Chapter XVI: A Dash of Tabasco

In due course the delayed breakfast came up from the torpedo room. By some error, Speake had mixed an overdose of tabasco sauce with the canned beans which he had warmed up on his electric stove.

"Glory!" sputtered Jordan, reaching for water. "Speake must have mixed a Whitehead torpedo in that mess of beans."

"Only a dash of tabasco," replied Coleman. "Haven't you been in Central America long enough to like hot stuff?"

"Not long enough, anyhow, to acquire an asbestos stomach. Talking about a dash of tabasco, though, Motor Matt's raid on the rebels must have been something of that variety. Reel it off, Matt. We're all good listeners."

"You do it, Dick," said Matt. "You were with me and did as much of the work as I did."

"Belay, on that!" remonstrated Dick. "I didn't take care of Ysabel during that run for the river, did I? And I didn't get that piece of lead through my arm, either."

"You'd hardly know my arm had stopped a bullet, would you?" and Matt showed his ability to use his left hand with the same ease that he did his right.

"Don't sidetrack the relish," chirped Jordan. "Let Matt's hot work come on with the beans. Go on, Matt--or you tell us, Dick, if Matt's too bashful."

Thereupon Dick waded into past events as he and Matt had experienced them. He slighted his own deeds to give a greater lustre to Matt's, and finally Matt, in self-defense, had to take the telling into his own hands and finish it.

"Well, Jupiter!" exclaimed Jordan, "there's enough tabasco in that run of work to satisfy almost anybody. But, if Motor Matt hadn't come up under that launch like he did, all of us prisoners, my dear friends, would now be tramping through the jungle toward Pitou's new camp."

"I'm glad that note of mine proved so valuable to us," spoke up Coleman.

"How did you come to lay all that information aboard, Mr. Coleman?" inquired Dick. "It seemed main queer that a prisoner could have got wise to all that."

"Pitou told me," said Coleman, with a twinkle in his eye, "over a game of seven-up. He indulged in liquid refreshment, as I remember, and the more he beat me, and the more he indulged, the more confidential he became. I knew Pedro was a friend of Ysabel's, and that he was helping her to leave the camp, so I managed to write down what I had heard, hoping that Ysabel might get to Port Livingstone and give the news to somebody there who could and would help us."

"You haven't told us, Mr. Jordan," said Matt, "what happened to your landing party."

"I hesitate to put it into cold words," answered Jordan, "after listening to a recital which shows that you are a general in that sort of affair, Matt, while I am only a private. By rights, my lad, you are the one who should have gone with that landing party. However, since it appears necessary to have our experiences in order to make the testimony complete, here goes.

"By accident we struck a path. Tirzal said he knew about the path, but I think the good-natured rascal was talking for effect, and that he had never seen it before. I was fairly sure in my own mind, mainly because we had seen nothing of Fingal's schooner after leaving Belize nor of a small boat after leaving Port Livingstone, that Fingal and Cassidy hadn't reached the revolutionists and told what they knew. I suspect that that's what made me careless, for I was that when you consider that we were out on a reconnoitring expedition and ought to have been looking for traps as well as for revolutionists.

"Well, the trap was sprung at a turn in the path. I wasn't able to see around the turn, and a bunch of colored persons in ragged clothes were on us before you could say Jack Robinson. This happened quite a little while after we got away from the boat. As I recollect, we had reconnoitred, and had been led away from the path on some wild-goose chase or other by Tirzal half a dozen times. I was just thinking about returning to the boat when we pushed around that turn.

"I had time to shoot, and it so happened that I wounded a colored person who was a favorite captain of the general's. It wasn't a serious wound, but the general was pretty badly worked up over it, and I didn't know but they would stand me against a tree and shoot me out of hand before I could make the general understand I was in the consular service. At the right moment, Fingal came up, and he recognized me. The general was tickled, and felt sure he had enough consular representatives of the United States in his hands to insure the giving up of Jim Sixty. Nice business, eh, Coleman," and Jordan turned aside to his friend, "when it takes two fellows like you and me to make an even exchange for a fellow like that filibuster?"

