But the darkness and the distance were against them. Both men fired once more when the lights showed, but the car appeared to go steadily and calmly on its course. Soon it swung into the trail, and all that could be seen of it was the up flung haze of its great lamps. Presently even that was lost, though they could hear on the almost preternaturally silent air the drone of the car’s engines as they dwindled and sank into the distance.
“Yes, you were right. It was planned and we were deliberately tricked,” said Clement harshly, as he turned to clamber down to the car, and he did not, indeed could not, speak again, so hot was his anger against himself. When he reached the edge of the slime lake, within hailing distance of the stranded car, he called to the driver. “It was a trap, after all. A trap to maroon me out here miles away from anywhere——”
“About forty miles from Cobalt station, anyhow, Steve,” said the driver. “Forty miles, if it’s an inch.”
III
“Forty miles away from Cobalt,” gasped the detective Gatineau.
“I reckon that,” said the driver. “I reckon it; but don’t you ask me where we are. In the middle of the Sarah Desert of Africa, for all I know.”
“And we’re right out of touch of anybody. Miles away from the nearest house?”
“Hundreds of miles,” said the driver fervently and with convincing inaccuracy. “I don’t know of even a shack out this way.”
“I don’t suppose there is one ... trust Neuburg and his gang for that,” said Clement bitterly, reviewing the situation and finding its meaning.