Chapter XVI: The Losing Cause

Murgatroyd must have had an extra switch plug with him, for Brackett, proprietor of the hotel, was authority for the assertion that he left town shortly after Cameron, McGlory, and Ping had taken their departure. Murgatroyd, however, went east, while the other car took a western trail.

What became of Murgatroyd was for some time a mystery. He was not met along the road between Sykestown and Carrington, and he was not seen in the latter town.

His niece likewise vanished, taking the train--this, also, on the authority of Brackett--and presumably returning to Fargo. For her, Motor Matt and his friends always thereafter treasured a warm regard. She had turned resolutely against a relative in order to make sure that right and justice were meted out to a stranger.

Cant Phillips, alias Siwash Charley, was removed to Fort Totten. After a trial, during which it could not be proved that he had lost the dagger which Ping had found in the woods, or that he had met Captain Fortescue by agreement or otherwise and dealt foully with him, or that he had stolen the suit case and the plans, he was sent to the government prison at Leavenworth to serve a long term.

Phillips' story was to the effect that he had deserted to go into the "business" of stealing horses with Pecos Jones, and that the suit case and the plans were in Jones' possession when he--Phillips--joined him.

But Phillips could not deny his identity, nor the evident fact that he was a deserter. For this he received a sentence that was the limit for desertion, lengthened somewhat by the belief of those presiding at his trial that he had at least a guilty knowledge of the other crimes imputed to him.

Mrs. Traquair was very much wrought up when she discovered how Murgatroyd, using her name, had beguiled the king of the motor boys into a trap destined to free the broker and Siwash Charley of "persecution" by the military authorities, and, at the same time, to secure for the broker himself the Traquair homestead.

It was an audacious plan, and a foolish one, but the several steps by which it was worked were covered in rather a masterly way.

Mrs. Traquair had departed suddenly for a visit with friends in Fargo. Learning of this, and from this one insignificant fact alone, Murgatroyd had built up the whole fabric of his plot. It was a losing cause, and Matt had been caught in it, for, if the audacious scheme was to be successful, the king of the motor boys would be the one factor that made it so. Everything hinged on him.

The aëroplane was guarded by Ping until Matt, Cameron, and McGlory reached Sykestown over the trail to Jessup's and sent a team and wagon back to bring the damaged machine into town. The same wagon that hauled it into Sykestown likewise hauled it across country and back to Fort Totten.

Matt, McGlory, and Cameron, before leaving the dugout to return to Sykestown with their prisoner, lingered to talk over recent events, hear each other's account of what had happened, and to make a further examination of the earthen room.

Nothing of any importance was found, save a slender supply of food in the box cupboard, which was promptly confiscated. When the friends left, they closed the door, allowed the painted screens to fall into place over the door and the broken window, and then marked with astonishment how, at a little distance, even they were at a loss to mark the particular place of that lawless retreat.

"It's a regular robbers' roost," declared McGlory, looking back as the car carried them toward the road.

"It ought to be destroyed," said Cameron. "A knowledge of its presence is an invitation for some other lawless men to make use of it."

"Pecos Jones, for example," added McGlory. "How much money did that fellow get from you, Matt?"

"Twelve dollars," answered Matt. "If he hadn't been in such a hurry, he might have found my money belt and secured three hundred more."

"You got off easy," said Cameron.

"Not so easy, after all, lieutenant. I wouldn't go through that set-to with Siwash Charley again for all the gold that was ever minted. I don't like guns, anyway."

"Somethin' queer about that, too," observed McGlory. "Explosive engines are Matt's hobby, but set off an explosion in a steel tube, with a piece o' lead in front o' it, an' he shies clear off the road."

The next day, after the aëroplane had been brought in and sent on to Fort Totten, and the boys had learned various things from Brackett concerning Murgatroyd and his niece, the little party moved on toward Devil's Lake in the car, taking Cant Phillips with them.

When the post was reached there was a disagreeable surprise awaiting Matt. It came in the shape of a telegram from headquarters, announcing that the trials at Fort Myer had been indefinitely postponed, and that, therefore, another of the Traquair aëroplanes would not be needed.

