FACING THE MUSIC.

The automobile repair shop which Matt had started for was in Sherman Avenue, not far from the park that skirted the shore of Fourth Lake. He did not make for the shop at once, however, but kept out of sight until Ollie Merton had passed with the big, seven-passenger car loaded to the limit. As soon as the car had vanished Matt went into the shop.

He was not long in transacting his business there. Before beginning he placed the proprietor under seal of secrecy. The second-hand motor was secured at a bargain, Matt paying spot cash for it. The engine was to be loaded aboard a launch and taken across the lake, in the afternoon, to the boathouse by Picnic Point.

With the engine was to come a young machinist, a son of the proprietor of the shop, who was to be well paid for his services, and who promised to use his hands and eyes and not his tongue.

Matt's final request was that the engine, when carried down to the landing and while aboard the launch, should be covered with canvas. This was to prevent curious eyes from securing information which might be carried to some of the Winnequas, and so to Merton.

From the machine shop Matt rushed on into town for the purpose of sending a message. The telegram was to a supply house in Milwaukee and requested immediate shipment of a new propeller. The sudden change in plans for the Sprite made quick work necessary.

It was long after noon when Matt got back to the boathouse, where Lorry and McGlory were impatiently awaiting him.

"You were longer than we thought you'd be," remarked Lorry, a look of relief crossing his face as Matt trundled the motor cycle through the open door.

"Did you get what you wanted, pard?" inquired McGlory.

"Yes," laughed Matt, leaning the wheel against the wall, "and a little more than I was expecting. I was stopped by Merton and seven of his friends, just this side of the asylum and——"

"By Merton!" cried Lorry.

"Sufferin' brain-twisters!" exclaimed the cowboy. "How could that be? Why, pard, I left Merton on Third Lake, in the Dart."

"Merton must have come ashore, Joe, pretty soon after you left. He picked up seven of his friends somewhere and started around Fourth Lake to have a talk with me at the boathouse. They saw me coming down the hill from the point, stopped the automobile around a bend, tied handkerchiefs over their faces and stopped me with a fence rail. Before I fairly realized what was going on, the eight of them had me off the wheel and into the timber."

"What an outrage!" growled Lorry. "You're getting more than your share of rough work, Matt, seems to me. What did those fellows want?"

Matt pulled out a lunch box of generous size, opened it on the workbench and invited his two companions to help themselves.

"I went into town to send a telegram for a new propeller," he observed, "but I didn't even take time to stop at a restaurant for a meal."

"No matter what happens," said Lorry admiringly, "you never forget anything. But go on and tell us what Merton and those other chaps stopped you for."

"They were trying to run in a rhinecaboo of some sort. I'll be bound," averred McGlory.

"The plain truth of the matter is, fellows," declared Matt, "Merton and his crowd are scared. They offered me two hundred dollars to leave town at once and never come back."

"Tell me about that!" chuckled the cowboy. "Scared? You bet they are! Motor Matt has put a crimp in the confidence they had about the outcome of the race."

"And that leads me to believe," went on Matt, "that, in spite of the fact that Merton has that roll of drawings and knows what we were doing to the Sprite, he's still afraid of us. The Dart can't be such a phenomenally fast boat as you imagined, Joe. If it was, why should Merton fear the Sprite? He's judging her, you understand, according to our first plans for changing her. He doesn't know a thing about the automobile engine and the other propeller we're going to install."

"Listen, once," said McGlory; "it's not the plans that's making Merton sidestep, but Motor Matt. He and his bunch will feel a heap easier if they can know the king of the motor boys is cut out of Lorry's herd."

"Another thing," continued Matt. "Merton and his friends are doing some betting on the race."

"I've heard about that," put in Lorry. "Merton is plunging with his father's bankroll, and going the limit. His friends are in the pool with him, and they're offering all sorts of fancy odds."

"If I could rake together a stake," said McGlory, "I'd take a little of that Winnequa money myself."

