“I’M sorry nothing has been found of your money, Mr. Downs. But, to be frank, I don’t see how they could get it for you. Paper money was never meant to be soaked in water and used afterward. The twenty thousand dollars belonged to the bank, I understand?”
It was Lawrence K. Ranfelt talking, after breakfast, the next morning. He and Stanley, both early risers, sat on the veranda and gazed across at the fresh verdure of the hills and the slowly rising mist from the great hollows. They were alone. Mr. Ranfelt’s manner was very serious.
“The money had been Colonel Prentiss’,” answered Stanley. “But, of course, when it came into my hands, as a representative of Burwin & Son’s banks, we were responsible for its safely. The loss will fall on the bank.”
“I suppose Burwin & Son can stand it?”
“Naturally. But that is not the point. My uncle, Richard Burwin, does not believe in mistakes—or accidents. He holds that the first always imply negligence, and that accidents never happen when proper care is taken.”
“I don’t agree with your uncle,” snapped Ranfelt. “It was not your fault that you fell into the lake yesterday. If you hadn’t been trying to keep that harum-scarum girl of mine out of mischief, you would never have got into trouble. However, we won’t talk about that. What about your uncle?”
“Only that I feel as if I cannot tell him I have lost twenty thousand dollars of the bank’s money.”
“H’m! What are you going to do about it?”
“I won’t do anything for a few days, except to wire my uncle I will not be in New York just yet. He will know I have some reason for delay.”
“Won’t think you’ve lost the money?”
Stanley Downs winced at this blunt suggestion.
“It will never occur to him. Besides, I may find it before I have to tell him anything about it. I have not given up hope yet. The men are still dredging the lake.”
“I am afraid there is little chance of your getting the twenty thousand dollars if you depend on its being fished out of the lake,” declared Lawrence Ranfelt, shaking his head.
“I think that, too,” was Stanley’s unexpected outburst. “I am not depending on that. In this big motor race at the Prentiss Speedway, the money prizes go to the drivers, while the cup will be awarded to the car. I have been asked to drive a Thunderbolt car in this race, and have been considering it for several days. This decides me. I will drive in the race.”
He got up, as he said this, stretching his arms and expanding his chest, as if glad to have come to a conclusion on a perplexing matter.
“What’s that?” almost shouted Ranfelt. “Do you really mean it?”
“Indeed I do! Why not? I can drive, and I want the money.”
“But entering the race does not insure the money for you,” the millionaire reminded him.
“Nothing is sure in sport, any more than in other things,” answered Stanley. “But if I don’t enter, I shall not have even a fighting chance. That is what I want—a fighting chance at winning twenty thousand dollars.”
“Fine!” exclaimed L. K. Ranfelt, as he took Stanley’s hand. “I am glad to hear you say this. It is the way to deal with a difficult situation. I wish you luck. Although,” he added slowly, “perhaps I ought not to wish you that, if I am to be consistent.”
“Why not?” asked Stanley in some surprise.
“Because Victor Burnham is going to drive in the race, with a Columbiad,” replied Ranfelt. “It is not generally known, but I knew it. Burnham drove his trial two-mile dash two or three days ago, qualifying as an entrant. He did the two miles in a minute and a third—rather less. That gave him something to spare. If you are going to drive, you haven’t much time. I’d advise you to get to the track and try out your car right away. You were there yesterday, I understand.”
“Yes. I meant to take the money to the bank in New York, and then go right back. I promised to give the Thunderbolt owners my decision by telegraph to-day. Can I telephone to the telegraph office from here?”
“Come into my private office. I have a phone there.”
It took nearly ten minutes to get the telegraph office, fifteen miles away, and then Stanley Downs had to repeat his message twice before the operator could catch it and repeat it back for verification.
“Yes. That’s right,” called out Stanley Downs at last. “‘Moussard Automobile Co., Buffalo. Will drive your Thunderbolt car in Lawrence Cup Race next Thursday. Coming to Buffalo to-morrow for trial. Stanley Downs.’ Get that?”
There was a pause, and Stanley Downs turned from the table, with a smile, as he hung up the transmitter. When he swung around, he found himself facing Helen Ranfelt, who was panting with excitement, and Victor Burnham, who scowled.
“Oh, Mr. Downs, isn’t that splendid?” cried Helen.
“I don’t know that it is,” said Stanley, laughing. “Except to me. I like driving fast, and, from all I can judge, there will be some rapid moving at the Prentiss Speedway next Thursday.”
“You have to go not less than eighty-five miles an hour to qualify,” grunted Burnham. “I suppose you know that?”
“I have studied the conditions of the race so often that T think I am familiar with them all,” replied Stanley, as he turned away.
Helen Ranfelt followed him out to the veranda and took his arm.
“Mr. Downs,” she whispered, and he noted a tremble in her soft tones.
“Yes?”
“Victor Burnham is a dangerous man. He has been annoying me for some time, although I never let dad know. If I had, there would have been a dreadful scene. I’m sure, because dad never can control his temper. Now he is getting worse. He came to me this morning, as soon as I was downstairs, telling me he had something important to say.”
“Yes?”
“I could only tell him to say it, for I have never told him he must not speak to me—although I should like to do so.”
“But if he annoys you——” began Stanley.
“I am afraid you don’t understand. Dad thinks he is a good business man—and I suppose he is. Besides, dad says he is not a bad fellow at heart. That’s the way he expresses it. Only he is a little gruff. Dad says some of the finest men alive are like that.”
