than June. After a visit to his camp Lestrange reappeared without the
suffocating mask and cap, driving bareheaded, with only the narrow
goggles crossing his face. The change left visible the drawn pallor of
exhaustion under stains of dust and oil, his rolled-back sleeves
disclosed the crimson bandage on his right arm and the fact that his
left wrist was tightly wound with linen where swollen and strained
muscles rebelled at the long trial.
"He's been driving for nineteen hours," said Dick, climbing up to his
party through the excited crowd. "Two hours more to six o'clock.
Listen to the mob when he passes!"
The injunction was unnecessary. As the sun slanted low the enthusiasm
grew to fever. This was a crowd of connoisseurs--motorists,
chauffeurs, automobile lovers and drivers--they knew what was being
done before them. The word passed that Lestrange was in his twentieth
hour; people climbed on seats to cheer him as he went by. When one of
his tires blew out, in the opening of the twenty-first hour of his
driving and the twenty-fourth of the race, the great shout of sympathy
and encouragement that went up shook the grand-stand to its cement
foundations.
Neither Lestrange nor Rupert left his seat while that tire was
changed.
"If we did I ain't sure we'd get back," Rupert explained to Dick, who
hovered around them agitatedly. "If I'd thought Darling's mechanician
would get in for this, I'd have taken in sewing for a living. How much
longer?"
"Half an hour."
"Well, watch us finish."
A renewed burst of applause greeted the Mercury car's return to the
track. Men were standing watch in hand to count the last moments,
their eyes on the bulletin board where the reeled-off miles were being
registered. Two of the other machines were fighting desperately for
second place, hopeless of rivaling Lestrange, and after them sped the
rest.
"The finish!" some one suddenly called. "The last lap!"
Dick was hanging over the paddock fence when the car shot by amidst
braying klaxons, motor horns, cheers, and the clashing music of the
band. Frantic, the people hailed Lestrange as the black and white
checked flag dropped before him in proclamation of his victory and the
ended race.
Rupert raised his arms above his head in the signal of acknowledgment,
as they flew across the line and swept on to complete the circle to
their camp. Lestrange slackened speed to take the dangerous, deeply
furrowed turn for the last time, his car poised for the curving flight
under his guidance--then the watching hundreds saw the driver's hands
slip from the steering-wheel as he reached for the brake. Straight
across the track the machine dashed, instead of following the bend,
crashed through the barrier, and rolled over on its side in the green
meadow grass.
"The steering-knuckle!" Bailey groaned, as the place burst into uproar
around them. "The wheel--I saw it turn uselessly in his hands!"
"They're up!" cried a dozen voices. "No, one's up and one's under."
"Who's caught in the wreck--Lestrange or his man?"
But before the people who surged over the track, breaking all
restraint, before the electric ambulance, Dick Ffrench reached the
marred thing that had been the Mercury car. It was Lestrange who had
painfully struggled to one knee beside the machine, fighting hard for
breath to speak.
"Take the car off Rupert," he panted, at Dick's cry of relief on
seeing him. "I'm all right--take the car off Rupert."
The next instant they were surrounded, overwhelmed with eager aid. The
ambulance came up and a surgeon precipitated himself toward Lestrange.
"Stand back," the surgeon commanded generally. "Are you trying to
smother him? Stand back."
But it was he who halted before a gesture from Lestrange, who leaned
on Dick and a comrade from the camp.
"Go over there, to Rupert."
"You first--"
"No."
There was nothing to do except yield. Shrugging his shoulders, the
surgeon paused the necessary moment. A moment only; there was a
scattering of the hushed workers, a metallic crash.
From the space the car had covered a small figure uncoiled,
lizardlike, and staggered unsteadily erect.
"Where's Darling Lestrange?" was hurled viciously across the silence.
"Gee, you're a slow bunch of workers! Where's Lestrange?"
The tumult that broke loose swept all to confusion. And after all it
was Lestrange who was put in the surgeon's care, while Rupert rode
back to the camp on the driver's seat of the ambulance.
"Tell Emily I'll come over to her as soon as I'm fit to look at," was
the message Lestrange gave Dick. "And when you go back to the factory,
have your steering-knuckles strengthened."
Dick exceeded his commission by transmitting the speech entire;
repeating the first part to Emily with all affectionate solicitude,
and flinging the second cuttingly at his uncle and Bailey.
"The doctors say he ought to be in bed, but he won't go," he
concluded. "No, you can't see him until they get through patching him
up at the hospital tent; they put every one out except Rupert. _He_
hasn't a scratch, after having a ninety Mercury on top of him. You're
to come over to our camp, Emily, and wait for Lestrange. I suppose
everybody had better come."
