Bert Wilson's Twin Cylinder Racer

by J. W. Duffield

Slowly, carefully, hardly venturing to breathe, he backed away from the cabin. He got outside the zone of light and felt for his motorcycle. With the utmost caution not to touch the horn or siren, he guided it in a wide semicircle down the slope. One of the horses whinnied as he passed and an outlaw appeared at the door. After listening for a moment, while Bert stood like a stone image in his track, the man, evidently satisfied, turned and went inside.

Then Bert moved on again by inches until he reached the edge of the woods. From there he knew that the faint click made by the valves in starting could not possibly be heard from above. He drew a long breath and for the first time turned his gaze toward the sky. He was rejoiced to find that the clouds had vanished and that the deep blue was sown with stars. He needed no compass now. There was the gleaming Polar Star by which he had often guided his course as unerringly as by the sun. He paused a moment to get a direction due west. Then he leaped into the saddle and was off.

Not until he was sure that he was beyond the sight of any possible watcher from the cabin, did he dismount and light his lamp. Then with the confidence that came from the light streaming far ahead of him, he threw in the clutch and let his machine out to the limit.

He had ridden perhaps twenty miles, looking anxiously about for the lights of a town, when at some distance he saw the flames from a campfire in the lee of a bluff far away to his right. He could see a group of men, some moving about, others stretched out near the fire apparently asleep. Mindful of his previous experience, he put out his light and glided toward them like a shrouded ghost.

Stopping outside the circle of light, where he could study the scene at his leisure, he counted a dozen men. They were strapping fellows, rough in dress and appearance, but with honest, fearless faces. One of them wore a badge that stamped him as an official of some kind, and he was evidently in command of the party. Bert hesitated no longer, but, mounting, rode slowly into the firelight.

There was a gasp of wonder at his appearance, and the men who were still awake sprang to their feet with their hands on their pistol butts. A second glance, however, as Bert waved his hand in friendly fashion, disarmed them and they came hastily forward.

“Well, stranger,” said the man with the badge, “you came in on us rather sudden like and we was plumb surprised for a minute. You seem to be all right though, and that machine of yours is certainly some beaut. We’re more used to riding four-legged things, though. We don’t ask anything about a man’s business out here unless we happen to have some particular business with him,” and he touched his star. “So you can tell us nothing or as much as you like. As to me I ain’t got any secrets as to whom I am. I’m the sheriff of Wentworth County and this here is my posse.”

“Just the man I’d rather see at this minute than any one else in the world,” exclaimed Bert, delightedly. And then, in words that tumbled over one another in their haste, he told them who he was, how he had been lost on the prairie and of his adventure near the cabin of “Billy the Kid.”

At the mention of that notorious name the sheriff fairly jumped. “What!” he shouted. “Billy the Kid and his gang? They’re the fellows we’re out for now. Here, boys,” he yelled, “get busy. We’re on a fresh trail and we’ll bag the hull bunch before daylight.”