THE PURSUIT
The two automobiles rushed along the Boston Post Road, heading for
Bridgeport. The loud rivalry of their straining engines awoke many a
wayside dweller, and brought down maledictions on the heads of all
midnight joy-riders.
Carshaw knew the road well, and his car was slightly superior to the
other in speed. His hastily evolved plan was to hold the kidnappers
until they were in the main street of Bridgeport. There he could dash
ahead, block further progress, risking a partial collision if necessary,
and refer the instant quarrel to the police, bidding them verify his
version of the dispute by telephoning New York.
He could only hope that Winifred would bear him out as against her
"aunt," and he felt sure that Voles and his fellow-adventurer dare not
risk close investigation by the law. At any rate, his main object at
present was to overtake the car in front, which had gained a flying
start, and thus spoil any maneuvering for escape, such as turning into a
side road. In his enthusiasm he pressed on too rapidly.
He was seen, and his intent guessed. The leading car slowed a trifle in
rounding a bend; as Carshaw careened into view a revolver-shot rang out,
and a bullet drilled a neat hole in the wind-screen, making a noise like
the sharp crack of a whip. Simultaneously came a scream!
That must be Winifred's cry of terror in his behalf. The sound nerved
him anew. He saw red. A second shot, followed by a wilder shriek, spat
lead somewhere in the bonnet. Carshaw set his teeth, gave the engine
every ounce of power, and the two chariots of steel went raging,
reckless of consequences, along the road.
There must be a special Providence that looks after chauffeurs, as well
as after children and drunkards, for at some places the road, though
wide enough, was so dismal with shadow that if any danger lurked within
the darkness it would not have been seen in time to be avoided.
"Drunkenness" is, indeed, the word to describe the state of mind of the
two drivers by this time--a heat to be on, a wrath against obstacles, a
storm in the blood, and a light in the eyes. Voles would have whirled
through a battalion of soldiers on the march, if he had met them, and
would have hissed curses at them as he pitched over their bodies. He
knew how to handle an automobile, having driven one over the rough
tracks of the Rockies, so this well-kept road offered no difficulties.
For five minutes the cars raged ahead, passed through a sleeping village
street and down a hill into open country beyond.
No sound was made by their occupants, whose minds and purposes remained
dark one to the other. Voles might have fancied himself chased by the
flight of witches who harried Tam o' Shanter, while Carshaw might have
been hunting a cargo of ghosts; only the running hum of the cars droned
its music along the highway, with a staccato accompaniment of
revolver-shots and Winifred's appeals to heaven for aid. Meantime, the
rear car still gained on the one in front. And, on a sudden, Carshaw was
aware of a shouting, though he could not make out the words. It was Mick
the Wolf, who had clambered into the tonneau and was bellowing:
"Pull up, you--Pull up, or I'll get you sure!"
Nor was the threat a waste of words, for he had hardly shouted when
again a bullet flicked past Carshaw's head.
Just then a bend of the road and a patch of woodland hid the two cars
from each other; but they had hardly come out upon a reach of straight
road again when another shot was fired. Carshaw, however, was now
crouched low over the steering wheel, and using the hood of the car as a
breast-work; though, since he was obliged to look out, his head was
still more or less exposed.
He bated no whit of speed on this account, but raced on; still, that
firing in the dark had an effect upon his nerves, making him feel rather
queer and small, for every now and again at intervals of a few seconds,
it was sure to come, the desperado taking slow, cool aim with the
perseverance of a man plying his day's work, of a man repeating to
himself the motto:
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again."
Those shots, moreover, were coming from a hand whose aim seldom
failed--a dead shot, baffled only by the unconquerable vibration. And
yet Carshaw was untouched. He could not even think. He was conscious
only of the thrum of the car, the spurts of flame, the whistle of lead,
the hysterical frenzy of Winifred's plaints.
The darkness alone saved him, but the more he caught up with the
fugitive the less was this advantage likely to stand him in good stead.
And when he should actually catch them up--what then? This question
presented itself now to his heated mind. He had no plan of action. None
was possible. Even in Bridgeport what could he do? There were two
against one--he would simply be shot as he passed the other car.
It was only the heat of the hunt that had created in him the feeling
that he must overtake them, though he died for it; but when he was
within thirty yards of the front car, and two shots had come dangerously
near in swift succession, a flash of reason warned him, and he
determined to slacken speed a little. He was not given time to do this.
There was an outcry on the car in front from three throats in it.
A mob of oxen, being driven to some market, blocked the road just beyond
a bend. The men in charge had heard the thunder of the oncoming racers,
with its ominous obbligato of screams and shooting. They had striven
desperately to whack the animals to the hedge on either side, and were
bawling loud warnings to those thrice accursed gunmen whom they imagined
chased by police. Their efforts, their yells, were useless. Sixty miles
an hour demands at least sixty yards for safety. When Voles put hand and
foot to the brakes he had hardly a clear space of ten. An obstreperous
bullock was the immediate cause of disaster. Facing the dragon eyes, it
charged valiantly!
