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  MOTOR STORIES

  THRILLING
  ADVENTURE

  MOTOR
  FICTION

  NO. 7
  APR. 10, 1909

  FIVE
  CENTS

  MOTOR MATT'S
  CLUE

  THE PHANTOM
  AUTO

  _by STANLEY R. MATTHEWS_.

  [Illustration: "Look a leedle oudt!" yelled
  Carl, as Motor Matt made a
  quick jump for the phantom
  auto.]

  _STREET & SMITH,
  PUBLISHERS,
  NEW YORK._




MOTOR STORIES

THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION

_Issued Weekly. By subscription $2.50 per year. Entered according to
Act of Congress in the year 1909, in the Office of the Librarian of
Congress, Washington, D. C., by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Avenue,
New York, N. Y._

  No. 7.      NEW YORK, April 10, 1909.      Price Five Cents.

Motor Matt's Clue;

OR,

THE PHANTOM AUTO.

By the author of "MOTOR MATT."




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I. A NIGHT MYSTERY.
  CHAPTER II. DICK FERRAL.
  CHAPTER III. LA VITA PLACE.
  CHAPTER IV. THE HOUSE OF WONDER.
  CHAPTER V. SERCOMB.
  CHAPTER VI. THE PHANTOM AUTO AGAIN.
  CHAPTER VII. SURROUNDED BY ENEMIES.
  CHAPTER VIII. THE KETTLE CONTINUES TO BOIL.
  CHAPTER IX. ORDERED AWAY.
  CHAPTER X. A NEW PLAN.
  CHAPTER XI. A DARING LEAP.
  CHAPTER XII. DESPERATE VILLAINY.
  CHAPTER XIII. TIPPOO.
  CHAPTER XIV. IN THE NICK OF TIME.
  CHAPTER XV. A STARTLING INTERRUPTION.
  CHAPTER XVI. THE PRICE OF TREACHERY.
  CHAPTER XVII. THE LUCK OF DICK FERRAL.
  BILL, THE BOUND BOY.
  A WINTER STORY OF COLORADO.




CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THIS STORY.


  =Matt King=, concerning whom there has always been a mystery--a lad
  of splendid athletic abilities, and never-failing nerve, who has won
  for himself, among the boys of the Western town, the popular name of
  "Mile-a-minute Matt."

  =Carl Pretzel=, a cheerful and rollicking German lad, who is led by a
  fortunate accident to hook up with Motor Matt in double harness.

  =Uncle Jack=, a wealthy Englishman, with ways and means of his own
  for accomplishing things, who leads a hermit's life in the wilds of
  New Mexico.

  =Dick Ferral=, a Canadian boy and a favorite of Uncle Jack; has
  served his time in the King's navy, and bobs up in New Mexico where
  he falls into plots and counter-plots, and comes near losing his life.

  =Ralph Sercomb=, a cousin of Dick Ferral, and whose sly, treacherous
  nature is responsible for Dick's troubles.

  =Joe Mings=,    } three unscrupulous friends of Sercomb, all
  =Harry Packard=,} motor-drivers, and who come from Denver to help
  =Balt Finn=,    } Sercomb in his nefarious plans.




CHAPTER I.

A NIGHT MYSTERY.


"Oh, py shiminy! Look at dere, vonce! Vat it iss, Matt? Br-r-r! I feel
like I vould t'row some fits righdt on der shpot! It's a shpook, you
bed you!"

A strange event was going forward, there under the moon and stars of
that New Mexico night. The wagon-road followed the base of a clifflike
bank, and at the outer edge of the road there was a precipitous fall
into Stygian darkness.

A second road entered the first through a narrow gully. A few yards
beyond the point where the thoroughfares joined an automobile was
halted, its twin acetylene lamps gleaming like the eyes of some fabled
monster in the semigloom.

Two boys were on the front seat of the automobile, and one of them had
leaned over and gripped the arm of the lad who had his hands on the
steering-wheel. The eyes of the two in the car were staring ahead.

What the boys saw was sufficiently startling, in all truth.

Out of the gully, directly in advance of them, had rolled a white
automobile--springing ghostlike out of the darkness as it came under
the glare of the acetylene lights.

The white car was a runabout, with two seats in front and an abnormally
high deck behind. It carried no lamps, moved with weird silence, and,
strangest of all, _there was no one