A STOUT HEART AND PLENTY OF HOPE.
Dace Perry was only half an hour in the lead!
Had he been mounted on Motor Matt's two-cylinder, seven-horse-power
marvel, this would have meant that, with fearless and skilful riding,
he was already in Phoenix; but Perry was on a one-cylinder machine,
that would have to be nursed by a proficient rider in order to do even
thirty miles an hour.
Matt figured that Perry would do twenty, or twenty-five. In other
words, Perry's lead, as Matt reckoned it, was ten or twelve miles.
Could the _Comet_ reel off a score of miles while Perry was doing the
eight or ten that lay between him and the recorder's office?
Reason assured Matt that he had a fighting chance. There was a mile a
minute in the _Comet_ if Matt cared to let her go the limit and risk
his neck.
Notch by notch he opened her out. Why not do a mile a minute? There was
less sand just ahead and better ground. Besides, he was working for
Chub and Susie, and what good was a fellow who wouldn't risk his neck
for his friends?
This was a race for a fortune. It made little difference to Motor
Matt that it was a fortune for the McReadys and not for himself that
trembled in the balance.
The hills melted away behind the speeding motor-cycle. The rise and
fall of the road had little effect on the speed, and the tremendous
momentum of one hundred and fifty pounds of steel, backed by a hundred
and thirty more of brawn and daring, fairly lifted the _Comet_ over the
high places.
Ahead of Matt were a horse and rider. The horse was galloping in
Matt's direction, but took the roadside at a frightened leap as the
motor-cycle sped by.
The horseman shouted and waved an arm. It was Tom Clipperton, the
descendant of a noble line of genuine owners of the soil--the Indians.
What he said Matt could not hear, and Matt dared not take a hand from
the grip-control to wave an answering hail. However, he yelled a
greeting, and the cry trailed out behind him and died suddenly in the
speed of his flight.
That was not the first time Motor Matt had raced along the Black Cañon
road. He had done it once before, but his speed then was not what it
was now. That other time the _Comet_ was new to him, but since that he
had come to know the machine in every part as he knew his two hands.
Before he fairly realized it, he was at the canal. The _Comet_ seemed
to take the bridge at a flying leap, and was off and away through shady
lanes of cottonwood-trees.
He passed several wagons and carriages coming toward him. They got
out of the way and gave his charging steel wonder a wide berth.
Occasionally he had to slow down to pass a vehicle moving toward
Phoenix, but not often. The road was wide, and clean, and hard from
edge to edge.
Speed and more speed! That was all Matt was thinking of then. The itch
to eat up the miles as they had never been devoured before was racing
hot through his veins. He would make a record from the hills to Phoenix
this time which would stand unequaled for a long time.
He whirred across the second canal. His next bridge would be the
one that spanned the town-ditch, and then he would be only a short
half-mile from the court-house plaza, and the place where location
notices were put on file.
As he struck the last lap of country road and looked away toward
the beginning of the angling thoroughfare known as Grand Avenue, he
glimpsed a flurry of dust. That was Perry, fanning along on the
one-cylinder machine.
Matt was gaining on Perry hand over fist. As the dust blew aside, Matt
could see Perry looking back, then turning again and coaxing Penny's
wheel to fresh endeavor.
"I've got him," thought Matt exultantly, "and he knows it! He'll begin
to understand, one of these days, that crooked work can make lots of
trouble, but was never known to pay in the long run."
Perry, no doubt, was greatly astounded at sight of Motor Matt. He
had left Matt in the hands of Jacks and Bisbee, and he had left the
_Comet_ temporarily useless. Small wonder if his brain _was_ dazed and
bewildered by the sight of that hurricane closing in on him from the
rear.
If Chub and Clip had any fault to find with Matt, it was because they
thought him too "easy." This was because he had a habit of looking for
the good qualities in a fellow, rather than for the bad ones. Perry,
according to Matt, would have been all right if he hadn't got a wrong
start; and Matt had even hinted to Chub that there might be something
good even in that scheming follower of fortune's wheel, Dirk Hawley.
Chub and Clip couldn't understand this kind of talk. They realized that
it didn't show weakness, for they had sampled Matt's fiber too many
times not to know his underlying strength of character. So they laid
it up to eccentricity, and called it a hobby. Matt, however, called it
a "principle"--and he had been known to fight like a wildcat for his
"principles."
Matt's mind was resting easy. He felt that the race was as good as won,
that he would soon pass Perry, reach the court-house, and have the
McReady location on file a good two minutes before Perry could reach
the plaza.
And just at that moment, when the whole matter of the McReady "strike"
was looking its brightest, the unexpected happened again and changed
the complexion of affairs.
Matt was close to Perry--not more than a couple of hundred feet behind
him, and still gaining rapidly--when he saw a white horse, ridden by
a well-dressed young woman, riding toward them from the direction of
Grand Avenue.
The horse was mettlesome and high-spirited, and the sight of Perry's
motor-cycle sent the animal leaping toward the roadside. The girl was a
good rider--Matt could see that at a glance--but the horse was giving
her all she could manage.
Perry's proper move, in such a case, would have been to slow down--even
to stop, if the actions of the horse and the safety of the rider seemed
to demand it.
But Perry was thinking only of the recorder's office and never
slackened pace.
The white horse plunged against the fence and reared high in the air.
The girl, however, clung pluckily to the saddle.
Matt, completely absorbed in the girl's peril, lessened his speed and
watched the progress of events. Then, with his heart in his throat, he
shut off the gasoline and clamped on the brake.
One of the reins had snapped apart during the girl's frantic tugging at
the bit. Entirely out of control, the frenzied animal flung off down
the road, the piece of rein dangling from the bit-ring and the girl
clinging desperately to the saddle. Her hat was lost and her yellow
hair was streaming out behind her.
Matt's first impulse had been to leave his machine and rush to
the girl's assistance, but before he could pull his feet from the
toe-clips, the horse was past him and careering along on its wild
course.
There are times when, in the space of a lightning-flash, a person's
mind will deal with every conceivable phase of a situation. It was like
that with Matt as the white horse and helpless rider went tearing past
him.
Unless something was done to stop the runaway animal, the girl would
probably be thrown and perhaps killed. Against what he might do for the
girl, Matt, for the fraction of an instant, balanced his duty to the
McReadys. Then he used the pedals, turned on the gasoline, and switched
on the spark. But instead of going on to Phoenix and the recorder's
office, he turned the _Comet_ and raced after the girl.