ill!" he began.

"I heard it," Royce muttered. "An' I've heard it before! In a
minute----"

Royce broke off. The sound, stilled a second, came again, seeming
already much closer and more hideous. Steve's horse snorted and
plunged; some of the colts in the pasture flung up their heels and fled
with streaming manes and tails. Royce calmly filled and lighted his
pipe.

Stillness again for perhaps ten or twenty seconds. Steve, about to
demand an explanation from his companion, stared as once more came the
shrieking noise.

"You can hear the blame thing ten miles," grunted Royce. "It's only
about half that far away now. Keep your eye glued on the road across
the valley where it comes out'n Blue Bird Canon."

And then Steve understood. Into the clear air across the valley rose a
growing cloud of dust; through it, out of the canon's shadows and into
the sunlight, shot a glistening automobile, hardly more than a bright
streak as it sped along the curving down-grade.

"Terry Temple?" gasped young Packard. Royce merely grunted again.

"Jus' you watch," was all he said.

And, needing no invitation, Packard watched. The motor-car's siren--he
had never heard another like it, knew that such a thing would not be
tolerated in any of the world's traffic centres--sounded again a long,
wailing note which went across the valley in billowing echoes.

Then it grew silent as, with the last of the dangerous curves behind
it, the long-bodied roadster swung into the valley. Packard, an
experienced driver himself, with his own share of reckless blood,
opened his mouth and stared.

It was hard to believe that the big, spinning wheels were on the ground
at all; the machine seemed more like an aeroplane content with skimming
the earth but hungry for speed. Only the way in which it plunged and
lurched and swerved and plunged again testified to highly inflated
tires battling with ruts and chuck-holes.

"The fool!" he cried as the car negotiated a turn on two wheels with
never a sign of lessened speed. "He'll turn turtle. He's doing sixty
miles an hour right now. And on these roads----"

"More likely doin' seventy-five," grunted Royce. "Can do ten better'n
that. Out on the highway he's done a clean hundred. That car, my
boy----"

"He's going into the ditch!" exclaimed Steve excitedly.

The car, racing on, was already near enough for Steve to make out its
two passengers, a man bent over the steering-wheel, another ma