“I’ll tend to it myself,” Johnny had said rather shortly.
“Oh! All right, brother. No quarrel about that!” The stranger had gathered up his tools and had backed away.
Johnny’s heart had skipped a beat when he saw how close a shave it had been; two of the connecting-rods were all but free from their fastenings, and the others might have been in a few moments more.
“I’d like to have him pinched,” he grumbled, “but what’s the use. They’d say we were crazy. You can’t tell them the whole truth, and you can’t have a man arrested for working on the wrong car by mistake.”
Pant nodded a sympathetic assent.
They had taken the desert trail with many misgivings. This roaring red demon behind told them that their fears were well founded. They did not know how many men there were in the car, but there were probably two to their one, and the other men were doubtless heavily armed. There could be no doubting their purpose. They were after the steel.
“Looks bad!” Johnny groaned, as he braced himself in the seat and prepared to give the car three more notches of gas, hoping against hope the meanwhile that they would heave in sight of some sheep-herder’s shack or some truck caravan coming from the other direction. Well he knew that, on this unfrequented road, the chance was slight.
They were speeding up. The car swayed from side to side like a drunken man. It tossed this way and that like a ship in a high sea. Now they careened to the right, and, running on two wheels, plunged madly forward, to swing back and go whirling to the left.
All this time Johnny, with hands grimly gripping the wheel, with eyes glued upon the road, was, in his subconscious mind, counting the cost. It had been his chance. Now he was going to lose. He had hoped that this trip would mean much toward wiping out his debt of honor. That was all over now. He had made, he hoped, a good impression on his employer. This, too, would be forgotten. With the valuable steel parts stolen, the work of their weeks of travel would be lost. The secret formula, too, might be discovered. And all this because he had not taken precaution to see that the wily stranger was clear of the neighborhood before they started across the desert.
A hill loomed ahead. The slight climb ended in a broad, flat plateau. Here the alkali dust disappeared. Straight, hard and smooth for a mile, perhaps two miles, the road stretched.