The Speedwell Boys and Their Racing Auto: or, A Run for the Golden Cup

CHAPTER XVI

INGRATITUDE OF CHANCE AVERY

There had been enough gasoline – rather, enough of the vapor – left in the tank to ignite the instant the lighted cigarette fell into it. And the flames spread with surprising rapidity.

A crowd ran toward the square, where the auto stood; but nobody seemed to know at first what to do. Some shouted for water, others merely yelled “Fire! Fire!” at the top of their voices. And one fleet-footed youngster made for the hose house, intending to arouse the volunteer firemen.

Burton Poole let his small nephew escape and turned with a startled visage toward his car. Chance Avery had heard the explosion, too, and dashed out of Appleyard’s store to see the car burst into flames. He grabbed a pail of water from a man who was running with it, and was about to dash the fluid upon the flames when Dan Speedwell shouted to him to stop.

“Not water, Avery! You’ll only make it spread!” cried Speedwell. “Here, Billy! Get me that shovel.”

Billy obeyed on the instant. The shovel was in the idle hands of a laborer – a man who did not know enough to use it in this emergency.

There was a heap of sand in front of Appleyard’s, where the cement walk was being repaired. Dan seized the shovel from his brother, and began heaving the sand in a shower upon the blazing car.

Wherever the sand landed the fire was snuffed out. A well aimed shovelful quenched the flames which flared from the opening of the tank. In a very few moments every spark was out – and thanks to Dan Speedwell, and to Dan alone.

But only one of the partners thanked Dan. Burton Poole wrung his hand and clapped him on the shoulder, and told him he was “a good fellow.” But Avery kept his face averted and examined the damage done to the automobile with lowering brow.

“It will have to go to the shop,” growled Chance, and would say no more.

Dan and Billy went home on their motorcycles and found that already Mr. Speedwell had put in several hours upon the auto. They were able to hitch Bob and Betty to a truck and drag the car, on its own wheels, down to the Darringford shops. There they delivered it to Mr. Hardy with the expectation that in a day or two, at the latest, they would be riding in their own machine.

They were busy making up lost recitations for several days. And when they went down to the shops to inquire about the machine they found nothing done to it. A big rush of extra work was on, they were informed. The repair gang couldn’t get at the drab racer.

This began to bother the Speedwells after they had called twice and found nothing done. Then they saw Chance Avery and Burton Poole running about town again in their machine. It had been repaired, and repainted, and was as bright as though new.

The brothers noticed this fact about Burton Poole’s machine one evening when they attended a business and social meeting of the Riverdale Outing Club. Chance Avery, who was still president and captain of the club, despite his unpopularity with the majority of the members, seemed to feel amused on this evening whenever he looked at Dan or Billy Speedwell.

During the social hour Jim Stetson and his sister, Ruth, invited a few friends to run up to their uncle’s cottage at Karnac Lake. The last time the Stetsons had had a party at the lodge it was something of a failure because of certain incidents that attended the run.

“We certainly are not going to chance the risk of being chased by elks and letting Mildred get lost in the Big Swamp,” chattered Ruth, with her arm around the waist of the doctor’s daughter. “We’re going in cars. The Greenes will go, and we depend upon you, Burton, to bring a part of the crowd. And let’s see – oh, yes, you, Dan Speedwell! You and Billy have a car?”

“So we suppose,” returned Dan, rather ruefully. “It’s being put in shape now; but your party isn’t until next week Friday, is it?”

“That is the time,” said Ruth Stetson. “I am going to ask you to bring Milly here, and Lettie Parker, and Kate O’Brien and Maybell Turner, beside two of the boys. Can you do it?”

“Why, the car will hold that number,” said Dan, quietly. “I think we shall not fail you.”

Chance lounged near, with his hands in his pockets and there was a sneering smile on his face.

“Aren’t you counting chickens before they’re hatched, Speedwell?” he suggested. “You don’t know whether that broken-down car of yours is going to run at all, do you?”

“Oh, I guess she will be all right when they get through with her down at Darringfords,” returned Dan, easily.

“That car will never be fixed in those shops,” remarked Chance.

“Who says so?” demanded Billy, hotly.