"Well," answered Coleman, "Sixty is worth more to the rebels than we are. It's what a thing's worth to somebody else, and not what you think it's worth to you, that counts."

"The point's too fine and gets away from me," went on Jordan. "That's about all of it, Matt. Poor Tirzal was recognized as a spy, and he would have been shot quick enough if I hadn't threatened the general with all sorts of things if he carried out his intentions. Out of consideration for me, Pitou agreed to wait until we got to the new camp before shooting Tirzal. That's the only thing, Matt, that saved the half breed's life."

Matt was beginning to feel the effects of his long period of active duty without sufficient sleep, and he called Cassidy from the torpedo room, left him in charge of the _Grampus_, and then lay down on the locker and was soon slumbering soundly.

When he was awakened it was by Jordan. It was getting along toward evening, and the _Grampus_ was anchored in her old berth off Belize. A sailing ship was alongside to take the passengers ashore.

Jordan, Coleman, Tirzal, Cassidy and Matt were to go, and, of course, Ysabel. Dick was left to look after the submarine.

Ysabel left Matt and the rest at the landing.

"Will I see you again, Matt," she asked, "you and the rest of the motor boys?"

"I hope so, Ysabel," answered the young motorist, "but I also hope we won't have such rough times when our trails cross again."

"Have I helped you enough to offset what I did in New Orleans?"

"Don't mention that--forget about it. The account is more than square."

"Good-by, then," she called, in a stifled voice, and hurried off along the street.

Jordan and Coleman went on to the house where the captain had been taken, accompanying Matt and Cassidy. The mate was going to present himself frankly before the captain, acknowledge his fault and then abide by the full consequences.

But fate decreed that the matter should turn out otherwise.

The captain, as it chanced, was very much worse and was unable to recognize any one. The doctor averred that the case was not serious, and that, with good nursing, Captain Nemo, Jr., would pull through all right.

"If he wants a nurse, doctor," said Cassidy, "then it's up to me. I took care of him in New Orleans, the time he was sick there, and I guess I can do it now better than any one else."

"Then pull off your coat," said the doctor, "and go up to his room."

All this was as it should be. For the present, the _Grampus_ was still under Matt's care, and he started back toward the wharf to secure a sailboat and return to the submarine.

Jordan and Coleman accompanied him part way, then left him to telegraph their report of recent events to Washington.

"We're going to handle you and the _Grampus_ without gloves in that report," declared Jordan, with a wink.

"Just so you please the government and make the navy department take the submarine off the captain's hands," returned Matt, "that's all I care."

THE END.

THE NEXT NUMBER (17) WILL CONTAIN

Motor Matt's Close Call

OR,

THE SNARE OF DON CARLOS.

Carl's Serenade--Don Ramon Ortega--The Shadow of Treachery--Don
Carlos Lays His Snare--A Mutiny--A Lesson in Who's Who--The
Snare Tightens--The Don's Proposal--Ysabel Sixty's Loyalty--An
Opportunity--Exciting Work--Capturing the General--Off for the
Gulf--Running the Battery--The "Seminole"--Conclusion.

MOTOR STORIES

THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION

NEW YORK, June 12, 1909.

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Mischievous Ned.

By EBEN REXFORD.

Ned was like most other boys, I suppose. Some days he felt so good-natured that his spirits were positively "catching," as they say about colds and the mumps, and you couldn't have had the blues if you had made up your mind to do so, if he was round. But the very next day was apt to be one of his cross days, and he could be as cross and disagreeable as any boy ever could.

One morning he got up feeling very much out of sorts.

"Ned's going to be cross to-day," said Harry, when they gathered round the breakfast table. "It's sticking out all over him now."

