y. The grinding of the starter, though, lasted only for
seconds. It might make men listen, but they could hardly locate it
before the motor caught and ran quietly. Also, the trailer-truck was
still in motion and making its own noise. Of course it was probably
posting watchers and listeners here and there to try to find Lockley
and Jill.

So Lockley backed the car into the street as silently as was possible.
He did not turn on the lights. He stopped, headed away from the area
in which the truck rumbled. He sent the car forward at a crawl. Then
an idea occurred to him and cold chills ran down his spine. It is
possible to use a short wave receiver to pick up the ignition sparks
of a car. Normally such sparkings are grounded so the car's own radio
will work. But sometimes a radio is out of order. It was
characteristic of Lockley's acquired distrust of luck and chance that
he thought of so unlikely a disaster.

He eased the car into motion, straining his ears for any sign that the
truck reacted. Then he moved the car slowly away from the business
district. It required enormous self-control to go slowly. While among
the lighted streets the urge to flee at top speed was strong. But he
clenched his teeth. A car makes much less noise when barely in motion.
He made it drift as silently as a wraith under the trees and the
street lamps.

They got out of town. The last of the street lamps was behind them.
There was only starlight ahead, and an unknown road with many turns
and curves. Sometimes there were roadsigns, dimly visible as
uninformative shapes beside the highway. They warned of curves and
other driving hazards, but they could not be read because Lockley
drove without lights. He left the car dark because any glare would
have been visible to the men of the trailer-truck for a very long way.

Starlight is not good for fast driving, and when a road passes through
a wooded space it is nerve-racking. Lockley drove with foreboding,
every sense alert and every muscle tense. But just after a painful
progress through a series of curves with high trees on either side
which he managed by looking up at the sky and staying under the middle
of the ribbon of stars he could see, Lockley touched the brake and
stopped the car.

"What's the matter?" asked Jill, as he rummaged under the instrument
panel.

"I think," said Lockley, "that I must have damaged something in that
truck. Otherwise they'd have turned their beam on us just to get