Chapter IX: Dodging Trouble

The wagon road from Jamestown to Devil's Lake follows the railroad all the way. At Minnewaukon, near the western end of the lake, the wagon road to Fort Totten leaves the iron rails and points southeast.

The trail from Jamestown to Minnewaukon crosses a prairie almost as level as a floor, and the trail itself is like asphalt. From Minnewaukon southeast, the road is not so well traveled. Formerly the mail was hauled from Minnewaukon to the post by wagon, but the mail carrier was put out of business by a launch that crossed the lake from Devil's Lake City, on the north shore. The garrison at the fort, too, has dwindled to a corporal's guard, so that the post has become practically abandoned.

Black's car was not a late model. It had the obsolete rear-entrance tonneau, and was equipped with a four-cylinder thirty-horse-power motor. However, the car could "go." It would have been a poor car, indeed, which could not show its heels on such a road.

It was eight o'clock when Matt, McGlory, Ping, and Black ducked out of Jimtown, and struck into the trail that followed the railroad track and the river. Black attended to the driving, and Matt occupied the seat at his side. McGlory and Ping occupied the tonneau.

Matt explained to Black that there was a car, somewhere ahead, which they wanted to beat to the post trader's store at Fort Totten; also, that the car ahead was filled with men who were not on friendly terms with Matt and his companions.

Black was a man of spirit.

"You want to pass that car, then," said he, "and you want to dodge trouble?"

"Exactly," agreed Matt. "We don't want to butt into any trouble if we can help it. A whole lot depends upon our getting to the post trader's store right side up with care, and ahead of the other outfit."

"We'll do what we can," and Black nursed the car to its best speed.

The night was cool, the sky was cloudless, and the two acetylene lamps burned holes in the dark far in advance of the car as it devoured the miles. The forward rush, and the motor's music, thrilled Matt as they always did whenever he was connected with a speeding engine.

They whipped through a little town, hardly glimpsing the scattered lights before they had left them astern.

"This machine is a back number," remarked Black, "but she can slide along pretty well, for all that."

"You're right," said Matt. "I never saw a car with a rear door that could hold a candle to this one. But the road helps. It's like a boulevard."

"Take these Dakota roads, when they're neither too wet nor too dry, and they're hard to beat. We're going to lose time, though, going around the sloughs."

"Sloughs?" queried Matt.

"Just bog holes," went on Black. "They gully the prairie, here and there, have no inlet or outlet, and the water rises and falls in 'em like tides of the ocean. Queer, and I don't think the rise and fall have ever been explained. A wagon with high wheels can spraddle through, but low wheels and a lot of weight have to go round. But the car ahead will have to go around, too. There's one of the sloughs, just ahead. We'll begin going around it right here."

Having been for several years in the real estate business, selling farms up and down the Jim River, Black had an accurate knowledge of the country.

Three extra miles were added to the journey by going around the slough north of Parkhurst. But this was a whole lot better than taking a chance and miring down.

"Did you know Harry Traquair, Mr. Black?" Matt asked, when they were once more in the road and forging ahead.

"I did," answered Black, "and he was one of the finest fellows you ever met. Still, for all that, I thought he was a little bit 'cracked' on the flying-machine question. He was always of an inventive turn, and he built his first aëroplane in his head, up on his farm in Wells County, long before he ever came to Jimtown and built one of canvas, and spruce, and wire guys. The Traquairs have had pretty hard sledding for the last three years. Mrs. Traquair had all the faith in the world in her husband, but she was possessed with the idea that some accident was going to happen to him, and she was never around when he flew the aëroplane. Too bad Harry Traquair had to be killed just as he was about to give his machine the first government test."

"That's the way luck runs, sometimes," said Matt. "What town's that?" he added, as they whisked through another cluster of lights.

"Buchanan," answered Black. "Say, but we're coming! The next place is Pingree, then Edmunds, then Melville. After Melville we'll swoop into Carrington, the biggest town between Jamestown and the lake. Here's where I'm going to hit 'er up for the last ounce of power in her cylinders. Hold on to your teeth, everybody!"

More gasoline and a faster spark hurled the car onward in a way that made Ping chatter and hang to the rail behind the front seats.

