"I'm glued! Yous can't shake me!"
The boy was game, and Matt flung the Red Flier at the mountainside and down the ribbon of treacherous road.
There were places where a cliff overhung the trail, and the wheels on the left almost scraped the rocks, while those on the right barely tracked on the brink of a gulf.
The boy's face went white, but his eyes glimmered brightly. He looked back from time to time and saw the runabout sliding after them.
A quick fear had rushed to Matt's brain. Oddly enough, it was not a fear for his own safety, for he knew the Red Flier and knew what he could do with it; but the runabout! If that trickle of sand cut off the power and caused the machine to slew ever so slightly, it would go over the chasm's edge and carry Brisco and Spangler with it!
The world would have been better off, perhaps, if such a mishap had come to pass; but Matt did not want it that way. His own instrumentality in the matter would have been too hideously clear.
And yet, if something did not happen to the runabout, the machine might collide with the Red Flier and drive it over the brink.
Matt knew he must keep ahead. Never had he driven more masterfully than then. His nerves were steady, his brain alert, and every inch of that curving, treacherous down grade was covered by his eyes.
It was more like falling down a hill than riding down. The Red Flier quivered like a thing of life, seeming to realize what was expected of it, and responding nobly.
Far off, over the level plain at the mountain's foot, could be seen the little cluster of houses that represented Fairview. It glowed in the morning sun like a toy village on a toy map.