Chapter XVI: Matt Takes Townsend's Advice

Townsend was on the road to rapid recovery. He was feeling a hundred per cent. better than he had been when Matt and his pards left him, two days previously, and if it had been possible to use his lame foot he would have been up and around.

He was not surprised to see Motor Matt and his friends, because he had expected Matt to make the trip to Turtle Key and back in safety; but he was surprised to see Cassidy enter his room with the young motorist.

"What's this?" cried Townsend, hoisting up on his elbow and staring at Cassidy. "Is that you, Cassidy?"

"Big as life, cap'n," grinned Cassidy.

"Where'd you come from?"

"From the _Grampus_."

"And where's the _Grampus_?"

"Layin' off the town."

"Did you get her away from Jurgens?"

"Motor Matt was the one that got her away from Jurgens."

Townsend fell back on his pillow and centred his attention on Matt.

"There's a yarn back of all this, if I'm any prophet," said Townsend, "and for two days I've been hungry to have some one talk to me. Here's your chance, King."

Matt seated himself by the bedside and proceeded to relate the experiences through which he and his friends had recently passed.

Townsend listened with rapt interest. Not a word escaped him, and occasionally he asked a question to bring out some point which Matt had not made quite clear.

When Matt had finished there followed an interval of silence. Townsend did not seem to be greatly impressed, despite the intense interest he had shown while the narrative was going forward.

"Nothing so very wonderful about all that," said Townsend, presently, "when you consider who was playing the chief part in the game. It's just about what I should expect of Motor Matt. I'm sorry for the trouble you had with the air ship, Matt, and shall consider myself under obligations to make up to you any extra expense you may incur in getting the Hawk back into shape. When I hired you to take me to Turtle Key I had no intention of allowing you to run the risk of losing the Hawk.

"And the Man from Cape Town told the truth, after all! I hadn't the least idea that there was a vestige of truth in that wild yarn of his. The iron chest has been found, but what we discover in the chest is liable to be another matter. I doubt if there is anything in it of any value; nevertheless, I am bound by promise to take the chest to New Orleans and open it in the presence of a certain lady there whose name was given me by the Unknown. It looks like a lot of foolishness, to me, but I've started the game and will have to go through with it. I'm very sorry," and here a heavy frown crossed Townsend's face, "that Jurgens got away from the island. The other men will be transferred from the _Grampus_ to the jail, here, and they will be dealt with according to law, but it is the ringleader we ought to have. How do you think he managed to escape from that island, Matt?"

"He must have got away in a boat," replied Matt, "although where Jurgens and Whistler got the boat is something of a puzzle."

"Well, the two scoundrels have gone, and justice will be cheated for a while longer; but, mark me, sooner or later their time will come. And I have an idea, Matt, that you and I will be concerned, in some manner, with the final act of their vicious careers. What will you do now?"

"Repair the Hawk and go back to Atlantic City."

"Can you repair the Hawk here?"

"Easily."

"Then why go back to Atlantic City?"

Matt stared at Townsend.

"That's a good place to make money," said he, "and the Hawk has become quite popular at the resort."

"It won't be so popular from now on, mark what I say."

"Why not, Mr. Townsend?"

"Why, because people will learn how the gas bag sprung a leak and nearly caused you and your friends to lose your lives. That is what will injure the Hawk's popularity. If you return to Atlantic City people will be afraid to make any ascensions with you. Can't you see how it will be?"

There seemed to be a good deal of logic in Townsend's remarks, although Matt thought he was a little too comprehensive in saying that _everybody_ would be afraid of the Hawk.

"We'll show the people," declared Matt, "that the Hawk is perfectly safe."

"We can explain," put in Dick, "that we ran into a tree and made a hole in the bag. That ought to show people that the accident wasn't the Hawk's fault."

