"What the dickens did you do?" he asked, dropping in behind the steering wheel and getting the car under way.
"The tank vent was clogged," explained Matt. "You can't feed by gravity if the gasoline tank is hermetically sealed."
"That's right; but how did you know the vent was plugged?"
"By the noise."
Black turned this over in his mind as they rushed onward.
"I guess you know a thing or two about motors," he remarked. "I never heard of a fellow who could tell the tank was hermetically sealed merely by the noise of the engine."
"It takes practice," said Matt, "that's all."
Pingree, Edmunds, and Melville were passed in record time, and the car rushed into Carrington at a quarter to ten. Carrington was quite a town, and the party halted to make some inquiries about the car that was preceding them.
From a man at one of the hotels they learned that a car had stopped at a filling station, about nine o'clock, and had dashed on to the northward about nine-fifteen. There were four men in the car, and one of them was Siwash Charley.
Siwash Charley seemed to be well known through that section, and the fact that the man at the hotel knew him made Matt and his friends certain that their enemies were less than an hour ahead.