“Bully for you, old top,” exclaimed Drake, with a rousing thump on the shoulder. “The fellows will be tickled to death to know that the good old blue is showing the way across country. And when we hear that you’ve come in first, there’ll be a yell that you’ll hear way off in Frisco.”
“Don’t count your chickens too soon, my boy,” cautioned Bert; but his heart was warmed and elated by the confidence his comrades had in him, and he vowed to himself that he would justify it, if it were humanly possible.
“To judge from the names already entered, it’s going to be a weird color scheme,” laughed Dick. “There’s the Yellow Dragon and the Red Devil and the Brown Antelope and the White Cloud and the Black Knight; and there’ll probably be others before the list is full.”
“Gee,” chortled Tom, “if a hobo should see them coming all at once, he’d think that he had them again, sure.”
“Yes,” agreed Bert, “it would certainly be a crazy quilt effect, if they should all come along together. But there are so many different routes that, ten to one, we won’t catch sight of each other after the bunch scatters at the start.”
“How about the route?” asked Martin. “I should think that would be one of the most important things to take into account.”
“So it would, if it were left to me. But it isn’t. You see, one of the great objects of the Good Roads Association is to plan a great national highway from coast to coast. They want to get all the facts about every possible route, so that they’ll have something to go on, when they put it up to the different States to get legislation on their pet hobby. This race they think will be of great importance for this purpose, because it won’t be based on theory but on actual experience. So they have mapped out a large number of possible lines to be followed—northern, central and southern,—and when they’ve got them all marked out, lots will be drawn and the fellows will have to follow the route that chance gives them. Of course, they can’t be exactly alike in the matter of distance. But it will be as fair for one as the other, and, all things considered, they’ll average up about alike. I expect to get a letter any day now, giving the special trip that luck has picked out for me.
“Of course,” he went on, “it isn’t all absolutely cut and dried. They don’t mark out every highway and byway that you must travel, on pain of being disqualified. But you’re given a chain of important towns and great centers that you must hit one after the other on your trip across the continent. As long as you do that, you are left to your own judgment as to the best and quickest way of getting there.”
“How about any crooked work?” put in Axtell. “Is there any chance of that?”
“I’m not worrying much about that,” answered Bert. “To be sure, where so much is at stake, there’s always a chance of some one trying to turn a trick. But I don’t see where they could ‘put it over.’ At every important place there’ll be timers and checkers to keep tally on the riders. The machines are all registered and numbered and so carefully described that, in case of a smashup, a fellow couldn’t slip in another one without being found out at the next stopping place. Then, too, if they tried to get a lift on a train, there would have to be too many in the secret. Besides, in all the names I’ve seen so far of the racers, there’s only one that might possibly stoop to anything of that kind. His name is Hayward, and from what I’ve heard he’s been mixed up with one or two shady deals. There have only been whispers and suspicions, however, and they’ve never been able actually to prove anything against him. So he is still nominally in good standing and eligible to ride. It may be all conjecture anyway. He probably wouldn’t cheat if he could, and couldn’t if he would.”