"It ought to," insisted Townsend, "but it won't. People don't stop to make any fine discriminations in such matters, and if an accident happened to the Hawk once, they will argue, it's liable to happen again. Now, I want to give you some advice, Matt, and if you follow it you will profit by it. Cassidy and I, together with Burke and Harris, are going to leave here this afternoon in the _Grampus_ for New Orleans. I can be carried down to the boat, and I will feel a heap better in the _Grampus_ than I will in this hotel. In two or three days we will be in New Orleans. While we are making the journey, you and your friends, Matt, will be here, getting the air ship in shape. My advice to you is this: Don't leave Palm Beach until you hear from me. I have a scheme floating around in my brain and I am going to telegraph you just as soon as it takes a little more form so I will know just what I want to do, and to have you do.

"That's my advice. Stay here until you get word from me. That's all I'm going to tell you, and you and your friends can take the advice, or leave it, just as you think best. But if you don't take it, you will live to regret it."

This was odd talk for Mr. Townsend. First he tried to discourage Matt and his friends from returning to Atlantic City, and now he was seeking to keep them in Palm Beach for an indefinite period.

But all the boys had confidence in Townsend. Each of them believed that he was planning something for their benefit, and they were disposed to do as he suggested.

Townsend took his departure from Palm Beach just as he said he would do. Bearing the iron chest with him, he took the _Grampus_ and started for New Orleans.

Meanwhile, Matt and Carl and Dick got busy with the Hawk. The craft was put together again, the motor replaced, the envelope repaired, and in two days everything was in readiness for a return to Atlantic City--if the boys chose to go there.

"Vat do you subbose id iss dot Misder Downsent vants mit us?" asked Carl.

"Give it up, matey," answered Ferral. "I can't smoke his weather roll, but, all the same, I give him credit for meaning well."

"Shall we wait here any longer," inquired Matt, "or start back to Atlantic City? Time means money to us, you know, and the longer we wait, the more we lose--that is, if we don't intend to follow Mr. Townsend's advice."

"It's one too many for me, matey," said Ferral. "You're the longest-headed chap in the bunch, and suppose Carl and I leave the decision entirely with you?"

"If that's the way you feel," laughed Matt, "we'll stay right here and give Townsend all the chance he wants to communicate with us."

Two days after this conference, a telegram came from New Orleans. It was addressed to Matt, signed by Townsend, and read as follows:

"Come to New Orleans at once, and come in the Hawk. I need your aid,
and am willing and able to pay for it."

"Dot's righdt to der point, und no misdake!" chuckled Carl. "'I vant your aid und am villing to pay for it.' Dere's no gedding aroundt dot, eh?"

"Hardly," laughed Ferral. "What are we going to do, Matt?"

"Do as the telegram says and start for New Orleans immediately," returned Matt.

"Iss dere any vay ve can go dere mitoudt trafeling ofer der ocean?" asked Carl, with signs of trepidation.

"Sure there is, Carl," said Ferral. "I wouldn't go myself if we had to travel across the Gulf of Mexico. But we don't have to. We can follow the land around."

The start was made that afternoon, and, although this following of Townsend's advice led Motor Matt and his friends into experiences as novel as they were dangerous, yet none of them ever regretted taking the trip around the Gulf coast to the Crescent City.

THE END.

THE NEXT NUMBER (13) WILL CONTAIN

Motor Matt's Queer Find;

OR,

THE SECRET OF THE IRON CHEST.

The Hut by the Bayou--Yamousa--The Attack On the
Car--Smoke-pictures--A Queer Find--Foul Play--Dried Frogs, and
Luck--The Plotters--The Head of Obboney--On the Trail--A Black
Mystery--At Close Quarters--Three in a Trap--An Astounding
Situation--The Treasure--Diamonds Galore.

MOTOR STORIES

THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION

NEW YORK, May 15, 1909.

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NIGHT WATCHES FOR BIG GAME.

From Sebenane to Thamasetse, both of which are pools of water situated on the old Hunter's road from Francistown to the Zambesi, is, roughly speaking, seventy-five miles. Since the railway has been opened up between Francistown and Buluwayo this road is never used, and is practically deserted. We had started very early in the morning. Just about sunrise I heard a rustle in a bush close to the road, writes Arnold W. Hodson in the _Field_. Thinking it was only a steinbuck or a duiker, I paid no attention till I heard the animal bound away, when it struck me as making rather a loud noise for so small an antelope. I then caught sight of a yellow object moving parallel to the road and saw it was a lioness.

