u catch him?" asked Ned anxiously.

"Watch," was his chum's reply. "I haven't used my high speed gear yet.
I'm afraid the fuses won't stand it, but here goes for a try, anyhow."

He threw over a switch, changed a lever and then, having pushed into
place the last gear, he grasped the steering wheel more firmly.

There was need of it, for, in an instant, the electric runabout, with
the motors fairly roaring, swept up the road, after the gasolene car
that was almost hidden from sight in a cloud of dust. Faster and faster
went Tom's car. The young inventor was listening with critical ear to
the song of the machinery. He wanted to learn if it was running sweet
and true, for that is how a careful mechanic tests his apparatus. Foot
by foot the distance between the two cars lessened. Now the electric
was lapping the rear wheels of the gasolene machine, but the driver did
not know it. His whole attention was on the road ahead of him.

"Half a mile more!" cried Ned, naming the distance which yet remained
of the straight stretch. "Can you do it, Tom?"

His chum nodded. He shoved the controller handle over to the last
notch, and then waited an anxious second. Would the fuse carry the
extra load? It seemed so, for there was a slight increase of power.

An instant later Tom gave a sudden twist to the steering wheel. It was
well that he did, for he was passing the gasolene car dangerously
close. Then he was ahead of it, and in a second he was three lengths in
advance.

Desperately the man opened his muffler, and sought to gain by this
advantage, but though his car gave off explosions like a battery of
guns in action, he could not gain on Tom. The electric shot around a
curve in the road, winner of the impromptu race by an eighth of a mile.

"Well," asked Tom of his chum, as he slowed down, for the road now was
not so good, "did I do it?"

"You certainly did. Whew! But we did scoot along?"

"Eighty miles an hour there one spell," went on the young inventor,
glancing at a gauge. "But I've got to do better than that to win the
big race."

CHAPTER XV

ANDY FOGER'S BLACK EYE

Around the bend came the six-cylinder touring car. The driver, with a
surprised look on his face, was slacking up. He ran his machine up
alongside of Tom's.

"Say," he asked, in dazed tones, "did you take a short cut, or anything
like that to get ahead of me?"

"No," answered the youth.

"And you didn't jump me in the air?"

"No," was To