Dan chuckled. “We’ll have an old rival in that run—if we have the luck to get into it.”
“Who’s that?” demanded his brother.
“Chance Avery. Burton Poole has taken him into partnership in his motor car. You know, Poole’s got a good car. Chance has been rather out of conceit with the motorcycle business ever since the races at the baseball park.”
“When you walked away from him, eh?” said Billy.
“But I heard him bragging down to Mr. Appleyard’s store yesterday that he and Burton were going to have a try for the gold cup—and they expected to ‘lift’ it.”
“It’s just providential, then,” said Billy, seriously, “that Maxey’s machine was wrecked, and I got a chance to buy it.”
The Speedwell family numbered but six—besides the parents and Dan and Billy, there were only Carrie, ten years old, and Adolph, who was just toddling around and learning to talk. They were, in spite of their somewhat straitened circumstances, a very happy family. Mr. Speedwell was not a strong man, but was gaining in health now that he worked out of doors instead of in a shop. With the help of his two big boys (Dan was sixteen and Billy a year younger) he was making the small dairy pay.
Although the boys had long ridden bicycles, and still owned their steeds of steel, the motorcycles on which they had taken their spin along the river road that day had been presented to them by Mr. Robert Darringford, and were the best wheels the Darringford Machine Shops could turn out. Now the fact that Dan and Billy were about to own an automobile was indeed a matter for discussion and interest around the evening lamp.
“For a poor man’s sons, I believe you two are doing pretty well,” remarked quiet Mr. Speedwell. He never went back upon what he said; having told the boys they could do what they pleased with the thousand dollars they had earned, he was not likely to criticize Billy’s impulsive bargain.
That afternoon Dan and Billy hurried home on their machines and went at once to the woodlot with their axes. They cut and shaped two white-oak timbers, loaded them into the heavy wagon with such timber chains and ropes as they chanced to have about the barns, and drove back through the town and out upon the river road to the spot where the accident had occurred.