She bounded into the road and stood looking at me. I had my thick gloves on, as it was very cold, and in consequence rather fumbled pulling off my night protector, which, to save time, I dropped on the road instead of putting into my pocket. My pony, however, began to pirouette round in circles, and before I could get him in hand the lioness bounded away. I galloped after her down the road, but she soon got into the thick bush, where we lost her.

We got to Thamasetse the next day and found old lion spoor, but none fresh. Some days afterward one of the bushmen appeared and reported that the lions were at Thamasetse. I got ready as soon as possible and left that evening with one native. We rode all through the night and arrived at our destination the next afternoon. The lions did not come down to drink till the third night, when in the morning we found their spoor still fresh and damp. We followed it up carefully, going through thorn bush.

We got so close to them once or twice that we could hear them growling (there were five altogether), but the wind changing, they smelled us and made off and although we followed them up for some distance we did not catch sight of them again. Eventually we had to give it up.

The following day we found the spoor of one male and one female, and followed them up for about twelve to fourteen miles. We would come to a place where they had been sleeping, and then, evidently smelling us, we would see how they had become uneasy and gone on a short distance, where they had slept again. This went on till we had gone too far and had to go back.

After this experience I decided to try different tactics, so we dug a hole fifteen yards from the water, in which I intended to watch that night. We made the hole as inconspicuous and secure as possible, and then went around to the outside pools and filled them all up, so that the lions, if they wanted to drink, would have to come down to our water. At sundown I took up my position in the kadiri (the native name for "game hole"). A few hours afterward some sable and roan antelopes came down to drink, and it was a very pretty sight to watch them.

They approach the water carefully and when quite close suddenly bound away. My opinion is that they do this to see if by chance there is a lion in the water hole, because the latter lie up close to the edge of the pool in the shadow of the bank and then spring on the game when it drinks. The mere fact of their bounding away would probably entice the lion forth. The sable antelope seemed to me to be always more cautious than the roan antelope. One of the former, a female, came twelve times to the water and dashed away each time. Of course she may have just smelled me, which would have accounted for it; but I do not think she did, for she eventually drank.

I kept watch night after night, and although I saw plenty of game, no lions came. It was very lonely by oneself in these holes, and the cries of the wolves and jackals are at times very uncanny. One evening at dinner time just as Ranchubu, my servant, was bringing in the soup, one of my little bushmen, a splendid little chap of about 14 and very plucky, who was going down to the water to fill his billy, suddenly commenced yelling with all his might "Newe! Newe!" (leopard, leopard), and then, still shouting, commenced running after it across the veld. I snatched up my rifle and calling to the dogs rushed after him. Luckily, I had on a pair of light running shoes instead of my usual heavy shooting boots, so was easily able to keep up with the others who had joined us.

We must have gone about three miles when we heard the dogs barking and knew that they had bayed the leopard. In a few minutes it would be quite dark, so I put on a fresh spurt to try to get a shot while I could see my sights. The leopard was standing outside a thick patch of bush with the dogs, furiously excited, surrounding him. After several shots and misses, the leopard breaking away each time, a lucky shot struck him in the neck and killed him.

I was glad the matter ended as it did, for I found that two of my previous shots had hit him, and it is seldom that a wounded leopard does not attack his assailant. It is curious that he did not take to a tree, as is nearly always the case when chased by dogs. He was an excellent specimen of a large male. We got back to the camp about 9 p. m., a very jubilant party, and when I had had my supper I again took up my position at the water hole. Plenty of game came that night, but no lions.

The next day was very hot and oppressive, and we felt sure that if lions were anywhere near they would come down that night to drink. I took up my position soon after sundown, and about 12 o'clock, as we had no meat, shot a male sable antelope. He was mortally wounded and ran about sixty yards to die, when, as I discovered, in the morning, he was pounced upon by a lioness and immediately killed. I heard nothing and saw nothing till about 3 a. m., when I heard lap, lap, lap from the pool in front of me.