"No, you wouldn't, Joe," returned Matt. "I'm out with a club for that sort of thing. Good, clean sport is all right, but when you tangle it up with a lot of bookmakers it goes to the dogs."

"Mebby you're right, pard," grinned Joe, "but any kind of a chance, with money in sight, is excitin'."

"Merton and the rest wanted me, if I wouldn't agree to pull out, to throw the race."

"The scoundrels!" cried Lorry.

"They didn't know our pard very well, George," observed the cowboy. "What did they say when you turned 'em down, Matt?"

"Ordered me to quit. Said if I didn't the lot of us, over here, would have to face all kinds of music."

"I always did like music," said the cowboy. "Right this minute I'm feelin' like a brass band and I've got to toot."

McGlory's "toot" was more like a steam calliope than a brass band, and it was so hilarious that Ping, who was still acting as outside guard, pushed his yellow face in at the window over the workbench.

"Who makee low?" he inquired.

"There's no row, you heathen," answered the cowboy, tossing him a sandwich. "There, take that and stop your face. I'm jubilatin', that's all."

Ping disappeared with a grin and the sandwich.

"What are you jubilating about, Joe?" inquired Lorry.

"Don't you savvy, George? Why, Motor Matt's on his mettle! All that talk that Merton and his pards gave him just cinched him up for the 'go' of his life. You'll see things at that race. As for facing the music—there's nothing to it. Why, the Sprite's as good as passed the stake boat and over the finish line right now."

There was little doubt but that McGlory's jovial mood and confident forecast of coming events heartened Lorry wonderfully.

Matt went more into the details of his experience with Merton and his friends.

"That's a nice way for the commodore of a rival boat club to act," remarked Lorry sarcastically.

"How did Merton ever get to be commodore?" said McGlory. "That's what sticks in my crop."

"Money," was Lorry's brief but significant response.

"Money cuts a pretty wide swath, and that's a fact. That work of Merton's and his friends, though, was a pretty raw blazer. Wonder what Merton's thinking of himself, now that Matt's found out he was in the gang?"

"It won't bother him much," said Lorry. "Between you and me and the gatepost, I'll bet Merton has been flying too high. When his father gets back from Europe and finds out what's been going on, there'll be doings. Like enough, Merton is plunging on the boat race in the hope of getting back some of the money he has squandered. That would ease the tension somewhat when he makes an accounting to his father."

"Too bad if he's got himself into money difficulties," observed Matt.

"A little money has made many a good fellow go wrong, Matt," returned Lorry, with a flush.

George was talking from experience, and it was an experience which he would never forget.

"There's nothing to do, I reckon," said McGlory, changing the subject, "but to plug right along and hustle the changes in the Sprite."

"That's all, Joe," responded Matt. "We'll have to do some quick work, and do it well. The engine will be delivered this afternoon, and a young fellow is coming along with it to help me. We'll have to do more or less traveling between here and the machine shop, and I suppose it would be well if we had a boat. Going around the lake takes too long."

"I'll get a motor boat for you, Matt," said Lorry. "I'll bring her over before night."

"Bring a supply of gasoline and oil, too, Lorry."

"It will all come with the boat. If you can think of anything else you want, just let me know. Some one ought to stay here all the time, don't you think? The Sprite ought to be watched every minute, night and day. It was no empty threat Merton made when he said he'd make us trouble."

"He and his friends," said Matt gravely, "will do what they can to bother us. But I don't think they'll dare go too far. Joe and I and Ping will stay at the boathouse all the time. That will make quite a respectable force. Then, too, the machinist will be with us during the day. Whenever I have to cross the lake to the shop, he and Joe can look after things here."

"I want to do my share, you know," protested Lorry; "I can't let you fellows do it all."

"You'll have plenty to do, George," laughed Matt. "There's a telephone at the asylum, and we can always get word to you if it's necessary. As for——"

Matt was interrupted by a shrill yell. It came from outside the boathouse and had plainly been raised by Ping. On the instant, all three of the boys jumped for the door.