Motor Matt's Mariner; or, Filling the Bill for Bunce Read online

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  MOTOR STORIES

  THRILLING ADVENTURE

  MOTOR FICTION

  NO. 31 SEPT. 25, 1909

  FIVE CENTS

  MOTOR MATT'S MARINER

  OR FILLING THE BILL FOR BUNCE

  _By THE AUTHOR OF MOTOR MATT_

  _STREET & SMITH PUBLISHERS NEW YORK_

  _The jolt was terrific. Motor Matt was thrown roughlyagainst the front seat and Bunce went into the air as though shot froma gun._]

  MOTOR STORIES

  THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION

  _Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Copyright, 1909, by_STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y._

  =No. 31.= NEW YORK, September 25, 1909. =Price Five Cents.=

  MOTOR MATT'S MARINER;

  OR,

  Filling the Bill for Bunce.

  By the author of "MOTOR MATT."

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I. "BUDDHA'S EYE." CHAPTER II. THE GREEN PATCH. CHAPTER III. MOTOR MATT--TRUSTEE. CHAPTER IV. BUNCE HAS A PLAN. CHAPTER V. BUNCE SPEAKS A GOOD WORD FOR HIMSELF. CHAPTER VI. THE HOMEMADE SPEEDER. CHAPTER VII. TRAPPED. CHAPTER VIII. THE CUT-OUT UNDER THE LEDGE. CHAPTER IX. BETWEEN THE EYES. CHAPTER X. THE MAN FROM THE "IRIS." CHAPTER XI. ABOARD THE STEAM YACHT. CHAPTER XII. GRATTAN'S TRIUMPH. CHAPTER XIII. FROM THE OPEN PORT! CHAPTER XIV. LANDED--AND STUNG. CHAPTER XV. A CRAFTY ORIENTAL. CHAPTER XVI. THE MANDARIN WINS. JERRY STEBBINS' HOSS TRADE. THE PHANTOM ENGINEER.

  CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.

  =Matt King=, otherwise Motor Matt.

  =Joe McGlory=, a young cowboy who proves himself a lad of worth and character, and whose eccentricities are all on the humorous side. A good chum to tie to--a point Motor Matt is quick to perceive.

  =Tsan Ti=, Mandarin of the Red Button, who proves adept in the ways of Oriental craft, and shows how easy it is for a person to shift his dangers and responsibilities to other shoulders--if only he goes about it in the right way.

  =Philo Grattan=, a talented person who devotes himself to "tricks that are dark and ways that are vain," and whose superb assurance leads him to flaunt his most memorable crime in the face of the authorities through the medium of moving pictures. A man fitted by nature for a worthier part than he plays, and whose keen mind is not able to save him from deception.

  =Bunce=, the mariner, and a pal of Grattan.

  =Pardo=, who charters a power-boat and uses it in forwarding a plot of Grattan's.

  =Bronson=, a railroad superintendent, who appears briefly but creditably.

  CHAPTER I.

  "BUDDHA'S EYE."

  "It's three long and weary hours, pard, before the boat for New Yorkties up at the landing. You don't want to cool your heels in the hotel,do you, while we're waiting? How about doing something to fill in thetime?"

  It was about seven o'clock in the evening, and Motor Matt and hiscowboy chum, Joe McGlory, were sitting on the porch of their hotel inCatskill-on-the-Hudson. The hotel was on an elevation, and the boyscould look out over the river and see the lights of steamers, tugs,motor boats, and other craft gliding up and down in a glittering maze.

  Matt had been looking down at the river lights, and dreaming. Hearoused himself with a start at the sound of his chum's voice.

  "What would you suggest, Joe?" he asked.

  "Let's take in the moving-picture shows. Say, they're the greatestthing for a nickel that I ever saw. Some yap gets into trouble, andthen ladies and gents, and workmen, and clerks, and nurses with babycabs take after the poor duffer, and there's a high old time for allhands. I'm plumb hungry for excitement, Matt. This town has becomemighty tame since we parted company with Tsan Ti."

