According to the road map there was a splendid piece of macadamized highway between Bannister and City Ford, and it was thirty-eight miles long. It was a piece of road greatly favored by automobilists, and it was always well traveled. But this run had been so well advertised that ordinary motor car drivers out for pleasure on this stretch of road would give the right of way to the racing cars.
It was a wide road and almost level. There was not a bridge or a railroad crossing for the entire thirty-eight miles. When the Speedwells struck the head of this piece of highway, Dan slipped out of the chauffeur’s seat, and allowed his brother to get under the wheel.
Billy was eager to feel the throb and jump of the mechanism under his hand. They had stopped a few moments before, too, tried certain bolts, filled the gasoline tank, and “watered her.” Everything seemed as taut as when they rolled out of the Compton Motordrome.
“Now, boy, go to it!” his brother said. “Show them what you can do.”
And Billy was not backward in doing this. He had an ambition to be a fast driver and all the conditions were in his favor. Number forty-eight began to travel immediately, and soon he had brought her up to such speed that—as Dan yelled in his ear—the telegraph poles beside the road looked like a picket fence!
They had passed number forty-five before this, and now, in quick succession they overtook forty-four, thirty-nine and seventeen—the latter having been held back by some slight breakage. But this was too early in the game to be sure that they had passed these cars for good!
Billy, however, gave his dust to several other cars in the race before they traversed that thirty-eight miles of beautiful, hard road. And their time was forty-three minutes!
“Good boy!” cried Dan, as they slowed down to a twelve-mile speed as they struck the head of Market Street in City Ford. “We have run a hundred and five miles and our time is three hours and ten minutes.”
“Why, at this rate,” cried Billy, “we’ll be able to get beyond the Holly Tree Inn to-night. Don’t you think so?”
“I have my doubts about it,” said Dan. “There is no other piece of road like that we’ve just come over. There’ll be little racing for the rest of the day, but just steady plugging along. And we’ve got to eat, old man!”