A Husband by Proxy Part 24

"What shall we do?" she said, as he led her down the stairs. "In a little town like this there's no place to go."

"I provided for that," he answered; and, beholding her start as a sound of loud knocking at the door in the rear gave new cause for fright, he added: "Thank goodness, the old bearded woman has gone around back to get in!"

Half a minute more, and both were out upon the walk. Garrison carrying his book, his pistol once more in his pocket.

A yell, and a shrill penetrative whistle from the rear of the house, now told of Theodore's activities at the window of the room where he and his father were imprisoned. He was doubtless making ready to let himself down to the ground.

"We may have to make a lively run," said Garrison. "My motor-car is two blocks away."

They were still a block from the waiting car when, with yells and a furious blowing of his whistle, Theodore came running to the street before his house. One minute later a big red car, with the chief of the town's police and the chief of the local firemen, shot around the corner into Myrtle Avenue, and came to a halt before the residence which the fugitives had just barely quitted.

"Make a run for it now, we're in for a race," said Garrison, and, with Dorothy skipping in excitement beside him, he came to his waiting chauffeur.

"That fellow up the street is on our trail!" he said. "Cut loose all the speed you've got. Fifty dollars bonus if you lose the bunch before you cross the bridge to New York!"

He helped Dorothy quickly to her seat inside, and only pausing to note that Theodore was clambering hotly into the big red car, two long village blocks away, he swung in himself as the driver speeded up the motor.

Then, with a whir and a mighty lurch as the clutch went in, the automobile started forward in the road.

Ten seconds later they were running full speed, with the m.u.f.fler cut out, and sharp percussions puncturing the air like a Gatling gun's terrific detonations.

The race for New York had commenced.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE RACE

Some of the roads on Long Island are magnificent. Many of the speed laws are strict. The thoroughfare stretching ahead of the two cars was one of the best.

The traffic regulations suffered absolute demolition.

Like a liberated thing of flame and deviltry, happiest when rocketing through s.p.a.ce, the car beneath the fugitives seemed to bound in the air as it whirred with a higher and higher hum of wheels and gears, and the air drove by in torrential force, leaving a cloud of smoke and dust in their wake.

Dorothy clung to Jerold, half afraid. He raised himself upon the seat and looked out of the tiny window set in the back. The big car in the road behind, obscured in the dust that must help to blind its driver, had lost scarcely more than half a block in picking up its speed.

It, too, was a powerful machine, and its coughing, open exhaust was adding to the din on the highway. It was trailing smoke in a dense, bluish cloud that meant they were burning up their lubricant with spendthrift prodigality. But the monster was running superbly.

The houses seemed scooting by in madness. A team that stood beside the road dwindled swiftly in perspective. The whir of the gears and the furious discharge of the used-up gas seemed increasing momentarily.

The whole machine was rocking as it sped, yet the big red pursuer was apparently gaining by degrees.

Garrison nodded in acknowledgment of the fact that the car behind, with almost no tonneau and minus the heavy covered superstructure, offered less resistance to the wind. With everything else made equal, and accident barred, the fellow at the wheel behind would overhaul them yet.

He looked out forward. The road was straight for at least a mile. He beheld a bicycle policeman, riding ahead, to develop his speed, with the certain intention of calling to his driver to stop.

Half a minute later the car was abreast the man on the wheel, who shrieked out his orders on the wind. Garrison leaned to the tube that ended by the chauffeur's ear.

"Go on--give her more if she's got it!" he said. "I'll take care of the fines!"

The driver had two notches remaining on his spark advance. He thumbed the lever forward, and the car responded with a trifle more of speed.

It was straining every bolt and nut to its utmost capacity of strength.

The bicycle officer, clinging half a minute to a hope made forlorn by his sheer human lack of endurance, drifted to rearward with the dust.

Once more Garrison peered out behind. The big red demon, tearing down the road, was warming to its work. With cylinders heating, and her mixture therefore going snappily as a natural result, she too had taken on a slight accession of speed. Two meteors, flung from s.p.a.ce across the earth's rotundity, could scarcely have been more exciting than these liberated chariots of power.

There was no time to talk; there was scarcely time to think. The road, the landscape, the very world, became a dizzying blur that destroyed all distinct sense of sight. In the rush of the air, and the rapid-fire fusillade from the motor, all sense of hearing was benumbed.

A craze for speed took possession of the three--Dorothy, Garrison, the driver. The power to think on normal lines was being swept away. Such mania as drives a lawless comet comes inevitably upon all who ride with such s.p.a.ce-defying speed. The one idea is more--more speed--more freedom--more recklessness of spirit!

A village seven miles from Woodsite, calm in its half-deserted state, with its men all at business in New York, was cleaved, as it were, by the racing machines, while women and children ran and screamed to escape from the path of the monsters.

The fellow behind was once more creeping up. The time consumed in going seven miles had been barely ten minutes. In fifteen minutes more, at his present rate of gain, the driver behind would be up alongside, and then--who knew what would happen?

Dorothy had started as if to speak, at least a dozen times. She was now holding on with all her strength, aware that conversation was wholly out of the question.

Garrison was watching constantly through the gla.s.s. The race could hardly last much longer. They were rapidly approaching a larger town, where such speed would be practically criminal. If only they could gain a lead and dart into town and around some corner, into traffic of sufficient density to mask his movements, he and Dorothy might perhaps alight and escape observation on foot, while the car led pursuit through the streets.

About to suggest some such plan to his driver, he was suddenly sickened by a sharp report, like a pistol fired beneath the car. He feared for a tire, but the noise came again, and then three times, quickly, in succession. One of the cylinders was missing. Not only was the power cut down by a fourth, but compression in the engine thus partially "dead" was a drag on the others of the motor.

The driver leaned forward, one hand on the buzzer of his coil, and gave a screw a turn. Already the car was losing speed. The fellow behind was coming on like a red-headed whirlwind. For a moment the missing seemed to cease, and the speed surged back to the hum of the whirring gears.

"Bang! Bang!" went the sharp report, as before, and Garrison groaned.

He was looking out, all but hopeless of escape, rapidly reflecting on the charges that would lie against not only himself, but his chauffeur, when he saw the red fellow plunge through the dust on a crazy, gyrating course that made his heart stand still.

They had blown out a tire!

Like a drunken comet, suddenly robbed of all its own crazy laws, the red demon see-sawed the highway. The man at the wheel, shutting off his power, crowding on his brakes, and clinging to his wheel with the skill and coolness of a master, had all he could do to keep the machine anywhere near the proper highway.

Unaware of what had occurred at the rear the driver in charge of Garrison's car had once more adjusted the buzzer, and now with such splendid results that his motor seemed madder than before to run itself to shreds.

Like a vanis.h.i.+ng blot on the landscape, the red car behind, when it came to a halt, was deserted by its rival in the race. Two minutes later, with the city ahead fast looming like a barrier before them, Garrison leaned to the tube.

"Slow down!" he called. "Our friend has quit--a blow-out. Get down to lawful speed."

Even then they ran fully half a mile before the excited creature of wheels and fire could be tamed to calmer behavior.

CHAPTER XIX

FRIGHT AND A DISAPPEARANCE

With the almost disappointed thing of might purring tamely along through the far-spread town, and then on through level ways of beauty, leading the way to Gotham, Dorothy found that she was still clinging fast to Jerold's arm, after nearly ten minutes of peace.