High above these sounds there broke a startled yell. Owen Clancy, who was tramping along the road with his coat over his arm, not only heard the yell, but caught one tragic glimpse of a figure soaring through the cloud of dust, dropping in a sprawl on the rocks, and then rolling over the edge of the cliff.
“Great jumping horn toads!” gulped the red-headed chap, coming to an astounded halt, every nerve in a quiver. “Right over the precipice, by thunder! That fellow’s done for, and no mistake. The man behind that steering wheel ought to be pinched! He didn’t give the fellow in the trail any chance at all—just ran him down and made him jump over the edge of the cliff. Now the driver of that car hasn’t the common decency to come back and see how much harm has been done!”
The scene of this reckless automobile driving was a trail leading toward the city of Phoenix, Arizona. It was one of those mountain-and-desert trails which lead for miles over thirsty, sun-scorched plains, and occasionally climb to dizzy heights by narrow, hair-raising spirals clipped from the mountainside.
Clancy, at the high point of the trail, had been crossing a rugged, bowlder-covered uplift. At his left was a blank wall, a hundred feet high; under his feet was a shelf, barely wide enough for the road; and, on his right, was a precipice.
Those heights overlooked a dusty stretch of flat desert, at whose farther edge could be seen the rooftops and spires of Phoenix peeping out of the green treetops. The city, from that distance, presented a most enchanting view, and Clancy had paused to look and to admire.
“Wonder what sort of luck I’m going to have in that town?” he had asked himself. “I’ve got a notion it is going to make or break me. Well,” and he frowned resolutely, “if it breaks me, I’ll make good somewhere else. I’m the head of the family now, and it is up to me to show the folks back East just what sort of a little, red-headed breadwinner I am. I’ll——”
He broke off his reflections abruptly. From behind him, and altogether too close for comfort, came the toot of a motor horn. Accompanying the sound there burst forth the loud run of a motor.
Clancy, always quick to act in an emergency, gave one leap for the blank wall at the trailside, and flattened against it. Not an instant too soon did he accomplish this, for, ere he could draw a full breath, a big, black car lurched past, the mud guards almost brushing his knees.
It was a six-cylinder machine, built to carry seven passengers, but there was only the driver aboard. Lightly ballasted, the huge machine jumped and swayed on that dangerous path in a manner to make the heart jump.
But there was something else that made Clancy’s heart jump. He suddenly became aware of another pedestrian in the road, a fellow he had not seen before.