BRADY A PRISONER.

Matt, Ferral and Dennison were not long in getting the whip hand of Hector Brady. As Matt and the officer held him down, Dennison called to Ferral to get a rope.

Ferral got a rope from the car and the desperate thief was finally secured, wrist and ankle. Even then he continued to struggle and roar his defiance of his captors.

"You might as well calm down," cried Dennison, picking up the revolver which Matt's missile had knocked from Brady's hand. "Your goose is cooked, Brady, and there's no use tiring yourself out."

After a few moments Brady seemed to realize this.

"You've got me, but you won't keep me," he snarled.

"If you can get away from us," replied the officer, "you're welcome to your liberty. But you won't get away. I had too close a call at your hands to let you do that."

"Who in the fiend's name are you?"

"A plain-clothes man from the Grand Haven police headquarters."

"Did you get this tip from Harper?"

"Harper couldn't help himself. He and Ochiltree are in the lockup."

Dennison turned to Matt and grabbed his hand.

"If it hadn't been for you, King," said he, "I'd have been laid out. You were quick as a cat and as certain as fate. I never met your kind before, and it does me good to shake hands with you. I'm mighty glad," he added, with a grin, "that we couldn't persuade you to stay behind, in Grand Haven."

"That's the way this raggie of mine does things, Dennison," remarked Ferral, looking at Matt admiringly. "He's chain lightning when he turns himself loose."

"The best part of it all is," observed Matt, anxious to change the subject, "no harm has happened to the air ship."

Throwing off his coat and cap, Matt lost not a moment in diving into the machinery. He could see nothing wrong, and he "turned over" the engine and set it to going. It worked perfectly.

"If you're looking for trouble," growled Brady, turning his head to follow Matt's movements, "you won't find any. I've fixed the motor—just got through with it when this cop in plain clothes showed up. If I'd known who he was——" and Brady finished with a diabolical light in his eyes that told plainly what he would have done.

"Pass it up," said Dennison curtly; "you came within an ace of getting me, as it was."

"King balked me again, just as he has been doing right along," went on Brady fiercely. "I'd willingly have gone to Joliet for life if I could have nicked him. He's the cause of all my troubles."

"Bully for King!" applauded Dennison. "The more I hear of him the higher he stacks up with me."

"Who put you next to where I was going, King?" demanded Brady.

"Never mind about that," replied Matt, getting into his coat and cap again. "We've captured you, Brady, and that's enough for you to know."

"Captured, but not sent up," qualified Brady. "Nor I won't be sent up. I'll live and have my liberty until I can settle accounts with Motor Matt and some more of you fellows."

"Let him rave," laughed Dennison. "That's the only thing he can do, and it won't hurt anybody."

"If it was that girl of mine that tipped me off to you and Harris," went on Brady, "she's one of those who'll come in for a fair share of the trouble I'm going to turn loose. Nice kind of a daughter she is! It's been the grief of my life that she never was more like Hector, Jr."

Matt listened to this in amazement, and his heart sickened as he turned away.

At that moment, Harris and Twitchell came hurrying back.

"Where are the other two?" cried Dennison.

"I'd give a bunch of pay if I knew," answered Harris, very much put out. "We couldn't locate them, and the thing for us to do, Dennison, is to get back to headquarters and use the telegraph and the telephone."

He hurried forward to Brady's side.

"You're in Michigan," said he, "and you're wanted in Illinois. Will you waive requisition?"

"Waive nothing!" shouted Brady. "All you get out of me you'll fight for."

"Personally," said Harris contemptuously, "I don't care a toss-up. We've got you, Brady, and we've got you right. By staying in Michigan until requisition papers are put through you're only delaying a game that can have only one termination."

"Well," was the scowling response, "we'll wait for the termination. Maybe somebody will get fooled before we're at the end of this."

Harris turned away to Matt and Ferral.

