Motor Matt's Air Ship; or, The Rival Inventors Read online

  Produced by David Edwards, Demian Katz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Imagescourtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University(https://digital.library.villanova.edu/))

  MOTOR STORIES

  THRILLING ADVENTURE

  MOTOR FICTION

  NO. 9 APRIL 24, 1909

  FIVE CENTS

  MOTOR MATT'S AIR SHIP

  _OR_ THE RIVAL INVENTORS

  _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 toAct of Congress in the year 1909, in the Office of the Librarian ofCongress, 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. Apalloon, or I vas a lopsder! Und vat a funny palloon it iss."

  Motor Matt and his Dutch chum, Carl Pretzel, were sitting by a quietcountry roadside, in the shade of some trees. Drawn up near them was alight touring-car.

  The boys were several miles out of the city of Chicago, from whichplace they had started about the middle of the forenoon, and they hadhalted in that shady spot between Hammond and Hegewisch to eat thelunch they had brought with them. Carl had just finished the last pieceof fried chicken when, happening to look skyward, he saw somethingthat brought him to his feet with a jump. As he called to his chum, hepointed with the "drum-stick," at which he had been nibbling.

  Matt's surprise was nearly as great as Carl's, and he likewise sprangup and gazed at the air-ship, which was coming toward them from thenorth and east, making smart headway against the wind.

  "Great spark-plugs!" exclaimed Matt. "That's the first air-ship I eversaw."

  "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, whilea balloon is at the mercy of every current that blows. A round gas-bagand a basket is a balloon, Carl, but when you add a gasolene-motor anda propeller you have an air-ship."

  "Dot's blain enough. Der air-ship iss sky-hootin' dis vay to peat fouroof a kindt. Say, it looks like a pig cigar. Vat a funny pitzness! Undyou 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 dozentimes. When I was in the Berkshire Hills they used to have races, andstart 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'ingsas any feller I ever see, und you nefer say nodding ondil it shlipsoudt, like vat it toes now."

  Motor Matt made no answer to this. Just then his attention wascompletely absorbed by the air-craft.

  As near as he could judge, the cigar-shaped gas-bag was more than ahundred feet long. Beneath the bag was suspended a light framework.Midway of the framework was an open space, containing a chair in whichsat the man who was handling the motor. Out behind the driver theframework tapered to a point, and at the end of this rearmost pointwas the whirling propeller. The glittering blades caught the sun in acontinuous sparkling reflection, which made the air-ship appear to betrailed by a glow of fire.

  Forward of the cockpit, or open space, was the motor. A rail ran aroundthe cockpit.

  There were two men in the car--the one in the driver's seat andanother in front of him, leaning over the rail. This second man seemedto be looking at the two boys, and to be waving his hand and givingdirections 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 itdragged 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 ropea 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; whenyou want it to come down, you let out gas. That trailing rope acts asballast. When the gas expands, and the ship wants to rise, part of therope that trails is lifted from the ground and throws more weight onthe car; and when the gas contracts, and the car shows a tendency todescend, more of the rope falls on the ground and takes just that muchweight off the car."

  "Dot's as clear as mud!"

  "I can't understand why they've got a drag on the air-ship," mutteredMatt. "I supposed the propeller and the steering-blades were enough tosend such a craft wherever it was wanted to go."

  As the Hawk came nearer, Matt's trained eyes and ears convinced himthat the driver of the air-ship was a poor motorist. Evidently he didnot understand the engine he was handling. The air-ship zigzaggederratically on its course, and the long bag ducked upward and downwardin a most hair-raising manner. On top of that, Matt could hear one ofthe cylinders misfiring.

  The Hawk's drag-rope was trailing along the roadway. First it was onone side of the road, and then on the other, following the irregularswaying 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 itoff."

  "Dose air-ship fellers vas mighdy careless!" answered Carl, hurryingafter 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 t
he rear of the automobile andwatching the advancing rope with sharp eyes.

  By that time the Hawk was almost over the boys' heads. The rope, ofcourse, was dragging far out behind, and the trailing part of it bidfair to pass the car well on the right.

  "Hello, there!" shouted the man at the rail of the Hawk, leaning farover 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 offmit 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 themotor and the ship's running away! Grab the rope, hitch it to yourautomobile and tow us back to South Chicago. We'll give you a hundreddollars for your trouble. Be quick!"

  "I like his nerf, I don't t'ink!" growled Carl. "He vants to run offmit us und der pubble, und----"

  "We can tow the air-ship, all right," cried Matt, "providing we can getthe rope fast to the automobile. We'll have to take a half hitch withthe trailing end of the rope around a tree, and bring the air-ship to astop."

  Matt started for the rope. As he bent down to lay hold of it, the cargave a lurch sideways and the rope was whisked out of his hands and wasthrown 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 leapflung Carl into the air. He turned a frog-like somersault, hands andfeet sprawled out, and came down with a thump, flat on his back.

  "Whoosh!" he yelled, a good deal more startled than hurt, sitting up onthe grass and shaking his fist at the bobbing craft overhead, "you ditdot 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 afteroverturning Carl, succeeded in laying hold of it.

  He had the rope by the end, so that when he picked it up none of theweight was taken from the ship, and Carl's disastrous exploit was notrepeated.

  "Wrap it around a tree!" yelled the man at the air-ship's rail; "take ahalf-hitch around a tree!"

  The man might just as well have saved his breath. That had been MotorMatt's plan, all along, and even as the aeronaut was shouting hisinstructions Matt was jumping for the nearest tree.

  The young motorist had little time to make the rope fast. The whirlingpropeller was driving the Hawk onward against the wind at a fair rateof speed. Had there been no opposing wind, Matt would not have had timeenough 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 traveledonward so rapidly that he had less than a yard of it in his hands towork with.

  Throwing himself on the opposite side of the tree, Matt laid back onthe end of the rope. At that moment Carl reached his side, dropped nearhim and likewise took a grip on the free end of the drag.

  "It's der fairst time," panted Carl, "dot I efer heluped make somecaptures mit an air-ship. Shinks! Look at dot, vonce!"

  The driving propeller had forced the Hawk to the end of its leash. Theboys, with only a half wrap of the rope around the trunk, felt thequick pull, but easily controlled it. The pull was steady, but, inchby inch, they worked more and more of the rope around the trunk untilthere was enough to make a knot.

  "Dot's der dicket!" exulted Carl, scrambling erect. "Ve've got her tiedlike a pird mit vone foot. Now how ve going to ged her hitched ondo dercar?"

  "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 pointdirectly under the air-ship.