A CHALLENGE.

For several days Matt pondered over that queer talk he had had with Dirk Hawley. All he could make out of it only left him more mystified than ever. It seemed certain that Hawley had mentioned putting Matt into training for big racing-events merely as a ruse to get him to Denver. The gambler wanted to keep him out of the Phoenix-Prescott race, and was willing to spend $500 in order to do so. But what was his reason?

Even though Dirk Hawley had plenty of money he would not let go of $500 unless he expected to get value-received for it. There was a possibility that, as a friend of Dace Perry's, Hawley wanted to get Matt out of the race in order to give Perry a show. However, Perry would hardly spend $500 in order to win a $250 motor-cycle; and certainly the gambler would not put up the money for him. It all looked very dark and very mysterious to Matt.

The gambler's threat did not bother him in the least; and he was so self-reliant that he did not take the matter of Hawley's visit to the major. Had he, at that time, the remotest inkling of what Hawley's real purpose was, he would have acted differently and told the major everything. But when this knowledge came to Matt, events happened which made it impossible for him to go to Major Woolford and lay bare the gambler's scheme.

Although Perry had beaten O'Day, the Prescott rider, in the bicycle-race the year before, and Matt knew very well he could beat Perry, yet Matt was taking no chances. O'Day was working hard and, it was said, had developed phenomenal speed. In order to make assurance doubly sure, Matt went into active training at once. The major furnished him a good racing-wheel, and morning and evening he was out with it.

A youngster named Penny, who was in his first year at the high school, had a one-cylinder motor-cycle, and Matt got him to act as pace-maker. Every afternoon Penny and Matt were at the track. For his morning spin, Matt went out alone.

Perry, also, was taking hold of the practise-work in vigorous style. He was out as much as Matt was, and often Matt saw Hawley's motor-car setting the pace for him.

Perry did some remarkable stunts in the wake of that six-cylinder machine. Results were more spectacular than valuable, however. With the body of a big touring-car to split the air and act as a wind-break, it would have been strange if Perry had not made a good showing.

For his training Matt dug out of his trunk the leather cap, coat and leggings for which he had had no use since leaving the motor-factory in Albany. This cumbersome clothing hampered him somewhat, but he knew that if he could do well in that he would be able to work much better when stripped for the contest with O'Day.

"Perry has taken to practise just as though he was to be the big high boy in that bicycle-race," remarked Chub. "He was only second choice, and what's he working so hard for when he knows you're going to hold down the Phoenix end against O'Day?"

"Probably he wants to be fit for the race of his life in case anything happens to me," said Matt.

"Well, you take care that nothing happens to you, Matt," cautioned Chub.

During all this time Matt saw very little of Clipperton. Whenever they met, which they were bound to do occasionally, Clipperton threw back his shoulders and scowled blackly. Ratty Spangler, Tubbits Drake and a few more of Perry's friends not only kept their hostile attitude toward Matt, but influenced some of the other students to come over to their side. But Matt was not lacking for friends. Splinters formed himself into a committee of one and passed around a true version of the affair by the canal. Splinters, of course, knew nothing about the matter of the rock, but he knew enough to turn the best boys in the school against Perry.

The Prescott Athletic Club, with several hundred Prescott rooters, was to come to Phoenix by special train on Saturday forenoon. On the afternoon of Friday, the day preceding the "big meet"—as all loyal Phoenix and Prescott people called the athletic event—Matt got back from the track to find a letter waiting for him on the table in his room.

Mrs. Spooner explained that she had found the missive pushed under the front door, and hadn't the least idea who had left it. Matt stared when he opened the letter and began to read. It was from Tom Clipperton, and was very much to the point.

"Matt King: You think you're a better man than I am. I'll give you another guess. We can settle our differences in one way. Man to man. Come alone to the place where you threw me into the canal. Make it 9 o'clock to-night. Either I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had, or you'll give one to

"Tom Clipperton.

"P.S.—There's a moon."

"It's a challenge," muttered Matt grimly. "I don't want to fight the fellow—it will only make a bad matter worse. I'll have to, though, unless I can talk with him and tell him a few things he'll believe. Clip is not half bad at heart, and if he'd only get rid of some of his foolish notions, and stay away from Perry, he'd make a mighty good chum."

Crumpling up the note, Matt threw it into a waste-basket.

"I'll have to give him a licking, though, if he won't have it any other way," he added under his breath.

