CHAPTER XIV.
STEAM VERSUS GASOLINE.
Motor Matt knew, as well as he knew anything, that there was more speedin the _Comet_ than there was in Moody's big Baldwin engine.
Moody's running-time was perhaps forty miles an hour. He might, on sucha favorable stretch of track, eat into his lost thirty minutes at therate of fifty miles an hour, but he would hardly dare to do better thanthat.
Matt, on the other hand, could get sixty miles an hour out of the_Comet_, and even sixty-five if he had to in order to get that letterinto Chub's hands before the good road jumped into the bog.
This meant that he had four miles in which to come up with thelocomotive--for Chub was riding in the cab with Moody, and Matt, nowthat the smoke was behind him, could see his chum hanging from thegangway.
The morning sun had dried the road completely, but there was a dampnessin the air, and damp weather is a prolific breeder of motor-cycletroubles.
If the _Comet_ should begin to misfire on the high speed, if----
Dread possibilities began to flash through Matt's mind, but he thrustthem aside. He was there to do his utmost for Clip, and to hope for thebest.
Out of the tails of his eyes he glimpsed excited faces at thecar-windows. The passengers were watching him as he passed the swiftlymoving coaches. Naturally they could have no idea what his object wasin racing with the train, but a look at his set, determined face wasenough to convince them that there was a deep purpose back of his work.Through the open windows ladies fluttered handkerchiefs, and men pushedout their heads and cheered him. It was a wonderful thing to see thatgallant little machine close in on the rushing locomotive.
Two nerve-racking minutes had passed and two miles of the good road hadbeen covered. This meant that Matt had but two minutes more in which totransfer his letter to Chub.
The _Comet_ was alongside the baggage-car now, and Matt could see hischum plainly in the gangway. He was leaning far out, holding to thehand-rails with one hand and stretching the other toward Matt.
"Mile-a-minute Matt!" yelled Chub, in wild encouragement, "King of theMotor-boys! Come on, pard! A little farther, a little----"
Just then a hand gripped Chub's shoulder and yanked him back into thecab, while an angry voice commanded him to stay inside.
Matt saw this bit of byplay, and a thrill of apprehension shot throughhim. The engine crew were not going to let Chub take any chances ofbreaking his neck. Would they keep him from taking the letter?
But Chub himself had something to say about it. There was a scramblein the cab, and the red-headed boy ducked through the window on thefireman's side and reached the foot-board along the boiler. Thefireman yelled, and his hand shot through the window after him. Chub,however, was quick enough to evade the gripping fingers. Holding to thehand-rail, he bent down. He was too high to reach Matt, and Matt wouldhave had to come dangerously close.
The engine was pitching, and swaying, and swinging, but Chub hung tothe running-board like a monkey, moved along it quickly, dropped to thetop of the steam-chest, and flung his right hand to the lamp-bracket,under and to one side of the headlight.
He could hear the fireman swearing at his recklessness and coming afterhim.
Meanwhile Motor Matt was whirling along abreast of the big cylinder.
"Ready?" he shouted; "look sharp!"
"Hand it up!" and Chub leaned forward, one foot in the air and hisweight on the lamp-bracket.
Matt's right hand left the handle-bar, took the envelope from histeeth, and extended it upward.
"I've got it, pard!" shouted Chub, snatching the letter from MotorMatt's fingers.
A deep breath of relief and satisfaction flickered through Matt's tenselips. A hundred small things had conspired to make that race with thelimited a success, and a turn for the worse in any one of them wouldhave spelled failure.
But it was over and he had won. There was a chance for Clip.
Matt diminished speed slowly. The cars of the train began gliding pasthim, and the thick smoke covered him as with a pall.
He heard yells from the passengers. They were not cheers, but shouts ofwarning and cries of consternation.
What did they mean?
Matt could see nothing for the moment, the vapor from the engineshrouded him so thickly that it blanketed his view in every direction.
Nevertheless, he instinctively cut off the power and gripped the brake.
Yet it is doubtful if he could by any possibility have saved himself,even had he known the full extent and nature of his peril. The _Comet_was under such tremendous headway that a short stop was out of thequestion.
A frenzied whoop broke on Matt's ears. At almost the same momentthere was a shivering crash, so quick and sudden it was more like anexplosion than anything else.
It fell to Chub to see all this. His chum's danger loomed full on hisstricken eyes.
With the letter, for which he and Matt had risked so much, safe in hispocket, Chub had turned and climbed from the top of the steam-chest tothe foot-board.