"Twitchell, Dennison and I," said he, "will take Brady to Grand Haven and put him in the lockup with Harper. They'll both stand out for requisition, and they'll have to be left on this side of the lake until our governor can get the case before the Michigan executive. Have you looked over the Hawk, Matt?"

"Yes."

"Much tinkering to be done on her?"

"Brady had already fixed the motor so that it works as well as ever."

"Then you and Ferral had better get aboard and make a getaway to the place where Jerrold and Carl have the other air ship. As soon as I finish my work in Grand Haven, I'll join you and we'll all go back to South Chicago together. Your hard luck has certainly taken a turn for the better, Matt, and we want to make sure that you don't have any more backsets. Whipple and Pete are loose in the timber, and I'll bet they'd give their eyeteeth to be able to capture the Hawk. We want to keep them from doing that, or from trying it. We'll take Brady back on the trolley, but before we start I want to see you well away in the Hawk."

"It won't take us more than a couple of minutes to get under way," returned Matt. "All aboard, pard," he added to Ferral. "Get into our air ship, old chap, and we'll go on a still hunt for Carl and Jerrold and the Eagle."

"Aye, aye, Captain Matt," laughed Ferral, getting into the car.

Matt followed him aboard and settled himself in the driver's seat.

"Cast off the ropes, Harris, you and Dennison," called Matt.

Harris was familiar with that part of the work, and he and Dennison soon had the air ship unmoored and the cables in the car. The river offered a clear stretch for rising, and Matt turned the Hawk in that direction.

The motor began to pop and then to settle down to a steady hum. Matt manipulated the steering rudder, switched the power into the propeller, and the Hawk arose gracefully accompanied by the cheers of the officers.

But no cheers came from Brady. With baleful eyes he watched the Hawk's departure.

"That's the second time you've taken my air ship away from me, King," he roared. "The next time——"

"There'll never be a next time," cried Harris. "You're down and out, Brady, and you'd better begin to realize it."

Up and up mounted the Hawk, the river lying below her like a silver ribbon, entangled among the greenery of the trees. Off to the west sparkled the waters of the lake, and in between the Hawk and the shore lay Grand Haven, cottages and farms, all spread out like a map.

"Getting a bird's-eye view of a scene is a heap finer than looking at it from the ground," observed Ferral, leaning over the Hawk's rail and feasting his eyes on the panorama below.

"We're in good trim to enjoy looking down at the landscape from the Hawk," laughed Matt.

"Right-o, matey," answered the young sailor. "I'd about given up ever taking another ride in the Hawk. We're thirty-five hundred to the good by this afternoon's work."

"That's the least of what we have accomplished," said Matt. "The capture of Brady is a bigger thing than the recovery of the air ship."

"I guess that's right," said Ferral, "but I'm sorry those other two beachcombers got away. They'll be making trouble for some one later."

"Harris will get quick action over the telegraph and telephone," said Matt, "and the chances are good for the overhauling of Pete and Whipple."

"I hope so, and that's a fact. Say, I'll bet Carl and Jerrold will be surprised when they see the Hawk coming for their part of the beach."

"Keep a good lookout, Dick, and let me know when you sight the Eagle. This is unfamiliar territory to me, and your eyes will have to guide us."

"As I get the bearings," said Ferral, leaning over the rail and peering ahead, "we ought to be about east by north of where we want to land. When we took the trolley we went east."

"That's right," returned Matt. "Keep your gaze south and west, and you ought to be able to pick up the Eagle."

A few moments later Ferral sighted the swaying bulk of the other air ship.

"Bear to the left a little, Matt," said he, "and we'll come down right where we want to go. I can see Jerrold and Carl standing on the beach and looking up at us. I'll bet they're wondering whether we're in the car, or whether Brady and his gang are the passengers."

"Wave something at them," suggested Matt. "We don't want to scare them."

Ferral waved his handkerchief. This calmed the fears of Carl and Jerrold, if they had had any, and Ferral reported that they were waving their hats.

A few moments later Matt engineered an easy landing, and the Hawk was moored within a dozen yards of the Eagle.