I knew by the noise the beast was making it could be nothing else but a lion, but for the moment I could see nothing, as it was in the pool, and from the position I could only see an animal as it came in or went out. At last the noise stopped and a shadowy figure came out of the pool. It stood for an instant on the edge silhouetted against the sky. I could not distinguish whether it was a male or a female, but there was no doubt it was a lion, and, as it turned out afterward, a female. I brought my rifle in line with the object and fired. I knew at once I had hit by the terrific growls that followed. I hastily fired again and the brute lay down, all the time growling terribly, so much so that it woke up all the natives in my camp, some distance away.

As soon as it was light I could see her ears moving and fired again, this time hitting her just below the head, which finished the matter. She was a splendid specimen of a lioness. My first shot had hit her in the neck, and the second in the stomach. Her skin was perfect and very glossy. We found the remains of the sable antelope she had killed about eighty yards away, and saw by the spoor that there had been at least six lions around the pool that night.

They had evidently been frightened by the fate of the lioness and had not come down to drink. We followed the spoor of a lion and a lioness. After we had gone a short distance the bushman pointed to a tree and showed us where the lion had been standing up on his hind legs clawing it. He said that the lion was looking around for the lioness I had shot and was very angry at being disturbed from his feast of the sable antelope. We went on mile after mile, but a breeze springing up behind us we had to go back.

That night I again sat up at the water hole, but saw nothing more exciting than a few sable and roan antelopes. The next day it was again very hot, and at night I went down to the hole full of hope that the lions would come back. About 1 a. m. I heard a rustle and saw a leopard going into the pool, walking very quietly and without the least idea of my near presence. She disappeared into the pool, but I could not hear her drinking, as I had heard the lioness two nights before. She soon came out and stood for a few minutes on the bank; I fired and she bounded away. My bullet went through her body and she was found next morning a few yards distant. She was very prettily marked, in good condition.

About 3 a. m. the same morning I could hear some animals at the remains of the sable antelope. The cracking of the bones was one of the most horrible noises I have ever heard. I made sure that the lions had come back, and expected them when they had finished their feed to come down and drink; but they did not come, and in the morning we found that they were jackals that had been eating the meat during the night.

I continued to sit up at nights, but the lions did not return. On the third evening just before going down to the game hole the leader came running into camp and said that he had heard the cries of a dying sable antelope, so we went out as quickly as possible to the place, and on getting near to it heard the peculiar half growl, half bark uttered by wild dogs. There were four or five of them. They did not run away when they saw us, but bounded a few yards and then turned round and looked at us, all the time making a hideous noise. I shot one of them and the rest then decamped. This wild dog appeared to me to be differently marked from one I had shot a few weeks before more to the southwest. These brutes do no end of damage among game, and the bushmen say that sometimes if they are disturbed in their orgies they will attack a man. They certainly look fierce enough to do so.

SPECIALISTS IN THE WOODS.

Only people who have poked around up there more or less realize how many persons make a living out of the Maine woods. This reference is not to the lumbermen and the pulp stuff choppers. Their presence in the woods is a matter of course. This is a word about the army of specialists. One might say that they are the gleaners who follow the red-shirted reapers whose harvest is the giants of the forests. The side issues of the Maine woods feed many mouths; and speaking about mouths there are, of course, the gum pickers.

Some people have an idea that spruce gum is gathered in the forest by the lumbermen at odd jobs. It may be remarked in passing that from 4:30 a. m. until dark the Maine loggers have something else to do. They haven't any hankering to climb trees.

Practically all the spruce gum of commerce is gathered by men who make it their business and work at it as steadily as a man in a factory. You will find the snowshoe trail of these busy chaps zigzagging through pathless stretches, and if you happen to be up that way you will see their camp-fires glowing deep in many a lonely glen.

Few people behold them at their work. The constant supply of gum in store windows shows they are kept busy.