"I don't know as it's any of your business," answered Ned promptly. "I'd a good deal rather be cross than make a fool of myself by trying to say smart things when I couldn't."

Which shot, considering that Harry hadn't tried to say anything "sharp," was rather uncalled for, and didn't hit anybody in particular.

"Don't let me hear any more such conversation," said Mrs. Haynes, taking her seat at the table. "You are both of you old enough to behave yourselves as gentlemen ought to."

Ned found any amount of fault with the victuals. The buckwheat cakes had too much soda in them; the sirup wasn't fit to eat; the butter looked as if an old squaw had made it; the potatoes were a little the worst ones he ever tasted. And the result of his fault-finding was, that he was sent away from the table with an unsatisfied appetite.

When he was outside the dining room, he realized that, poor as the breakfast might be, it would have been better than none, and began to wish he had said less, and eaten more.

After breakfast the hired girl began to wash the windows. Ned watched her standing on the stepladder, and thought what fine fun it would be to tip it over when she was on it, but concluded he wouldn't try it just then, as Bridget was apt to be cross as well as himself, and he remembered that some of the practical jokes he had played off on her had resulted in tingling ears, and having his ears boxed was about the worst kind of punishment for Ned. But as Bridget came out of the sitting room with the stepladder, which she was taking to the veranda, in order to wash the windows from the outside, she stumbled over him in the hall, and came so near falling that she had to let the ladder go and catch at the stair railing to save herself. And the ladder in its fall struck against a bracket on which a little vase stood, and away went both of them, and the vase was shivered into fragments.

"You good-for-nothin' spalpeen!" cried Bridget, giving him a slap across the ears; "you got forninst me on purpose, an' now see what you've done! That illigant mug all broke to pieces, jist on account of your bad ways. I've a good mind to tell the missus."

"You needn't 'a' stumbled over me," said Ned angrily. "If you'd look where you were going, you wouldn't go round smashing things up in this style. I'd turn you off if I was in father's place."

"Would you now?" demanded Bridget, her arms akimbo. "Indade I'd like to see ye doin' it. If you don't take yerself off, I'll box ye, mind that, now; an' I'll do it up in illigant style."

Ned concluded that discretion was the better part of valor at present, and repaired to the veranda.

Presently Bridget came out with the stepladder, which she adjusted before one of the windows, and then went in after water.

A bright idea struck Ned. Bridget had been saucy and impudent. He would be even with her. He'd learn her to slap his ears!

He pulled a long piece of stout cord out of his pocket and tied it to one leg of the stepladder, and then hid in the shrubbery.

Presently out came Bridget. She mounted the ladder, unconscious of any danger, and began washing the window vigorously.

All at once the ladder seemed to jerk itself out from under her, and with a whoop that would have done credit to any Apache brave, she landed in the middle of a great lilac bush, before she realized whether her sudden descent was caused by a collapse of the ladder, an earthquake, or one of Ned's pranks. She strongly suspected the latter; but, looking around from her dignified position in the lilac bush, she could see nothing of him, and there was nothing about the innocent-looking ladder, as it lay on the ground at the veranda steps, to indicate that it had been meddled with. But as she proceeded to alight from her elevated pedestal, she heard a chuckle somewhere in the shrubbery, which satisfied her that her suspicions were correct.

Harry came along pretty soon, and wanted Ned to join a party of children who were going down to the old mill after berries.

But Ned answered, very shortly, that he "wasn't going to do any such thing," and Harry went on, without stopping to coax him any.

That made Ned madder than ever. It was quite evident that they didn't want him, and only asked him because they couldn't very well help doing so.

"I'll have some fun with 'em," said Ned, setting off in the same direction, about half an hour afterward.

The berries the children had gone after grew in an old meadow. In this old meadow, through which a brook ran, there was a mill, which was said to be haunted, and every child was afraid to go near it in the daytime.

Ned picked his way through the bushes on the edge of the meadow, and got into the mill on the opposite side from where the children were picking berries.

