CHAPTER XV.
A RACE AND A RUSE.
Carl, as he yelled his startling announcement, was standing up in thetonneau and pointing toward the place where the west and east roadscame together, a mile farther on.
The stolen runabout, while Spangler had been at the hut, had doubledthe fork of the trail. Running along the east road it had put about andwas now charging along the west.
The Red Flier was facing the direction from which the runabout wascoming, and would have to be turned.
"Get Tomlinson aboard, Gregory!" shouted Matt, dropping the Denverman's arm and springing to the front of the machine.
Frantically he turned the lever, then jumped for the driver's seat.
By that time, Gregory had got Tomlinson into the back of the Flier, andhad scrambled for a place alongside of Matt.
"Can you run 'er?" he asked.
"Watch me," flung back Matt.
To make a turn, in that narrow roadway, called for plenty of skill, butit was accomplished swiftly. By the time the nose of the Red Flier waspointed the other way, however, the runabout was dangerously close.
Hank was still in front with the captive driver, and still overawinghim with the revolver. Matt bent to his levers and steering-wheel. Forhim there was nothing but the road in front--his eyes saw nothing else.
But how could they hope to win that race, with a better car againstthem?
"She can do sixty," cried Tomlinson, from behind. "You know her,Gregory! Perhaps you'd better take the wheel."
Gregory had been watching Motor Matt sharply.
"King can forget more about driving a car than I ever knew, Mr.Tomlinson," said he. "Leave the thing as it is. If any one can get usout of this, it's King."
The Red Flier was going like the wind.
"Watch behind, Carl!" shouted Matt.
"Sure," answered Carl, "you bed you. Py shinks! Der odder car isslowing down aboudt vere ve vas. Ah, ha! Dere comes Spangler, oudt oofder blace vere you come, und he chumps by der car. Now dey're rushingad us again! Himmel, how dey vas purnin' der vind! No use, Matt. DerRed Flier ain'd in it mit dot odder car."
"How's she going, Gregory?" cried Tomlinson.
Gregory bent forward over the speedometer.
"Fifty-eight," he answered.
No car ever worked more sweetly than did the Red Flier. She hummed likea swarm of bees, and Matt's trained ear told him that the machinery wasworking to perfection.
"She can do sixty!" again shouted Tomlinson. "We mustn't let thescoundrels overhaul us now! Five hundred dollars for you, King, if youkeep us away from them!"
"Oof anypody can do dot," yelled Carl, "id vas Modor Matt. Hoop-a-la,Matt! Hid 'er oop, hid 'er oop! Ve don't vant to get ketched any moredan vat Domlinson does."
"They're gaining, they're gaining!" cried Pringle.
He had freed his hands himself, accomplishing it the moment Gregory hadhustled Tomlinson into the tonneau. If Tomlinson or Gregory recognizedPringle as one of the robbers, they failed to say anything about it inthe general excitement.
But if Tomlinson was urging Motor Matt onward, the desperate Hankwas doing no less with the driver of the runabout. And Hank's urgingcarried with it a threat of life and death.
Foot by foot, steadily and relentlessly, the runabout drew closer tothe touring-car. With frenzied eyes Tomlinson watched the closing gap.Presently the racer behind was so close that those in the Flier couldsee the grimly resolute look on Hank's face, and could hear the fiercewords with which he threatened the man under his revolver-point.
"Who's got a revolver?" cried Tomlinson desperately.
"Here you vas!" Carl answered, and handed over the gun he had in hispocket.
"It's mine!" exclaimed Tomlinson, as he took the weapon.
"Ve got it from der feller vat heluped rop you."
It was hardly a time for explanations, but Carl made that onemechanically--for his thoughts were elsewhere.
Tomlinson lifted the gun, training it on the occupants of the carbehind. Hank saw the move but never flinched.
"I wouldn't do that," he shouted. "We don't want to kill you,Tomlinson. That isn't part of the game. We want those pearls, and we'renot going to be euchered out of them after all this fuss."
Then Spangler, from the rumble, leaned forward over the front seat ofthe runabout. He had picked up his own weapon from the place where Matthad dropped it, or else he had taken a second six-shooter from Hank'spocket. He leveled the gun at Tomlinson.
"Pull that trigger an' I'll fill ye fuller o' holes than a pepper-box!"he cried.
Gregory, reaching over from the front, caught Tomlinson's arm andjerked it down.
"You're mad, Mr. Tomlinson!" said he. "Don't take such a risk."
"What's our pace?" demanded Tomlinson, his iron-gray hair snappingabout his face with the speed of their flight.
"Fifty-nine!"
