"He?" flung back Matt, staring, and hardly able to believe his eyes. "Why, there wasn't any one to honk!"
This amazing statement was literally true. As the car passed them, the boys could see that there was no one in either of the front seats, or in the tonneau. The car had no passengers, and was running itself!
"Vell, py chimineddy!" murmured Carl, aghast.
The car was not going at a high rate of speed—perhaps fifteen miles an hour—but, even at that gait, it was rapidly leaving a wide gap between it and the boys.
Matt was nonplused, but he side-tracked his bewilderment in a hurry and tried to think of some means for overtaking the runaway auto and bringing it to a halt. This must be done before the car reached town, or there would surely be an accident.
Matt flashed his eyes about him. Houses were few and far between in that part of the settlement, but, as luck would have it, a horse was standing in front of a dwelling on the right of the road.
Without losing a moment, Matt rushed to the horse, jerked the bridle-reins over the top of a post, clambered into the saddle and dug out after the red car.
Carl was yelling and talking excitedly, but Matt had no attention to pay to him, and the Dutch boy's words soon died out in the distance.
For several miles that road into Ash Fork was perfectly straight. The runaway car, however, was heading for a bend where trees and telephone-poles would surely wreck it unless it was halted or turned.
As Matt, with the horse on the keen jump, came closer to the car, he saw that the steering-wheel had been lashed by a rope. Attached to one of the top-irons on the right side of the front seat, the lashing engaged the spokes of the steering-wheel and crossed to the top-iron on the left. This fastening held the wheel rigid, and kept the car on a straight course.