"Bang goes fifteen thousand!" mourned McGlory.

"The department may change its mind," suggested Cameron, "when it hears about that straight-away flight of the aëroplane into Wells County."

"While the war department is changing its mind," said Matt, smothering his disappointment with a laugh, "McGlory and I will get busy putting the aëroplane into shape and then look for fresh fields and pastures new."

"That hits me, pard," said McGlory. "I've been pining for a change of scene, but I hate to leave this vicinity while Murgatroyd is at large."

"Forget Murgatroyd, Joe," counseled Matt.

"If he'll forget us, yes, but I don't think he will."

THE END.

THE NEXT NUMBER (26) WILL CONTAIN

Motor Matt's "Make and Break"

OR,

Advancing the Spark of Friendship.

The Skeleton in the Closet--What Next?--Bringing the Skeleton
Out--Marking Out a Course--The Start--A Shot Across the Bows--The
Man Hunters--Fooling the Cowboys--The Trailing Rope--A Bolt from
the Blue--"Advancing the Spark"--The Trail to the River--Unwelcome
Callers--An Unexpected Turn--A Risky Venture--Conclusion.

MOTOR STORIES

THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION

NEW YORK, August 14, 1909.

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THE DOCTOR'S RUSE.

One morning in September, 190-, there came to the office of Doctor Frederic Curtin, a young English physician in Hongkong, a native junkman from the Chinese city of Swatow, about two hundred miles northeast of the English city. The junkman brought a letter to the doctor from an old acquaintance, the Rev. James Burren, a missionary in the vicinity of Swatow; and the letter begged Curtin to come and attend the missionary's young son, who was suffering from a puzzling and lingering illness.

As none of his patients in Hongkong demanded his immediate attention, Curtin was free to respond to the call. The _Silver Moon_, the trading junk that had brought the letter of appeal, was to leave on the return voyage the next day at noon; and as this junk offered the only means of reaching Swatow for several days, Curtin engaged passage on the slow-sailing, clumsy vessel.

There had been much activity that summer among the native pirates that infest the coast waters of the China Sea; and although the doctor did not expect to encounter any of these gentry, he took the precaution of placing in his valise two heavy navy revolvers and a quantity of cartridges.

The _Silver Moon_ sailed on the morrow at midday, as scheduled, and, driven by a wide spread of canvas, slipped through the deep-blue, lapping water of this Eastern sea at a much better speed than the doctor expected. That evening a nearly full moon floated in the clear sky, and gave a glory to the ocean that Curtin had never seen surpassed. He sat on deck until late, and when he did go down to his cramped berth in the cabin below, he dropped into a sleep so profound that his first intimation of danger was when he was awakened by fierce, wild cries and the scurrying and trampling of many feet on the deck overhead.

He sprang to get his revolvers. But while he fumbled with the catches of the case, there was a rush of footsteps down the passageway outside; and the next moment the frail door burst in with a crash before the attack of half a dozen nearly naked Chinamen, who had revolvers and short curved swords. The _Silver Moon_ had fallen a prey to pirates, and Curtin calmly submitted himself to the invaders.

He was allowed to dress. In the meantime the pirates rummaged through his baggage, including the rather portly black leather case in which he carried his medicines and surgical instruments. When he was hustled on deck a few moments later he found lying alongside the _Silver Moon_ a huge junk, and swarming over the captured vessel a motley horde of evil-looking barbarians.

The crew of the _Silver Moon_, awed and cringing, was huddled forward under guard.

But Curtin was not placed with the other captives. At a word from the thin, wiry man who appeared to be the leader, two of the pirates marched the doctor straight aboard the strange junk, where they proceeded to bind his arms and legs with ropes, and left him near the foremast, to sprawl or sit on the hard deck, as he chose.

Then as soon as everything of value on the _Silver Moon_ had been transferred to the robber junk, the crew returned to their own vessel, and cast off, leaving their countrymen to go their way in peace. The pirate junk now headed to the northeast, following the coast.

