_Motor Repairing at a Glance_."

"Do," Gerard urged. "I'd like to have it found on you, Rupert. Start her
up, then, if you're ready."

He crossed, with the last word, to the shelf where lay his racing mask
and gauntlets. The melancholy drip from moist eaves and trees, the
dreary half-light and heavy air had absolutely no depressing power upon
his flawless nerves and vigor of life. By the open door he paused to
look out, unconsciously clasping his hands behind his head with the
leisurely grace and relaxation of one who found pleasure in mere
movement.

"There'll be a wet course," Rupert's muffled tones came from the
opposite end of the room.

"Well?" Gerard queried lazily. "What of it?"

There was no answer. Instead sounded the click of moving throttle and
spark, and the place burst into thunderous tumult; violet flames darted
from the exhausts and enfolded the hood of the vibrating car as it
moved forward to its master's side.

"I don't like this morning, and I don't like this course," stated
Rupert, sombrely definite, through the roar and rattle of irregular
reports from the cut-down motor. "But I guess I've got to stand for
them. Anyhow, I couldn't have a classier Friday-the-thirteenth emotion
equipment if I had been to a voodoo fortune teller who had a grudge
against me. What are we waiting for?"

Gerard lingered in taking his seat, his amazed eyes travelling over the
small, discontented dark face of his companion.

"Something's wrong, Rupert?"

"I ain't saying so--yet."

The driver's own expression shadowed slightly; he looked again and more
searchingly at the other. In common with most men who had lived in the
tense atmosphere of the most dangerous form of racing yet evolved, he
had witnessed more than one case where a presentiment did not fail of
fulfilment. Irrespective of whether catalogued as coincidence, occult
foresight or absurdity, the facts did exist, occasionally to be read in
the prosaic columns of a newspaper, more often lost except in camp
annals. He knew, and Rupert knew, of a mechanician who suddenly refused
absolutely to go out with the driver by whose side he had ridden
countless miles, having no better reason than a disinclination for the
trip. And they both had seen the substitute who took his place brought
in dead, an hour later, after his car's wreck. A widely-known victor of
many races, one of Gerard's close friends, had come to shake hands with
him in a state of causeless nervou