It was a curious and an elevating thing to see Dickie assume command
of his family, but no one demurred. An official, recognizing in him
Lestrange's manager, cleared a way for the party through the noisy
press of departing people and automobiles. The very track was blocked
by a crowd too great for control.
The sunset had long faded, night had settled over the motordrome and
the electric lamps had been lit in the tents, before there came a stir
and murmur in the Mercury camp.
"Don't skid, the ground's wet," cautioned a voice outside the door.
"Steady!"
Emily started up, Dick sprang to open the canvas, and Lestrange
crossed the threshold. Lestrange, colorless, his right arm in a sling,
his left wound with linen from wrist to elbow, and bearing a heavy
purple bruise above his temple, but with the brightness of victory
flashing above all weariness like a dancing flame.
"Sweetheart!" he laughed, as Emily ran to meet him, heedless of all
things except that he stood within touch once more. "My dear, I told
them not to frighten you. Why, Emily--"
For as he put his one available arm about her, she hid her wet eyes on
his shoulder.
"I am so happy," she explained breathlessly. "It is only that."
"You should not have been here at all, my dear. But it is good to see
you. Who brought you? Bailey?" catching sight of the man beside Dick.
"Good, I wanted some one to help me; Rupert and I have got to find a
hotel and we're not very active."
Emily would have slipped away from the clasp, scarlet with returning
recollection, but Lestrange detained her to meet his shining eyes.
"The race is over," he reminded, for her ears alone. "I'm going to
keep you, if you'll stay."
He turned to take a limping step, offering his hand cordially to the
speechless Bailey, and faced for the first time the other man present.
"I think," said Ethan Ffrench, "that there need be no question of
hotels. We have not understood each other, but you have the right to
Ffrenchwood's hospitality. If you can travel, we will go there."
"No," answered David Ffrench, as quietly. "Never. You owe me nothing,
sir. If I have worked in your factory, I took the workman's wages for
it; if I have won honors for your car, I also won the prize-money
given to the driver. I never meant so to establish any claim upon
Ffrenchwood or you. I believe we stand even. Dick has taken my place,
happily; Emily and I will go on our own road."
They looked at each other, the likeness between them most apparent, in
the similar determination of mood which wiped laughter and warmth from
the younger man's face. However coldly phrased and dictatorially
spoken, it was an apology which Mr. Ffrench had offered and which had
been declined. But--he had watched Lestrange all day; he did not lift
the gauntlet.
"You are perfectly free," he conceded, "which gives you the
opportunity of being generous."
His son moved, flushing through his pallor.
"I wish you would not put it that way, sir," he objected.
"There is no other way. I have been wrong and I have no control over
you; will you come home?"
There was no other argument but that that could have succeeded, and
the three who knew Lestrange knew that could not fail.
"You want me because I am a Ffrench," David rebelled in the final
protest. "You have a substitute."
"Perhaps I want you otherwise. And we will not speak in passion; there
can be no substitute for you."
"Ffrench and Ffrench," murmured Dick coaxingly. "We can run that
factory, Lestrange!"
"There's more than steering-knuckles needing your eye on them. And you
love the place, Mr. David," said Bailey from his corner.
From one to the other David's glance went, to rest on Emily's
delicate, earnest face in its setting of yellow-bronze curls. Full and
straight her dark eyes answered his, the convent-bred Emily's answer
to his pride and old resentment and new reluctance to yield his
liberty.
"After all, you were born a Ffrench," she reminded, her soft accents
just audible. "If that is your work?"
Very slowly David turned to his father.
"I never learned to do things by halves," he said. "If you want me,
sir--"
And Ethan Ffrench understood, and first offered his hand.
Rupert was discovered asleep in a camp-chair outside the tent, a few
minutes later, when Dick went in search of him.
"The limousine's waiting," his awakener informed him. "You don't feel
bad, do you?"
The mechanician rose cautiously, wincing.
"Well, if every joint in my chassis wasn't sore, I'd feel better," he
admitted grimly. "But I'm still running. What did you kiss me awake
for, when I need my sleeps?"
"Did you suppose we could get Lestrange home without you, Jack
Rupert?"
"I ain't supposing you could. I'm ready."
The rest of the party were already in the big car, with one exception.
"Take a last look, Rupert," bade David, as he stood in the dark
paddock. "We're retired; come help me get used to it."
Rupert passed a glance over the deserted track.
"I guess my sentiment-tank has given out," he sweetly acknowledged.
"The Mercury factory sounds pretty good to me, Darling. And I guess we
can make a joy ride out of living, on any track, if we enter for it."
"I guess we can," laughed David Ffrench. "Get in opposite Emily. We're
going home to try."
THE END