  "If you think the moving-picture shows will furnish what you need inthe excitement line, Joe, we'll go out and take them in."

  Matt got up with a laugh, and he and McGlory left the hotel, and laida course for the main street of the town. At the first nickel theatrethey came to, they gave up a dime, and moved into the darkened room. Anillustrated song was in the lantern, and a young man with a husky voicewas singing something about a "stingy moon."

  The motor boys stumbled around in the dark, and McGlory tried to slipinto a seat that was already occupied. A stifled scream made him awareof his mistake, and he tumbled all over himself to get somewhere else.

  "Speak to me about that!" he whispered to Matt, with a choppy chuckle."That's the trouble with these moving-picture honkatonks when you comein after the lights are out. Oh, bother that stingy moon! I wish thechap with the raw voice would cut it out, and let the rest of the showget to climbing over the screen."

  "Don't be so impatient, old chap," returned Matt. "You've got to havesomething happening to you about once every fifteen minutes, or you getso nervous you can't sit still. In that respect, you're a lot like DickFerral, a sailor chum I cruised with a while ago. Now----"

  "Sh-h-h!" interrupted the cowboy. "The piano has had enough of themoon, and now here comes the first moving picture."

  White letters quivered on the screen. "Buddha's Eye" was the title ofthe series of pictures about to be shown. McGlory gulped excitedly, andMatt stared. The motor boys had just finished a wild entanglement witha great ruby called the "Eye of Buddha," and this, the first picture inthe first theatre that claimed them, reminded them, with something likea shock, of recent experiences.

  "Sufferin' sparks!" muttered McGlory. "What's the difference between'Buddha's Eye' and the 'Eye of Buddha,' Matt?"

  "No difference, Joe," answered Matt. "This is just a coincidence,that's all."

  The interior of a Buddhist temple was thrown on the screen. The viewswere colored, and priests in gray and yellow robes could be seen movingback and forth and prostrating themselves before a huge gilt idol. Theidol was of a "sitting Buddha" and must have measured full twenty feetfrom the temple floor to the top of the head.

  With a flash, the interior of the temple gave way to an enlarged viewof the idol's head. The head had but one eye, placed in the centre ofthe forehead--a huge ruby, which glowed like a splash of warm blood.

  "The Honam joss house, in the suburbs of Canton!" whispered McGloryexcitedly. "If it ain't, I'm a Piute!"

  Motor Matt kept silence, wondering.

  The boys were next afforded a view of two men, plotting aboard asampan near the island of Honam. One was tall and had a dark face andsinister eyes. He wore a solar hat with a pugree. The other had onsailor clothes, had a fringe of mutton-chop whiskers about his jawsand a green patch over his right eye. McGlory grabbed Matt's arm in aconvulsive grip.

  "What do you think of that?" demanded the cowboy, in a husky whisper."The tinhorn in the sun hat is Grattan, and the webfoot is Bunce. Am Iin a trance, or what?"

  "Watch!" returned Matt, fully as mystified as was his chum.

  The next picture was labeled, "The Egyptian Balls--view of excavationsat Karnak, on the Upper Nile."

  Ponderous ruins were brought into view, showing Egyptian fellahsdigging in a subterranean chamber. An urn was lifted up and uncovered.From this urn the wondering workmen removed a number of crystallinespheres. One of the spheres dropped from an awkward hand, crashed tofragments on the floor of the chamber, and instantly all the workmenstaggered, flung their hands to their faces, and fell sprawling, lyingon the stones prone and silent.

  Two men stole in upon them, covered with flowing Arab robes, and theirfaces masked in whit
e. Swiftly they gathered up some of the balls, andthe camera followed them as they left the chamber and stood under thebroken columns of the ancient temple of Karnak. The robes were flungaway, and the masks removed. Grattan and Bunce, the sampan plotters,stood revealed.

  "I've got the blind staggers, I reckon!" mumbled McGlory, rubbing hiseyes. "It was in Egypt Grattan got his dope balls--the glass spheresfilled with the knock-out fumes. This--this--sufferin' brain twisters!It's more'n I can savvy."