Mick the Wolf, running short of cartridges, was about to ask Voles to
slow down until he "got" the reckless pursuer, when he found himself
describing a parabola backward through the air. He landed in the
roadway, breaking his left arm.
Voles had an extraordinary lurid oath squeezed out of his vast bulk as
he was forced onto the steering-wheel, the pillar snapping like a
carrot. Winifred and Rachel Craik were flung against the padded back of
the driving seat, but saved from real injury because of their crouching
to avoid Mick the Wolf.
Voles was as quick as a wildcat in an emergency like this. He was on his
feet in a second, with a leg over the door, meaning to shoot Carshaw ere
the latter could do anything to protect himself. But luck, dead against
honesty thus far, suddenly veered against crime. Carshaw's car smashed
into the rear of the heavy mass composed of crushed bullock and
automobile no longer mobile, and dislocated its own engine and feed
pipes. The jerk threw Voles heavily, and nearly, not quite, sprained his
ankle. So, during a precious second or two, he lay almost stunned on the
left side of the road.
Carshaw, given a hint of disaster by the slightest fraction of time, and
already braced low in the body of his car, was able to jump unobserved
from the wreck. As though his brain were illumined by a flash of
lightning, he remembered that the signal handkerchief had fluttered from
the off side of the flying car, so he ran to the right, and grabbed a
breathless bundle of soft femininity out of the ruin.
"Winifred," he gasped.
"Oh, are you safe?" came the strangled sob. So that was her first
thought, his safety! It is a thrilling moment in a man's life when he
learns that his well-being provides an all-sufficing content for some
dear woman. Come weal, come woe, Carshaw knew then that he was clasping
his future wife in his arms. He ran with her through a mob of frightened
cattle, and discovered a gate leading into a field.
"Can you stand if I lift you over?" he said, leaning against the bars.
"Of course! I can run, too," and, in maidenly effort to free herself,
she hugged him closer. They crossed the gate and together breasted a
slight rise through scattered sheaves of corn-shucks. Meanwhile, Voles
and the cattlemen were engaged in a cursing match until Rachel Craik,
recovering her wind, screamed an eldrich command:
"Stop, you fool! They're getting away. He has taken her down the road!"
Voles limped off in pursuit, and Mick the Wolf took up the fierce
argument with the drivers. At that instant the wreck blazed into flame.
Rachel had to move quickly to avoid a holocaust in which a hapless
bullock provided the burnt offering. The light of this pyre revealed the
distant figures of Winifred and Carshaw, whereupon the maddened Voles
tried pot shots at a hundred yards. Bullets came close, too. One cut
the heel of Carshaw's shoe; another plowed a ridge through his motoring
cap. Realizing that Voles would aim only at him, he told Winifred to run
wide.
She caught his hand.
"Please--help!" she breathed. "I cannot run far."
He smothered a laugh of sheer joy. Winifred's legs were supple as his.
She was probably the fleeter of the two. It was the mother-instinct that
spoke in her. This was her man, and she must protect him, cover him from
enemies with her own slim body.
Soon they were safe from even a chance shot. On climbing a rail fence,
Carshaw led the girl clearly into view until a fold in the ground
offered. Then they doubled and zigzagged. They saw some houses, but
Carshaw wanted no explanation or parleying then and pressed on. They
entered a lane, or driveway, and followed it. There came a murmuring of
mighty waters, the voice of the sea; they were on the beach of Long
Island Sound. Far behind, in the gloom, shone a lurid redness, marking
the spot where the two cars and the bullock were being converted into
ardent gasses.
Carshaw halted and surveyed a long, low line of blackness breaking into
the deep-blue plain of the sea to the right.
"I know where we are," he said. "There's a hotel on that point. It's
about two miles. You could walk twenty, couldn't you?"
"Oh, yes," said Winifred unthinkingly.
"Or run five at a jog-trot?" he teased her.
"Well--er--"
She blushed furiously, and thanked the night that hid her from his eyes.
No maid wishes a man to think she is in love with him before he has
uttered the word of love. When next she spoke, Winifred's tone was
reserved, almost distant.
"Now tell me what has caused this tornado," she said. "I have been
acting on impulse. Please give me some reasonable theory of to-night's
madness."
It was on the tip of Carshaw's tongue to assure her that they were going
to New York by the first train, and would hie themselves straight to the
City Hall for a marriage license. But--he had a mother, a prized and
deeply reverenced mother. Ought he to break in on her placid and
well-balanced existence with the curt announcement that he was married,
even to a wife like Winifred. Would he be playing the game with those
good fellows in the detective bureau? Was it fair even to Winifred that
she should be asked to pay the immediate price, as it were, of her
rescue? So the fateful words were not uttered, and the two trudged on,
talking with much common sense, probing the doubtful things in
Winifred's past life, and ever avoiding the tumult of passion which must
have followed their first kiss.
In due course an innkeeper was aroused and the mishap of a car
explained. The man took them for husband and wife; happily, Winifred did
not overhear Carshaw's smothered:
"Not yet!"
The girl soon went to her room. They parted with a formal hand-shake;
but, to still the ready lips of scandal, Carshaw discovered the
landlord's favorite brand of wine and sat up all night in his company.