Sprague was the only member of the party who had not at some time in the past had experience with Starbuck’s driving. But before the first ten-mile lap on the mesa road had been covered he, too, had had his initiation. There was a little lamp on the dash which poured its tiny ray on the dial of the speedometer. Sprague saw the index pointer go up to thirty-five, jump to forty, crawl steadily onward until it had passed the forty-five and was mounting to the fifty. After that he saw no more, for the simple reason that he was obliged to close his unprotected eyes against the hurricane speed blast. The big man from Washington had asked for the fastest car in Brewster and for a man who was not afraid to drive it. He had got both.
At the same time, alarming as the pace might seem, Starbuck was not taking any needless chances. He knew his road, and knew also that there were many miles of it among the mountains that would have to be taken at slower speed. None the less, when the long mesa stretch was covered, and the big car was making zigzags up the precipitous slopes of Mount Cornell to reach the gap called Navajo Notch, the pace was still terrific, and the sober-faced driver was leaning over his wheel and pushing the motor like a true speed-maniac.
There was an hour of this risky zigzagging, and then the pass, lying cold and grim in the half moon-light at altitude ten thousand feet, was reached and threaded. Following the summit-gaining came the down-mountain rush on the eastern slope, and again Sprague closed his eyes, confessing inwardly that the steadiest nerve may have its limitations. With precipices shooting skyward on the right, and plunging sheer to unknown depths on the left, and with a man at the wheel who had apparently hypnotized himself until he had become a mere machine driving a machine——
When Sprague opened his eyes the great car was once more on an even keel and its wheels were spurning the hard red sand of the desert. In the far distance ahead a light was twinkling, the lamp in the station office at Angels. Sprague spoke to the iron-nerved driver at his side.
“Hold on, Billy; can you make the remainder of the run without the lamps?”
Starbuck brought the big machine to a stand, and leaned over and extinguished the lights. A little later, under Sprague’s directions, he was making a silent circuit of the town, with the muffler in and the engine speeded at its quietest.
Since it was far past midnight, the better part of Angels was abed and asleep, with lights showing only at the railroad station and in Pete Grim’s dance-hall, where, arguing from the row of hitched horses, a round-up of Red Desert cowboys made merry. Sprague stopped the car by a sign to Starbuck and turned to Tarbell.
“Get out, Archer, and make a quick run over to the station. I want to know what’s going on in Disbrow’s office.”
Tarbell made the reconnaissance and was back in a few minutes.
“Disbrow is at his wire, with a man walkin’ the floor behind him; and there’s a piebald bronc’ hitched out beyond the freight shed,” was the brief report.