Leyburn did not trouble to reply. He was already urging his horse forward so as to reach the hotel with as little delay as possible.
Trouble in Calford. He had risked it by making his visit to Everton. It was always the way. He might have known. What fool trick had they been up to in his absence? Was there ever such a pack of imbeciles? Not one fit to be trusted for a second. He slashed his horse's sides with vicious heels in his haste to obey the summons.
The level prairie trail lay like a ribbon outstretched in front of the speeding machine, as the searchlight at the head of the car threw out its great shaft of hard, cold light.
The man at the wheel sat well forward. His eyes were straining behind his glasses, straining to discover in time those treacherous unevennesses so frequently found in the hollows of an unmade road. The speed was terrific, and even Austin Leyburn, who sat beside him, with all his confidence in his man, was sitting up, too, lending his watchful eyes to the task.
The machine purred musically in the stillness of the night. The engine was firing with perfect precision, and the occupants of the car were left free to give their whole attention to the surface of the road. It was needed, too. The danger of their speed in the darkness was great, even to the most experienced chauffeur.
Austin Leyburn had been forced to obey his summons. On arrival at the Russell Hotel he had interviewed Lionel K. Sharpe, and verified the telephone message. Sharpe had told him the same as he had written down on paper, and assured him of the urgency with which the message had been sent.
But even this had not been sufficient for the shrewd labor leader. Nothing would satisfy him but to ring up Calford himself. He was promptly afforded every facility. Nor was it until he had spent half an hour in vain ringing that he discovered that the machine had taken into its wayward, wooden head to get out of order. In consequence he was left with no alternative but to accept the message as it stood, and make the journey to Calford with all possible speed.
His mind traveled swiftly over the possibilities suggested by the message. But each and every suggestion that came to him left him dissatisfied. He could think of no probability that demanded his presence at headquarters before the morning, at his usual hour, the time his fellow-workers were aware he intended to return.
He became annoyed. The more he considered the matter the more his annoyance grew. Yet he could not help a feeling of uneasiness, too. All his satisfaction of a short while ago had passed. It was one thing to achieve a long-cherished revenge; but, to him, it was quite another if its achievement meant the upsetting of his entire life's work. These thoughts came to him and would not be denied, in spite of his repeated reassurance that it was all impossible, and that the message must have been the result of some absurd and sudden panic on the part of some blundering fool.
He was in the midst of these reflections, and his own attention was consequently distracted from the road, when a whistling sound escaped the man beside him. It was like a sharp intake of breath, caused by sudden alarm. Leyburn turned toward him, and as he did so the car jolted under the sharp application of brakes, while behind them a stream of sparks lit their wake.