It was five minutes to three, and there were fifty miles of cañon and up-and-down trail over the divide to be covered. This meant that Motor Matt must average twenty-five miles an hour for the next two hours. In favorable parts of the trail he must do better than that, to off-set losses of time where the going was most difficult.
The bed of the cañon was strewn with boulders, ranging in size from a bucket to a hogshead. The road was plainly marked, but the last freshet had sprinkled it with stones, large and small.
Mountain-wagons, constructed for service in such sections of the country, were hauled over the smallest of the boulders, and where the largest were met, and could not be avoided by a detour, the driver of the wagon got out and rolled them away.
As Clip had said, however, the trail was impassable for automobiles. A high-wheel wagon could bump and jerk its way over the stones, but a low-wheel car with pneumatic tires would not have lasted half an hour in the cañon, nor have traversed a mile of it.
On the other hand, the narrow tread of a motor-cycle enabled it to dodge the rocks, leaving the trail only at points where the rocks were so close together the machine could not get between them.
But sharp eyes, a firm hand, and unerring judgment were needed for every foot of the way. This, of course, made anything like the best speed impossible.
For several miles Matt weaved his way in and out, speeding up on the comparatively clear stretches, and slowing down for places where the most obstacles were encountered. The avoiding of sharp stones and boulders at last became almost mechanical. With his gaze on the road immediately in advance, his hands instinctively turned the Comet right or left, as the exigencies of the case demanded.
When he could spare a little of his attention from the running of the machine, his thoughts reverted to Clipperton and his heart saddened with the hurt pride smoldering in Clip's eyes when they had parted in the notch.
Clip's uncle—his mother's brother, most probably—was a half-breed and a member of Dangerfield's gang. How Clip's sensitive soul must have recoiled from confessing the truth to Matt! And yet Clip had been manly enough to face the issue, and Matt liked him all the better for it.
"What a fellow's people are," thought Matt, "don't amount to a picayune; it's what the fellow is himself that counts. But it was tough on Clip to run into a relative and find him passing smoke-signals along for that prince of rascals, Dangerfield. And then, it was pretty near the last straw to have that relative roll a stone down the bank and put Clip out of the running. I don't blame him for getting worked up."