So busily were they engaged in gathering the ripe fruit that they were not aware how near they were getting to the mill, till a sepulchral groan made them look up in undefined terror, and there, in the farthest shadowy corner, was something awfully ghost-like.

"Repent of your sins!" exclaimed the ghost, uttering the first and only thing he could think of; and then, with wild shouts of fright, the children started off in a stampede for the road, spilling their berries and tearing their clothes.

Little Susie Mayne lost her sunbonnet, and Will Blake lost his shoe, but they didn't dare to stop for such trifles.

When they reached the road, panting and breathless, they looked back, half expecting to see the ghost after them.

But instead of a ghost, there stood Ned, waving a sheet and apparently highly pleased at the success of his project.

"I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself," shouted Will Blake. "I'll tell Johnny, an' he'll lick you."

"Don't you wish he could?" answered Ned defiantly. "If any of you young ones go to being saucy, I'll just come over there and trounce you."

The children set off toward home, but, coming to another meadow, where strawberries were quite plenty, they concluded to stop and fill up their baskets.

"Mr. Belding's awful ugly old cow runs in this meadow, I heard father say," said Harry. "We'd better keep a lookout for her."

But in five minutes they had forgotten all about the cow.

Suddenly they all started.

"Moo, moo-o!" sounded in the bushes close by, and they heard an awful racket as if half a dozen cows were coming.

"Oh, dear!" screamed all the girls, and made for the fence, with the boys at their heels.

Susie Mayne tumbled down and bruised her nose so badly that it bled, and Harry dragged her toward the fence in anything but a comfortable way.

"I'd be ashamed to run at every little noise before I knew where it came from," called out Ned, making his appearance from the bushes. "Cowards! cowards!"

The boys were for clubbing together and giving him a whipping, but concluded to leave that to the big boys. The girls all pronounced him, without a single dissenting voice, to be the "meanest boy they ever heard of," and then they all went off in high indignation.

Ned climbed up on the fence, and sat there for some time meditating what to do next. Pretty soon Mr. Belding's Sammy came along without seeing Ned, and got over into the meadow, and began picking berries.

Now, Ned hated Sammy Belding, and he thought it would be fine fun to throw stones at him. He calculated the chances of getting caught, and concluded if he stayed over the fence he could get enough start while Sammy was climbing to take him out of danger. So he filled his pockets with stones, and began throwing them at Sammy.

At first Sammy looked around in astonishment, and couldn't make out where they came from. But by and by he pretended that he was paying no attention to them. But if you could have looked under his broad-brimmed hat, you would have seen that he was keeping keen watch.

Ned continued to throw stones. All at once up jumped Sammy, and made for the fence. Ned was taken entirely by surprise, but turned to run as soon as he realized that Sammy had discovered him. But he caught his foot on a stick, and down he went, and before he got on his feet Sammy had him, and proceeded to give him a good pounding, out of which he came with a black eye and a bloody nose. It was too bad the children couldn't have been there to see it.

"Throw stones at me again, will you?" said Sammy. "I'll teach you to mind your own business, if you don't know how."

Ned went home as soon as Sammy got through with him. He was hungry, and his whipping had discouraged him somewhat.

Harry had got home before him, and had reported his bad conduct. The result was that he was ordered to weed out three onion beds that afternoon. That made him groan in spirit. He hated weeding in the garden about the worst of anything in the world.

But there wasn't any help for it, and he went at it.

The old rooster came along pretty soon. Ned knew he never did any harm, as he was too well-behaved a bird to scratch in the garden, but he wanted to vent his spite on something, so he up with a big stone and shied it at the rooster's head, not once thinking that it would hit him. But it did, and with one shrill squawk the fowl gave a leap into the air, kicked about wildly, and fell dead.

Ned was frightened. What would his father say? He had been very careful of the rooster, because he came of a choice breed. What should he do with him? While he was debating the question with himself, who should come along but his mother.

