redly alive, fell thick about them.

"Another half-mile," thought Fred, desperately, as the Happy Thought
bounced along over the rough road, now lurching to one side and now to
another, but keeping her feet like a circus acrobat.

A turn in the road and he could see the open, but it was a flaming
curtain that hung between; the fire was across the road. And what was
that that lay directly athwart their path, and in the very centre of the
fiery furnace? It was a log some eight or ten inches in diameter.

It was a snap decision, but Fred recognized that it meant certain death
to stop. To put the Happy Thought straight at the obstruction, like a
steeple-chaser at a hurdle--it was a slim chance, but the only one. He
could feel the hot breath of the fire on his cheeks, the pungent smoke
was gripping his throat like a vise. "Hold hard!" and at thirty miles an
hour Fred felt the Happy Thought strike the rounded surface of the log
fair and square. The slightest possible shock, and they seemed to be
sailing on, on, on, into endless space.

* * * * *

When he opened his eyes he was lying on the counter in the Copper
Company's office, with the superintendent bending over him.

"All right, my boy?"

"Where's Jack--and the Happy Thought?"

"Safe and sound. Your partner could steer the machine from his seat, you
know, and you were so wedged in that you could not fall. And I was
driving past and saw you."

"And the money--it's safe?" Fred sat up and pointed to the package lying
on the counter.

"That! Why, that's some porous plasters I ordered from the city. Glad
you brought them up for me."

"Porous plasters!"

The superintendent laughed. "My dear boy, you brought the money with you
on your Tuesday trip. I thought you didn't know it, for you forgot to
take my receipt. I've just signed for it now."

"That's what Mr. Simmons meant by being careful," put in Jack. "He never
actually said that the money was in _this_ package."

"Well," said Fred, after a pause, "there were some other people that got
fooled too--'Smooth Jim,' for instance."

"And we've got him," returned the superintendent, grimly. "We were
looking for a job of this kind, and that is why the money was sent up
Tuesday. The fire drove them out of the woods plump into the sheriff's
arms."

"Tell me," said Fred to Jack, when they were alone, "how in the world
did the Happy Thought ever jump that big log?"

"Big log! Why, Fred