"You're banking on that?"
"To the last cent. I'll soon be on the wing, Joe, and making a fight for fame and fortune. That's got to be a winning fight, in spite of Siwash Charley and his pals, and in spite of Murgatroyd."
Matt's quiet confidence always inspired confidence in others.
"Whoop!" jubilated McGlory. "You've got a cheery way about you, pard, that's as catchin' as the measles. Sure we'll win; and we'll save the old homestead for Mrs. Traquair like the feller in the play."
[CHAPTER IX.]
DODGING TROUBLE.
The wagon road from Jamestown to Devil's Lake follows the railroad all the way. At Minnewaukon, near the western end of the lake, the wagon road to Fort Totten leaves the iron rails and points southeast.
The trail from Jamestown to Minnewaukon crosses a prairie almost as level as a floor, and the trail itself is like asphalt. From Minnewaukon southeast, the road is not so well traveled. Formerly the mail was hauled from Minnewaukon to the post by wagon, but the mail carrier was put out of business by a launch that crossed the lake from Devil's Lake City, on the north shore. The garrison at the fort, too, has dwindled to a corporal's guard, so that the post has become practically abandoned.
Black's car was not a late model. It had the obsolete rear-entrance tonneau, and was equipped with a four-cylinder thirty-horse-power motor. However, the car could "go." It would have been a poor car, indeed, which could not show its heels on such a road.