"Why, Ned!" exclaimed she, seeing the poor old rooster lying there, with one claw stretched up pathetically, as if to call a sympathetic attention to his tragic fate. "How did this happen?"

"Well, you see," began Ned, at a loss for an explanation, "he came along, and I thought maybe he'd go scratching, and I shoed him, but he wouldn't go off. Then I threw a stone that way, and it must have hit him, 'cause----"

"You weren't afraid he would scratch, because he never did that," said Ned's mother severely. "I am very sorry to see you in such a bad temper to-day. Go right up to the garret and stay there till your father comes home. I don't know what he will say when he knows of this."

Ned took himself off to the garret, congratulating himself that that wasn't quite as bad as weeding onions. But he was terribly troubled about what his father would say. He couldn't get that out of his mind.

By and by he heard some one coming up the garret stairs. It sounded like Bridget's steps. A pan stood near by, which had been placed under a leak in the roof, and was full of water. Before he stopped to think what the consequence might be--he felt so ugly that he didn't care much--Ned seized the pan full of water, and just as a head made its appearance in the shadowy depths of the garret stairway he let fly pan and all in that direction.

There was an awful spluttering, as if the water had taken the visitor fairly in the face.

Ned turned pale. It wasn't Bridget, after all, but his father.

"Young man," said that worthy person, making his appearance, dripping from head to foot with water, and looking terribly severe, "I want to see you in the wood shed."

His tone struck terror to Ned's heart. The wood shed, on such occasions, was quite apt to prove a second inquisition.

Ned followed, not daring to do otherwise. He didn't even dare to look at his father's face. What took place in the shed I can't say, but directly after their visit to that part of the house Ned went to bed, and I hope he got up feeling better next morning.

TERRIBLE FATE OF A DARING INDIAN.

One of the most remarkable subterranean waterways in the world was recently discovered in the northern range of the Rockies in Montana, by the agency of a fatal accident, witnessed by me on an expedition in which Phil Barnes and Pierre Leger, two prospectors, were my companions, together with a Flathead Indian named Klikat.

On October 28, having struck northeast from Bonner's Ferry into a region entered by a few white men before us, we found ourselves within twenty-five or thirty miles of the Canadian boundary, and 7,500 feet above sea level. In front and on the right were perpendicular cliffs, which barred our advance. To the left was a precipice about 80 feet high, overhanging a roaring mountain stream, and extending fully two miles to the south.

As we stood there, looking around for some opening by which we might advance, there came to our ears a deep, roaring sound, alternating in force, stronger and weaker at intervals of a few seconds. It came in jarring sounds, with a volume like thunder.

"Me know what him is," said Klikat, with a pleased air of comprehension. "Him is Big-hole-in-the-water. You come look," he added, throwing himself flat on the rock with his head and shoulders hanging over. "Ugh!" he exclaimed, "Big-hole-in-the-water heap mad to-day. Him funny. Water go in ground; never come out."

Following Klikat's example, I threw myself on the ground, and peered down from the dizzy height. Barnes and Leger did likewise.

It was a curious sight that we beheld. Straight down below us there was a deep pool, inclosed on three sides by high walls of eternal rock, thus forming a perpetual barrier to the passage of the water. The noisy mountain stream poured great volumes into this natural basin, and then lost itself. The water in the pool swung round as on a pivot. In the very centre was a great funnel-shaped "suck-hole," fully eight feet across, the water rushing downward with lightning speed. In the centre of this funnel was a mass of snow-white foam, dancing and whirling and scattering flakes of itself around the dark-blue rim of the vortex. At intervals of fifteen or twenty seconds there would be a greater downward rush of water, and the pillar of foam would disappear with the increased speed of the current; then the roar would increase in volume, another pillar of foam would form, only to disappear a few moments later as the previous one had done. It was a grand, a terrible sight.

