CHAPTER XII
A GREAT RUN
A GREAT RUN
A GREAT RUN
Instead of turning at Peckham’s Corner, as they had intended had the party kept on after the ’coon hunters, the swift automobile ran on into Riverdale. They passed the Court House and shot through the public square. The town was asleep and nobody challenged them.
A little beyond this was the brick structure in which county prisoners were kept, and the sheriff lived in a wing of the prison. Mr. Armitage touched Dan’s shoulder lightly and the boy slowed down.
“We’d better speak to Midge,” said the gentleman. “We can’t wait for him, but he had better know what’s afoot. If there’s a deputy here——”
“Why didn’t Mr. Sudds telephonehere, instead of to Constable Somes?” queried Mr. Briggs, as his friend got out of the automobile.
“It was Mrs. Sudds who telephoned. To the women-folk, Josiah is bigger than the president. That tin star he wears is what gets them.”
Mr. Armitage went up the steps of the sheriff’s house, chuckling. He rang the bell, and almost immediately the door opened. There was a light in the office; connected with the jail, and there was usually one or two deputies on watch in the office all night.
“Why, Polk you’re just the man for us,” said the hearty voice of Mr. Armitage. Then, in a low tone he explained what was afoot. The deputy, whose turn it was to be on duty at the Riverdale jail, spoke to his partner inside, got his hat, and came back with Armitage to the car.
“Evening, Mr. Briggs. Hello Dan!” he said. “I’ve been dead sore ever since those fellows escaped us on Saturday night. If there’s a chance of catching ’em, I want to be with you.”
“Hop in,” said Mr. Briggs. “If they are coming directly to town, we ought to meet them on the pike in a very few moments.”
Dan had already started the motor car again and they ran swiftly out of town. Passing the Darringford Machine Shops they could see the gaunt skeleton of the new office building being erected on the site of the old one that had been burned in the summer. As they shot into the straight pike, the road seemed deserted.
They came soon to the first cross-road—a lane which cut over the country and joined the Port Luther highway. Polk shouted to Dan to stop.
“What is it now?” demanded Mr. Briggs, quickly.
“Let me get out and see if a car has recently turned into this road from the direction of the Falls. It’s sandy here,” said the deputy.
Before he could put his suggestion into words Henri, the Frenchman, was out in the roadway in his stead. He carried Dan’s lantern with him, and turned the wick up so he might see.
“There is no marks of a tire, Monsieur,” said Henri, confidently. “The car has not turned this way——”
“Hark!” exclaimed Dan.
The humming of a fast-driven machine in the distance suddenly came to their ears. It was approaching from the right direction—and its approach was speedy.
“Let me back into this road and wait till she passes,” suggested Dan. “We’ll put the lights out and they won’t see us as they go by.”
“Good!” exclaimed Polk. “Do it.”
The strange car came on like the wind. A bend in the pike had hidden it thus far; but suddenly the increased volume of sound proved that it had darted around this bend into the straight stretch of road leading to the Darringford Shops.
Then the flickering rays of their lamps came into view. The members of Dan’s party leaned forward, straining their eyes to catch the first glimpse of the car. Was it the mate to this one which Mr. Briggs owned?
And then, with surprising suddenness, the sound of the other car showed that its power was being reduced. Dan had stopped the engine of their auto, and Henri stooped in front of it, with his hand on the crank, ready to start the instant the other car was past.
Suddenly the Frenchman uttered a yell of fright. The lights of the strange car swerved, and in a breath it had dashed right into this lane where the silent car stood!
Had Dan not backed well into the side of the road, there would surely have been a collision. The lamps of the turning automobile revealed at the last moment the standing car, and the chauffeur of the other swerved well to the right hand.
Henri leaped aside, and the guard of the other auto just shaved him. The two vehicles escaped each other by a narrow margin. Only Mr. Armitage kept his head. He leaped up with a shout, and held the lantern which had been turned low again, so that its light fell upon the passing car.
It was painted maroon.
“There they go!” yelled Polk.
They saw the three men in the car—the small man at the wheel and the two in the tonneau.
One of these latter stood up, and something glittered in his hand. But no shot was fired.
But Dan Speedwell was seriously troubled.Where was Billy?
For a moment the older boy forgot what he was doing, and he sprang to his feet, too.