Curtin, sprawling on the bare deck in his bonds, could only conjecture what was to be his fate. He knew that the native pirates often made a practice of holding prisoners for ransom, and he fancied that his captors intended to do so in his case, otherwise they would not have singled him out from all those on the captured junk. It did not reassure him to reflect that his bank account in Hongkong was an extremely modest one, and that he had few friends in the city who could place any large sum at his disposal.

About the middle of the forenoon his attention was attracted to one of the pirate crew--a big man who was restlessly pacing up and down the sun-scorched deck not far away, apparently in intense agony. On observing the fellow closely, the doctor saw that there was an angry, unhealed wound in the muscles of his bare left forearm, and noted that the arm itself was swollen to nearly twice its normal size.

At once Curtin's professional instinct was stirred. On the impulse of the moment he stood up awkwardly on his pinioned legs, and said in Chinese:

"That is a bad wound you have in your arm. I am an English doctor of Hongkong. Perhaps if you will let me see your arm I can relieve the pain."

The big Chinaman stopped his uneasy striding to stand and look doubtfully at the speaker. The pirate leader happened to be near, heard what Curtin said, and, the wounded sailor continuing to hesitate, signed him to allow the doctor to examine his arm.

The sufferer obeyed stolidly, and one glance at the inflamed wound, which evidently had been made by a sword thrust, was enough to tell Curtin that he had to deal with a case of threatened blood poisoning. But he thought that if the arm was immediately lanced the Chinaman would have a good chance for speedy recovery.

This he told the pirate captain, who had come over to stand beside his fellow cutthroat. He said that if the black case that had been seized among his other baggage that morning was brought and his arms were released, he would at once treat the wound, although he would not guarantee to cure the man.

To the doctor's surprise, the captain answered that he had lived in Hongkong, and knew of the skill of the English doctors, and that he would be much gratified if Curtin could save the sailor, as the fellow was one of his best men.

The medicine case was quickly produced, and the doctor's hands were untied. First ascertaining that the contents of the case were undisturbed, he prepared the wounded arm by pouring a little alcohol upon it. Then he took out his instruments and quickly performed the operation.

The look of relief that came into the sufferer's face was apparent, but neither the captain nor the other members of the pirate crew, who had gathered round to watch, made any comment. Curtin carefully dressed and bandaged the wound, and as soon as he had finished, his hands were rebound. His patient moved away without a word of thanks or appreciation, yet the doctor did not neglect to say that as often as was necessary he would attend the arm again. He was anxious to make a friend of this Chinaman; for a friend, he felt, would not be a bad thing to have among that barbarous crew.

Shortly after sunset that evening the junk reached the mouth of a narrow river, and a quarter of a mile from the entrance to this stream the sails were lowered and anchor was dropped. Curtin gathered from the talk of some of the crew who stood near him that the junk was to be taken up this river to an outlaw retreat, but that they would not enter the narrow channel until the high tide of the next morning.

Not long after the evening meal was over the pirates began to turn in for the night. Most of them merely threw themselves down on the hard deck. By nine o'clock all were asleep, with the exception of a single watchman, whom Curtin could see strolling back and forth across the afterdeck.

Hours passed, and as the doctor lay outstretched on the bare deck, he tried to work his hands out of the hempen cord that bound them together behind his back. He thought that if he could free himself from his bonds, the watchman might nap, and thus give him opportunity to slip over the side of the vessel into the sea and swim ashore. But he was unable to release his hands.

Not long after this, the watchman came forward and silently passed close to Curtin, and he was rather surprised to see that the lone guard was no other than the man whose arm he had lanced that morning. He wondered idly if the fellow had been chosen for the post of watchman for the reason that suffering had rendered him sleepless.

Then suddenly, as he looked up at the big yellow man, a new idea for escape germinated, grew to a hazy outline, and in a moment took definite shape in Curtin's mind.

