MATT SCORES AGAINST JAMESON.

What Matt had in mind when he raced across the street was the telephone booth in the drug store. He would call up the chief on the telephone.

The chief was a good friend of Matt's. In fact, Motor Matt, because of the plucky and successful work he had done, stood pretty high with the South Chicago police department.

After a hurried examination of the telephone directory, the young motorist called up the chief's office.

"Hello!" said he. "Is Chief Raymond there?"

"Yes," some one answered at the other end of the wire. "Want to talk with him personally?"

"Got to, and right away."

"He's busy just now. Leave your message and I'll see that he gets it."

"Can't. This is important and I'm in the biggest kind of a hurry. Tell the chief Matt King—Motor Matt—wants a word with him."

"Oh! Is that you, Matt? Why didn't you say so at the start off? This is Harris. Couldn't you recognize my voice?"

"Is Mr. Jameson there, Harris?"

"He's just gettin' out of a cab, in front—I can see him through the window."

"Well, please call the chief; I want to talk to him before Jameson gets a chance."

A low whistle floated along the wire.

"All right," answered Harris.

It seemed to Matt as though he waited in that hot telephone box for an hour, although it could not have been more than a minute or two. He was now as eager to get ahead of Jameson in the deal for the Hawk as were Ferral and Carl.

Finally the chief's voice came over the phone.

"Howdy, Matt. What can I do for you?"

"I want to buy that air ship, chief," answered Matt.

"Great Scott, boy! You haven't any money to throw away, have you?"

"I should say not, but——"

"Well, forget it. You'd have about as much use for that flying machine as a pig for two tails. Just wait a second—here's Jameson, the fellow you had out in the Hawk, waiting to talk with me. I'll call you up in a few——"

"No, wait a minute," cried Matt. "Jameson's got three thousand he's going to pay for the Hawk. I'll give thirty-five hundred, and put half the amount in your hands inside of fifteen minutes. The rest will be here as soon as I can get it from Chicago."

"I'm not going to let you squander your money in any such fool way," was the chief's astonishing response. "I've got your best interests too much at heart, my lad."

"Look here," and Matt's voice took on a steely note, "I'm not so young, chief, that I don't know what I'm doing. I can see a good many chances to make money with the Hawk, and if you keep me from getting the air ship you'll be cutting a big hole in my prospects. Besides, you've got to sell to the highest bidder, and I'm giving you five hundred more than Jameson offers. Not only that, but only part of the purchase money is mine. I've got a partner in the deal, and——"

From a click and a sudden silence on the wire, Matt knew that "central" had cut him off. Throwing the receiver onto the hooks, he rang the bell frantically. After two or three minutes, "central" answered him, begged his pardon for cutting him off, and once more gave him the chief's office.

Harris answered the phone again.

"Where's the chief, Harris?" asked Matt.

"In his private room, Matt, talking with Jameson," came the officer's reply.

"Well, I'm coming right over there," said Matt. "Please find out if the chief will see me when I arrive. You can tell me when I reach headquarters."

"I guess he'll see you, all right."

Matt entered the big stone building in less than ten minutes.

Harris met him with a wide and wondering grin.

"You've bought something, Matt," said he.

"How do you know?" queried Matt.

"Jameson just left, and he was considerably worked up. He said he hadn't any idea that you were bidding over him, and that he had stood ready to offer five thousand for the Hawk before letting the machine get away from him."

"What did the chief say?"

"Why, that if you didn't show up inside of fifteen minutes, with half the purchase money, Jameson could have the air ship."

The young motorist drew a long breath of relief.

"Well," said he, "right here is where I deliver the goods."

He walked into the chief's office, and found that official smoking a cigar.

"Here's the money, chief," said Matt, laying the bills down on the table. "I can give you a check for the balance, or I'll go to Chicago and get the cash."

"I suppose you know what you're doing, Matt," returned the chief, "but I'll be hanged if I do. First off, you'll have to have a place to keep the Hawk, and you know Brady sold that old balloon house before he skipped out, and the place is to be pulled down in a few days."

"I've figured out how I can have a light canvas shelter made and carry it along in the car," said Matt.

"But what are you going to do with the machine?" went on the chief curiously.

