"Going to get out!" echoed Matt, cutting off the power and clamping on the brake. "If you do, those fellows will capture you."
"You don't understand," went on Tomlinson, stepping down from the tonneau. "Those fellows are after me, and I ought to have kept right on with these pearls and not laid over in Ash Fork last night. That gave them a chance to get ahead of us and lay a trap."
"Trap?" queried Matt.
"That's it. This road winds around to the other side of the mountain. See that gap up there?"
Tomlinson pointed up the wooded slope to a place where the ridgelike uplift was broken.
"Do you understand what those scoundrels can do, King?" pursued Tomlinson. "They can ride through that gap and get to the other side of the mountain ahead of us. I don't want to be in the car when that happens—and if I'm not in the car the chances are it won't happen. I'll climb up and get through the gap myself, and you pull up and wait for me after you get a mile beyond the gap on the other side. Understand? That's the only way we can fool those fellows. If we turn back toward Ash Fork, they'll get me, and if I stay in the car and go around the end of the mountain the result will be the same. They can watch, from up there, and make the move that's best calculated to help them; but, by getting out, I can dodge through the timber on foot and we'll all give them the go-by. Wait for me a mile beyond the gap, on the other side," he repeated, and started up the slope.
Matt stared at Carl for a moment.
"Be jeerful," grinned Carl. "Ve nefer know vat's going to habben, dis trip, so it iss pedder dot ve take eferyt'ing as it comes. Domlinson must know vat he's aboudt."
"It looks to me as though he was getting into more trouble than if he had stayed with the car," muttered Matt. "He has some hard climbing ahead of him, for one who's been through what he has. However, I've got my orders, and here goes."
There was enough gas in the cylinders so that the Red Flier took the spark without cranking, and the boys rolled on around the end of the mountain and doubled back on the opposite side.