In this position he was facing the cab of the engine, and looking backalong the wagon-road.
Matt was completely engulfed in the smoke, and Chub could not see him;but Chub saw something else that made his heart stand still and sent asickening fear through every limb.
With both shaking hands he hung to the rail that ran along the jacketof the boiler, dipping and lurching with the engine and staring back.
A big freight-wagon, drawn by six horses and manned by two freighters,was at a standstill in the road. The horses, frightened by the train,had plunged for the roadside, turning the huge van squarely across thetrail.
The freighters were on the ground, hanging to the bits of the horses.
Chub, completely unnerved and his brain benumbed with fears for Matt,stared at the huge wagon. The wheels of the vehicle were plastered withmud, for it had just labored through the bog and struck good road.
Could Matt, engulfed as he was in that haze of smoke, see the wagon?Certainly he could not _hear_ it, because of the roar of the train; butcould he see it, and would he be able to stop the _Comet_ in time toavoid a collision?
So ran Chub's agonized thoughts. Although his brain seemed dazed toeverything else, yet it was peculiarly alert to all that concerned Mattand his peril.
Then, while Chub stared into the receding distance, the sharpdetonation of the crash reached his ears. A groan was wrenched fromhim, and his legs gave way. But for the timely support of the firemanhe would have fallen from the locomotive.
Never had that particular fireman been so scared as he was then. Heswore roundly as he dragged Chub to the cab and jammed him back throughthe window.
Chub fell in a heap on the heaving floor.
"You young fool!" roared Jack Moody, beside himself on account of theboy's narrow escape, "next time I take you in the cab with me you'llknow it. I'd look nice facin' your father and your sister and tellin'them you'd dropped off my engine and been ground up under the drivers,wouldn't I?" And the exasperated Jack Moody said things to himself ashe kept one hand on the throttle and the other on the air, and peeredahead.
Chub, half-lifting himself, caught Moody about the knees.
"Stop!" he begged: "there was an accident back there! Matt has beenkilled! Let me off! Moody----"
"Of course there's been an accident!" cried Moody, without lookingaround. "Why shouldn't there have been? With two reckless daredevilsplayin' tag between a motor-cycle and a limited, it's a wonder therewasn't a worse accident than there was."
"Let me get off!" screamed Chub. "If you don't stop, I'll jump!"
"Sit down on him, Jerry," said Moody to the fireman. "If he won'tact reasonable, lash his hands and feet. We're going to take him toPhoenix. I'm an old fool to have such a rattle-headed kid around. We'reten minutes to the good," he added, "and we'll drop into Phoenix notmore'n five minutes behind the time-card. That's going _some_, eh?"
Meantime there were two amazed freighters, far back on the road,pu
lling a white-faced, unconscious boy out of a tangled wreck.
"Jumpin' gee-mimy!" muttered one of them, in consternation. "Thattwo-wheeled buzz-cart butted into the wagon like a thunderbolt! Did yesee it, Nick?"
"See nothin'!" grunted Nick. "The leaders had me off'n my feet aboutthen, an' I didn't have no time to observe nothin'. Did he hurt thewagon any, Joe?"
"Knocked the mud off the rear wheels. The wagon weighs twenty-fivehundred, but she sure shook when the kid hit it. Fine-lookin' youngfeller," and Joe stood up and looked down at Motor Matt with aforeboding shake of the head.
"Killed?" queried Nick, stepping to his partner's side.
"His ticker's goin', but I don't see how he could come through a smashlike that there an' live."
"Me, neither. We'd better load him inter the wagon an' snake him ter adoctor as quick as we kin."
"I'll pile up some o' the blankets so'st ter make him comfortable. Waita minit."
Nick climbed into the wagon and made a cushioned bed in the springlessbox: then, very gently, Motor Matt was lifted up and laid down on themakeshift bed.
Nick climbed down again and found Joe picking up scraps of the _Comet_.
It was a sorry wreck. The once beautiful machine, the pride of MotorMatt's life, was nothing now but a heap of junk.
"Purty badly scrambled up," remarked Joe. "Don't reckon it could everbe fixed. Shall we tote scrap inter Prescott, Nick?"
"Nary, I wouldn't. Leave the stuff whar it is. We got ter git the boyter town as soon's we kin, an' hadn't ort ter lose time botherin' withsich truck as that."
So the horses were straightened around, Nick and Joe mounted to theseat, the long whip cracked, and the creaking freight-wagon, with itsunconscious passenger, got under headway.