  After Grattan and Bunce had gone through a pantomime expressive oftheir wild delight on securing the balls, the films entered intoanother series, entitled, "The Theft of the Great Ruby from the HonamJoss House, near Canton, China."

  The walls outside the temple were shown, and an avenue bordered withbanyan trees, with rooks flapping among the branches. Grattan and Buncewere seen making their way along the avenue, entering the temple court,and coming into the chamber which had been flashed on the screen at thebeginning.

  Here was the huge idol again, and the yellow-robed priests movingabout. For a space, Grattan and Bunce stood and gazed; then, suddenly,Grattan pulled a hand from his coat, held one of the glass balls overhis head for a space, then sent it crashing among the priests. Thepriests started up in amazement, recovered their wits, and rushedtoward the foreign devils. But the priests were suddenly strickenbefore Grattan and Bunce could be roughly dealt with.

  White masks had been pushed over the faces of the two plotters, andthe pair watched while the priests, overcome by the paralyzing,sense-destroying fumes from the broken balls, reeled to the templefloor, and lay there in inert heaps. The masks protected Grattan andBunce from the baneful influence of the balls.

  As soon as the priests were stretched silent upon the floor, Grattanunwound a ladder of silk from about his waist. One end of the ladderwas weighted with a bit of lead, and this end was thrown over theidol's head. Thereupon, Grattan mounted the ladder, and dug out theruby with a knife. Upon descending, he and Bunce went through anotherpantomime, suggesting their joy over the success of their shamelesswork, and then passed quickly from the court, stuffing their whitemasks into their pockets as they went.

  The next scene was in the room of a house in the foreign quarter, onthe sea wall, called Shameen. Grattan was secreting the ruby in thehead of a buckthorn cane. Barely was the secreting done, when a fatmandarin burst in on them with a number of armed coolies at his heels.

  The mandarin seemed to be accusing Grattan. Grattan could be seen toshake his head protestingly. Then Grattan and Bunce were searchedthoroughly, and the room ransacked. In the utmost chagrin, the mandarinand his coolies left, without having been able to discover anything. Afew minutes later, the thieves took their triumphant departure, Grattanexultantly waving the buckthorn stick.

  Scarcely breathing, and with staring eyes, the motor boys continued towatch the pictures as they raced over the white screen. What wonderwork was this? From Grattan's own lips Matt had heard of the robberyat the Honam joss house, in which Grattan had played such an importantpart. So far, the pictures had shown it substantially as the detailshad come from Grattan; there were a few minor differences, but theywere insignificant.

  From this point, however, Grattan's story and the story as told by thepictures were at variance.

  The thieves got into a couple of sedan chairs, each chair carried byfour coolies. Apparently, Grattan and Bunce were on their way to theriver to embark for other shores. When near the landing, one of thepoles supporting the chair in which Grattan was riding broke. The chairfell, the bamboo door burst open, and Grattan tumbled out. One of thecoolies picked up the buckthorn cane, and another the sun hat with thepugree. Grattan, in anger, knocked down the coolie who had picked uphis hat. The other, coming to his countryman's aid, struck at Grattanwith the head of the cane. Grattan dropped to his knees. The canepassed over his head, and the force the coolie had put into the blowcarried the stick out of his hand, and sent it smashing against theside of a "go-down."

  The head of the cane was broken, and the great ruby rolled over theearth out of the d?bris, and lay gleaming in the sun under the eyesof the astounded coolies. Then, with the inexplicable timelinessso prevalent in motion pictures, the fat mandarin and his cooliescame upon the scene, the mandarin gathering in "Buddha's Eye" withextravagant expressions of joy, and Grattan and Bunce writhingdesperately in the hands of the chair men and the mandarin's guard.

  That was all. The scenes to follow were of a humorous order, andprobably had to do with some unfortunate getting into trouble andleading a varied assortment of people a gay chase, but McGlory had lostinterest in the show. So had Matt.

  As by a common impulse, the boys got up and groped their bewildered wayout of the room and into the street. They were dazed, thunderstruck,and hardly knew what to think.