A Hoodoo Machine; or, The Motor Boys' Runabout No. 1313. — A Closer Reading

HAPTER I. THE CAR THAT WOULDN’T BEHAVE.

“Sufferin’ whirligigs, Pard Matt! Look at that bubble wagon! Is it trying to turn a handspring, or ‘skin the cat,’ or climb that telephone pole? I reckon the longhorn up front don’t know how to run the thing. Either that, or else he’s ‘bug’ with a big ‘B.’”

“I should say it’s the car that’s ‘bug,’ Joe. The driver seems to be trying to control the machine in the proper manner, but it won’t be controlled. What’s your notion of it, Billy?”

“Hoodoo car, Matt. Look at the number of her--thirteen thirteen. Double hoodoo. You couldn’t expect no chug wagon with such a tag to behave anything else than disgraceful. Lo and behold you, if she don’t turn turtle in the ditch before she goes many more miles then my name’s not Billy Wells. Watch ’er; keep your eye on ’er an’ I’ll bet you see something.”

The three boys were driving along the Jericho Pike well toward Krug’s Corner--Matt King, Joe McGlory, and Billy Wells. Billy belonged with a New York garage from which the boys had secured the touring car they were using that morning. He was a living road map, this Billy, and could go anywhere up-state, or over Long Island, or in Jersey on the darkest night that ever fell, and he knew every minute just where he was.

Matt was doing the driving, and Billy sat beside him as guide, counselor, and friend. In the back of the machine was McGlory.

That was Thursday. Matt and his chum were heeding a summons that carried them toward the Malvern Country Club, near Hempstead. After transacting their business at the Country Club--they did not know what it was, but believed it would not take them long--they were planning to return to Krug’s Corner for their noon meal, and then back to Manhattan by Jackson Avenue and the Williamsburg Bridge. But plans are easily made, sometimes, and not so easily carried out.

The day was bright, the roads were good, and the motor boys were enjoying themselves. Well along the Jericho Pike they had come up with a white runabout, two seats in front and a deck behind, and the actions of this car aroused their curiosity to such an extent that Matt slowed down the big machine in order that he and those with him could follow and watch the performance.

There was only one passenger in the white car, and he was having his hands full.

The runabout would angle from one side of the road to the other, in apparent defiance of the way the steering wheel was held, and sometimes it would go its eccentric course slowly and sometimes with a rush--so far as those in the other car could see--without any change in the speed gear.

The driver of the runabout worked frantically to keep the machine where it ought to be, but the task was too much for him.

Once a telephone pole gave him a close shave, and once his unmanageable car gave a sidewise lurch that almost hurled it into a machine going the other way.

“What’s the matter?” Matt hailed.

The man in the runabout looked around with a facial expression that was far from angelic.

“If I knew what was the matter with this confounded car,” he cried in exasperation, “do you think I’d be side-stepping all over the road the way I am?” Then, muttering to himself, he humped over the steering wheel again.

“He’s happy--I don’t think,” chuckled McGlory. “The car’s getting on his nerves.”

“A car like that would get on anybody’s nerves,” commented Billy. “The number’s enough to set mine on edge. Thirteen’s unlucky, no matter where you find it. That’s right. And when you get two thirteens bunched together, you’ve sure got a combination that points a car for the scrap heap. I wouldn’t hold down the cushions in that roadster for all the money in New York. No, sir, that I wouldn’t,” and Billy shook his head forebodingly.

“Oh, splash!” scoffed Matt. “When a car fools around like that, Billy, there’s something wrong with its internal apparatus.”