Motor Matt's Launch; or, A Friend in Need Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  THE RAFFLE.

  "There she is, Matt; and it's apples to ashes she's the fastest thingthat floats. Why, she can run like a scared coyote makin' for home andmother. I've seen her perform, pard, and when she goes any place shearrives just before she starts. Speak to me about that, please. Squintat her good and hard, and tell me what you think."

  Motor Matt and Joe McGlory had eaten their dinner at a restaurant inMarket Street, and had caught the one-o'clock boat across the bay toTiburon. It was now a quarter to two, and they were standing on a smallwharf, not far from the ferry landing, looking down on a trim littleboat. There were about a dozen others, men and boys, lounging on thewharf. The raffle was to come off at two, and most of the idlers,presumably, had bought tickets, and were waiting to "put their fortuneto the touch."

  The boat was an eighteen-footer, some three feet beam, and looked asthough she could "git up and git" if enough ginger were thrown into herpropeller. She was in charge of a boy who had let her drift out to theend of a ten-foot painter.

  "Pull her in," called Matt to the boy. "I'd like to look at her engine."

  The boy laid hold of the painter, and drew the boat up alongside thewharf. Matt dropped into her, and lifted one side of the hinged hoodthat protected the motor.

  He found that the engine consisted of two horizontal opposed cylinders,and was as neat, simple, and compact a marine motor as any he had everseen. The gasoline tank was in the nose of the boat.

  "Ten horse power," mused Matt.

  "You've struck it," said the boy.

  After a five-minute examination the only fault Matt had to find withthe machinery lay in the reversing gear. The brake band was notproperly adjusted, but was set so that it dragged on the drum, whichcould hardly fail to result in a reduction of speed.

  When Matt climbed up on the wharf again McGlory met him with an eagerquestion as to what he thought of the _Sprite_, which was the name ofthe little craft.

  "She's all right," answered Matt, "and ought to run like a singed cat."

  "Worth a couple of hundred plunks?"

  "The motor alone is worth a hundred and fifty, and seems to be as goodas new."

  "Whoop!" exulted McGlory. "Somebody's going to get her for acartwheel--one single, solitary piece of the denomination of eightbits. Mebby it's me? _Quien sabe?_"

  "There were two hundred tickets, you say, and they were sold at adollar each?"

  "Keno, correct, and then some."

  "And you have sixty tickets, Joe?"

  "Again your bean is on the right number, pard."

  "Well, if you get the boat she will have cost you sixty dollars."

  "But it's only one ticket out of the sixty that wins her, Matt.Fifty-nine plunks are squandered, and it's one big dollar that pullsher down to me. I'd have bought more, if I'd had the _dinero_."

  "I might take a chance myself," observed Matt, "although I haven' anymore use for a motor launch here in 'Frisco than has a stray cowboy bythe name of McGlory."

  "Nary, you won't, Matt," said McGlory. "Tickets are all gone."

  "What in the world are you going to do with the craft if you win her?"

  "I can't tell how nervous you make me, wanting a reason for everyblooming thing. The notion hit me plumb between the eyes, Matt, andthat's all there is to it. But if I can't use the _Sprite_ I can sellher, can't I? And if I did want to go cruising, I've got you to runher for me! Oh, speak to me about that. But," and here McGlory's facefell, "I'm not going to get her. Johnny Hardluck has been running neckand neck with me ever since I was knee-high to a clump of cactus. IfI'd have bought a hundred and ninety-nine tickets, the pasteboard Ifailed to corral would be the one that bobbed up when the wheel stoppedrunnin'. That's me, but I'm so plumb locoed that I keep trying to bustthis hard-luck blockade. What's that--a twenty-dollar gold piece?"

  Matt had stooped down while McGlory was talking, and picked up a flatobject from the ground in front of him.

  "A baggage check," answered Matt. "Some of the crowd here must havedropped it. If we could find----"

  Just then, a man appeared carrying his derby hat in his hand. The hatwas filled with numbered slips.

  "Gents," called the man, "this here drawin' for the _Sprite_ is nowa-goin' to take place. Somebody's a-goin' to get that little streak o'greased lightnin' for a dollar. She's a good boat, an' wouldn't be soldfor twice two hundred if her owner hadn't tumbled into a stretch ofhard luck. She's done her mile in four minutes, the _Sprite_ has, righthere in the bay. This here hat is filled with slips o' paper numberedfrom one to two hundred, like the tickets. One of 'em's goin' to bedrawed by the kid, who'll be blindfolded for the occasion. The luckynumber the kid first pulls from the hat takes the boat."

  Cheers from the assembled crowd greeted the "kid" as he climbed out ofthe boat and allowed a handkerchief to be tied over his eyes. Then,with much formality, and while the breathless crowd watched, theyoungster's grimy hand went into the hat and pushed around wrist-deepamong the slips.

  "If the feller that gets the boat lives over in 'Frisco," pursued theman, while the boy dallied provokingly with the slips, "he won't haveto wait for the next boat back. All he's got to do is to jump into the_Sprite_, head her where he wants to go, and cut loose. She's full o'oil and gasoline, an' could go from here to Vallejo without takin' onany more."

