Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/273

 exit. Anyway, they did not come near to disturb us. "Three days later two hungry and begrimed men staggered into Oroya, and the rotund one, approaching Breusy at the door of the club, extended the blackened wheel and wearily said, 'I thought you'd care to have this to remember her by.'

"‘Breusy gravely adjusted his glass and scanned us closely, and then tenderly examined the relic.

"‘Aw, thanks, fearfully,' was all he said.

"But after we'd told our story and were voted to be the winners of the Zapopaxi Cup, breaking all crater records, he gave it to us as a trophy. Incidentally, we lost the diamonds, which I had been wearing about my waist in a belt, and so it was farewell to any hopes of becoming bloated capitalists.

"But somewhere up there in the débris of the Zapopaxi table-land, in the shadow of a naughty baby cone that sometimes smokes, is the twisted gear of what once was a bully racer, whose skeleton in future ages may puzzle some astute archæologist, who never so much as heard of a crater endurance-race.

"And thus Tib and I wearily returned to Callao on borrowed money, possessing nothing but the knowledge that the Vermont man was a ribbon-winner of the major magnitude and had lowered all auto records from the old earth's belt-line to the