“I say so,” snarled Chance. “I know all about it. The car isn’t worth repairing in the first place. It’s too badly wrecked. You Speedwells might as well go down and take your ramshackle old car home again.”

“Biff” Hardy caught Dan by the sleeve as he and Billy were going out.

“What is it?” asked the older Speedwell.

“You’d better mark what Chance told you, old man,” whispered Hardy.

“What do you mean?” asked Dan, in surprise.

“You just think he’s gassin’, do you?”

“What else can it be? What has he to do with the Darringford shops?”

“Well, you must admit,” said Biff, with a broad grin on his freckled face, “that Frank Avery has something to do with the shops.”

“Naturally. He’s superintendent.”

“And I only know what father said. He’s worried about it. Burton Poole’s car came in to be repaired and repainted after your car was on the floor. Dad had to drop everything else and fix up Poole’s car. But the Super forbade his touching your machine. It stands right there yet, and Avery says that no more outside repairing can be done for a month.”

“Not until after the thousand mile run!” gasped Dan.

CHAPTER XVII

A FRIEND IN NEED

The Speedwell boys went home in no very pleasant frame of mind. Heretofore they had experienced sufficient trouble through Chance Avery and his brother to know that the superintendent of the Darringford shops was quite capable of giving Chance great help in his attempt to “get even” with anybody whom he disliked.

And neither Chance nor Francis Avery could ever forgive the Speedwell boys for beating Chance in the manufacturers’ motorcycle races held at the Riverdale Baseball Park not long before. Chance had been picked by the superintendent of the Darringford shops to ride a Flying Feather, and carry the colors of the local shops to victory. But at the last moment Dan Speedwell, likewise riding one of the Darringfords’ machines, had beaten out the field and left Chance sadly in the rear.

“And they are going to make it impossible – if they can – for us to do anything to Chance and Burton in this endurance test of autos that Mr. Briggs is financing,” grumbled Billy. “Oh, pshaw, Dan! What makes folks so mean?”

“I don’t know. We’ll ask Doc Bugs,” laughed Dan, referring to one of the academy instructors who was very much inclined to harp upon the microbe theory, and bacilli. “There’s something mean got into Chance, and his brother’s caught it. That’s all I know about it.”

“But we’re not going to let them beat us so easy,” growled Billy.

“Not so’s you’d notice it,” agreed the older brother.

“What will we do?”

“First we’ll go over to the shops to-morrow and find out just where we stand.”

“But if they won’t fix the auto there, what will we do? We can’t cart the machine clear to Compton, and it would cost a mint of money to have men from the manufacturing plant come here to make repairs.”

“We’ll see,” said Dan. “Let’s sleep over it.”

That was like Dan; he always thought a thing out by himself. Billy, more impulsive and ready to discuss a point, found his brother sometimes exasperating. It kept him “guessing,” he complained; he never knew just what Dan would finally do.

He was not surprised, however, the next afternoon after the second session, that Dan should head for the Darringford shops instead of taking wheel for home. They came to the small gate in the stockade-fence that surrounded the machine shops, spoke to the gate-keeper, and went in to the repair department. When Mr. Hardy saw them in the doorway he looked slightly discomposed. In truth his somewhat smutted face changed color.

“Sorry, boys,” he said, hurrying toward them; “we haven’t had a chance to touch your machine yet. Hurried to death.”

“Of course, your outside jobs take their regular turn, don’t they, Mr. Hardy?” asked Dan, smoothly.

“Oh, of course! Er – that is – it’s the general rule.”

“Then no other outside job has been put in ahead of ours?”

“Why – now – ”

“What do those fellows want?” asked a sharp voice suddenly, and Dan and Billy turned to see the superintendent of the shops eyeing them with disfavor.

Mr. Hardy waved the boys toward Mr. Avery.

“You’ll have to talk to him, boys,” he said. “I haven’t anything to do with it.”

“What are they bothering you about, Hardy?” demanded the superintendent.

“We have been waiting some days for our automobile to be fixed, Mr. Avery,” said Dan, firmly.

“And you’ll wait a few days longer, I guess,” said the man, unpleasantly.

“But we are in a hurry, and the understanding was – ”

“With whom did you have any understanding when you brought that car here?” interrupted Avery.

