to remove the blown-out shoe with the cap still screwed on
the valve stem; he fussed and swore under his breath, and panted, while
behind him a girl in whipcord riding habit and close-pulled cap
fidgeted first on one tan-clad foot, then on the other, anxiously
watching the road behind her and calling constantly for speed.

At last the job was finished, the girl fastening the useless shoe
behind the machine while Fairchild tightened the last of the lugs.
Then as he straightened, a small figure shot to his side, took the
wrench from his hand and sent it, with the other tools, clattering into
the tonneau. A tiny hand went into a pocket, something that crinkled
was shoved into the man's grasp, and while he stood there gasping, she
leaped to the driver's seat, slammed the door, spun the starter until
it whined, and with open cutout roaring again, was off and away,
rocking down the mountain side, around a curve and out of sight--while
Fairchild merely stood there, staring wonderingly at a ten-dollar bill!

A noise from the rear, growing louder, and the amazed man turned to see
a second machine, filled with men, careening toward him. Fifty feet
away the brakes creaked, and the big automobile came to a skidding,
dust-throwing stop. A sun-browned man in a Stetson hat, metal badge
gleaming from beneath his coat, leaned forth.

"Which way did he go?"

"He?" Robert Fairchild stared.

"Yeh. Did n't a man just pass here in an automobile? Where'd he
go--straight on the main road or off on the circuit trail?"

"It--it was n't a man."

"Not a man?" The four occupants of the machine stared at him. "Don't
try to bull us that it was a woman."

"Oh, no--no--of course not." Fairchild had found his senses. "But it
was n't a man. It--it was a boy, just about fifteen years old."

"Sure?"

"Oh, yes--" Fairchild was swimming in deep water now. "I got a good
look at him. He--he took that road off to the left."

It was the opposite one to which the hurrying fugitive in whipcord had
taken. There was doubt in the interrogator's eyes.

"Sure of that?" he queried. "I 'm the sheriff of Arapahoe County.
That's an auto bandit ahead of us. We--"

"Well, I would n't swear to it. There was another machine ahead, and I
lost 'em both for a second down there by the turn. I did n't see the
other again, but I did get a glimpse of one off on that side road. It
looked like the car that passed me. That's all I know."

"Probably