A CHALLENGE.
For several days Matt pondered over that queer talk he had had with
Dirk Hawley. All he could make out of it only left him more mystified
than ever. It seemed certain that Hawley had mentioned putting Matt
into training for big racing-events merely as a ruse to get him to
Denver. The gambler wanted to keep him out of the Phoenix-Prescott
race, and was willing to spend $500 in order to do so. But what was his
reason?
Even though Dirk Hawley had plenty of money he would not let go of
$500 unless he expected to get value-received for it. There was a
possibility that, as a friend of Dace Perry's, Hawley wanted to get
Matt out of the race in order to give Perry a show. However, Perry
would hardly spend $500 in order to win a $250 motor-cycle; and
certainly the gambler would not put up the money for him. It all looked
very dark and very mysterious to Matt.
The gambler's threat did not bother him in the least; and he was so
self-reliant that he did not take the matter of Hawley's visit to the
major. Had he, at that time, the remotest inkling of what Hawley's
real purpose was, he would have acted differently and told the major
everything. But when this knowledge came to Matt, events happened which
made it impossible for him to go to Major Woolford and lay bare the
gambler's scheme.
Although Perry had beaten O'Day, the Prescott rider, in the
bicycle-race the year before, and Matt knew very well he could beat
Perry, yet Matt was taking no chances. O'Day was working hard and, it
was said, had developed phenomenal speed. In order to make assurance
doubly sure, Matt went into active training at once. The major
furnished him a good racing-wheel, and morning and evening he was out
with it.
A youngster named Penny, who was in his first year at the high school,
had a one-cylinder motor-cycle, and Matt got him to act as pace-maker.
Every afternoon Penny and Matt were at the track. For his morning spin,
Matt went out alone.
Perry, also, was taking hold of the practise-work in vigorous style.
He was out as much as Matt was, and often Matt saw Hawley's motor-car
setting the pace for him.
Perry did some remarkable stunts in the wake of that six-cylinder
machine. Results were more spectacular than valuable, however. With the
body of a big touring-car to split the air and act as a wind-break, it
would have been strange if Perry had not made a good showing.
For his training Matt dug out of his trunk the leather cap, coat and
leggings for which he had had no use since leaving the motor-factory
in Albany. This cumbersome clothing hampered him somewhat, but he knew
that if he could do well in that he would be able to work much better
when stripped for the contest with O'Day.
"Perry has taken to practise just as though he was to be the big high
boy in that bicycle-race," remarked Chub. "He was only second choice,
and what's he working so hard for when he knows you're going to hold
down the Phoenix end against O'Day?"
"Probably he wants to be fit for the race of his life in case anything
happens to me," said Matt.
"Well, you take care that nothing happens to you, Matt," cautioned Chub.
During all this time Matt saw very little of Clipperton. Whenever they
met, which they were bound to do occasionally, Clipperton threw back
his shoulders and scowled blackly. Ratty Spangler, Tubbits Drake and a
few more of Perry's friends not only kept their hostile attitude toward
Matt, but influenced some of the other students to come over to their
side. But Matt was not lacking for friends. Splinters formed himself
into a committee of one and passed around a true version of the affair
by the canal. Splinters, of course, knew nothing about the matter
of the rock, but he knew enough to turn the best boys in the school
against Perry.
The Prescott Athletic Club, with several hundred Prescott rooters,
was to come to Phoenix by special train on Saturday forenoon. On the
afternoon of Friday, the day preceding the "big meet"--as all loyal
Phoenix and Prescott people called the athletic event--Matt got back
from the track to find a letter waiting for him on the table in his
room.
Mrs. Spooner explained that she had found the missive pushed under the
front door, and hadn't the least idea who had left it. Matt stared when
he opened the letter and began to read. It was from Tom Clipperton, and
was very much to the point.
"MATT KING: You think you're a better man than I am. I'll give you
another guess. We can settle our differences in one way. Man to man.
Come alone to the place where you threw me into the canal. Make it 9
o'clock to-night. Either I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever
had, or you'll give one to
"TOM CLIPPERTON.
"P.S.--There's a moon."
"It's a challenge," muttered Matt grimly. "I don't want to fight the
fellow--it will only make a bad matter worse. I'll have to, though,
unless I can talk with him and tell him a few things he'll believe.
Clip is not half bad at heart, and if he'd only get rid of some of his
foolish notions, and stay away from Perry, he'd make a mighty good
chum."
Crumpling up the note, Matt threw it into a waste-basket.
"I'll have to give him a licking, though, if he won't have it any other
way," he added under his breath.