The McReady home was only a little way from the place of meeting selected by Clipperton. It was about half-past seven when Matt left Mrs. Spooner's, intending to call on Chub, and leaving in time to meet Clipperton on the bank of the canal at nine.

Chub and Susie were at home, but Welcome Perkins was in town, taking his part in the general excitement preceding what was to be a red-letter day in the annals of Phoenix. Chub was in front of his wireless apparatus, for the accommodation of which a corner of the kitchen had been set apart. Flashes were coming brightly in the spark-gap between the two brass balls of the home-made apparatus.

Chub had begun his experiments in message-sending with an ordinary telegraph-instrument, which he had manufactured himself. One end of the wire had been in the laboratory and the other in the kitchen. After Susie had learned the code, and was able to operate the key, Chub used to take fifteen minutes wiring his sister for something which he could have gone after in almost as many seconds.

Following the telegraph-instrument came experiments in wireless work, in conjunction with an old telegraph-operator who was watchman at the Bluebell Mine, twenty miles away. Many weeks passed before Chub finally got his materials together, and assembled the instruments and erected the necessary wires at home and at the Bluebell. Delray, the operator-watchman at the Bluebell, helped Chub as much as he could at that end of the line, and Matt was constantly called upon for advice as failure succeeded failure. Now, for the first time since he had begun operations, Chub was in extended communication with Delray, and his delight as he worked the key and the sparks flew between the terminals, was scarcely to be measured.

"Bully!" cried Chub, as he sat back in his chair, "this is the first time the Arizona ether has ever been stirred up like Del and I are doing it now. I asked him if he wasn't coming to the fun to-morrow afternoon. Let's see if he got it."

Chub had hardly finished speaking before the sounder began to click. Chub bent forward with an eager, satisfied look on his face, and Susie stood with bowed head reading the message as it came through.

"He can't come," said Chub; "says he'd give a good deal to see Matt beat O'Day, but that there's no one to relieve him, and he'll have to stay at the Bluebell. He's the only man up there now, you know, Matt. To-morrow night, about this time, I guess you'll be shooting along on the Comet, eh?"

"I'm going to win that race, Chub," answered Matt, with quiet confidence.

"Wish I was as sure of inventing a flying-machine as I am that you're going to beat out O'Day."

"Is that what you're going to do next—invent a flying-machine?" laughed Matt.

"Either that or build an automobile."

"Build an automobile," suggested Susie; "you won't have so far to fall if anything gives out."

Just then Chub thought of something he wanted to say to the Bluebell and jumped for the key. Matt talked with Susie for a little while, but kept quiet about his expected meeting with Clipperton. When he left, he proceeded the length of the front walk and passed through the gate, in order to give Susie, who was watching him, the impression that he was going back to town. He could turn back along the canal just below the bridge, and so come to the place where Clipperton would be waiting for him. On his way to the canal he most unexpectedly ran into Welcome Perkins, who was burning the air in the direction of home.

"Whoop!" cried Welcome fiercely, "it's a wonder ye wouldn't look where ye're goin'—runnin' inter a one-legged ole pirate like a cyclone. Where's yer eyes, anyway? Think I ain't got nothin' else to do but—— Shade o' Gallopin' Dick! Why, if it ain't Matt King—jest the very feller I wanted to see. There's the horriblest thing a-goin' on, pard, ye most ever heard of! I got so heathen mad I come purty nigh fallin' from grace, drorin' ole Lucretia Borgia an' damagin' every one in sight. Nobody knows what a rip-roarin' ole fury I am when I cut loose, or——"

"What's on your mind, Welcome?" said Matt, trying to pin the old man down to more facts and less language.

"That's what I'm a-tellin' ye," fluttered Welcome. "Rushed around to Mrs. Spooner's—fine ole lady, Mrs. Spooner, but she's scart of me. Soon's she saw who it was a-rappin' on the door she screams frightful, an' wouldn't talk with me till I'd got off the porch." Welcome sniffed plaintively. "That's what a blood-curdlin' past'll do fer a man. Don't you never turn into a hootin', tootin' road-agent, Matt, or——"

"I'll turn into something worse than that," broke in Matt, "if you don't tell me what you're trying to. Now, then, make another start."

"Mrs. Spooner she says you ain't there, an' I reckons ye've gone to see Chub," went on Welcome, "so off I comes this way. Whisper," he sputtered in Matt's ear, excitedly, and drew him close to the fence at the roadside. "This is so tur'ble it won't bear tellin' above yer breath."