he long trial.

"He's been driving for nineteen hours," said Dick, climbing up to his
party through the excited crowd. "Two hours more to six o'clock.
Listen to the mob when he passes!"

The injunction was unnecessary. As the sun slanted low the enthusiasm
grew to fever. This was a crowd of connoisseurs--motorists,
chauffeurs, automobile lovers and drivers--they knew what was being
done before them. The word passed that Lestrange was in his twentieth
hour; people climbed on seats to cheer him as he went by. When one of
his tires blew out, in the opening of the twenty-first hour of his
driving and the twenty-fourth of the race, the great shout of sympathy
and encouragement that went up shook the grand-stand to its cement
foundations.

Neither Lestrange nor Rupert left his seat while that tire was
changed.

"If we did I ain't sure we'd get back," Rupert explained to Dick, who
hovered around them agitatedly. "If I'd thought Darling's mechanician
would get in for this, I'd have taken in sewing for a living. How much
longer?"

"Half an hour."

"Well, watch us finish."

A renewed burst of applause greeted the Mercury car's return to the
track. Men were standing watch in hand to count the last moments,
their eyes on the bulletin board where the reeled-off miles were being
registered. Two of the other machines were fighting desperately for
second place, hopeless of rivaling Lestrange, and after them sped the
rest.

"The finish!" some one suddenly called. "The last lap!"

Dick was hanging over the paddock fence when the car shot by amidst
braying klaxons, motor horns, cheers, and the clashing music of the
band. Frantic, the people hailed Lestrange as the black and white
checked flag dropped before him in proclamation of his victory and the
ended race.

Rupert raised his arms above his head in the signal of acknowledgment,
as they flew across the line and swept on to complete the circle to
their camp. Lestrange slackened speed to take the dangerous, deeply
furrowed turn for the last time, his car poised for the curving flight
under his guidance--then the watching hundreds saw the driver's hands
slip from the steering-wheel as he reached for the brake. Straight
across the track the machine dashed, instead of following the bend,
crashed through the barrier, and rolled over on its side in the green
meadow grass.

"The steering-knuckle!" Bailey groaned, as the place burst into uproar
around them. "The wheel--I saw it