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* As long as I allowed him to beat me, I was treated to
the best:he had, Whenever I) beat him, my. rations—
veven the mule meat—were cut down.”
Coleman .turned to Ysabel, who had been sitting
quietly by. - f
“I’m mighty. glad, little “git? said he, “that\ you are
able to get clear of Pitou and Fingal.” - .
“So am I, Mr. Coleman,” answered Ysabel. “If. it
hadn’t been for Motor Matt I’d be still in the camp.”
“Motor; Matt again!’ laughed Coleman.
“Always Motor Matt!” chimed in Jordan, with a quiz-
zical look at the king of the motor boys.
“He iss der feller vat (does tings, you bed you, ” de-
clared Carl. .
““Let’s hear about what happened while Speake, Tirzal
' and I were away from the boat,” suggested Jordan.
“Not now,” answered Matt.
rest of you are or not. Speake,” he called through the
tube leading to the torpedo room, “see if you can rustle:
,something in the sway of breakfast.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Speake. heartily.
tossing in a way that made it difficult for those in the
periscope room. to keep their seats.
Matt took a look into the periscope.
Belize.” ;
+ “And glad I’ll be to get back there,” remarked Jor-
dan, with satisfaction. “You’ve made me a lot of trouble,
, Coleman.” OO
-“T seem'to have made a lot of you a good deal of
trouble,” returned Coleman, “and I’m mighty glad I’ve
ceased to figure as an international issue.’
“We all are, for that matter,” said Jordan.
Se CHAPTER XVI. ~
A DASH OF TABASCO.”
In due course the delayed breakfast came up from the
torpedo’ room. By some error, Speake had mixed an
overdose of tabasco sauce with the canned beans which
he had warmed up on his electric stove.
“Glory!” sputtered Jordan, reaching for water.
“Speake must have mixed a Whitehead torpedo i in that
mess of beans.”
“Only a dash of tabasco, “Haven't
” replied Coleman.
stuff?”
“Not long enoiigh, anyhow, to acquire an asbestos
stomach. Talking about a‘ dash of tabasco, though,
’ Motor Matt’s raid on the rebels must have been some-
thing of that variety. Reel it off, Matt.
' listeners.”
\
MOTOR STORIES. ’
For some ‘time the Grampus had been heaving and ’
“Ah,” said he, “we’re out of the river and heading for .
you been in Central America long enough to like hot,
We're all geod —
27
“You: do it, Dick,” said Matt.
and did as much of the work as I did.”
“Belay, on that!” remonstrated Dick. “I .didn’t take
care of Ysabel-during that run for the river, did I? And
I didn’t get that piece of lead through my arm, either.”
“You'd hardly know my arm had stopped a bullet,
would you?” and Matt showed his ability-to use his left
hand with the same ease that he did his right.
“Don’t sidetrack the-relish,” chirped Jordan, “Let
Matt’s hot work come on with the beans. Go on, Matt—
or you tell us, Dick, if Matt’s too bashful.”
Thereupon Dick waded into past events as he anid
Matt had experienced them.- He slighted his own deeds
to give a greater lustre to Matt’s, and finally Matt, in
self-defense, had to take the telling into his own hands
_ and finish it.
“T’m hungry, whether the
“Well, Jupiter!” exclaimed Jordan, “there’s enough
tabasco in that run of work to satisfy almost anybody.
‘But, if Motor Matt hadn’t come up under that launch like
he did,.all of us prisoners, my dear friends, would now
be © tramping through the jungle toward Pitou’s new
camp.” - \
“T’m glad that note of mine proved so valuable to us,’
spoke up Coleman.
“How did you come to lay all that information aboard,
Mr. Coleman?” inquired Dick. “It seemed main queer
that a prisoner could have got wise to all that.”
“Pitou toldeme,” said Coleman, with a twinkle in his
eye, “over a game of seven-up. He indulged in liquid
refreshment, as I remember, and the more he beat me,
and the more he indulged, the more confidential he be-
came. I knew Pedro was a friend of Ysabel’s, and that
he was helping her to leave the camp, so I managed to
write down what I had heard, hoping that Ysabel might
get to Port Livingstone and give the news to somebody
there who could and would help us.”
“You haven’t told us, Mr. Jordan,” said Matt,
happened to your landittg- party.”
“T hesitate to put it into cold words,” answered Jor-
dan, “after listening to a recital which shows that you
“what
‘are a general in that sort of affair, Matt, while I am only
a private. By rights, my lad, you are the one who should
have gone with that landing party. However, since it
appears necessary to have our experiences in order to
make the testimony complete, here goes.
“By accident we struck a path. Tirzal said he knew
about the path, but I think the good-natured rascal was
talking for effect, and. that he had never seen it before.
I was fairly sure in my own mind, mainly because we had
seen nothing of Fingal’s schooner after leaving Belize
nor of a small boat after leaving Port Livingstone, that
Fingal and Cassidy hadn’t reached the revolutionists and
told what they knew. ,I suspect that that’s what made
me careless, for. I] was that when you consider that .we
“rou were with me