reaked and gasolene-scented.

"I don't see why you wanted to come," he began, before he reached
them. "I'm busy enough now. We're leading; if Lestrange holds out
we'll win. But he's driving alone; Frank went out an hour ago, on the
second relief, when he went through the paddock fence and broke his
leg. It didn't hurt the machine a bit, except tires, but it lost us
twenty-six laps. And it leaves Lestrange with thirteen steady hours at
the wheel. He says he can do it."

"He's fit?" Bailey questioned.

Dick turned a peevish regard upon him.

"I don't know what you call fit. He says he is. His hands are
blistered already, his right arm has been bandaged twice where he hurt
it pulling me away from the gear-cutter yesterday, and he's had three
hours' rest out of the last eleven. See that heap of junk over there;
that's where the Alan car burned up last night and sent its driver and
mechanician to the hospital. I suppose if Lestrange isn't fit and
makes a miscue we'll see something like that happen to him and
Rupert."

"No!" Emily cried piteously.

Remorse clutched Dick.

"I forgot you, cousin," he apologized. "Don't go off; Lestrange swears
he feels fine and gibes at me for worrying. Don't look like that."

"Richard, you will go down and order our car withdrawn from the race,"
Mr. Ffrench stated, with his most absolute finality. "This has
continued long enough. If we had not been arrested in New York for
exceeding the speed limit, I should have been here to end this scene
at midnight."

Stunned, his nephew stared at him.

"Withdraw!"

"Precisely. And desire David to come here."

"I won't," said Dick flatly. "If you want to rub it into Lestrange
that way, send Bailey. And I say it's a confounded shame."

"Richard!"

His round face ablaze, Dick thrust his hands in his pockets, facing
his uncle stubbornly.

"After his splendid fight, to stop him now? Do you know how they take
being put out, those fellows? Why, when the Italian car went off the
track for good, last night, with its chain tangled up with everything
underneath, its driver sat down and cried. And you'd come down on
Lestrange when he's winning--I won't do it, I won't! Send Bailey; I
can't tell him."

"If you want to discredit the car and its driver, Mr. Ffrench, you can
do it without me," slowly added Bailey. "But it won't be any use to
send for Mr. David, because he won't come."

The autocrat of his little world looked from one rebel to the o