“Mr. Hardy.”

“And if he told you that he could put aside our regular work for outside jobs, he overstepped his bounds.”

“He told us nothing of the kind,” said Dan, quickly. “He only said our car should have precedence over other outside work that might come in.”

“Well, it will,” said Avery, with a laugh.

“It hasn’t,” exclaimed Dan, sharply.

“What’s that?”

“Since our machine was brought here Burton Poole’s has been repaired and repainted. Ours hasn’t been touched.”

“Look here, young saucebox!” exclaimed Avery, in a passion, “Who told you to come here and tell me my business? Your car will wait its turn – ”

“You gave its turn to Poole’s car,” declared Dan, stubbornly. “You know you did. You do not mean that our car shall be repaired.”

Somebody had stopped quietly behind them. A stern voice said:

“What’s the matter, Avery?”

“Mr. Robert!” exclaimed Billy.

Robert Darringford stood there, his automobile coat thrown back, his Norfolk jacket unbelted, and cap and goggles pushed back from his pleasant face. He was just drawing off his gauntlets.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Avery?” he repeated, as the flaming face of the superintendent was turned toward him.

“These young rascals have become impudent!” declared the superintendent. “I’ve told you before, Mr. Robert, that I consider your attitude toward these Speedwells as utterly wrong – ”

“Come, come,” said the younger Darringford, good-naturedly enough, yet with a tone of voice that halted Avery in his headlong speech. “Let’s get at the trouble. Of course, Dan and Billy are my friends. I have told you that several times.”

“And they presume upon your notice of them,” declared the superintendent. “Your undignified treatment of them gives them a license which they abuse.”

“And how have they abused my kindness now?” queried Darringford, gravely.

“They have brought us an old, ramshackle car here to be patched up. You know Hardy’s department is working overtime. All outside work must take its chance. We cannot do this now.”

“And the boys are impatient, are they?” demanded Darringford, smiling, however, quite kindly upon Dan and Billy.

“When we brought our car here, the shop was not so busy,” said Dan, interrupting. “Mr. Avery knows that. He has had a car repaired here since ours has stood on the floor.”

“How is this, Avery?” asked Mr. Robert, sharply.

“The boy tells an untruth,” snapped the other. Then, thinking better of it, he added: “Or, at least, I know nothing about it. I only know that Burton Poole had a machine here to be fixed, and I ordered Hardy to get it out of the way.”

“And why not this one?” queried Mr. Robert, pointing to the drab car.

“Well – ”

“Chance is driving Poole’s car, isn’t he?” asked Mr. Robert, with marked emphasis.

“Well, sir! You know yourself we are over-driven here!” cried Avery, in despair of clearing his skirts completely of the ugly charge of favoritism.

“Quite true. We will excuse you, Mr. Avery. I will attend to the Speedwells’ car,” said the young proprietor of the shops.

He turned his back on his superintendent – not without a little bow, however – and said pleasantly to Dan:

“Now, young man, as spokesman for you and your brother, tell me how you came in possession of a Breton-Melville car, this year’s type, racing rig, and apparently one that has been misused, at that?”

Dan laughed. Mr. Robert’s keen eye was not to be mistaken. One would not have thought that he had more than glanced casually at the wreck of Maxey Solomons’ automobile.

But between them (for Billy was bound to put in a word here and there) the Speedwells told him of their good fortune in obtaining possession of the wrecked car. Mr. Robert grew more and more interested. He began to take off his coat, and his cap and auto-goggles followed. Mr. Avery waited in the near distance, covertly watching the “young boss.”

“It’s a great chance for you, boys!” declared Mr. Robert. “Why, do you know, I’m going to enter for Briggs’ endurance test myself. I believe I’ve got a car that can even beat out a Breton-Melville,” and his eyes twinkled. “But it would be too bad if your car wasn’t ready in time, so that we could find out just how good a machine it is.”

“We mean to get it repaired somehow,” said Dan, firmly. “If not here – ”

“And why not here?” demanded Mr. Robert. He glanced quickly around and began to strip off his Norfolk jacket. “Hey, Hardy! Have you got an extra suit of overalls anywhere about? I want ’em.”