In his medicine case was a vial containing a quantity of a certain very powerful anæsthetic. He had told the pirate that he would dress the wound again when necessary. If on this excuse he could get his hands freed and the case in his possession, why would it not be easy to administer a few drops of the drug by a hypodermic injection, and almost immediately send the watchman into a coma that would last for hours--render him unconscious before he could rebind his captive's hands or think to make outcry?

Curtin fully realized the danger attendant upon so audacious a scheme. But he felt that as long as he was in the hands of these ruthless and merciless men his life was not safe from one hour to the next.

Immediately he hailed the watchman and asked him about his arm. The tall pirate paused and replied that it still pained him considerably. Curtin suggested that he should bring the medicine case and have his arm treated there in the bright moonlight.

The watchman was slow in answering. Curtin began to think that the natural craftiness of his race had counseled him against the proposition, when with a gesture of consent he went to the companionway and disappeared. In a few moments he came back, carrying the familiar case in his hand. Then the doctor's heart gave a joyous leap.

As soon as his hands were loosened, he quickly opened the case and took out the vial he needed and the hypodermic syringe. He poured into the syringe a few drops of the colorless fluid from the vial. Next, with hands that trembled with eagerness, he unwound the bandage from the wounded arm.

Curtin picked up the syringe nonchalantly, but it gave him a shock to note at this instant that the huge pirate had his right hand resting on the carved hilt of the short, naked sword slipped through his belt.

However, the doctor did not hesitate. He resolutely grasped the proffered arm, and carefully inserted the needle point of the instrument into the flesh so far above the wound that the powerful drug could have but little harmful effect upon the irritated region. Then, with even pressure upon the plunger, he completely emptied the vial.

He withdrew the syringe, and keeping a strong grip upon his victim's arm, began to replace the bandage.

He worked slowly, methodically, occupying as much time as possible in each step of the operation. The Chinaman soon began to show signs of a strange, unnatural drowsiness. His head nodded on his broad shoulders, his eyes were half closed, and he opened them with difficulty. All at once the doctor's vigilant eye saw a startled, apprehensive look flit across the countenance of the pirate. The next instant the man gave a half-inarticulate cry and snatched out his sword.

Curtin threw up his hand to arrest the fall of the blade, but suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, the Chinaman wavered, the uplifted arm dropped nerveless, the sword fell clattering to the deck from the grasp of the relaxed fingers. As the watchman toppled over under the influence of the drug, the doctor caught him in his arms and lowered him to the deck.

Then Curtin snatched up the sword, and, with one slash of the keen blade, severed the ropes that bound his ankles loosely together. He listened just a moment. All was still on the junk. He stooped down and finished adjusting the bandage to the senseless outlaw's wounded arm.

But he did not linger long on the pirate craft. Throwing a rope over the side of the junk, he slid down into the water and swam away.

No mishap occurred to him in the water, and soon he was following the sands of the beach to the northeast.

At daybreak he came upon a British gunboat lying a little way off the shore, and in response to his signals, a boat put out and took him aboard. That evening he was landed in Swatow. He found the missionary's son very ill with a stubborn fever; but Curtin took up the battle just in time, and at the end of a week had the satisfaction of witnessing the boy's recovery.

STRANDED ON A CHIMNEY.

"Unravel your stocking, John; begin at the toe," was a sentence which many an old-time schoolboy learned well, for it appeared in the school readers of a generation ago. It was the solution found by a quick-witted wife for the problem of rescuing her husband from the top of a tall chimney. When he had let down an end of a raveling, she tied a piece of string to it, and eventually sent him up a rope.

Something of the same sort happened not long ago to two chimney builders on Staten Island, N. Y.

They were up on the top of a big new concrete chimney, over one hundred and sixty feet tall, and started to complete their job by tearing away the scaffolding on the inside as they worked down. There was a ladder running all the way down. The men stood on some planks about ten feet down from the top. They ripped up the planks one by one, and shot them down inside the shaft.

The next to the last one, however, went a little crooked, glanced from the wall, hit the ladder, and in a twinkling tore several sections out and left the men standing on a single plank, six feet long and two feet wide, with no means of going up or down.