"Then the other car is doing better than a mile a minute! A thousanddollars for you, King, if you land me, with those pearls, safe in AshFork!"
The hot blood went dancing through Motor Matt's veins. Could he do it?Reason told him that the feat was impossible, but----
A thought at that instant leaped through his alert brain. There was achance--a long chance.
"Slide into this seat, Gregory!" he cried. "Careful, now. I'll hang tothe wheel while you get under me."
"What are you going to do?" demanded the astonished Gregory.
"The best I can--and trust to luck."
A note of thrilling determination rang in Motor Matt's voice.
Gregory crawled and scrambled over the front of the lurching car andgot into the driver's seat. Matt, relinquishing the wheel, went on hisknees in the seat vacated by Gregory.
"Pringle," called Matt, leaning into the tonneau, "you have a bottle inyour pocket?"
"Yes, I----"
"Give it here."
Pringle pulled a quart bottle from his pocket. It was half-full ofliquor.
Matt drew the cork and spilled the whisky into the road; then, again onhis knees, he studied the car behind.
The driver of the runabout was holding his car to a steady line. Theleft-hand wheels tracked the road a point two feet to the left of thetrail of the Red Flier.
Standing in the car and bracing himself with his left hand, Matt raisedthe empty bottle in his right.
_Crash_!
The bottle, broken to fragments in the road, offered a danger-point forthe car behind. The speed of the Flier had scattered the jagged glass,but most of it had gone to the place Matt had in mind.
Hank, hearing the crash, instinctively divined what had happened.
"To the right, to the right!" he roared, brandishing his revolver inthe driver's face.
But the speed of the runabout was so great that swerving the car,before the danger-zone was reached, was out of the question.
One of the front tires hit the broken glass and instantly there camea sharp "pop." The runabout slewed around and the driver cut off thepower and put on the brakes just in the nick of time to avoid a badaccident.
The Red Flier glided onward, leaping away from its defeated rival likea glittering streak.
Tomlinson, overcome with the tension of the struggle, collapsed in hisseat with a breathless, "By gad."
"King," exulted Gregory, "you're the best ever!"
"Hoop-a-la!" gloried Carl, in a frenzy of delight. "Meppy Modor Mattditn't do somet'ing dot time! Oh, I bed you! Be jeerful, eferypody, bejeerful! Modor Matt has safed der tay und von a t'ousand tollars. Yah,yah, yah!" and Carl flopped to an about face and shook his clenchedfist at the car behind, now almost out of sight.
"Wonderful!" cried Tomlinson. "King, how did you ever manage to thinkof that?"
"How does he efer manage to t'ink oof eferyt'ing, hey?" asked Carl."He has his headt mit him all der time. Dot's vy he cuts so mooch iceverefer he goes! Oh, he vas a pully-poy, you bed my life!"
"Well," said Tomlinson, "I'll not forget this."
"There's Ash Fo
rk," spoke up Pringle suddenly, pointing to the right."Just across the railroad-track there's a road leading down to theplace. I guess you better stop here and let me out."
"Stop, Gregory," said Matt. "Pringle isn't going into town with us."
"Yes, he is!" averred Tomlinson, bristling. "He was one of the four menwho held us up. I didn't recognize him at first, but I do now. Don'tstop, Gregory."
"Mr. Tomlinson," said Matt, facing about, "I promised Pringle he shouldhave his freedom if he told us what the robbers had done with you. Butfor the information he gave us, we would never have been able to getyou away from that hut. I think he's entitled to something, don't you?"
"Is that the way of it?" asked Tomlinson.
Matt assured him that it was.
"Then," went on Tomlinson, "if you promised him his freedom, Matt,Gregory had better stop."
The car halted and Pringle, highly elated, jumped to the ground.
"Don't forget to leave my stuff where I told you, Pretzel," he called.
"Vell, I von't," answered Carl; "und don'd you forged to leadt sometifferent lives oder you vill findt yourseluf pehindt der pars yet."
"Oh, blazes! Say, I'll be wearing diamonds while you're still doingstunts back of the footlights."
"You vill be vearing shdripes, dot's vat."
"By-by, Wienerwurst!"
Carl gurgled and tried to get out of the car. Matt grabbed him andthrew him back in his seat.
"Never mind, old chap," he said. "You're well rid of that fellow, andyou ought to be thankful."
"I don'd like dot Wienerwurst pitzness," grunted Carl. "He vas ruppingit in too mooch, py shinks. Don'd he vas der vorst pad egg vat you efersee?"
Just then Gregory switched on the spark, and the Red Flier glided intothe branch road with the town well in sight.