hill road. But you'll
have to drive.... Do you know Anderson's car? Don't you want men with
you?"

"No time!" called Kurt, as he leaped into the seat and jammed on the
power.

"I'll send cars all over," shouted the man, as Kurt whirred away.

Kurt's eyes and hands and feet hurt with the sudden intensity of strain.
All his nervous force seemed set upon the one great task of driving and
guiding that car at the limit of its speed. Huntington flashed behind,
two indistinct streaks of houses. An open road, slightly rising,
stretched ahead. The wind pressed so hard that he could scarcely
breathe. The car gave forth a humming roar.

Kurt's heart labored, swollen and tight, high in his breast, and his
thoughts were swift, tumultuous. An agony of dread battled with a
dominating but strange certainty. He felt belief in his luck.
Circumstances one by one had led to this drive, and in every one passed
by he felt the direction of chance.

He sped by fields of wheat, a wagon that he missed by an inch, some
stragglers on the road, and then, far ahead, he saw a sign-post of the
forks. As he neared it he gradually shut off the power, to stop at the
cross-roads. There he got out to search for fresh car tracks turning up
to the right. There were none. If Anderson's car was coming on that road
he would meet it.

Kurt started again, but at reasonable speed, while his eyes were sharp
on the road ahead. It was empty. It sloped down for a long way, and made
a wide curve to the right, along the base of hilly pastureland, and then
again turned. And just as Kurt's keen gaze traveled that far a big
automobile rounded the bend, coming fast. He recognized the red color,
the shape of the car.

"Anderson's!" he cried, with that same lift of his heart, that bursting
gush of blood. "No dream!... I see it!... And I'll stop it!"

The advantage was all his. He would run along at reasonable speed,
choose a narrow place, stop his car so as to obstruct the road, and get
out with his rifle.

It seemed a long stretch down that long slope, and his car crept along
while the other gradually closed the gap. Slower and slower Kurt ran,
then turned half across the road and stopped. When he stepped out the
other car was two hundred yards or more distant. Kurt saw when the
driver slackened his speed. There appeared to be only two people in the
car, both in front. But Kurt could not be sure of that until it was only
fifty yards away.

Then he swung out his