As I gazed upon it suddenly there was a low, crumbling sound, and then a mass of shelving rock right under Klikat broke loose and fell with a fearful crash. I started to my feet just as I saw the Indian making frantic efforts to cling to the edge of the cliff. But his hold was too slight, and, without uttering word or sound of any kind, Klikat fell headlong into the mad waters beneath.

Barnes rushed to one of the pack mules for a rope, but it was too late. Three, four, five times did Klikat swing around in a spiral course, and then, with a sudden twist, he shot into the very centre of the vortex. Down he went with the pillar of foam, out of sight into the bowels of the earth, and the darkness of death.

The cavity filled with water and was silent. But it was short satiety. It quickly opened its dark and unfathomable depths again, and gave out a roaring snore that made the very mountains tremble.

Cautiously we three withdrew from the edge of the precipice. We gazed at each other silently and in horror.

Two weeks later we reached the Kootenai country, in British Columbia, and prepared to camp on the south shore of Lake Kootenai. It was while in the act of gathering driftwood along the shore for our first night's supper that Leger discovered a very ghastly object lying in the water within six feet of land.

It was the corpse of a man--an Indian. The face of the dead was badly bruised and torn, and utterly disfigured.

"Heavens!" cried Barnes, as he cut a ragged cloth from the neck. "This is a remnant of my silk handkerchief, which I gave to poor Klikat to cover the gash he cut on his neck by that dead limb one day--do you remember? And see! Right here in this corner is my monogram--'P. B.'--worked in silk."

It was so. We all recognized the silken rag, and we all knew that the corpse before us was the dead body of Klikat, who had fallen into the funnel of that awful subterranean river, fully 250 miles away, far up in the Rockies of Northern Montana. And yet here was his corpse, drifted ashore on this lake, between which and the "big-hole-in-the-water" there is not the slightest connection, so far as mortal eyes can see. How came he to Lake Kootenai, and how long had he been there?

We buried poor Klikat on a bit of rising ground about fifty yards from the lake shore.

STUMBLING UPON GOLD MINES.

Gold was discovered in California in 1848, and in Colorado in 1858. The discovery was accidental in both cases, and the fact created the impression that mines were "lying about loose." Adventurers drifted about in hopes of stumbling upon a mine. Here are some instances of lucky finds.

Three men, while looking for gold in California, discovered the dead body of a man, who evidently had been "prospecting."

"Poor fellow," said one of the trio, "he has passed in his checks."

"Let's give him a decent burial," said another. "Some wife or mother will be glad if she ever knows it."

They began to dig a grave. Three feet below the surface they discovered signs of gold. The stranger was buried in another place, and where they had located a grave they opened a gold mine.

An adventurer who had drifted to Leadville, awoke one morning without food or money. He went out and shot a deer, which, in its dying agonies, kicked up the dirt and disclosed signs of gold. The poor man staked out a "claim," and opened one of the most profitable mines ever worked in Leadville.

"Dead Man Claim," the name given to another rich mine in Leadville, was discovered by a broken-down miner while digging a grave.

A miner died when there were several feet of snow on the ground. His comrades laid his body in a snow bank and hired a man to dig a grave. The gravedigger, after three days' absence, was found digging a mine instead of a grave. While excavating he had struck gold. Forgetting the corpse and his bargain, he thought only of the fact that he had "struck it rich."

An unsuccessful Australian miner went up and down Colorado for several months "prospecting" for gold, and finding none. One day he sat down upon a stone, and while musing over his hard luck, aimlessly struck a stone with his pick. He chipped off a piece, and sprang to his feet. The chip was rich with gold quartz.

He hurried into the little town of Rosita, and went to the assay office, where a teamster had just dumped a load of wood. He agreed to saw the wood to pay for assaying his chipped sample. The result of the assay sent him back to his "claim." When he had taken out of it $500,000, he sold the mine for $400,000 in cash and $1,000,000 in stock.

