Some of the roads on Long Island are magnificent. Many of the speed laws are strict. The thoroughfare stretching ahead of the two cars was one of the best.
The traffic regulations suffered absolute demolition.
Like a liberated thing of flame and deviltry, happiest when rocketing through space, the car beneath the fugitives seemed to bound in the air as it whirred with a higher and higher hum of wheels and gears, and the air drove by in torrential force, leaving a cloud of smoke and dust in their wake.
Dorothy clung to Jerold, half afraid. He raised himself upon the seat and looked out of the tiny window set in the back. The big car in the road behind, obscured in the dust that must help to blind its driver, had lost scarcely more than half a block in picking up its speed.
It, too, was a powerful machine, and its coughing, open exhaust was adding to the din on the highway. It was trailing smoke in a dense, bluish cloud that meant they were burning up their lubricant with spendthrift prodigality. But the monster was running superbly.
The houses seemed scooting by in madness. A team that stood beside the road dwindled swiftly in perspective. The whir of the gears and the furious discharge of the used-up gas seemed increasing momentarily. The whole machine was rocking as it sped, yet the big red pursuer was apparently gaining by degrees.
Garrison nodded in acknowledgment of the fact that the car behind, with almost no tonneau and minus the heavy covered superstructure, offered less resistance to the wind. With everything else made equal, and accident barred, the fellow at the wheel behind would overhaul them yet.
He looked out forward. The road was straight for at least a mile. He beheld a bicycle policeman, riding ahead, to develop his speed, with the certain intention of calling to his driver to stop.
Half a minute later the car was abreast the man on the wheel, who shrieked out his orders on the wind. Garrison leaned to the tube that ended by the chauffeur's ear.
"Go on—give her more if she's got it!" he said. "I'll take care of the fines!"