brady's daughter, who helps Motor Matt.
CHAPTER I.
CAPTURING AN AIR-SHIP.
"Py shiminy grickets! Vat do you t'ink oof dot! See dere vonce, Matt. A
palloon, or I vas a lopsder! Und vat a funny palloon it iss."
Motor Matt and his Dutch chum, Carl Pretzel, were sitting by a quiet
country roadside, in the shade of some trees. Drawn up near them was a
light touring-car.
The boys were several miles out of the city of Chicago, from which
place they had started about the middle of the forenoon, and they had
halted in that shady spot between Hammond and Hegewisch to eat the
lunch they had brought with them. Carl had just finished the last piece
of fried chicken when, happening to look skyward, he saw something
that brought him to his feet with a jump. As he called to his chum, he
pointed with the "drum-stick," at which he had been nibbling.
Matt's surprise was nearly as great as Carl's, and he likewise sprang
up and gazed at the air-ship, which was coming toward them from the
north and east, making smart headway against the wind.
"Great spark-plugs!" exclaimed Matt. "That's the first air-ship I ever
saw."
"Vat's der tifference bedween a palloon und a air-ship?" asked Carl.
"Well, you can navigate an air-ship with the wind or against it, while
a balloon is at the mercy of every current that blows. A round gas-bag
and a basket is a balloon, Carl, but when you add a gasolene-motor and
a propeller you have an air-ship."
"Dot's blain enough. Der air-ship iss sky-hootin' dis vay to peat four
oof a kindt. Say, it looks like a pig cigar. Vat a funny pitzness! Und
you nefer seen vone pefore, Matt?"
"I never saw one that would travel successfully. This one, though,
seems to be going in good shape."
"You haf seen palloons meppy?"
"More than I can count," said he. "I've been up in balloons a dozen
times. When I was in the Berkshire Hills they used to have races, and
start from Pittsfield. That's where I began making ascensions."
Carl dropped his wondering eyes to Matt for a moment.
"You vas der plamedest feller!" he exclaimed. "You haf tone more t'ings
as any feller I ever see, und you nefer say nodding ondil it shlips
oudt, like vat it toes now."
Motor Matt made no answer to this. Just then his attention was
completely absorbed by the air-craft.
As near as he could judge, the cigar-shaped gas-bag was more than a
hundred feet long. Beneath the bag was suspended a light framework.
Midway of the framework was an open space, containing a chair in which
sat the man who was handling the motor. Out behind the driver the
framework tapered to a point, and at the end of this rearmost point
was the whirling propeller. The glittering blades caught the sun in a
continuous sparkling reflection, which made the air-ship appear to be
trailed by a glow of fire.
Forward of the cockpit, or open space, was the motor. A rail ran around
the cockpit.
There were two men in the car--the one in the driver's seat and
another in front of him, leaning over the rail. This second man seemed
to be looking at the two boys, and to be waving his hand and giving
directions to the driver.
Along the side of the gas-bag Matt was able to read the name "Hawk,"
printed in large letters.
The Hawk was about a hundred feet above the surface of the earth.
A long rope depended from the car, and twenty or thirty feet of it
dragged along the ground as the car moved.
"Vat's der rope for, Matt?" inquired Carl.
"If that was an ordinary balloon," replied Matt, "we'd call the rope
a guide-rope. Usually the guide-rope helps to save gas and ballast.
When you want a balloon to go up, you know, you throw out sand; when
you want it to come down, you let out gas. That trailing rope acts as
ballast. When the gas expands, and the ship wants to rise, part of the
rope that trails is lifted from the ground and throws more weight on
the car; and when the gas contracts, and the car shows a tendency to
descend, more of the rope falls on the ground and takes just that much
weight off the car."
"Dot's as clear as mud!"
"I can't understand why they've got a drag on the air-ship," muttered
Matt. "I supposed the propeller and the steering-blades were enough to
send such a craft wherever it was wanted to go."
As the Hawk came nearer, Matt's trained eyes and ears convinced him
that the driver of the air-ship was a poor motorist. Evidently he did
not understand the engine he was handling. The air-ship zigzagged
erratically on its course, and the long bag ducked upward and downward
in a most hair-raising manner. On top of that, Matt could hear one of
the cylinders misfiring.
