"Quick, Chub!" yelled Matt. "Get into the saddle and let your machine out for all it's worth. We've lost too much time as it is."
There followed a wild scramble, a half-dozen revolutions of the pedals, and then the motors began to work. The two machines glided up the slope, leaving the baffled and swearing freighter far behind.
[CHAPTER VII.]
BACK TO THE BLUEBELL.
"Nothin' hard about that!" gloried Chub, taking a look over his shoulder from the top of the "rise." "Mister Man had a little surprise-party sprung on him that trip. Now it's down-hill—see us scratch gravel here! You're the clear quill, Matt. The way you worked through that trick was some fine!"
"Luck," answered Motor Matt. "It's bound to come a fellow's way now and then. Tie something around the side of your throat, Chub. That whip-lash knocked off a piece of skin."
"Felt like it had knocked off my head, at first. I'll tie it up when we get back to the Bluebell."
"What's the good of stopping at the Bluebell? Dace Perry is somewhere ahead of us on a horse. You heard what the freighter said about Perry?"
"There didn't any of that get away from me, Matt. Gee! but that was somethin' of a jolt. If Perry smashed that wireless machine in Phœnix, he didn't waste any time coverin' the twenty miles between there and the Bluebell."