It was then noon, and for more than four hours they alternately whistled and shouted in a vain attempt to attract attention. It was nearly five o'clock when another workman happened to come into the chimney at the bottom and heard their cries.

A crowd quickly gathered, and began to wonder what they could do to help. Meanwhile, the prisoners had not been idle: they had torn their flannel shirts to narrow strips and made a rope of them, and this they sent down the chimney slowly.

Firemen were soon at hand, and attached a light line to the improvised rope, and sent it up. The chief's idea was that if they threw it over the top of the chimney and let it down to the ground, he could anchor it there, and they could safely slide down the inside.

They threw it over the top, but there it stuck, fastened in the soft concrete, and soon they could neither pull it toward them nor pay it out; yet they dared not trust their weight on it. For some time the rescue was halted, but at last another rope was secured, and with the line already in hand this was hauled up and thrown over the chimney rim. It went without sticking, and was secured on the outside.

The scaffolding that had held in place was only about fifty feet below the men, but they had used so much of their clothing in making ropes that they were both badly burned in sliding that distance.

However, they reached ground in safety, and in a few days were back at work none the worse for the adventure.

A SCRIMMAGE OF LIONS.

Captive lions, like fire flames, are fine things when under control, but when once they get the upper hand then indeed they are terrible. In her book, "Behind the Scenes with Wild Animals," Ellen Velvin describes a battle between a number of these brutes which took place in a showroom at Richmond, Virginia. It came off at a rehearsal, so that the public lost the chance to see it.

Only one man was concerned in the fight. That was Captain Bonavita, who had managed twenty-seven lions at one time. The cause of the fight was the arrival of newcomers from their native jungles.

When the arena was ready for the rehearsal, Bonavita had considerable trouble in getting the animals out, and when the first one finally appeared, it was not in the slow, stately manner in which he usually entered, but in a quick, restless way, which showed that he was in an excitable state. He was followed by seventeen others, all in the same nervous condition.

Instead of getting on the pedestals in their usual way, the lions, with one exception, a big, muscular fellow, began to sniff at the corners of the arena, where the newcomers had been exercising, and every moment added to their rage. Their fierce natures were excited by jealousy, so that when one lion presumed to go over to a corner and follow up the sniffing of another, the first one turned upon him and bit him savagely. The other promptly retaliated, and in the twinkling of an eye they were fighting fiercely.

The temper of the others flashed up like gunpowder, and almost instantly seventeen lions were engaged in a wild, free fight.

The one big fellow who had climbed on his pedestal when he entered still sat there, but at this moment the remaining nine lions appeared in the arena, followed by Bonavita.

The animals rushed forward into the battle; the big lion with an ugly snarl leaped from his pedestal into the thick of the fray, and in an instant twenty-seven lions were fighting with teeth and claws. In the midst of it all stood one man, calm, self-possessed, but with every nerve and muscle at their highest tension, for he knew better than any one else that his life hung in the balance.

Bonavita vainly tried to regain mastery over the fighting beasts. The lions were no longer the puppets of a show; they were the monarchs of the wild, turbulent and savage.

Seeing his power gone, Bonavita did his best to save his own life. He succeeded in getting out, thanks to his wonderful nerve--for he had to jump over the backs of the fighting animals, and in doing so he received a deep wound in the shoulder.

There was nothing to be done but to let the lions fight it out, which they did. For nearly two hours that awful battle raged; but, when the lions were exhausted, Bonavita, wounded as he was, went in and drove them into their cages.

Many of the lions after this terrible fight were seriously injured, and had to be treated for wounds, cuts, and tears; but they had fought themselves out, and the next week they went through their performances as mildly as kittens.

DREDGING FOR GOLD.

The many varying conditions under which gold is found is not the least interesting feature of the history of the yellow metal. In rock, sand, and sea it has been discovered, and even in the deposit of hot springs now in activity. Large nuggets have been discovered in dry gravels, while prospectors have acquired much wealth by extracting gold from river beds, by the process known as panning--i. e., separating the dirt and mud from the metal by shaking the gold-bearing earth or gravel with water in a pan.

