Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 23, 1924 — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE COLLISION, live thing. At seventy miles an hour he could run that car at dark woodlands, rein her in for a turn which he must have felt rather than discerned, and send her shoot- ing forth once more in the even surge of a speeding beast set free. She loved him for it. She felt that she could motor thus through all the years of life, with flashing, unfettered speed, along roads of adventure, to the end of time—with Douglas Gilfillan at the wheel. “ Ah!” she murmured, and clutched tightly at his arm, as they skidded about a corner which she could never have per- ceived. And they came about on two wheels into the road again. “Seventy-four!” he grinned, as he pressed the accelerator down with the white highway before them again. Before them they could see the little car which they pursued. It seemed that they had gained upon it now, but in the clean stretch of the road, while the maroon demon surged onward always faster, sang through the black night air, and seemed to gain speed from the very winds through which she swept, the little fugitive appeared to more than hold her own. The white road stretched straight in a sheer line before them—amiles of it. “Step on her! Marion, noting this. He was stepping. The accelerator was pressed home upon the footboard. Eighty- three, eighty-four, eighty-five, read the speedometer. Yet the little car held her own. Far up the road the flare of the red car’s headlight picked out the little, beetle- like body. ‘‘ Faster!”’ urged Marion. Eighty - five, eighty - six, eighty - seven, read the speedometer, as the great engine heated up. But the little car grew dim- mer in the headlight. Dimmer and dimmer, as faster and faster it drew away. Marion could not believe her eyes. “Tt can’t be a racer!” she muttered. “ He could never afford it!” But the little car seemed suddenly to take wings to itself, and even as they whined and whistled through the darkness with the cut-out roaring, and the pebbles rattling on their fenders, the little car vanished Step on her!” cried from the range of the great searchlights, and they seemed alone in a void of black- ness which leaped in upon them with a shriek. . “It’s the devil!” cried Marion. ‘Tt’s speed!” said Gilfillan, Then the little car appeared again. ‘“ He’s slowing down!” cried Marion. And with that the little car vanished completely. “A curve!” cried Marion. Then, re- membering: ‘“ And a hill! Slow down!” Like a mad horse under the hand of a giant, Gilfillan pulled her in with a lurch that almost threw Cowper through the windshield. Bringing the machine into the road, he took the tortuous twisting of that hill as though the wheels were on steel tracks. On the Jast turn they caught sight of their quarry, who had allowed them to gain by impudently treating fate with a re- spect that did him credit. They saw something else as well. They saw the glaring lights of a large touring car which was in the act of plunging toward them, speeding up from the bottom of the hill, seeking impetus for the climb. The little car ahead swept straight at the ap- proaching motor with amazing determina- tion, and they could all but hear the chauf- feur of the touring car swear as the on- coming but diminutive racer drove it to the side of the road, and swept by to whizz up the opposite elevation. Amd close be- hind that mad little car roared the crimson demon with glaring lights. The chauffeur of the touring car seemed to have Jost his nerve at the sight of the pursuer, for having turned off to the side of the road he stopped there, and Marion caught her breath as Douglas, scarcely drawing in, whisked out to pass the big car by. He did so, but, having passed it, the crimson demon stopped almost dead with a sickening lurch and roared as her hind wheels shrieked helplessly in a mud hole. It was the same mud that had stopped the touring car; and touring car and pro- testing crimson demon were stuck fast there- in. The chase was over. Douglas Gilfillan switched off. | | The chauffeur of the touring car came . forward. (E00) .OO 213 > (E@) Ata *, ’ : ’ ae co ; AP) >