There is more or less excitement about gum picking. The standard price for gum is $1 a pound, and a fancy article of clear nuggets brings $1.50. Some days when lucky strikes are frequent the gum picker can clear from $5 to $10.

The gum picker can sell even the scraps and chippings. The patent spruce gum maker boils those down. Several medicine firms also make a spruce gum cough balsam.

Maine gum pickers usually travel in pairs. Some go on their own hook, others are employed by wholesale druggists. Usually they range over wide territory, sleeping here and there in the deserted logging camps that sprinkle northern Maine. A few fresh boughs of browse in the bunks and some strips of bark over the habitable corner of the camp make the place a comfortable home.

If a city man happens to be ordered into the woods by his physician he would do well to take up gum picking for his pastime, even if he does not care for the money. There is just enough activity about it to keep a man's mind clear and his muscles healthy. It takes him abroad through the crisp winter air and gives him an excuse for "hucking it."

A gum picker's equipment comprises warm clothing, snowshoes, climbers--such as telegraph linemen use--a curved chisel in the handle of which a pole may be set, a good jack-knife and a gun. These are the necessaries.

Almost as necessary is a good supply of tobacco, for if you can imagine a gum picker sitting down of an evening by the camp fire and cleaning his day's pick of gum without clouds of smoke about his head your imagination pictures a very cheerless scene.

There is a special thing about gum picking--the daily expenses are small. The men cannot register at hotels or patronize saloons. It is either a deserted camp or the lee side of a tree at night.

As they are obliged to tote their household supplies on a moose sled, they are frugal in their diet. With plenty of work, a few bushels of beans, flour, and molasses, a gum picker is fixed nicely for a long and cold winter. He figures that it costs him about 50 cents a week, and if he is handy with his gun he reduces expenses materially.

Of course it is rather lonely sometimes in the deep woods, but there is a pretty bright side to the picture.

The gum picker rolls off his bunk in the morning, his nostrils full of the good green savor of the spruce boughs beneath his head all night. He fries his bacon, warms his beans and sloofs at his steaming tin of tea.

Then he has a leisurely smoke before the sputtering embers of the fire, gets his kit on his back and his gum bag under his arm, ties a lunch of biscuit and gingerbread in his handkerchief, straps on his snowshoes, and trudges away into the forest, his pipe trailing blue smoke behind in the sparkling air of the winter morning.

The gum picker must have a good eye for trees. A careless and myopic man would travel over acres of territory and miss the dollars right along. The shrewd picker, the experienced man, runs his practiced eye along every trunk.

Here and there he sees a tall spruce marked by a seam through which its life-blood has oozed for years. The bubbles have crept out and have been clarified day by day in the sun and the rain. They have absorbed the odoriferous breath of the forest.

There they are at last, amber and garnet nuggets, ready for the picker's chisel and for the teeth of the gum-chewing girls far away in the city. Sometimes the picker goes up on his climbers and taps and ticks and picks like a giant woodpecker. Sometimes the tree is felled.

The gum king of the Moosehead region is a rather cranky old chap, who has been at the business ever since he was a youth. He roams all over that region and has reduced the thing to a science.

At regular intervals he makes a trip through some remote district and wounds the spruces with his ax and chisel. Then after a few years he travels around that way and gathers the gum.

It is only in Maine that the great gum nuggets with centres like the red of a dying coal are obtained, and the folks that chew gum say that for yanking qualities this gum beats the world.

The Maine hoop pole man makes even better wages than his brother the gum picker. The hoop pole man follows along in the wake of the loggers.

He barbers the face of the hillsides of stuff that no one else wants. He is after the second growth, as the young birch and ash are called. These spring up around the rotting stumps.

The hoop pole man takes a horse with him in his tours. He cuts the poles, and the horse hauls them to camp by daylight. Evenings the pole man fashions the hoops with a draw shave, sitting beside a roaring fire and sucking at his black pipe.