  The boy's hand lifted from the hat and held up a slip.

  "Number seventy-three," read the man; "number seventy-three is thelucky ticket, an' gets the _Sprite_. Who's got number seventy-three?"

  "Stung again!" said McGlory gloomily, taking a handful of tickets fromhis pocket and tossing them into the air. "I might just as well say mooand chase myself. Sixty _pesos_ gone where the woodbine twineth, andMcGlory's got another lesson in the way luck's cut him out of her herd.Mebby it's just as well. I've got about as much use for a motor launchas a yaller dog for the tin can tied to the end of his tail, but thenotion that I wanted the thing sure hit me hard."

  "You ought to put a curb on those notions of yours, Joe," said Matt."They seem to be pretty expensive."

  "Shucks! Well, I get a couple o' square miles of fun nursing thenotions along, anyways. It's hoping for things that makes a feller feelgood; he never steps so high, wide, and handsome after he gets 'em.Now----"

  Just here there came an excited chirp, followed by a shrill cackle ofjoy. A Chinese boy, not more than fifteen or sixteen, broke throughthe disappointed throng of whites, his queue flying, and his blue silkblouse fluttering.

  "My gottee! Hoop-a-la! My ticket him seventy-tlee! My gottee chug-chugboatee."

  "Happy days!" scowled McGlory, his eyes on the young Chinaman. "If thatwashee-washee yaller mug hasn't pulled down the prize I'm a sick Injun.And here's me with sixty tickets, and him with only _one_! Speak tome about that! What sort of a low-down thing is luck, anyway, to passup a respectable white, with sixty chances, and dump that boat ontoa Chink with only one! Sufferin' sister! Let's go some place, Matt,where we can be away from the crowd and by ourselves. I'm in a mood forreflection--like old Jack Bisbee was when the government mule kickedat him and set off a box of dynamite. I've got it in the neck, as perusual, and I want to say things to myself."

  "Wait a minute, Joe," returned Matt. "Let's watch the Chinaman."

  The man who had "bossed" the drawing examined the Chinaman's ticket.

  "It's seventy-three, all right," he remarked. "Where you gettee,Charley?"

  "'Melican man no gottee dol pay fo' laundry," the Celestial answered;"him givee China boy ticket."

  "It was sure a good play for you. There's your boat. Take her."

  The yellow boy ran down to the edge of the wharf, dancing around in hiswooden shoes, and crooning ecstatically to himself.

  "My gottee boat, my gottee boat! Hoop-a-la! Where row sticks?" hedemanded, turning to the man who had been in charge of the raffle.

  "That's a motor boat, Charley," grinned the man. "You don't need anyrow sticks."

  The yellow boy, still cha
ttering to himself, slipped from the wharfinto the boat. One of the men, alive to the humor of the situation,pulled the painter off the post and threw it into the craft after him.

  "How you makee lun?" inquired the new owner of the _Sprite_, taking hisseat at the steering wheel.

  The bystanders began nudging each other in the ribs. There wasa delightful prospect ahead of them, in watching this guilelessCelestial, who knew nothing about motors, trying to run a motor boat.

  Half a dozen voices called down directions for switching on the spark,starting the flow of gasoline, and getting the engine to going.

  "He'll get into trouble," cried Matt, pushing his way through the crowd.

  "What's the diff?" guffawed a blear-eyed individual, with a huskylaugh. "It's only a chink, anyhow."

  Matt paid no attention to this remark.

  "You'd better look out, Charley," he called to the Chinaman.

  "My gottee, you no gottee," the yellow boy answered. "You no savvyChina boy's pidgin; him savvy plenty fine. Hoop-a-la!"

  The motor began to pop, and then to settle down into a steady hum. TheChina boy was fairly palpitating with excitement. Grabbing at a lever,he threw the power into the propeller and the _Sprite_ jumped aheadalong the wharf, rubbing her gunwale against the planks. Franticallythe Celestial yanked at the steering wheel. The _Sprite_ turned hernose into the wharf and tried to climb out of the water.

  "She ain't no bubble wagon, chink!" roared the delighted crowd; "don'tbring her ashore!"

  "Turn the wheel the other way!" shouted some one else. "If we can headthe rat-eater right, he'll go plumb through the Golden Gate to China."

  In the confusion of yells, the yellow boy caught the suggestion andwhirled the wheel the other way. In answer to this sudden twist of thehelm, the boat made a hair-raising turn, going over so far that shealmost showed her garboard strake, then she flung away like a racehorse.

  A group of three piles arose out of the water, half a cable's lengthfrom the wharf. The _Sprite_ caught them a glancing blow. There was aterrific jolt, and those on the landing had a glimpse of a Chinamanin the air, his hat and sandals flying in three different directions.He came down headfirst in fifteen feet of water, while the _Sprite_sheered away from the piles and struck a bee line for Sausalito.

  Matt, seeing that disaster was sure to happen, had jumped into arowboat, and was bending to the oars. There might be fun in baiting aChinaman in that way, but he could not see it.