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156 raced a train and gained on it, and would have left it behind, perhaps, had the road not swerved to the left and taken them out of sight. There was a defiant shriek from the engine, a brief glimpse of the lighted car windows through the trees and they were once more alone, coasting down a long hill with only the whirr of the fan to be heard. A few minutes later the car swept from the public road through a stone-pillared gateway and circled up to a big house in which a single light gleamed through the transom above the front door.

“Doesn’t look very gay, does it?” inquired their host. “I don’t doubt the servant has gone to bed. We’ll run around and leave the machine, if you don’t mind.”

They got out when the car had trundled itself into the garage and stretched their cramped limbs.

“I don’t believe,” said Dick, “that I changed my position once all the way. I had a sort of a notion that if I moved we’d go flying off the road into the next county. That was a dandy ride, Mr. Whiting.”