Sometimes the poles are sold round, but the harvester who trims his own stuff and shaves the hoops receives two or three cents each for the finished products, and that pays. The hoop pole business is pretty steady work, but the evenings are pleasant, after all, with the slish of shaves, the crackle of the fire and the rumble of story telling. Even the rabbit, up-ending outside, looks in through the windows at the light and warmth, waggles his ears and wishes he might join the group.

As soon as the hoop poles are sold each is marked across with red chalk a little way from the end. For some time in certain parts of Maine persons did a snug business by stealing poles, but nowadays no dealer will buy any that have been thus marked. Yet sometimes the canny thief cuts off the ends that bear the chalk mark.

A while ago one man sold his hoop poles to a dealer, who marked them and laid them in his sled. Then the seller came around by night, stole the poles, cut them off and sold them to another dealer as hoops for half barrels. It may be seen, therefore, that the city man doesn't know all the tricks. If this enterprising hoop pole man could have got the hoops once more he could have trimmed them down and disposed of them as hoops for nail kegs.

Then there is the axe handle man. He needs ash of a larger growth than the hoop pole saplings. The trees are chopped in the fall, and then by means of a "froe" and axe each handle is roughly blocked out. Then they are buried so that they may season without cracking.

As an additional precaution against parting of the fibres the broad end of each handle is daubed with a sort of paint the principal ingredient of which is grease. Ash goes to pieces easily if the sun gets at it and the axe handle man must be careful of his wares. The rough handles are sent away to the factory as soon as the snow comes.

Of all tough jobs the ship knee man has the worst in the woods. The knees bring good prices, but the man who gets them out earns every cent.

He goes prospecting with an axe, hunting for hack or back juniper or tamarack. When one is found he looks to see if it has the proper crook in its root. If the right angle is there and the root proves sound he sets to work digging it out--and it is a muscle racking job.

The man who is after hemlock bark for the tanneries is another chap who strays far in the woods, for the bark is away back nowadays.

The Indian who hunts after basket stuff or birch bark for a canoe hull is the most patient searcher. The big birches are few and far between in the Maine woods, and sometimes an Indian from the Penobscot or Passamaquoddy tribe will tramp a hundred miles before he finds a tree that will yield a piece of bark without knothole or crack and which will be large enough for a canoe.

A number of men are now making good money in the Maine woods by searching the brooks for fresh water clams. They are getting some good pearls from these bivalves. Some hunters in the Moosehead region recently found a pearl valued at $200.

The most unsocial folk in the Maine forests are the trappers. They don't want anyone within twenty miles of them. Gunners will steal from the traps, they believe, and lumbermen scare away game. Even bobcats rob them, as bloody smears near a rifled trap indicate.

Some of the old trappers have a twenty-mile circuit of traps and resent it if any neighbors come that way. Some of the biggest rough and tumbles that the Maine beavers have ever witnessed have been fought out by bow-legged old trappers who have chanced to cross trails and have believed that they were being crowded on a hundred square miles of territory.

MISSOURI WILLOW FARM.

East Kansas City is one of the most important centres in the Missouri Valley in the business of shipping willows. In the last three months alone the Kansas City Southern Railway has hauled from there 140 flat carloads of trimmed willows, and is taking out more as fast as the willow plantations can furnish the crop.

The roots of the willows keep the sand from shifting along the river banks; but the use of the tops of willows in fighting currents of water is comparatively new. Government work with willows requires that the trees shall be more than twelve feet high and between 3/4 and 2-1/2 inches in diameter at the butts. After a patch of these trees has been cut the ground looks like a stubblefield of corn. The new sprouts, however, look more like a field of wheat--if wheat only had that peculiar reddish tinge that willows take on at this time of the year. In two and a half to three years after cutting willows will grow up again to the size required for dikes or for plaiting into mats.

The willows now being bought by the railway are for use in checking the inroads of the Arkansas River between Spiro and Fort Smith, Ark. The dikes that are being constructed run out into the river 150 feet and are of willows held in place with large steel cables. Since December 11 nearly 800 carloads of trees--not all of these willows--have been dumped into the river.

