Bert Wilson's Twin Cylinder Racer. Duffield J. W.

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СКАЧАТЬ not worrying much about that,” answered Bert. “To be sure, where so much is at stake, there’s always a chance of some one trying to turn a trick. But I don’t see where they could ‘put it over.’ At every important place there’ll be timers and checkers to keep tally on the riders. The machines are all registered and numbered and so carefully described that, in case of a smashup, a fellow couldn’t slip in another one without being found out at the next stopping place. Then, too, if they tried to get a lift on a train, there would have to be too many in the secret. Besides, in all the names I’ve seen so far of the racers, there’s only one that might possibly stoop to anything of that kind. His name is Hayward, and from what I’ve heard he’s been mixed up with one or two shady deals. There have only been whispers and suspicions, however, and they’ve never been able actually to prove anything against him. So he is still nominally in good standing and eligible to ride. It may be all conjecture anyway. He probably wouldn’t cheat if he could, and couldn’t if he would.”

      “No,” said Dick, “it certainly seems as though the best man and the best machine ought to win.”

      “I understand that the race is to start from New York,” remarked Drake.

      “Yes,” answered Bert, preparing to mount the machine, “from one of the beaches near the city. It’s to be actually from ocean to ocean. The rear wheel is to be wet in the Atlantic. Then the fight is on in earnest and only ends when the front wheel is dipped in the Pacific.”

      “’Twill be some race,” remarked Martin.

      “You’ll have to travel like the wind,” warned Hinsdale.

      “Yes,” laughed Bert, as he threw in the clutch, “to make it in twenty days, I’ll have to go like a blue streak.”

      CHAPTER III

      From Coast to Coast

      The next few days flew by with magical swiftness. There were a thousand things to be done, and Bert found himself wishing that each day had a hundred hours instead of twenty-four. The term examinations were on, and he buckled down to them manfully. He had never neglected his class work in favor of athletic sports and his standing had always been high. He worked as hard as he played, and in both study and games was up in the front rank.

      But when these ordeals were over and he had passed triumphantly, every spare moment was devoted to the coming race. He put into his preparation all his heart and soul. And in this, he was ably aided and abetted by Reddy, the college trainer.

      “Reddy,” as he was called from the flaming mop of hair that adorned his far from classic brow, was a character. For many years he had been in complete control of the football, baseball and general track teams of the college. He had formerly been a crack second baseman in a major league, but an injured ankle had forced his withdrawal from the active playing ranks. He had a shrewd, though uneducated, mind, and his knowledge of sports and ability as a trainer had made him famous in the athletic world. His dry wit and genial disposition made him a great favorite with the boys, though he ruled with an iron hand when discipline was needed.

      He was especially proud and fond of Bert for two reasons. In the first place, his trainers’ soul rejoiced in having such a superb physical specimen to develop into a winner. He had so often been called upon to “make bricks without straw,” that he exulted in this splendid material ready to his hand. And when his faith had been justified by the great victories that Bert had won, Reddy felt that it was, in part, his own personal triumph.

      Then, too, Bert had never shirked or broken training. His sense of honor was high and fine, and he kept as rigidly to his work in the trainer’s absence as in his presence. Reddy had never had to put detectives on his track or search him out in the poolrooms and saloons of the town. He was true to himself, true to his team, true to his college, and could always be counted on to be in first-class condition.

      So that, although this was not a college event, Reddy took a keen personal interest in the coming contest. Every afternoon, he held the watch while Bert circled the track, and he personally superintended the bath and rubdown, after the test was over. He knew the exact weight at which his charge was most effective, and he took off the superfluous flesh just fast enough not to weaken him. And his Irish blue eyes twinkled with satisfaction, as he noted that just now he had never seen him in better shape for the task that lay before him.

      “Ye’ll do,” he said, with an air of finality, two days before the race, as he snapped his split-second chronometer, after a whirlwind sprint. “I’ll not tell ye jist the time ye made for that last five miles, as I don’t want ye to get the swelled head. But, my word for it, ye’re on edge, and I don’t want ye to touch that machine again until ye face the starter. Ye’re down fine enough and I don’t want ye to go stale before the race begins. I’ve left jist enough beef on ye to give ye a wee bit of a margin to work off. The rest is solid bone and muscle, and, if the machine is as good as yerself, ye’ll get to the coast first with something to spare.”

      “Well,” said Bert warmly, “it will be your victory as well as mine if I do. You’re my ‘one best bet’ when it comes to getting into form. I wouldn’t have had half a chance to pull off any of the stunts I have, if it hadn’t been for you.”

      But Reddy tossed this lightly aside.

      “Not a bit of it,” he protested, “’tis yersilf has done the work, and yersilf should get the credit. And ye’ve done it too in the face of accident and hard luck. This time I’m hoping that luck will be on yer side. And to make sure,” he grinned, “I’m going to give yer a sprig of four-leaved shamrock that came to me from the folks at home, last seventeenth of March. ’Twill not be hurting ye any to have it along with yer.”

      “Sure thing,” laughed Bert. “I’ll slip it in the tool box and carry it every foot of the way.”

      And as Reddy had groomed Bert, so Bert groomed his machine. Every nut and bolt, valve and spring was gone over again and again, until even his critical judgment was satisfied. It was to carry not only his fortune but perhaps his life, and he did not rest until he was convinced that nothing could add to its perfection. It had become almost a part of himself, and it was with a feeling of reluctance that at last he had it carefully crated and sent on to the starting point, to await his coming forty-eight hours later.

      That evening, as he returned from the post office, he met Tom and Dick at the foot of the steps leading to their dormitory. He waved at them an open letter that he had been reading.

      “It’s from the Committee,” he explained. “It gives the route and final instructions. Come up to the rooms and we’ll go over it together.”

      A bond of friendship, far from common, united these three comrades – the “Three Guardsmen,” as they were jokingly called, because they were so constantly together. They had first met at a summer camp, some years before, and a strong similarity of character and tastes had drawn them to each other at once. From that time on, it had been “one for three and three for one.”

      Full to the brim as they were of high spirits and love of adventure, they often got into scrapes from which it required all their nerve and ingenuity to emerge with a whole skin. Their supreme confidence in themselves often led them to take chances from which older and wiser heads would have shrunk. And the various exploits in which they had indulged had taught each how fully and absolutely he might rely on the others. On more than one occasion, death itself had been among the possibilities, but even that supreme test had been met without flinching.

      Only a few months before, when, on their journey through Mexico, Dick had fallen into the hands of El Tigre, the dreaded leader of guerillas, Bert and Tom had taken the trail at once, and after a СКАЧАТЬ