But these "stumblings" are the exception to the rule that mines are found by painstaking, intelligent prospectors. They spend wearisome months in exploring mountains and gulches. They are mineralogists, geologists, and, above all, practical explorers, who can tell from a "twist" in the grain of the rock, or from the color of a spar seam, whether "paying gold" can be mined in the region.

YEAR OF THE COCK.

In China and Japan the year 1909 is "the year of the cock." It is regarded as a lucky year and is symbolized by a cock sitting on a drum. In statesmanship and literature this is called "the drum of remonstrance." Formerly such a drum was to be found in China in front of the imperial palace, to be struck by an official in charge whenever a letter of remonstrance was offered to the sovereign. This practice is said to have originated with Emperor Yao, a benevolent ruler who reigned from 2357 to 2285 B. C. His reign and that of Emperor Shun, who succeeded him, constituted a "golden age" of China.

It is believed by the Japanese that the cock has five virtues. His comb represents civilization and his strong feet denote military power. When he meets an enemy he fights well, thus demonstrating courage. When he finds food he calls friends, thereby showing himself kind and helpful. He keeps watch for the dawn, thus proving himself faithful.

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676--Frank Merriwell's Ranch Boss; or, Big Bruce and the Blossoms.

677--Dick Merriwell's Equal; or, The Fellow with the Flying Feet.

678--Dick Merriwell's Development; or, The All-around Wonder.

679--Dick Merriwell's Eye; or, The Secret of Good Batting.

680--Frank Merriwell's Zest; or, The Spirit of the School.

681--Frank Merriwell's Patience; or, The Making of a Pitcher.

682--Frank Merriwell's Pupil; or, The Boy with the Wizard Wing.

683--Frank Merriwell's Fighters; or, The Decisive Battle with
Blackstone.

684--Dick Merriwell at the "Meet"; or, Honors Worth Winning.

685--Dick Merriwell's Protest; or, The Man Who Would Not Play Clean.

686--Dick Merriwell In The Marathon; or, The Sensation of the Great
Run.

687--Dick Merriwell's Colors; or, All For the Blue.

688--Dick Merriwell, Driver; or, The Race for the Daremore Cup.

689--Dick Merriwell on the Deep; or, The Cruise of the _Yale_.

_For sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by_

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ADVENTURES OF A BOY GENIUS

MOTOR STORIES

The boys who want to learn something from what they read, as well as to be interested by it, will never find another publication that will satisfy them so well as MOTOR STORIES. "Motor Matt" is not an impossible boy character. He is simply a youth who has had considerable training in a machine shop where motors of all kinds were repaired, and who is possessed of a genius for mechanics. His sense of right and wrong is strongly developed, and his endeavors to insure certain people a square deal, lead him into a series of the most astonishing, but at the same time the most natural adventures that ever befell a boy.

_HERE ARE THE TITLES NOW READY_:

1--Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel.
2--Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends.
3--Motor Matt's Century Run; or, The Governor's Courier.
4--Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the "Comet."
5--Motor Matt's Mystery; or, Foiling a Secret Plot.
6--Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On the High Gear.
7--Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.
8--Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.
9--Motor Matt's Air Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.
10--Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.
11--Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen Brady.
12--Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas.

To be Published on May 17th.

13--Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the Iron Chest.

To be Published on May 24th.

14--Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of the "Hawk."

To be Published on May 31st.

15--Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of the "Grampus."

To be Published on June 7th.

16--Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in Strange Waters.

PRICE, FIVE CENTS

At all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt of the price.

STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_, NEW YORK

Transcriber's Notes:

Italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=.

Retained some inconsistent hyphenation from the original (e.g. "conning tower" vs. "conning-tower").

Corrected some obvious punctuation errors.

Added table of contents.

Page 13, corrected "aligator" to "alligator."

Page 29, corrected "wtih" to "with" ("with an unsatisfied appetite") and "itno" to "into" ("shivered into fragments").

End of Project Gutenberg's Motor Matt's Quest, by Stanley R. Matthews