"What! Why didn't you cover them?" shrieked the manager.
"Cover them—nothing! They had every location cinched and nailed down. Every farmer stood over the other fellow's paper with a shot gun."
"Sold! And by a kid at that!" groaned Bob Tripp settling down despairingly into his office chair.
CHAPTER XIV
TEDDY WRITES A LETTER
"I'm only a beginner," mused Phil Forrest, as his car spun along at a sixty-mile gait. "And I'm green, and I have a whole lot to learn, but if Bob Tripp catches up with Car Three, now, he will have to travel some!"
The next town was made quite early in the afternoon. Phil, however, did not settle down to wait for another day. He had wired the liveryman in the next town to meet his car, so, immediately upon arrival, he bundled his billposters off on the country routes.
"Work as far as you can before dark, then find places to sleep at a farmhouse. Do the best you can. We must be out of these yards before noon tomorrow, and as much earlier as possible. If you can post by moonlight do it, even if you have to wake the farmers up along the line to get permission."
The men were well-nigh exhausted, but they rose manfully to the occasion. They realized that there was a master hand over them, even if it were the hand of a boy inexperienced in their line of work.
No manager had ever reeled off work at such a dizzy pace as Phil Forrest was doing. It challenged their admiration and made them forget their weariness.