“Billy!” he shouted, his voice sounding high and shrill above the sudden puffing of the car he was in. Henri had grabbed the crank at once and turned over the flywheel.
The fugitive car was already gathering speed again; but something white fluttered from the back of the racing automobile.
“I saw him, Dan!” cried Mr. Armitage. “He’s lying there in the slack of the canopy. I don’t believe the scoundrels know they are being spied upon.”
“Turn around, boy, and get after them!” cried Polk. “We’ll rescue him!”
It was not yet one o’clock. The leading machine had raced to Upton Falls and back again. Without much doubt, it was now headed across the county, aiming for the same section in which it had escaped pursuit on Saturday night.
But as Dan Speedwell felt the car he drove throb and shake under his manipulation, and realized that it responded to his will and touch, he could not but believe that his was the better one.
On and on the cars tore along the road. The red spark of light ahead seemed to draw nearer. Dan knew that he was gaining upon the other machine.
Suddenly the spark of light ahead vanished. Dan did not reduce his speed, but he wondered for a moment if the rascals, becoming wary of pursuit, had put out all their lights again.
They could observe the lamps on Mr. Briggs’ car and Dan dared not run dark in this narrow road. One collision they had escaped by a hand’s breadth; he was not likely to risk another right away.
But before he could comment upon the disappearance of the rear light of the fugitive automobile, Polk cried from the tonneau:
“There she goes around the corner. They’ve struck the Port Luther turnpike.”
“And turned toward the coast?” demanded Mr. Armitage.
“Don’t know. Too far away for us to be sure whether she turned right or left,” said the deputy.
“Slow down when you get there, then, Dan,” said the proprietor of the motor car, understanding what Mr. Armitage wanted. “There must be some mark of her tires in the earth. The Port Luther road is not macadamized.”
But Dan did not reduce speed yet. He could see the roadway very plainly in the strong radiance of the car’s lights. If the tires of the machine they were chasing made as plain a trail at the corner as they did in certain soft spots in this lane, there would be no need for them to reduce speed, save to make the turn in safety.
Henri saw this, too. He shrugged his shoulders and held up a warning hand as Mr. Armitage leaned forward to shout in Dan’s ear.
“Wait!” cried the Frenchman, eagerly.
They were at the corner. The glare of the lights revealed a wide patch of the road. The wheel-marks of the fugitive car had swerved to the right hand. The robbers were racing on to the north—were, in fact, running around Riverdale, and away from the coast.
But, as Dan brought Mr. Briggs’ car out of the lane, and shot her into the broader highway, he looked ahead in vain for the tail-light of the other maroon automobile. He knew that the pike here was straight for five miles; there wasn’t a light upon it!
This was the road Dan had first agreed to drive his party to, had they taken the turn at Peckham’s. But they were several miles below Peckham’s road. The fugitive car could not have turned into this last highway, for it could not, running at top speed, have covered five miles, even, before the pursuing auto took the turn into the pike.
“Running without lights,” was Dan Speedwell’s quick decision. “And why can we not do the same on this broad road? At least, those fellows cannot so easily gage our speed,” and he suggested the idea to Henri. The Frenchman spoke to his employer and then shut off the lights in front. The tail lamp they allowed to show, to warn any vehicle behind—although so far they had discovered no car on any of these roads, save the machine run by the bank robbers.
They skimmed along this wider way at fast speed. Indeed, Dan believed that he had never traveled so fast before save on the racetrack with his Flying Feather motorcycle.
Dan felt that before them, flashing in and out of the shadows as they, too, were, was another car, running likewise without lights and at top speed. The noise of their own machine drowned all other sounds. Suppose he should bring this great vehicle crashing into the rear of that other flying car?
With Billy in the back! The thought shook Dan Speedwell. For an instant he was tempted to pull down—to reduce speed—to take no further risk in this wild chase.
But then, the thought that Billy might need him—that the robbers might have already discovered that they carried a spy with them—urged the brother to cling to the trail like a hound on the scent of game.
They shot around a curve in the road. Henri held up his hand. Some sound—a noise louder than the roar of their passage—had come to him.
“What is it?” shouted Dan, but not reducing speed.
“A blow-out!” cried the Frenchman, and pointed ahead.
“It’s the other car!” shouted Polk, leaning over the back of the front seat. “We’re going to catch ’em. They’ve burst a tire!”