While, however, many rivers have been thus exploited, explorers and scientists are agreed that there are still millions of dollars' worth of gold waiting to be unearthed from the bottom of rivers in different parts of the world. In New Zealand and South America, for instance, convincing proof has been obtained that rich deposits of the precious metal still lie at the bottom of many of the rivers of those countries. The gold is usually found in the form of grains at some depth below the surface, imbedded in mud and clay.

There are only two ways of recovering it--namely, either the river bed must be dredged by floating dredgers, or the river must be diverted into another channel while its bed is being stripped. The former method is the one generally adopted, dredgers having been used with considerable success on the Pacific Slope.

Attention has been attracted of late years to the possibilities of recovering gold from the rivers of Peru. For ages the gold-laden quartz of the land of the Incas--the people who covered the walls of their temples with plates of gold and used the precious metal to fashion cooking utensils--has been broken down by the denuding agencies of frost, rain, and snow, and carried into rivers, where it has remained undiscovered, until recent explorations revealed an astonishing source of wealth.

Take the River Inambari and its tributaries, for instance. An examination of 30 miles of this river revealed the fact that it contained gold to the average value of $1.75 per cubic yard, which could be extracted at a cost of 12 cents only. The result of this examination led to the formation of the Inambari Gold Dredging Concessions, Limited.

Sir Martin Conway some time ago explored upper Peru and the famous gold-producing valleys from which the Incas gained most of their great store of wealth. He came to the conclusion that in a certain area no less than $10,000,000 profit was to be made by extracting gold from the rivers, and in order to begin obtaining this gold it was only necessary to have a dredge on the spot. The same hour in which the dredge first begins to turn, gold will be won.

The dredges used up to the present have been almost exclusively of the endless-chain bucket or steam-shovel pattern. At one end of the boat is a powerful endless-chain bucket-dredge, which scrapes the gravel from the bottom and elevates it to a revolving screen in the boat. This in turn sifts out the bowlders, which are at once thrown to the bank of the river, while the fine material flows over tables covered with cocoanut matting, which acts like fine riffles, catching the gold in the interstices. The matting is periodically lifted up and thoroughly rinsed off, the rinsings are panned for gold, and the matting returned for another charge.

In the case of the Inambari Gold Dredging Company, a modern steel dredger has been made, which it is confidently estimated will work far quicker and in a much more effective and inexpensive manner than any other dredger which has yet been used.

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Matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures are unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them.

_HERE ARE THE TITLES NOW READY AND THOSE TO BE PUBLISHED_:

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.

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

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

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

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

17--Motor Matt's Close Call; or, The Snare of Don Carlos.

18--Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under the Amazon.

19--Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn.

20--Motor Matt Makes Good; or, Another Victory for the Motor Boys.

21--Motor Matt's Launch; or, A Friend in Need.

22--Motor Matt's Enemies; or, A Struggle for the Right.

23--Motor Matt's Prize; or, The Pluck that Wins.

24--Motor Matt on the Wing; or, Flying for Fame and Fortune.

To be Published on August 9th.

25--Motor Matt's Reverse; or, Caught in a Losing Game.

To be Published on August 16th.

26--Motor Matt's "Make or Break"; or, Advancing the Spark of
Friendship.

To be Published on August 23d.

27--Motor Matt's Engagement; or, On the Road With a Show.

To be Published on August 30th.

28--Motor Matt's "Short Circuit"; or, The Mahout's Vow.

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:

Added table of contents.

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

Converted oe ligatures to "oe" for this text version; ligatures retained in HTML edition.

Retained inconsistent hyphenation from original ("straightaway" vs. "straight-away").

Page 9, changed "science of variation" to "science of aviation."

Page 11, added missing apostrophe to "can't catch up."

Page 14, changed "aim" to "air" ("high into the air.").

Page 15, corrected "pratically" to "practically."

Page 17, changed "waster" to "was ter" ("cowboy feller was ter").

Page 18, corrected "earthern" to "earthen" ("pail on the earthen shelf").

Page 21, corrected "himstlf" to "himself" ("How was he to free himself?").

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