But it was almost cool here anyway. He sat up and looked around. A depression hid him from the road if he kept his head down. The leaves hid him from overhead observation. He lifted his head above the ridge and inspected the growth on the other side of the road.
Then he saw it. It was the reflection of the sunlight on the tail lamp of an automobile, drawn up in the bushes. Now he could make out the shape of the car behind the curtain of leaves. How had it come there? It hadn’t arrived since he had.
Why should anyone leave a car there?
When was the owner coming back? Suppose he arrived when Slim Bates came for him. Then this other car might take up the pursuit, and he would be taken back. Everyone knew he was out now, and they knew about the guard too.
He cursed. Why was anyone using this road? It wasn’t a highway. There weren’t even any ranches on it. Probably it was only a joyrider who had smashed up his car, and it would stay there for a day or two.
But that explanation didn’t satisfy. The man could see that other car pursuing him. He knew his friends would send a racing car, and they could outrun that thing in the bushes. But the police might see the race. And then where would he be? Even now there might be someone waiting behind that screen of leaves.
The car preyed on his mind. The convict tried to turn his back on it — to forget it. But always he returned to gaze on it and vision the pursuit through the night. He had to do something.
Like a sprinter he drew himself up on his finger-tips. Like a streak of dirty gray he hurled himself across the road to fall panting beside the car. With a twist he rolled into the brush. Fearing almost to breathe, he lay still. But there was no stir in the car. The whir of a winging grasshopper was the only sound other than his own labored breathing.
With infinite caution the man edged his way up to the front of the car. Carefully he raised himself to his knees. Now that he was there what was he going to do? He was not familiar with the mechanism of automobiles, but he knew the engine was the source of its trouble as well as its power. He had seen Slim Bates working on a flivver once, and he had lifted the hood.
Slowly he released the catches of the hood of this car that stood between him and liberty. Gently he raised it until the engine was revealed. Then he looked with bewilderment at the unfathomed mysteries before him. Baffled, he couldn’t decide what to do. Wires led everywhere, and the thing seemed inclosed in an impassable casing of iron.
But the wires were open. With teeth showing in rage, he caught them where they led from the fuse-board and tore them loose. There was the ferocity of murder in the strength that broke the set screws from the board.
“Now get me,” he snarled as he lowered the hood into place.
II
Robert Emmet Long was in a hurry. He didn’t like driving at night, particularly through the Bayfield cutoff. About half a mile from the main highway his lights blinked twice, then went out. There was a screech of protesting brakes as he brought the car to a stop.
“Wait till I get that garage man,” Long groaned as he climbed out. The trouble wasn’t much. Just a loose connection and in a few minutes he had found it. The lights blinked several times, then settled into a steady glow.
“Thank God, you got here, bo. Where’s Slim Bates?”
Long’s nerves were good, but he almost sent the car crashing into a gully at the roadside as the question came to him from the rear seat.
Who was it? How had he got there? What did Slim Bates have to do with it? Everyone knew of Bates the fixer and friend of crooks in Bayfield. Who would be waiting silently in the cutoff for a car sent by Slim Bates? There must be some sinister reason.
And the back of Long’s neck crawled as he remembered the afternoon paper. It had told of the escape of a convict awaiting action on a hopeless plea for a reprieve for murder. He had killed a guard. Could he be the man behind him? It couldn’t be anyone else, and Long thanked the gods of chance for the darkness that hid him. He didn’t dare turn. He could feel the double murderer behind him with a gun at his back, awaiting some move. But he had to do something.
“Just a minute, this is a bad stretch of road here,” Long replied, trying to collect his thoughts.
His way out lay through Slim. He had to take a chance.
“Slim is waiting for you. He was afraid to try it himself,” Long tried desperately to be matter of fact. Would he get away with it?
The convict peered at the man who was now driving the car madly through the night. He didn’t look like a friend of Slim’s. And this sedan, richly upholstered, wasn’t the kind of car he had expected.
“Where’d he get you? I never saw you before.”
Where did Slim get him? Long sought for an answer. He had never seen Slim Bates. He knew him only by reputation.
“No, you haven’t seen me before. Slim got me so the officers wouldn’t suspect anything. I owe him a big favor for getting me out of trouble once.”
It sounded reasonable enough, but the man on the back seat wasn’t sure. Slim ought to have come himself. However, this man had given him the signal with the lights — two flashes.
“Well, if Slim sent you I guess it’s all right. It had better be. Where’s Slim goin’ to meet me? Edgewood?”
Long almost sighed his relief. At last he had something to go ahead on. Edgewood was the meeting place then. If he could get him to Edgewood he might find a way out.
“Yes.”
“Where’s my clothes?”
Again Long took a chance.
“At the Edgewood Hotel.”
“How in hell am I goin’ to get in any hotel in this stuff?” and the convict tore savagely at his prison jacket.
Again Long felt that crawling sensation at the back of his neck. There was menace in his tone. How could he get to the officers before the hotel was reached? But he thanked the dealer who had sold him the cap and long dust coat under the back seat.
“I was afraid to bring too much. You’ll find a long coat and a cap under that seat you’re sitting on. Roll up your trousers and put them on. Just as soon as you get to my room, I’ll get your clothes.”
Grumblingly, the convict dug the coat and cap from under the back seat as the car lurched on through the night. The guy might be an outsider, but he sure could drive, and Slim had sent him. The man settled down comfortably and thought of that car back in the bushes — the car that wouldn’t be able to pursue him. He could smoke now, and he did.
Long was driving faster than he had ever driven before, but the speed was slow compared to his racing brain. What was he to do? The convict was armed. He had shot down a guard. Perhaps he didn’t know the road to Edgewood, and Long might turn off the Bayfield when he reached the highway. How could he find out?
Then, too, there was the real car Slim Bates was sending after him. Perhaps that was roaring down the road behind him even now. Apparently it had been due just when he arrived.
He stepped on the accelerator as the car started to climb the last grade where the cutoff joined the main highway. The lights of Edgewood would be in sight then, and he would have to decide quickly whether to try the run for Bayfield. The car reached the top of the grade and shot down the road at a speed that drove the convict against the back of the car.
“Slow down, bo, slow down,” came the harsh command from the back seat. “Do you want one of these Bayfield speed cops stopping us? They used to hang around here.”
Long’s question was answered. He had to keep on to Edgewood.
The man on the rear seat stirred uneasily. Why was Slim getting so careful? And if he couldn’t come himself, why did he have to pick an outsider? This one could drive all right, but he didn’t like it. He’d tell Slim so when he met him.