Originally published: July 17, 1909
Genres: Adventure, Children's
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200517875-motor-matt-s-launch-or-a-friend-in-need
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50533
Chapters: 16
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
NEW FRIENDS AND NEW FORTUNES
"What next?"
Not often does a boy put that question to himself and receive an answer as quickly as Motor Matt received his.
The king of the motor boys was out among the sand dunes on the Presidio Military Reservation. He had started to walk to the old fort at the Golden Gate but had dropped down on one of the sand heaps, thinking—a little moodily, it must be admitted—over his present situation, and what lay ahead.
It was a fine morning. The sky was pale blue and without a cloud, and the bay was as blue as indigo. The trade wind blew over him and tempered the heat, and the salt tang in the air reminded him of the long voyage around the Horn which he and his chums had completed no more than a week before.
Alcatraz was so close that it almost seemed to Matt as though he could take a running jump from the shore and clear the intervening stretch of water, and beyond Alcatraz, like a purple pyramid, arose Tamalpais, looking westward across the Pacific.
Matt was gloomy because, early that morning, he had separated from his two chums, Dick Ferral and Carl Pretzel. Dick had received a telegram from his uncle, in Denver, asking him to come east at once. At his invitation, Carl had gone with him. Both lads urged Matt to accompany them, but he had declined, thinking more seriously than he had ever done of some "prep" school and a course at Leland Stanford. If he was to take that step, seeking new friends and new fortunes, why not take it now?
There was something more in life, Matt told himself, than just knocking around the world, meeting all kinds of trouble, and getting the upper hand on it.
But there were the motors, the explosive engines Matt loved so well, and had worked among so long. If he entered some academy, he would have to turn his back on the humming cylinders, the rushing wheels, and the racing propellers.
That thought gave him a pang. The gasoline motor was just coming into its own, and the field that lay before it was so wide as to stagger the imagination. Could Matt tear himself away from the fascination of terminals, commutators, and spark plugs, from differential and transmission gear, from spray nozzles and float feeds, from the steady explosion, the perfect mixture of air and gasoline, the humming of the coils, and the beautifully balanced reciprocity of a running motor?
Well, after a while, perhaps, but not—not right away.
"What next?" he asked himself.
"Huh!" came a sound, half-grunt, and half-greeting, from directly in front of him.
During his reflections, Matt's head had bowed forward and his eyes had fixed themselves vacantly on the gray sand. He raised his glance abruptly and saw within a yard of him a young fellow in a dingy sombrero, faded blue flannel shirt, and corduroy trousers.
The lad could not have been more than seventeen. His face was tanned a deep bronze, and his eyes were as black as midnight. His nose was what is termed a "snub," and gave his face a droll, humorous look. As he slouched in front of Matt he had his hands in his pockets.
For a full minute Matt and the stranger surveyed each other.
"Huh!" said the stranger again, pulling a hand out of his pocket to jerk the brim of his hat down over one eye. "Got any sand?" he inquired.
"Sand?" echoed Matt.
"Sure—s-a-n-d, sand. I'm game as a hornet myself, and I reckon I can lay holt of you and wind you up like an eight-day clock. Say, try me a whirl, catch-as-catch-can. If I can't put you on your back in a brace of shakes, I'll eat my spurs. Dare you!"
The stranger backed off and pushed up his sleeves. A wide grin crossed his face and his black eyes twinkled.
"What have you got against me?" asked Matt. "Why do you want to fight?"
"Shucks! You got to have a reason for every blamed thing? Come at me. Dare you—dare you! I'm hungry to caper—and you ain't going to hold back on a feller when he's hungry, are you?"
Matt laughed.
"Well, no," he answered, getting up.
Then, without any ifs, ands, or whyfors, the king of the motor boys and the stranger rushed together.
It was the "double grapevine" that did the business for the stranger. In ten seconds, by the watch, he went into the air and dropped down on the soft sand with a chug that left him dazed and bewildered. Then he sat up and stared.
"Well, well, well!" he sputtered. He was still grinning, and his black eyes traveled over Matt with wonder and admiration. "You the Tur'ble Turk in disguise?" he inquired.
"Hardly," laughed Matt. "You must have learned wrestling in an Agricultural School."
"Mebby," answered the other, picking himself up, "but I ain't diving into my wannegan any, at that. You can't give me another jolt like that, pard. Two out of three, you know. First fall for the gent in the leather cap—but the next one's mine. Whoop-ee!"
