THE NEW AEROPLANE.
Motor Matt was as happy as the proverbial bee in clover—and fully as industrious.
A quarter of a mile below the post trader's store, on the Devil's Lake Indian Reservation, a tent, with its sides rolled up, was being used as a workshop. Outside the tent there was a portable forge, anvil, and full outfit of blacksmith's tools. Inside there was a bench with an ironworker's vise, and also a carpenter's bench and well-equipped chest.
For two weeks Matt had been laboring about Camp Traquair, as the little rendezvous was called, assisted in his work by his cowboy chum, Joe McGlory, and with the Chinese boy, Ping, in charge of the culinary department.
Immediately after Matt had finished the aëroplane trials, with so much credit to himself, an order had been given for a new aëroplane at the same price the government had paid for the first one, providing only that it should be finished and tried out by the first of the month. This would enable the machine to be taken apart, crated, and forwarded to Fort Myer for a competitive test in an event that was to determine the abilities of an aëroplane for signal corps' services, as against other types of machines, such as dirigible balloons.
Matt and his two friends had plunged zealously into the work. While McGlory and Ping were erecting the work tent, and furnishing it with wood and iron-working tools, Matt had made a trip to Jamestown for a talk with Mrs. Traquair, and then to St. Paul after materials.
The tough spruce needed for the wings, or "planes," every bolt, screw and wire guy, and the motor, Matt had secured in St. Paul. At a large cost for expressage these materials had been shipped direct to Fort Totten and had arrived there on the same day that witnessed Matt's return.
Then began a season of feverish activity, during which Lieutenant Cameron and others from the post had watched the king of the motor boys with wonder and admiration.
That Motor Matt was possessed of mechanical skill the officers at the post had long known, but that his genius in construction was fully equal to his ability as an aviator became evident from day to day, and was in the nature of a revelation.
"You're the best all-around chap at this business I ever saw in my life," Lieutenant Cameron had declared.