The Hawk's drag-rope was trailing along the roadway. First it was on
one side of the road, and then on the other, following the irregular
swaying and plunging of the car.
"Come on, Carl!" called Matt, turning and running for the automobile.
"If that rope strikes our car it may damage it. We've got to fend it
off."
"Dose air-ship fellers vas mighdy careless!" answered Carl, hurrying
after his chum. "Dot rope mighdt knock town fences, und preak vinders,
und do plendy more tamages."
"There isn't power enough at the other end of it to do much damage,"
Matt answered, posting himself at the rear of the automobile and
watching the advancing rope with sharp eyes.
By that time the Hawk was almost over the boys' heads. The rope, of
course, was dragging far out behind, and the trailing part of it bid
fair to pass the car well on the right.
"Hello, there!" shouted the man at the rail of the Hawk, leaning far
over and making a trumpet out of his hands.
He seemed to be excited, for some cause or other.
"Hello yourseluf, vonce!" called back the Dutch boy. "Keep a leedle off
mit your rope--ve don'd vand it to make some drouples for us."
"The air-ship's out of control," the man shouted. "We can't stop the
motor and the ship's running away! Grab the rope, hitch it to your
automobile and tow us back to South Chicago. We'll give you a hundred
dollars for your trouble. Be quick!"
"I like his nerf, I don't t'ink!" growled Carl. "He vants to run off
mit us und der pubble, und----"
"We can tow the air-ship, all right," cried Matt, "providing we can get
the rope fast to the automobile. We'll have to take a half hitch with
the trailing end of the rope around a tree, and bring the air-ship to a
stop."
Matt started for the rope. As he bent down to lay hold of it, the car
gave a lurch sideways and the rope was whisked out of his hands and was
thrown directly against Carl's feet.
Carl grabbed it. At the same moment the air-ship took an upward leap,
on account of the weight which Carl had taken off the car. This leap
flung Carl into the air. He turned a frog-like somersault, hands and
feet sprawled out, and came down with a thump, flat on his back.
"Whoosh!" he yelled, a good deal more startled than hurt, sitting up on
the grass and shaking his fist at the bobbing craft overhead, "you dit
dot on burpose! Vat's der madder mit you, anyvay? Vat for----"
Carl forgot his fancied grievance watching Motor Matt. The latter,
making another leap at the rope as it settled back again after
overturning Carl, succeeded in laying hold of it.
He had the rope by the end, so that when he picked it up none of the
weight was taken from the ship, and Carl's disastrous exploit was not
repeated.
"Wrap it around a tree!" yelled the man at the air-ship's rail; "take a
half-hitch around a tree!"
The man might just as well have saved his breath. That had been Motor
Matt's plan, all along, and even as the aeronaut was shouting his
instructions Matt was jumping for the nearest tree.
The young motorist had little time to make the rope fast. The whirling
propeller was driving the Hawk onward against the wind at a fair rate
of speed. Had there been no opposing wind, Matt would not have had time
enough for the work ahead of him.
"Come on, Carl!" he shouted.
The Dutch boy stopped watching and made haste to lend a hand.
Matt was already at the trunk of the tree, but the rope had traveled
onward so rapidly that he had less than a yard of it in his hands to
work with.
Throwing himself on the opposite side of the tree, Matt laid back on
the end of the rope. At that moment Carl reached his side, dropped near
him and likewise took a grip on the free end of the drag.
"It's der fairst time," panted Carl, "dot I efer heluped make some
captures mit an air-ship. Shinks! Look at dot, vonce!"
The driving propeller had forced the Hawk to the end of its leash. The
boys, with only a half wrap of the rope around the trunk, felt the
quick pull, but easily controlled it. The pull was steady, but, inch
by inch, they worked more and more of the rope around the trunk until
there was enough to make a knot.
"Dot's der dicket!" exulted Carl, scrambling erect. "Ve've got her tied
like a pird mit vone foot. Now how ve going to ged her hitched ondo der
car?"
"We'll have to find out what's the matter with the motor, up there,"
answered Matt, "and see if the power can't be shut off."
As he spoke, he got to his feet and walked down the road to a point
directly under the air-ship.