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248 succeeded in convincing the pair that pursuit with the motor-car was altogether out of the question until he had spent at least half the day overhauling the motor.

But the devil takes care of his own; within another half hour luck brought a casual automobile to Mesquite—a two-seated, high-power racing machine, driven by two irresponsible wayfarers who proved only too susceptible to Marrophat's offer of double the cost of the car—f. o. b. Detroit—for its immediate surrender.

The two piled out promptly, Marrophat and Jimmy jumped in, and Trine from his bedroom window sped them with a blast of blasphemy which was destined to keep his memory green in Mesquite for many a year after he had been consigned to his grave. …

It must have been an hour later when Alan looked back and discovered, several miles distant on the far-flung windings of the mountain road, a small crimson shape that ran like a mad thing tirelessly pursued by a cloud of tawny dust.

A motor-car of uncommon road-devouring quality, it might or might not contain Marrophat and Jimmy, once more in pursuit. Bitter experience had long since taught Alan to take no chances.

Though it was his life that they sought no later than yesterday, they had proved that if Rose were