Stanley nodded, without speaking. He had seen enough of the good-natured, easy-going Lawrence Ranfelt to understand that the mine owner would make excuses for anybody, so long as a fair outside was presented.
“Victor Burnham has asked my father if he may ask me to marry him. He says dad told him to go ahead. If I don’t believe what he says. I can ask my father. That’s what Mr. Burnham told me to-day.”
“The cad!”
“He also said this morning that he had been told that I would make a hero of the man who won this motor race.”
“That was true, wasn’t it?” queried Stanley, with a smile. “Your father told us that last night. But I understood you had said it only in a playful way, so that no decent man would take it otherwise.”
“I believe I did say so—and, indeed, I think it wonderfully brave for any man to dash around a track at such an awful speed. You see. I know something about fast driving. I often go along the road, myself, at a mile a minute. But the worst of it all is that Victor Burnham pretends to believe that what I said about regarding a man as a ‘hero’ means that I will say ‘yes,’ if he asks me to marry him.”
“You mean if he wins the race?”
“Yes. But I’m afraid he will. You know that he is to drive a Columbiad car, and that that car is regarded as the most powerful and speediest machine that ever has been produced. Everybody is afraid of it.”
“I have heard that it is a good machine,” admitted Stanley. “But until it has been tried out in a real competition with the best cars that can be brought against it, that is only talk. No one knows for certain what the Columbiad can do, because it is a French machine, and has never been seen in action in America, except at the trial, a few days ago.”
“That was when Mr. Burnham qualified as a driver, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. He did his two miles in one minute and twenty seconds. Pretty good going. But I believe I can beat that in the Thunderbolt.”
“I am so glad you are going to drive, Mr. Downs. I happened to hear whatyou were saying over the telephone just now, and I hope you will win.”
“Thanks!”
“Oh, it isn’t only because I want you to be successful,” she confessed, with the candor that she inherited from her plainspoken father. “I want you to beat Mr. Burnham.”
“And all the others in the race, too, eh?” he rejoined, with a humorous curling of the lip. “He won’t be the only other driver, you know, Miss Ranfelt.”
“He will be your chief competitor, I am afraid. If you beat him, you will win. I feel sure of that.”
“Possibly,” assented Stanley Downs thoughtfully. “It is said this Columbiad is a terror. I suppose Burnham is a good driver?”
“One of the best in the country, dad says. He’s cool, strong, and he has no nerves. Dad has told me of the way he held his own against some of the rough men at the mines in days gone by. It is because he is so brave and powerful that dad likes him, I think.”
“Well, I’ll try to beat him,” smiled Stanley.
“You must do it!” she whispered tensely. “If he should win this race I would be afraid of him. He would come to me, and—and——”
“Marry you by force? Hardly that, I think. We don’t do that kind of thing nowadays. Besides, your father can take care of you. Why should you fear this fellow?”
“I don’t know why I should, but I do,” she confessed. “He has a way of carrying things before him in a savage way that gets him what he wants. If you beat him, he will not have an excuse to annoy me.”
Stanley was rather astonished that this plucky young girl should show so much terror. He had seen her driving her big car down the winding road, showing no actual fear, even when it was inevitable that she should plunge into the lake. Yet now, as she talked of this Victor Burnham, she trembled so that she could hardly stand, and her voice quivered pitifully.
“I’ll take care of Mr. Burnham, both on the track and elsewhere, if it should be necessary,” Stanley assured her.
Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when a footstep close by made him turn. He looked straight into the malevolent eyes of the man he had been talking about.
For a moment the two gazed at each other defiantly. Then, without speaking, Victor Burnham turned on his heel and went into the house.
“He heard you, I am afraid!” murmured the girl.
“Just as well, if he did,” replied Stanley, with a smile. “He will know what to expect if he doesn’t behave himself.”
“Hello, Stan!” broke in the cheery tones of Clay Varron. “I’ve just heard the news.”
“What?” cried Stanley, half hoping that the news might be good for him. “They haven’t found the money in the lake, have they?”
“No, old man! I wish it was that. What I meant was that I’m pleased you are going to be in that race. Mr. Ranfelt and I are going to Buffalo with you. We want to see you do your trial. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind?” ejaculated Stanley. “It is the very thing I should have suggested, if I had thought you and Mr. Ranfelt would consent.”
“And I’m going, too,” put in Helen decidedly.
“So will I, if I may be permitted,” added the surly voice of Victor Burnham, as he stepped forward. “I’m told the Thunderbolt racer the company has ready is quite a traveler. I should like to see how you will handle it.”
“I will drive you over in my car, Stan, if you like,” said Clay, ignoring Burnham. “Mr. Ranfelt says he willgo in his own car, and I suppose he will take Helen with him.”
Nobody asked Victor Burnham how he intended to go. But Helen knew he had come from Buffalo in his own car, and, of course, he could go the same way.
“Will you take me with you, Ranfelt?” he asked, as the mine owner stepped out to the veranda.
Helen managed to catch her father’s eye, and he gave Burnham a prompt negative.
“All right, Ranfelt. I can drive my own car,” he said, with an evil grin. “It will be a little lonely for me, but we can all go together, even if we are in separate cars.”
“The blackguard!” thought Stanley Downs. “I feel as if he and I would come to grips some time—and not on the speedway only.”