s with a faraway look in his twinkling blue
eyes. The boys had been talking of motorcycling, and had been discussing
Bert's record-breaking run across the continent.

In a lull of the conversation he spoke up.

"Motorcycle racing is all right in its way," he said, "but for real
sport on two wheels give me the old bicycling days. Why, we had more fun
then at one meet than you guys have now in a whole season. I call to
mind one time----"

Reddy stopped to light the pipe that he had been carefully packing with
rather rank tobacco, and there was a general movement toward him while
he was taking the first few puffs. Feet and chairs scraped, and by the
time he had his pipe pulling satisfactorily there was a ring of
interested faces gathered about him.

"I suppose you think I'm going to spin ye a yarn now, ye
good-for-naughts, don't ye?" he inquired, with a ferocious glance around
the circle.

"If you back out now, Reddy," laughed Bert, "after getting us worked up
this way, we'll all swear to throw the next game we play, just to get
even with you."

"Well, I suppose I'll have to satisfy you, that bein' the case," said
Reddy, his assumed ferocity of demeanor melting down into a broad grin,
"although 'tis not much of a tale at that."

"'Twas in the palmy days of the bike, when everybody that could possibly
scrape the price together owned one. A bicycle race in them days meant
somethin', let me tell you, and people for fifty miles around would
organize parties to go see it.

"Well, I had the fever just like everybody else, and after a while, when
I'd saved up enough, me and a friend bought a tandem machine. It cost a
pretty penny all right, but it was a well-built machine, and had better
stuff in it than most bikes you see nowadays.

"My partner, whose name was Barney Keogh, and myself took many a long
spin on it, and many a time had sprints with other 'speed boys' out on
the road. We got so we could hit it up at a pretty hot clip, but neither
of us ever thought of going into the racing game.

"But one fine Sunday there was a big meet to be held at the old Newark
track, in New Jersey, and we made up our minds to go see it. We started
out bright an' early and took it easy along the road enjoyin' the
scenery and the fresh, mornin' air. 'Twas in the early spring, I
remember, and we both felt like two colts that had just been turned
loose in a big pasture.

"We just took it easy though, for we had quite a long pull ahea