Twenty-one cars had been entered. Among them were several touring cars, their owners being willing to pay the entrance fee just to gratify their sporting instinct—for no touring car could ever win against those high-powered racers, stripped for action and ready to hurl themselves over the course with every ounce of power in their cylinders.
"Py chimineddy!" expanded Carl, "I vish dot I knowed der carburettor from der shpark-plug. Oof I dit, I bed you I vould be in der racings meinseluf."
Matt's particular desire was to locate Trueman, of the Jarrot Automobile Company. He found him at last in a little private garage belonging to one of the wealthy residents of the place. The door of the garage was wide open, and the nose of a red racer could be seen inside. Excited voices could be heard coming from within the garage.
"Confound your superstitions!" cried an angry voice. "If you happen to walk under a ladder on the day of the race, Glick, I suppose you wouldn't drive for me, eh?"
"I'll be careful about doing that when the race is pulled off, Trueman," returned another voice. "Luck plays the biggest kind of a part in a game like this, and I don't intend to hoodoo myself by taking the car out on Friday. We've already been over the course four times, and what's the use of going over it again to-day?"
"Every time the course is gone over it helps you just that much. Taking the race from Stark-Frisbie and Bly-Lambert is no cinch. We have only one car in the race and they have three each. But this red racer of ours can win, providing you learn the course well enough. Will you go out?"
"I'll go out of the garage and back to the hotel," and a slim, lightly built young fellow came through the doorway, paused to light a cigarette, and then moved off toward the main street.
A stout man of about forty, in automobile cap and coat, stepped to the door and glared after the retreating driver. He was greatly wrought up, and started to say something but bit the words off short. When the driver reached the sidewalk and vanished nonchalantly around a building, the man in the garage door turned his eyes on Matt and Carl.
"Of all the superstitious fools that ever lived," he cried wrathfully, "I think that man Glick takes the bun. He can handle a car better than any man I ever saw, but here he hangs up our day's work simply because this happens to be Friday!"
"Are you Mr. Trueman, of the Jarrot Company?" asked Matt.