“Sure, Mr. Robert,” declared the foreman, coming briskly forward.

“What Mr. Avery says is quite true, boys,” declared young Darringford, seriously. “This department is driven to death. But then – I’m sort of an outsider and I’m not driven to death. I’m going to shuck my coat, and get into these duds – that’s it, Hardy! thank you – and then we’ll see what is the matter with the vitals of that machine. Mr. Avery,” he added, with a humorous twist of his lips, “won’t mind if I use the tools here to repair your machine. I am rather a privileged character myself about the shops. But you know, Dan and Billy, we always back up our foremen and superintendent; and it is quite true that the men are too busy to do your work at present.”

CHAPTER XVIII

ON THE ROAD TO KARNAC LAKE

The Speedwell boys could have imagined no better outcome of this affair. Yet they were both too independent to have courted Mr. Robert’s attention and complained to him of the unfair treatment they had received at the hands of the superintendent of the shops.

As for the car itself, the boys knew very well that they could leave their Breton-Melville in no better hands. Mr. Robert, though college-bred, had put on overalls and worked every summer in the shops since he was fifteen years of age. He was a finished mechanic. That is why his men respected and liked him so much.

Dan and Billy retired, full of glee over the turn matters had taken. Their car would be put in order – in first-class order – and they need have no fear but that the work would be done promptly. In fact, the first of the week Mr. Robert sent word to them that they could take the car home.

They settled their bill at the office like any other customer, and it was no small one. They doubted if Mr. Robert had charged them much for his own time; but the repairs cost over eighty dollars. When they ran the car out of the yard the enamel paint was scarcely dry. But the mechanism worked like that of a fine watch!

Were they proud as they sped swiftly through the Riverdale streets? Well!

There was nothing beautiful about the drab car, saving her lines. She was neither a touring car nor one built for show. But Mr. Robert had assured them that he had never gone over and assembled the parts of a finer piece of auto work than this same Breton-Melville car.

“I shall have to look out for my own laurels, I very well see,” laughed the acting head of the Darringford shops. “And Mr. Briggs himself will have to get the best there is out of his Postlethwaite if he expects to beat you boys in that endurance test.”

So Dan and Billy had reason for feeling proud of their car, although it had few of the attractive qualities of the usual auto. It was plainly furnished, and there was not so much brass work as on most cars. As it sped along, to the observer from the sidewalk it had the appearance of being stripped down to the very skeleton of a car.

The Stetson’s run to Karnac Lake was arranged for Friday afternoon, immediately after the close of classes. Dan and Billy were hard-working boys, both in school and on the dairy farm; they had to arrange their schedule, as Billy said, with considerable care to be able to accompany their friends on this run to the cottage in the woods.

Karnac Lake was a beautiful spot, some fifty miles up the river, and the road was a good automobile path all the way. Burton Poole and Chance Avery were boasting of having “done it” in an hour and a half.

“If they can do it in that time, in that machine of Burton’s,” declared Dan Speedwell, after they had tried out their Breton-Melville car for two evenings along the county pike, “we can do as well. Take my word for it, Billy.”

“I believe you,” agreed his brother.

“Then we won’t leave it all for dad to do on Saturday morning,” Dan said. “We can run back, help him milk, take our routes as usual, and then race back to Karnac and get there by mid-forenoon again.”

“Agreed!” said Billy. “I wish we had motor-wagons to use in distributing the milk, anyway. Wouldn’t that be a great scheme?”

“All to the good. But one motor-wagon would do it. We could get over both routes in less time than it takes us to deliver one route with a horse.”

“It’s us for a motor-truck, then,” cried Billy.

“I’ve got a scheme,” said Dan, slowly. “Maybe it won’t work; and then again – ”

“What is it?” asked Billy, eagerly.

“I don’t know as I’ll tell you just yet,” said Dan, grinning at him.

And just then something called Billy away – some duty or other – and he forgot later to ask Dan to explain his tantalizing statement.

The Speedwells made their preparations well in advance, and between sessions Friday noon ran home on their Flying Feathers and came back to town in their Breton-Melville car. They backed it into Holliday’s garage, where it would come to no harm during the afternoon, and as soon as school was over they ran to the garage, filled up their tank, strapped a spare five gallon can of gasoline on the running board, as well as a pair of extra tires (that had cost them a pretty penny) in their enamel-cloth covers, and ran out on the street.

