Motor Matt's Century" Run"

"Ready, Perk?"

"Hold up there, Chub! Don't ye git in sich a tarnal hurry. What am I goin' to do with this here rope?"

"Why, cast it off, of course. How can you expect to fly with the rope holdin' you back?"

"Waal, now, wait; le's understand this thing. It's my idee, ain't it?"

"Sure. You drew the plans an' I put the machine together."

"If any picters is published in the papers, mine goes in bigger'n yours, don't it?"

"That's all to the good, Perk. When the reporters write this up, you'll be the king-pin. The invention is yours, and all I did was to put it together. But you're a pretty old man to try it out, Perk. You'd better let me take the first spin."

"Bein' the inventor, I reckon I got a right to show off a little. Purty nigh all my life I been a hootin', tootin' disturber o' the peace, committin' depperdations as makes me blush to think of; but right here is where I do somethin' fer civilization an' progress, which'll go a good ways to'rds makin' up fer the past. I'm plumb hungry, Chub, to hear folks say: 'That there flyin' machine is the biggest thing o' the twentieth century, an' Welcome Perkins done it. He used to be a howlin', cut-an'-slash desperado in his younger days, but now he's turned over a new leaf, an' is devotin' his shinin' abilities to forwardin' the cause o' progress as much as he used to be fer holdin' it back.' That's what I wants to hear folks say as they're p'intin' me out, an'--"

"Oh, slush! If you stand up there chinning much longer, Perk, somebody'll come. You want this to be a private flight, don't you?"

"Jest at the beginnin', till I see if everythin' works all right. If there ain't any hitch. I want to make it as public as possible. I'd be tickled to have the hull town come out an' see me cuttin' figger eight's in the clouds. 'It can't be that one-legged feller up there is Welcome Perkins, the ole ex-pirate o' the plains as has been living right here among us, can it?' the people will say, awed-like, turnin' to each other. Then I'll fly low, so'st to let 'em make sure, an' laugh exultin'-like--"

"Back to the woods for you, Perk; go ahead an' fly. Don't stand there talkin' about it."

"Sure Susie ain't got back yit, an' nobody else ain't lookin'?"

"Don't fret about that, Perk. We're all alone out here, but there's no tellin' how long we'll be by ourselves if you lose much more time."

There was a very peculiar situation in the McReady back yard. A stout pole, some thirty feet high, stood firmly planted in the ground. Half way up the pole a platform had been constructed, and on this platform stood an old, one-legged gentleman surrounded by a lot of canvas wings. There was a canvas tail behind to be depressed or lifted, according as the old gentleman wanted to fly up or down; and there was a propeller just in front of the tail, which was to be worked by foot-power and keep the machine going. The aeroplane had been hoisted to its elevated position by means of a stout rope passing through a pulley at the top of the pole.

The one-legged man was Welcome Perkins, and the red-headed boy on the ground was Chub McReady-who was something of an inventor himself, although this flying machine had been designed wholly by Welcome.

Slowly Welcome untied the rope from the flying machine, and Chub pulled it through the pulley and then coiled it up on the ground at the foot of the pole. Thereupon Welcome pushed into the manhole of the flying machine and began hoisting himself up and down, preparatory to springing off. He stopped suddenly, however, and pulled out of the machine to look down at Chub.

"I reckon, Chub," he observed, as by an afterthought, "I'll fly around the dome o' the capitol half a dozen times an' then light on the weather-vane so'st the governor kin have a chanst to look out o' the cupola winder an' thank me fer this boon to the human race. Mebby I'll perch on top o' the court-house, too, fer a spell, an' take a leetle fly out by the Injun school. If I don't git back airly, don't be in a takin' about me, er--"

"Oh, shucks!" roared Chub. "If you're afraid to start, Perk, come down an' let me try it."

"Afraid!" snorted Welcome. "You know blame' well I ain't afraid o' nothin' on the airth 'r over it. I wisht you'd stuck the 'Merican flag on the machine, some'rs, but I won't stop fer that now. So-long, Chub, I'm goin' to take wing. Git out yer spy-glass if ye want ter watch me."

While Chub held his breath, old Welcome made a few more up and down movements and then leaped from the platform.

But something must have been wrong. It couldn't have been the machine, of course, for Chub had O. K.'d the plans, so it must have been in the way Welcome manipulated the tail or the wings.

Twenty feet from the foot of the pole flowed the town canal. By actual measurement, Welcome flew twenty-five feet; then the canvas fabric turned itself inside out, and, with a wild yell, the old man dropped into the water. There was a tremendous splash, and a small-sized geyser shot upward.

