"We might just as well look this thing square in the face, Brady," said Matt. "You've acted the part of a scoundrel in your dealings with me, and you haven't gained anything by it. If you don't turn back and put me down in South Chicago, I'll make more trouble for you than you can well take care of."
"I'll take my chances on that, my bantam. I like your spirit, and we're going to get along fine. Just cast in your lot with mine, and I'll make a rich man out of you. In the Hawk we can travel all over this continent, from Hudson Bay to Patagonia. Where men never went before, we can go. No mountain range is so high that we can't cross it, and no desert is so barren that we can't wing our way comfortably over it."
Matt stared at the dark figure in the chair. If any honest man had talked to him in that way, the young motorist would have been tempted to become an aeronaut, for he could see plainly the possibilities of a serviceable air-ship; but as for Brady, he was a criminal, and that cut him off from any consideration on Matt's part.
The young motorist sank down on his knees and looked over the side of the car. They were perhaps a thousand feet in the air. Houses, villages, dark expanses of timber and lighter stretches of meadow swept past them, moving out from under the car like a dark panorama.
Driving an automobile at speed was like flying, but here was flying itself. The new sensation gripped Matt and thrilled him in every nerve.
"How are we heading, Pete?" called Brady.
Pete was leaning over the opposite side of the car, looking forward.
"I'm jest tryin' to git my bearin's, Brady," he answered. "It's so pesky dark it's hard to make out jest where we are."
Matt stole a look at Pete's back. The hand gripping the revolver lay on the rail. By one quick move Matt could have snatched the weapon. As the idea swept through his mind he cautiously changed his position.