The McReady home was only a little way from the place of meeting
selected by Clipperton. It was about half-past seven when Matt left
Mrs. Spooner's, intending to call on Chub, and leaving in time to meet
Clipperton on the bank of the canal at nine.
Chub and Susie were at home, but Welcome Perkins was in town,
taking his part in the general excitement preceding what was to be
a red-letter day in the annals of Phoenix. Chub was in front of his
wireless apparatus, for the accommodation of which a corner of the
kitchen had been set apart. Flashes were coming brightly in the
spark-gap between the two brass balls of the home-made apparatus.
Chub had begun his experiments in message-sending with an ordinary
telegraph-instrument, which he had manufactured himself. One end of the
wire had been in the laboratory and the other in the kitchen. After
Susie had learned the code, and was able to operate the key, Chub used
to take fifteen minutes wiring his sister for something which he could
have gone after in almost as many seconds.
Following the telegraph-instrument came experiments in wireless work,
in conjunction with an old telegraph-operator who was watchman at
the Bluebell Mine, twenty miles away. Many weeks passed before Chub
finally got his materials together, and assembled the instruments and
erected the necessary wires at home and at the Bluebell. Delray, the
operator-watchman at the Bluebell, helped Chub as much as he could at
that end of the line, and Matt was constantly called upon for advice as
failure succeeded failure. Now, for the first time since he had begun
operations, Chub was in extended communication with Delray, and his
delight as he worked the key and the sparks flew between the terminals,
was scarcely to be measured.
"Bully!" cried Chub, as he sat back in his chair, "this is the first
time the Arizona ether has ever been stirred up like Del and I are
doing it now. I asked him if he wasn't coming to the fun to-morrow
afternoon. Let's see if he got it."
Chub had hardly finished speaking before the sounder began to click.
Chub bent forward with an eager, satisfied look on his face, and Susie
stood with bowed head reading the message as it came through.
"He can't come," said Chub; "says he'd give a good deal to see Matt
beat O'Day, but that there's no one to relieve him, and he'll have to
stay at the Bluebell. He's the only man up there now, you know, Matt.
To-morrow night, about this time, I guess you'll be shooting along on
the _Comet_, eh?"
"I'm going to win that race, Chub," answered Matt, with quiet
confidence.
"Wish I was as sure of inventing a flying-machine as I am that you're
going to beat out O'Day."
"Is that what you're going to do next--invent a flying-machine?"
laughed Matt.
"Either that or build an automobile."
"Build an automobile," suggested Susie; "you won't have so far to fall
if anything gives out."
Just then Chub thought of something he wanted to say to the Bluebell
and jumped for the key. Matt talked with Susie for a little while, but
kept quiet about his expected meeting with Clipperton. When he left,
he proceeded the length of the front walk and passed through the gate,
in order to give Susie, who was watching him, the impression that he
was going back to town. He could turn back along the canal just below
the bridge, and so come to the place where Clipperton would be waiting
for him. On his way to the canal he most unexpectedly ran into Welcome
Perkins, who was burning the air in the direction of home.
"Whoop!" cried Welcome fiercely, "it's a wonder ye wouldn't look where
ye're goin'--runnin' inter a one-legged ole pirate like a cyclone.
Where's yer eyes, anyway? Think I ain't got nothin' else to do but----
Shade o' Gallopin' Dick! Why, if it ain't Matt King--jest the very
feller I wanted to see. There's the horriblest thing a-goin' on, pard,
ye most ever heard of! I got so heathen mad I come purty nigh fallin'
from grace, drorin' ole Lucretia Borgia an' damagin' every one in
sight. Nobody knows what a rip-roarin' ole fury I am when I cut loose,
or----"
"What's on your mind, Welcome?" said Matt, trying to pin the old man
down to more facts and less language.
"That's what I'm a-tellin' ye," fluttered Welcome. "Rushed around to
Mrs. Spooner's--fine ole lady, Mrs. Spooner, but she's scart of me.
Soon's she saw who it was a-rappin' on the door she screams frightful,
an' wouldn't talk with me till I'd got off the porch." Welcome sniffed
plaintively. "That's what a blood-curdlin' past'll do fer a man. Don't
you never turn into a hootin', tootin' road-agent, Matt, or----"
"I'll turn into something worse than that," broke in Matt, "if you
don't tell me what you're trying to. Now, then, make another start."
"Mrs. Spooner she says you ain't there, an' I reckons ye've gone to
see Chub," went on Welcome, "so off I comes this way. Whisper," he
sputtered in Matt's ear, excitedly, and drew him close to the fence
at the roadside. "This is so tur'ble it won't bear tellin' above yer
breath."