The stranger, bareheaded and sleeves rolled to his elbows, rushed at Matt like a hurricane. Matt side-stepped, whirled, caught his antagonist from behind, and shouldered him like a bag of meal. The next instant he had dropped him, and squirmed out from under his gripping fingers.
"Gee, man!" gasped the stranger, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "Speak to me about that, oh, do! He lifts me up and sets me down, and all my caperin' don't amount to shucks. Ain't it scandalous to be hip-locked with like that?"
"Got enough?" asked Matt.
"Plenty, amigo." The stranger climbed to his feet, picked up his hat, and reflectively slapped the sand out of it. "Down where I come from, a feller can 'most always tell when he's got enough. When did you break out on this part of the map?"
"A week ago."
"What label do you tote?"
"King, Matt King."
The strange youth came within one of dropping his hat.
"Speak to me about that!" he gasped, his eyes widening. "Why, I might as well have wrestled with a locomotive and tried to stand it on its headlight in the right of way! Say, I've read about you! You're the king of the motor boys—the big high boy who brought that submarine around South Americy, and turned her over to Uncle Sam here in 'Frisco. Gracias!"
"What are you thanking me for?"
"Because you could have tied me into a bowknot and tossed me into the bay—and you didn't. Next time I hip-lock with a cyclone I hope somebody will put a tag on me and ship me to an asylum for the feeble-minded. My name's McGlory, Joe McGlory, and when I'm home I hang up my lid in Tucson. Shake, Motor Matt. You sure stack up pretty high with me."
"Glad to know you, McGlory," said Matt, highly edified, giving the youth's hand a cordial pressure. "Is it your custom to take a fall out of every acquaintance you make?"
"Well, it's sort of satisfyin', when you make friends with a galoot, to know which is the best man. It shows you what he's got in him that you can depend on in a pinch, see? I reckon you think I've got everything but the long ears, eh? Don't make a mistake about that, pard. I'm not as foolish as you might think. Tell me something!"
"What?"
"While you've been in 'Frisco have you seen anything of a feller about my heft and height, scar an inch long over his right eyebrow, answerin' to the name of George Lorry?"
Matt shook his head.
"Haven't seen him," he answered. "Are you looking for a fellow answering that description?"
"I am, a heap."
The grin, which seemed almost perpetual on McGlory's face, faded into an earnest expression as he mentioned the lad he was looking for.
"Did you come to this reservation looking for him?" went on Matt.
"Nary, pard." McGlory faced the boy, and waved his hand toward the life-saving station ahead, and to the left of them, on the shore. "I'm mortal fond of boats," he went on. "Kind of queer, that, don't you think, for a galoot that's passed pretty near his whole life in the mines and in the cattle ranges? Anyway, that's me. I can't cross the ferry without gettin' seasick, but, all the same, everything that floats tickles me more than I can tell. I've been down to the life-saving station looking at the surf boat."
"I'm fond of boats myself," said Matt, "especially motor boats. There's something on the ground that must belong to you, McGlory," he added, pointing to the sand near where McGlory had fallen, the first time.
The young cowboy looked at the object and then recovered it with a whoop. The object was a small, oblong square of pasteboard.
"It's a ticket for the raffle," McGlory explained. "There's two hundred of 'em out, and I've got sixty."
"Raffle?" queried Matt.
"Sure. A little old motor launch is goin' to be raffled off, over at Tiburon, this afternoon. Say, that boat's a streak! She can show her heels to anythin' in San Francisco Bay. Speak to me about that, will you! I've got sixty chances out of two hundred for baggin' her. Come over with me to the raffle, pard. I've cottoned to you, and you're my style from the ground up. What say?"
"Can you run a motor launch?" asked Matt.
"Don't know the first thing about it."
"What do you want with such a boat, then, if it makes you seasick to ride on the water, and if you don't know how to run a motor?"
"Shucks! Whenever I get a notion I play it up strong, no matter whether there's any reason for it or not. That's Joe McGlory from spurs to headpiece, and everybody in Tucson will tell you the same. Are you with me, Matt? If you are, we'll slide back through the reservation, and jump the cars."
Matt had already conceived a liking for young McGlory. There was something mysterious about him, and a mystery is always attractive.
A few moments later the king of the motor boys was strolling along the old boardwalk between the big Presidio barracks and the row of officers' houses, side by side with his new friend.
New friends and new fortunes, ran his thoughts. How were they to turn out, and what were they to be?
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