THE RAFFLE.

"There she is, Matt; and it's apples to ashes she's the fastest thing that floats. Why, she can run like a scared coyote makin' for home and mother. I've seen her perform, pard, and when she goes any place she arrives just before she starts. Speak to me about that, please. Squint at her good and hard, and tell me what you think."

Motor Matt and Joe McGlory had eaten their dinner at a restaurant in Market Street, and had caught the one-o'clock boat across the bay to Tiburon. It was now a quarter to two, and they were standing on a small wharf, not far from the ferry landing, looking down on a trim little boat. There were about a dozen others, men and boys, lounging on the wharf. The raffle was to come off at two, and most of the idlers, presumably, had bought tickets, and were waiting to "put their fortune to the touch."

The boat was an eighteen-footer, some three feet beam, and looked as though she could "git up and git" if enough ginger were thrown into her propeller. She was in charge of a boy who had let her drift out to the end of a ten-foot painter.

"Pull her in," called Matt to the boy. "I'd like to look at her engine."

The boy laid hold of the painter, and drew the boat up alongside the wharf. Matt dropped into her, and lifted one side of the hinged hood that protected the motor.

He found that the engine consisted of two horizontal opposed cylinders, and was as neat, simple, and compact a marine motor as any he had ever seen. The gasoline tank was in the nose of the boat.

"Ten horse power," mused Matt.

"You've struck it," said the boy.

After a five-minute examination the only fault Matt had to find with the machinery lay in the reversing gear. The brake band was not properly adjusted, but was set so that it dragged on the drum, which could hardly fail to result in a reduction of speed.

When Matt climbed up on the wharf again McGlory met him with an eager question as to what he thought of the Sprite, which was the name of the little craft.

"She's all right," answered Matt, "and ought to run like a singed cat."

"Worth a couple of hundred plunks?"

"The motor alone is worth a hundred and fifty, and seems to be as good as new."

"Whoop!" exulted McGlory. "Somebody's going to get her for a cartwheel—one single, solitary piece of the denomination of eight bits. Mebby it's me? Quien sabe?"

"There were two hundred tickets, you say, and they were sold at a dollar each?"

"Keno, correct, and then some."

"And you have sixty tickets, Joe?"

"Again your bean is on the right number, pard."

"Well, if you get the boat she will have cost you sixty dollars."

"But it's only one ticket out of the sixty that wins her, Matt. Fifty-nine plunks are squandered, and it's one big dollar that pulls her down to me. I'd have bought more, if I'd had the dinero."

"I might take a chance myself," observed Matt, "although I haven' any more use for a motor launch here in 'Frisco than has a stray cowboy by the name of McGlory."

"Nary, you won't, Matt," said McGlory. "Tickets are all gone."

"What in the world are you going to do with the craft if you win her?"

"I can't tell how nervous you make me, wanting a reason for every blooming thing. The notion hit me plumb between the eyes, Matt, and that's all there is to it. But if I can't use the Sprite I can sell her, can't I? And if I did want to go cruising, I've got you to run her for me! Oh, speak to me about that. But," and here McGlory's face fell, "I'm not going to get her. Johnny Hardluck has been running neck and neck with me ever since I was knee-high to a clump of cactus. If I'd have bought a hundred and ninety-nine tickets, the pasteboard I failed to corral would be the one that bobbed up when the wheel stopped runnin'. That's me, but I'm so plumb locoed that I keep trying to bust this hard-luck blockade. What's that—a twenty-dollar gold piece?"

Matt had stooped down while McGlory was talking, and picked up a flat object from the ground in front of him.

"A baggage check," answered Matt. "Some of the crowd here must have dropped it. If we could find——"

Just then, a man appeared carrying his derby hat in his hand. The hat was filled with numbered slips.

"Gents," called the man, "this here drawin' for the Sprite is now a-goin' to take place. Somebody's a-goin' to get that little streak o' greased lightnin' for a dollar. She's a good boat, an' wouldn't be sold for twice two hundred if her owner hadn't tumbled into a stretch of hard luck. She's done her mile in four minutes, the Sprite has, right here in the bay. This here hat is filled with slips o' paper numbered from one to two hundred, like the tickets. One of 'em's goin' to be drawed by the kid, who'll be blindfolded for the occasion. The lucky number the kid first pulls from the hat takes the boat."

Cheers from the assembled crowd greeted the "kid" as he climbed out of the boat and allowed a handkerchief to be tied over his eyes. Then, with much formality, and while the breathless crowd watched, the youngster's grimy hand went into the hat and pushed around wrist-deep among the slips.

"If the feller that gets the boat lives over in 'Frisco," pursued the man, while the boy dallied provokingly with the slips, "he won't have to wait for the next boat back. All he's got to do is to jump into the Sprite, head her where he wants to go, and cut loose. She's full o' oil and gasoline, an' could go from here to Vallejo without takin' on any more."

