Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/272

 one end or the other, but we'll have to go it blind. Which way shall we start?" added Joe, who while he was speaking kept turning his wheel first up and then down the track. "The majority rules."

"That way," said Roy.

"Come on then. Let's cover as many miles as we can while daylight lasts. We'll have to touch a match to our lamps pretty soon."

It was fine wheeling on the hard road-bed, and Joe Wayring made the pace hot enough to satisfy anybody but a professional racer; but fast as he went, the darkness traveled faster, and when they had gone about three miles, he suggested that the lamps ought to be lighted.

"These thick woods and high banks on each side shut out what little light there is," said he, "and it is darker where we are than it ought to be. We have never been this way before, and no one knows how soon we may blunder into a cattle-guard and get a broken head without a chance to see what hurt us."

Another start at a more moderate pace was