"Goin' on four o'clock in the mornin'."
"What morning? Sunday?"
"Say, but you're dumb! Tuesday morning—the day of the race at Ottawa. My boy Joe went down yesterday to see it—all dumb foolishness, too, as I told him. Them automobiles'll go by so tarnation fast he won't be able to see 'em. Jest a-buzzin' like a swarm o' bees, a whiff of gasoline, an' that's all."
Matt was so astounded that he heard little of what the farmer had been saying. He had gone to bed in Ottawa on Saturday night, and here it was four o'clock Tuesday morning and he was four miles from Lawrence. He had been plunged in oblivion for forty-eight hours—but how, and why?
"Hey, down there!" shouted the farmer. "You gone to sleep?"
"No," called back Matt, recovering himself with a start; "do you want to make ten dollars, friend?"
"How?" asked the man suspiciously.
"By hitching up and driving me to Ottawa."
"Sho! That's a heap o' money to spend for a ride. Why, you can walk to Lawrence and ketch a train. Then t'll only cost you fifty cents to get to Ottawa."
"Can I get a train between now and seven o'clock?"