Bert Wilson's Twin Cylinder Racer

by J. W. Duffield

“Sure thing,” laughed Bert. “I’ll slip it in the tool box and carry it every foot of the way.”

And as Reddy had groomed Bert, so Bert groomed his machine. Every nut and bolt, valve and spring was gone over again and again, until even his critical judgment was satisfied. It was to carry not only his fortune but perhaps his life, and he did not rest until he was convinced that nothing could add to its perfection. It had become almost a part of himself, and it was with a feeling of reluctance that at last he had it carefully crated and sent on to the starting point, to await his coming forty-eight hours later.

That evening, as he returned from the post office, he met Tom and Dick at the foot of the steps leading to their dormitory. He waved at them an open letter that he had been reading.

“It’s from the Committee,” he explained. “It gives the route and final instructions. Come up to the rooms and we’ll go over it together.”

A bond of friendship, far from common, united these three comrades—the “Three Guardsmen,” as they were jokingly called, because they were so constantly together. They had first met at a summer camp, some years before, and a strong similarity of character and tastes had drawn them to each other at once. From that time on, it had been “one for three and three for one.”

Full to the brim as they were of high spirits and love of adventure, they often got into scrapes from which it required all their nerve and ingenuity to emerge with a whole skin. Their supreme confidence in themselves often led them to take chances from which older and wiser heads would have shrunk. And the various exploits in which they had indulged had taught each how fully and absolutely he might rely on the others. On more than one occasion, death itself had been among the possibilities, but even that supreme test had been met without flinching.

Only a few months before, when, on their journey through Mexico, Dick had fallen into the hands of El Tigre, the dreaded leader of guerillas, Bert and Tom had taken the trail at once, and after a most exciting chase, had rescued him from the bandit’s clutches. During a trip to the Adirondacks, Tom had been bitten by a rattler and would have perished, had it not been for Bert’s quickness of mind and swiftness of foot. And Bert himself never expected to come closer to death than that day on the San Francisco wharf, when Dick had grasped the knife hand of the Malay running amuck, just as it was upraised to strike.

Any man or any danger that threatened one would have to count on tackling three. Each knew that in a pinch the others would stick at nothing in the effort to back him up. And this conviction, growing stronger with every new experience, had cemented their friendship beyond all possibility of breaking.

Their early ties had ripened and broadened under the influence of their college life. Dick had entered a year before the other two, and it was this that had moved them to choose the same Alma Mater. Dick and Tom were studying to be civil engineers, while Bert was more strongly drawn toward the field of electricity and wireless telegraphy. Their keen intelligence had won them high honors in scholarship, and their brawn and muscle had achieved an enviable distinction in athletics. On the pennant winning team of the year before, Bert’s brilliant pitching had been ably supported by the star work of Tom at third, while Dick, beside being the champion slugger of the team, had held down first base like a veteran. All were immensely popular with the student body in general, not only for their prowess, but because of the qualities of mind and heart that would have singled them out anywhere as splendid specimens of young American manhood.