sixty miles she must pull down sharply. Far ahead something
was across the road; perhaps only a shadow, perhaps a tangible barrier;
she didn't know these roads any too well.

She cut off her power, jammed on foot and emergency brakes, and so came
to a stop just in time. Here a fence stretched across the road; the
tall gate throwing its black shadows on the white moonlit soil was not
five feet from her hood when she stopped.

She jumped down, threw the gate wide open, propped it back with a stone
knowing full well how the farmers and cattlemen hereabouts builded
their gates to shut automatically, drove through in such haste that she
grazed the gate itself and so jarred it into closing behind her, and
was again glancing from road to speedometer--twenty-five, thirty-five,
a turn to negotiate, seen far ahead, dropping back to twenty-five, to
twenty. A straight, alluring stretch--twenty-five, thirty-five,
forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, sixty, sixty-two, sixty-three--the far
rim of the valley, another line of hills black under the stars--fifty
again and down to twenty-five, to twenty and horn blowing as she sped
into the mouth of the first canon.

And again, when at last she was down in Old Man Packard's valley and
within hailing distance of his misshapen monster of a house, she set
her horn to blaring like the martial trumpet of an invading army.
Cattle and horses along her road awoke from their dozing in the
moonlight, perhaps leaped to the conclusion that it was old Hell-Fire
himself in their midst, flung their tails aloft and scampered to right
and left, and Terry's car stood in front of Packard's door.

Right square in front of the door so that Terry herself could jump from
her running-board and so that her front wheels were planted firmly in
the old man's choice bed of roses. There were two flat tires,
punctured on the way; two ruined, battered rims; her tank still held
perhaps a gallon of gasoline. But she had arrived.

Before she leaped out Terry had glanced at her clock; she had made the
trip of forty miles in exactly fifty-three minutes. Considering the
state of the roads----

"Not bad," admitted Terry.

Then with a final clarion call of her horn she had presented herself at
Packard's door. She had got a few of the wildest blown wisps of brown
hair back where they belonged before the door opened. She heard
hurrying feet and prepared herself by a visible stiffening for the
coming of the arch villain h