The sand filling the crevices between the bundles of willows makes a strong and economical pier. The steel cables insure the safety of the pier until the sand has done its work.

In cutting and trimming the willows the harvesters use nothing but ordinary corn knives.

ANIMALS THAT DREAD RAIN.

Lions, tigers, and all the cat tribe dread rain. On a rainy day they tear nervously up and down their cages, growling and trembling. The keepers usually give them an extra ration of hot milk. That puts them to sleep.

Wolves love a gray day of rain. They are then very cheery. Treacherous as the wolf is, no keeper need fear him on a rainy day. He is too happy to harm a fly.

Snakes, too, like rain. They perk up wonderfully as the barometer falls and the damp makes itself felt in their warm cases of glass.

Rain makes monkeys glum. They are apt from instinct, when they see it through the window, to clasp their hands above their heads and sit so for hours. That attitude, you know, makes a kind of shelter. It is the primitive umbrella. So, when it rained, the naked primitive man and woman sat gloomily in the primeval swamps of giant ferns.

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Hancock.

328--The Mystic Isle; or, In Peril of His Life. By Fred Thorpe.

329--A Million a Minute; or, A Brace of Meteors. By Weldon J. Cobb.

330--Gordon Keith Under African Skies; or, Four Comrades in the
Danger Zone. By Lawrence White, Jr.

331--Two Chums Afloat; or, The Cruise of the "Arrow." By Cornelius
Shea.

332--In the Path of Duty; or, The Fortunes of Officer Dan Deering. By
Harrie Irving Hancock.

333--A Bid for Fortune; or, True as Steel. By Fred Thorpe.

334--A Battle with Fate; or, The Baseball Mascot. By Weldon J. Cobb.

335--Three Brave Boys; or, Adventures in the Balloon World. By Frank
Sheridan.

MOTOR STORIES

The latest and best five-cent weekly. We won't say how interesting it is. See for yourself. =High art colored covers. Thirty-two big pages. Price, 5 cents.=

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, Castaway in the Bahamas.

_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_

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

=IF YOU WANT ANY BACK NUMBERS= of our Weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. Fill out the following Order Blank and send it to us with the price of the Weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail. =POSTAGE STAMPS TAKEN THE SAME AS MONEY.=

________________________ _190_

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_Dear Sirs: Enclosed please find_ ___________________________
_cents for which send me_:

TIP TOP WEEKLY, Nos. ________________________________

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ADVENTURES OF A BOY GENIUS

MOTOR STORIES

Most five-cent weeklies are founded upon the adventures of boy wonders who perform all sorts of impossible feats and who never act or talk as a boy really does. This is displeasing to the intelligent boy of the present day, who is better educated, and who, consequently, demands more logical reading than the old-time boy did.

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.

Buy the current number from your newsdealer. We feel sure that you will be just as enthusiastic about it as the fifty thousand other boys throughout the United States have become.

HERE ARE THE TITLES NOW READY:

No. 1.--Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel.
No. 2.--Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends.
No. 3.--Motor Matt's Century Run; or, The Governor's Courier.
No. 4.--Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the "Comet."
No. 5.--Motor Matt's Mystery; or, Foiling a Secret Plot.
No. 6.--Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On the High Gear.
No. 7.--Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.

TO BE PUBLISHED ON APRIL 12th

No. 8.--Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.

TO BE PUBLISHED ON APRIL 19th

No. 9.--Motor Matt's Air-ship; or, The Rival Inventors.

TO BE PUBLISHED ON APRIL 26th

No. 10.--Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.

TO BE PUBLISHED ON MAY 3d

No. 11.--Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen Brady.

TO BE PUBLISHED ON MAY 10th

No. 12.--Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas.

=Price, Five Cents=

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

_STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK_

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Added table of contents.

Page 4, removed unnecessary apostrophe from "let's" in "That lets the dago out."

Page 12, changed "Ruffin" to "Ruffian" for consistency with previous volumes.

Page 21, corrected speaker from Carl to Matt in first sentence of chapter XIII.

Page 30, changed "jobbs" to "jobs" ("lumbermen at odd jobs").