"Give exhibitions at state and county fairs, compete for aËronautical prizes, perhaps, and after I and my partner have had all the fun we want to with the Hawk, we'll sell it to the government."

"You're buying a pig in a poke, Matt, but that's your lookout. The Hawk is yours, and I guess I know you well enough to take your check. When do you want possession?"

"This afternoon or to-morrow morning."

"Better make it to-morrow morning. It will take this afternoon to get the necessary papers from the court."

"All right, then. Will you let your officers guard the Hawk until to-morrow morning?"

"I'll keep two men at the balloon house until you show up there to claim your property."

"Thank you, chief. Just give me a receipt for that cash and the check saying the money is in payment for the air ship Hawk and that I'm to have the necessary papers completing the transfer as soon as you can get them."

This business formality was quickly carried out, and when Matt left the chief's office, his Chicago bank account looked as though it had been sandbagged. But Matt had the chief's agreement in his pocket, and his heart was light and his hopes buoyant.

Carl and Ferral were waiting for him in the hotel office.

"The Hawk belongs to us, Dick," announced Matt, and both Carl and Ferral began to rejoice. "We've got to take possession to-morrow——"

"The quicker the better!" cried Ferral.

"What are we going to do with the machine?"

"Do?" gasped Ferral blankly. "Why, fly in it, of course! Navigate the skies."

"We can't be in the skies all the time. We'll have to come down once in awhile, for gasoline, if for nothing else, and for gas. Where are we going to keep the Hawk while she's on the ground?"

"Hitch her to a tree," suggested Ferral. "It's easy enough to find moorings for such a craft."

"But, if there's a storm, the Hawk will have to be protected."

"Py shinks," muttered Carl, "dere iss more to der pitzness as vat I t'ought."

Ferral had bought a new outfit of shoes, hats, and clothes for himself and Carl. Ferral's sailor rig was being dried and pressed, and he had managed to pick up a sailorman's hat, in lieu of the one he had lost on the Christina.

Matt's logical remarks impressed Ferral quite as much as Carl.

"Well," said he, with a grim laugh, "owning an air ship ain't all beer and skittles. The best thing for us to do is to keep traveling with it. At night, we'll berth the thing in some farmer's barn, and we'll spend the day fanning along through the air."

"There are plenty of barns big enough to house the Hawk," returned Matt, "but I don't know where you'll find a barn, in the whole country, with a big enough door to take it in. And when you talk about traveling, Dick, where'll we go?"

"Oh, anywhere, mate, it's all one to me until I'm ready for Quebec."

"It costs money to travel by air ship. We've got to buy oil and gasoline, and gas, too, now and then. Wherever we travel, we've got to have the idea of profit in mind. How about going to New York and hiring the air ship to some one out on Coney Island?"

"Fine-o!" applauded Ferral. "You're overhauling the right idea, at last, messmate. I knew we could trust you to do that."

"Pully!" cried Carl. "Ve vill show off der machine at Goney Islandt, und make so mooch money ve von't know vat to do mit it. Hoop-a-la!"

Just then a bell boy came hurriedly up to Matt.

"You're wanted on the phone," said he. "Police headquarters is callin' fer you."

Matt and his chums had a distressful feeling that something had gone wrong with the air-ship deal, and that the chief was calling up to tell Matt to come back and get his money. All three of them hurried to the telephone booth.

While Matt was talking, Carl and Ferral hung about the door of the booth, wrestling morbidly with their doubts and fears.

"The air ship is still ours," laughed Matt, as he came out of the booth, "but Grove, one of the gang that worked with Brady, and who was captured and in jail here awaiting trial, has escaped. What's more, the Chicago police haven't been able to find that sailboat and catch the Bradys. The chief here thinks Grove has gone to join Hector Brady, and that——"

Matt paused.

"Go on, mate," urged Ferral.

"And that Carl and I had better look out," finished Matt, "or Brady and his gang will put us out of the way."

"Dey vill haf more as dey can do keeping oudt oof der vay oof der bolice deirselufs," said Carl, "to bodder mit us, Matt."

"That's the way I size it up, Carl," returned Matt. "Besides, if Brady and his gang want to find us, after to-morrow morning, they'll have to get hold of another air ship."

But, even then, the cunning Brady was engineering a plot which was to strike Matt and his chums like a bolt from the blue.