“Slow down when you get there, then, Dan,” said the proprietor of the motor car, understanding what Mr. Armitage wanted. “There must be some mark of her tires in the earth. The Port Luther road is not macadamized.”
But Dan did not reduce speed yet. He could see the roadway very plainly in the strong radiance of the car’s lights. If the tires of the machine they were chasing made as plain a trail at the corner as they did in certain soft spots in this lane, there would be no need for them to reduce speed, save to make the turn in safety.
Henri saw this, too. He shrugged his shoulders and held up a warning hand as Mr. Armitage leaned forward to shout in Dan’s ear.
“Wait!” cried the Frenchman, eagerly.
They were at the corner. The glare of the lights revealed a wide patch of the road. The wheel-marks of the fugitive car had swerved to the right hand. The robbers were racing on to the north—were, in fact, running around Riverdale, and away from the coast.
But, as Dan brought Mr. Briggs’ car out of the lane, and shot her into the broader highway, he looked ahead in vain for the tail-light of the other maroon automobile. He knew that the pike here was straight for five miles; there wasn’t a light upon it!
This was the road Dan had first agreed to drive his party to, had they taken the turn at Peckham’s. But they were several miles below Peckham’s road. The fugitive car could not have turned into this last highway, for it could not, running at top speed, have covered five miles, even, before the pursuing auto took the turn into the pike.
“Running without lights,” was Dan Speedwell’s quick decision. “And why can we not do the same on this broad road? At least, those fellows cannot so easily gage our speed,” and he suggested the idea to Henri. The Frenchman spoke to his employer and then shut off the lights in front. The tail lamp they allowed to show, to warn any vehicle behind—although so far they had discovered no car on any of these roads, save the machine run by the bank robbers.
They skimmed along this wider way at fast speed. Indeed, Dan believed that he had never traveled so fast before save on the racetrack with his Flying Feather motorcycle.
Dan felt that before them, flashing in and out of the shadows as they, too, were, was another car, running likewise without lights and at top speed. The noise of their own machine drowned all other sounds. Suppose he should bring this great vehicle crashing into the rear of that other flying car?