Loud shouts came from around the corner of the house, and Matt King and Tom Clipperton rushed into sight and darted for the canal to give Welcome a helping hand. Matt grabbed up the rope at the foot of the pole as he ran past.

"Great Scott!" cried Chub, joining in the race for the canal, "where'd you fellers come from?"

"Rode up on our motor-cycles," replied Matt, "and hung around the corner to see the show. Foolish business, Chub. Welcome might have broken his neck-or that other leg."

"It was his own notion, that machine. I was sure it would fly, but I headed him for the canal, so if anything went wrong he'd have a soft place to drop."

By that time the boys were at the canal, and Matt threw the rope. Welcome, sputtering and floundering, was tangled in the wreckage. He had sense enough left to catch the rope, and Matt dragged him out of the torn canvas, and all three of the boys lifted him up on the bank.

"That's the last time," fumed Welcome, dancing around and holding his head on one side to get the water out of his ear, "the very last time, Chub McReady, I'm goin' to try any more o' your fool contraptions. I might a' been kilt! 'Tain't your fault I wasn't."

"It wasn't my contraption, Perk," answered Chub, smothering a laugh, now that he was certain Welcome hadn't suffered any particular damage. "It was yours."

"Dad-bing!" yelled Welcome, more worked up over the fun the boys were getting out of the situation than he was over the accident itself. "Ye goaded me on, ye know ye did! I ain't a-goin' to stand no more. Lawlessness is b'ilin' around inside o' me, an' I'm goin' to git right out! Instid o' helpin' progress, like I was intendin', I'm goin' to cut loose, out there in the hills, an' give it a back-set. You hear me? Wow! Laff! laff all ye want! When they git out the U. S. Army to chase me, an' run me down, I reckon ye'll laugh on t'other side yer face. An' it was you done it, Chub McReady! That's somethin' fer you to think about!"

The old man whirled and galloped for the house, growling to himself, jabbing his wooden pin viciously into the ground with every step, and leaving a watery trail as he went. Chub keeled over on the ground, kicked his feet in the air, and roared.

"It's a cinch," he guffawed, "that that's the last flyin' machine Perk'll try to invent. We thought we was havin' this experiment entirely private, an' I guess Perk thought I'd given you fellers the tip, so you could be hangin' around. That didn't help his temper any."

"We got here just before Welcome jumped off," said Matt. "I couldn't figure out what he was trying to do, at first, or I'd have rushed out and tried to stop him."

"You couldn't have stopped him!" snickered Chub. "The old boy had the bit in his teeth."

"Ducking was all right," grinned Clip. "May have been a good thing. Cooled his spirit, anyhow."

"Punk! His pesky spirit will break out somewhere else, you see. Perk is a human volcano, an' he's got to have an eruption just about so often or he can't be happy. But why are you fellers showin' up here so early in the morning?"

"Clip and I are going to Denver on our motor-cycles," answered Matt. "We just came around to say good-by."

Chub's face fell.

"On the level?" he asked. "Hang it all, Matt it can't be you're goin' to-day?"

"We are, if nothing bobs up to keep us back. I've been trying to start for two or three weeks, but at the last moment I generally run into something that interferes with my plans. Clip has bought Penny's motor-cycle, we've laid out our route, and we want to get away early this afternoon."

"Say," exploded Chub, "if I had a motor-cycle I'm hanged if I wouldn't go with you."

"I've got a picture of you leaving Ph?nix now," returned Matt, "while your father is getting to work developing his mine. You'll have to help him, Chub. Where's Susie? I want to say good-by to her before I--"

Matt broke off his words. Fate had already interfered two or three times with his start for Denver, and just then Fate was getting ready to repeat the old performance.

A far-away rattle, growing steadily in volume, broke on the ears of the boys. Whirling around, they stared across the canal and toward the road on the other side of the bridge.

What they saw sent the blood racing through their veins.

Four scrubby cayuses, hitched to a wood-hauler's wagon, were running away. The wagon was nothing more than two pairs of wheels connected by a "reach." As the vehicle leaped and swayed from one side of the road to the other, the startled eyes of the boys made out a small figure clinging to the "reach" for dear life.

"There's a girl on that wagon!" cried Chub breathlessly.

The girl could not have been more than five or six years old, and her dangerous situation appealed to Matt and aroused a swift determination to save her if it could possibly be done.

Without a word, he picked up the rope with which he had dragged Welcome out of the canal and darted for the gate in front of the house. As he ran, his fingers were busy knotting a noose in the rope's end.

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