showed we'd gone twenty-four miles--we had everything
to ourselves, seemingly the entire world. We hadn't heard a sound or seen
a live thing. Then, as we came up on a rise, Evans looked back and saw a
light,--just one light, away, away back like a star. A few seconds
afterward it disappeared and we made a couple more miles. We mounted a
second rise and--this time Evans swore. He was with me by this time, body
and soul, game to the finish; for the light wasn't starlike now by any
means. It didn't even twinkle. It just simply rose up out of the ground,
shone steady, vanished for a time, and rose up anew with the lay of the
country. They were on our trail at last, they couldn't miss it. It was
plain as a wagon road, and they were making two miles to our one. They
must have had a good car; but anyway everything was with them. They could
drive to the limit by our trail; but I couldn't, for I didn't know what
was ahead. I let her out, though, and Evans watched. He didn't swear now,
he just watched; and every time that light showed it was nearer. At
last,--we'd made thirty-two miles by that time,--he saw two lights behind
instead of one--and saw them red, I judge, for how he swore! It was then
or never and I opened the throttle to the last notch and we flew over
everything, through everything until--we stopped."

"You struck something?"

"Yes. I don't know what nor didn't stop to see. The transmission went, I
knew that. The engine was still threshing and pounding when we took to
our heels. We could hear it and see the two lights coming and we
ran--Lord, how we ran! It seems humorous now, but it wasn't humorous
then. There was a fortune at stake and a big one; for a claim belongs to
the chap who puts up the monuments. We ran straight ahead into the night,
until we couldn't run another foot; and then we walked, walked, ten miles
if an inch, until the two lights of Old Reliable became one, and then
went out of sight entirely. Then we lay down and panted and waited for
daylight.... That's about all, I guess."

"They didn't follow you, then?" The girl was sitting up now, the brown
eyes wide open.

"They couldn't. A hound might have done so, but a human being couldn't
that night." Roberts dropped back to the grass, again avoiding the rift
of light. "At daylight Evans got his bearings, and that day we found the
claim, built our monuments, tacked up the notice and the rest. I learned
afterwards there were six men in the machine beh