Dan guided the car around to Mildred’s house, where the girls and boys who were to ride with them had agreed to assemble. The doctor’s daughter with Lettie and Kate and Maybell were already there and Wiley Moyle and young Fisher Greene soon arrived. Fisher was always being crowded out of the auto belonging to his family; but he had objected so strenuously on this occasion that room had to be found in one of the machines and he had elected to come with the Speedwells, for he and Billy were pretty good chums.

Fisher sat beside Dan on the front seat; four of the party squeezed into the rear of the tonneau and the remaining two – Wiley Moyle and Katie O’Brien – faced the latter quartette. They were comfortably seated, their possessions stowed away, and Dan ran the car out into the Court House square just as the clock in the tower struck four.

They had not long to wait for the rest of the party. Chance Avery shot the Poole car into the square from a by-street, narrowly escaped running over Rover, Mr. Appleyard’s old dog, and very much frightened old lady Massey, who was about to cross the street. And he brought the car to an abrupt stop with a grin on his face, while his open muffler allowed the exhaust to deafen the whole neighborhood.

“For pity’s sake, close that muffler, Chance!” shouted Monroe Stevens, who was riding in the Greene’s car, and which now came into sight with Perry Greene at the wheel. “We can’t hear ourselves talk.”

“I hope the Town Council puts a stop to that,” declared Fisher Greene, in the Speedwell car.

“Puts a stop to what, young fellow?” demanded Chance Avery, in no pleasant tone.

“They’re going to fine those automobilists who run through the streets with their mufflers open,” said Fisher. “Just to show off, you know – make other folks notice that there’s an auto running by. It’s a good deal like little Ted Berry smoking cigarettes. It makes him sick, and his uncle punishes him for it; but Ted thinks it’s making a man of him. I reckon that would-be chauffeurs who run with their mufflers open, figure it out the same as Teddy.”

Everybody laughed but Chance; he only scowled and demanded of Jim Stetson:

“Well, are you folks ready?”

“All right, girls?” asked the master of ceremonies, standing up in the Greenes’ car.

Even Lettie Parker had forgotten that she was seated beside Billy and Mildred in the tonneau of the smallest and least showy of the equipages. They were all so anxious to be off.

“Do go on, boys!” cried Miss Parker. “And, oh dear me! I do want you to get outside of town where you can race. I never did go fast enough yet in an automobile.”

“Lettie’s fairly gone on autos,” drawled Billy. “And if she ever gets a machine of her own – ”

“Which I intend to do some day, Mr. Smartie!” cried the bronze-haired girl.

“Oh, I believe you!” responded Billy, who was nothing if not a tease. “And then we’ll see her riding around town with her nose in the air – worse than even Nature ever intended,” he added, with a sly glance at the tip of Miss Parker’s pretty nose, which really was a little tip-tilted!

“All right for you, Billy Speedwell,” Miss Parker declared. “You shall never ride in my car when I do get it.”

“No. I sha’n’t want to. I’d rather be somewhere up near the head of the procession,” said the teasing Billy.

“Say!” cried Lettie, in a heat, “you don’t call this being at the head of the procession, do you? We’re number three, all right, and there are none to follow.”

“Run her up a little, Dannie!” begged Wiley Moyle. “That Chance Avery is pulling ahead as though he was already running for the golden cup.”

“I didn’t know this was to be a motor race,” laughed Dan, quietly putting the lever up a notch. “I thought we were out for pleasure.”

“Well, it’s no pleasure to be behind everybody else, and taking their dust,” complained Lettie Parker.

“Be careful, Dan, no matter what they say to you,” said Mildred Kent, warningly, in her quiet way. “You know, our mothers all expect us to get safely home again.”

The Greene automobile, which was a heavy, practical family touring car, was being put to its best pace. Chance Avery was running away from the party, being already half a mile, or more, ahead of the Greenes.

Dan’s advancing the speed lever was not noticeable in the throbbing or jar of the car; the Breton-Melville was one of the quietest-running automobiles in the market. And this speed was nothing to it – as yet.