Then something went wrong. The motor began to miss fire, the speed slackened, and the motor died with a gasping splutter.

"Oh, hang the luck!" growled Black, getting down.

While Matt kept hands off, Black tried out the primary circuit, then the secondary, then the buzzer. After that he cranked and cranked, but nothing happened except a distressing cough when the engine tried to start.

"Wouldn't that knock you slabsided?" growled Black. "I guess I'll have to take the carburetor to pieces, run pins through the spray nozzle and sandpaper the float guides. If that don't work, I'll go under the car and take off the fuel pipe, and----"

"It's a gravity feed, isn't it?" asked Matt.

"Yes."

"Well, don't lose any time on the carburetor, just yet."

Matt got at the gasoline tank. What he did Black couldn't see, but he wasn't more than a minute doing it.

"Now turn over your engine," said Matt, as he climbed back into his seat.

Black gave the crank a pull, and the pleasant chug in the explosion chamber came to his ears.

"What the dickens did you do?" he asked, dropping in behind the steering wheel and getting the car under way.

"The tank vent was clogged," explained Matt. "You can't feed by gravity if the gasoline tank is hermetically sealed."

"That's right; but how did you know the vent was plugged?"

"By the noise."

Black turned this over in his mind as they rushed onward.

"I guess you know a thing or two about motors," he remarked. "I never heard of a fellow who could tell the tank was hermetically sealed merely by the noise of the engine."

"It takes practice," said Matt, "that's all."

Pingree, Edmunds, and Melville were passed in record time, and the car rushed into Carrington at a quarter to ten. Carrington was quite a town, and the party halted to make some inquiries about the car that was preceding them.

From a man at one of the hotels they learned that a car had stopped at a filling station, about nine o'clock, and had dashed on to the northward about nine-fifteen. There were four men in the car, and one of them was Siwash Charley.

Siwash Charley seemed to be well known through that section, and the fact that the man at the hotel knew him made Matt and his friends certain that their enemies were less than an hour ahead.

"We're gaining on 'em!" cried McGlory, as the car shot through the outskirts of Carrington. "If we can keep on gaining, we'll reach the post trader's with ground to spare."

"We're good for it," averred Black. "Hold onto your hair and eyebrows."

The air fairly sang in the ears of the boys as the real estate man, throwing himself spiritedly into the contest, hurled his machine onward over the hard roadbed.

They flashed through a couple of towns which, Black said, were Divide and Sheyenne.

"The next place," the real estate man went on, "is Oberon. After that comes Lallie, and then Minnewaukon. But it's a waste of time to go to Minnewaukon. If we went there, we'd have to come southeast to Totten. We can leave the road at Lallie and go northeast to Totten, thus saving a few miles and considerable time. If----"

He broke off with a startled exclamation. Then, in a twinkling, it was out clutch, down brake, and a kick at the switch.

Another car, at a dead stop in the road ahead, had come like a blot under the glow of their lamps.

At that point the prairie was level, and no such thing as fences were to be seen.

"Sufferin' hold-ups!" exclaimed McGlory. "Something's gone wrong with the Siwash outfit. Look! Two of the gang are plugging this way."

The cowboy had "called the turn." Two dark forms untangled themselves from the dusky blot in the road which represented the car, and were running back along the trail. As the figures came closer, it could be seen that they were carrying rifles.

"Quick!" hissed Matt in Black's ear. "Go around the car--take to the prairie. We can make it if there's gas enough in the cylinders to take the spark."

As luck would have it, the engine took the spark and Black worked the car rapidly out of the road, heading so as to give the other car a wide berth.

The dry grass crunched under the swiftly moving tires, and the car leaped away as Black coaxed her to do her best.

"Halt!" shouted a husky voice; "halt, or we'll put a bullet into you!"

"Drop down!" ordered Matt; "they're going to shoot."

"Let 'em shoot," said Black pluckily. "It's pretty dark for accurate firing, and we'll be out of range in a minute. I----"

Sping! Sping!

Two reports came from behind, two flashes leaped from the guns, and two bullets fanned the air close to the occupants of the car.

But the car dashed on over the rolling turf, and presently regained the road, once more, well in advance of the other automobile.

"I guess that's dodging trouble, all right!" muttered Black, with a grim laugh.