The boy's hand lifted from the hat and held up a slip.

"Number seventy-three," read the man; "number seventy-three is the lucky ticket, an' gets the Sprite. Who's got number seventy-three?"

"Stung again!" said McGlory gloomily, taking a handful of tickets from his pocket and tossing them into the air. "I might just as well say moo and chase myself. Sixty pesos gone where the woodbine twineth, and McGlory's got another lesson in the way luck's cut him out of her herd. Mebby it's just as well. I've got about as much use for a motor launch as a yaller dog for the tin can tied to the end of his tail, but the notion that I wanted the thing sure hit me hard."

"You ought to put a curb on those notions of yours, Joe," said Matt. "They seem to be pretty expensive."

"Shucks! Well, I get a couple o' square miles of fun nursing the notions along, anyways. It's hoping for things that makes a feller feel good; he never steps so high, wide, and handsome after he gets 'em. Now——"

Just here there came an excited chirp, followed by a shrill cackle of joy. A Chinese boy, not more than fifteen or sixteen, broke through the disappointed throng of whites, his queue flying, and his blue silk blouse fluttering.

"My gottee! Hoop-a-la! My ticket him seventy-tlee! My gottee chug-chug boatee."

"Happy days!" scowled McGlory, his eyes on the young Chinaman. "If that washee-washee yaller mug hasn't pulled down the prize I'm a sick Injun. And here's me with sixty tickets, and him with only one! Speak to me about that! What sort of a low-down thing is luck, anyway, to pass up a respectable white, with sixty chances, and dump that boat onto a Chink with only one! Sufferin' sister! Let's go some place, Matt, where we can be away from the crowd and by ourselves. I'm in a mood for reflection—like old Jack Bisbee was when the government mule kicked at him and set off a box of dynamite. I've got it in the neck, as per usual, and I want to say things to myself."

"Wait a minute, Joe," returned Matt. "Let's watch the Chinaman."

The man who had "bossed" the drawing examined the Chinaman's ticket.

"It's seventy-three, all right," he remarked. "Where you gettee, Charley?"

"'Melican man no gottee dol pay fo' laundry," the Celestial answered; "him givee China boy ticket."

"It was sure a good play for you. There's your boat. Take her."

The yellow boy ran down to the edge of the wharf, dancing around in his wooden shoes, and crooning ecstatically to himself.

"My gottee boat, my gottee boat! Hoop-a-la! Where row sticks?" he demanded, turning to the man who had been in charge of the raffle.

"That's a motor boat, Charley," grinned the man. "You don't need any row sticks."

The yellow boy, still chattering to himself, slipped from the wharf into the boat. One of the men, alive to the humor of the situation, pulled the painter off the post and threw it into the craft after him.

"How you makee lun?" inquired the new owner of the Sprite, taking his seat at the steering wheel.

The bystanders began nudging each other in the ribs. There was a delightful prospect ahead of them, in watching this guileless Celestial, who knew nothing about motors, trying to run a motor boat.

Half a dozen voices called down directions for switching on the spark, starting the flow of gasoline, and getting the engine to going.

"He'll get into trouble," cried Matt, pushing his way through the crowd.

"What's the diff?" guffawed a blear-eyed individual, with a husky laugh. "It's only a chink, anyhow."

Matt paid no attention to this remark.

"You'd better look out, Charley," he called to the Chinaman.

"My gottee, you no gottee," the yellow boy answered. "You no savvy China boy's pidgin; him savvy plenty fine. Hoop-a-la!"

The motor began to pop, and then to settle down into a steady hum. The China boy was fairly palpitating with excitement. Grabbing at a lever, he threw the power into the propeller and the Sprite jumped ahead along the wharf, rubbing her gunwale against the planks. Frantically the Celestial yanked at the steering wheel. The Sprite turned her nose into the wharf and tried to climb out of the water.

"She ain't no bubble wagon, chink!" roared the delighted crowd; "don't bring her ashore!"

"Turn the wheel the other way!" shouted some one else. "If we can head the rat-eater right, he'll go plumb through the Golden Gate to China."

In the confusion of yells, the yellow boy caught the suggestion and whirled the wheel the other way. In answer to this sudden twist of the helm, the boat made a hair-raising turn, going over so far that she almost showed her garboard strake, then she flung away like a race horse.

A group of three piles arose out of the water, half a cable's length from the wharf. The Sprite caught them a glancing blow. There was a terrific jolt, and those on the landing had a glimpse of a Chinaman in the air, his hat and sandals flying in three different directions. He came down headfirst in fifteen feet of water, while the Sprite sheered away from the piles and struck a bee line for Sausalito.

Matt, seeing that disaster was sure to happen, had jumped into a rowboat, and was bending to the oars. There might be fun in baiting a Chinaman in that way, but he could not see it.