n which he
overtook Voles that he blurted out:

"I know you--you can't escape--there's the girl herself--I see her!"

"Hell!"

Voles urged on the car by foot and finger. After him pelted Petch, with
set teeth and straining eyes. The magnificent car, superb in its
energies, swept through the night like the fiery dragon of song and
fable, but with a speed never attained by dragon yet, else there would
be room on earth for nothing save dragons. And the motor-cycle leaped
and bounded close behind, stuttering its resolve to conquer the monster
in front.

The pair created a great commotion as they whirred past scattered houses
and emerged into the keen, cold air of the marshland. A few cars met en
route actually slowed up, and heads were thrust out to peer in wonder.
Women in them were scared, and enjoined drivers to be careful, while men
explained laughingly that a couple of joy-riders were being chased by a
motor "cop."

It was neck or nothing now for Voles, and when these alternatives
offered, he never hesitated as to which should be chosen. He knew he was
in desperate case.

The pace; the extraordinary appearance of a hatless man and a girl with
her hair streaming wild--for Winifred's abundant tresses had soon shed
all restraint of pins and twists before the tearing wind of their
transit--would create a tumult in Hoboken. Something must be done. He
must stop the car and shoot that pestiferous cyclist, who had sprung out
of the ground as though one of Medusa's teeth had lain buried there
throughout the ages, and become a panoplied warrior at a woman's cry.

He looked ahead. There was no car in sight. He peered over his shoulder.
There was no cyclist! Petch had not counted on this frenzied race, and
his petrol-tank was empty. He had pulled up disconsolately half a mile
away, and was now borrowing a gallon of gas from an Orange-bound car,
explaining excitedly that he was "after" a murderer!

Voles laughed. The fiend's luck, which seldom fails the fiend's
votaries, had come to his aid in a highly critical moment. There
remained Winifred. She, too, must be dealt with. Now, all who have
experienced the effect of an anesthetic will understand that after the
merely stupefying power of the gas has waned there follows a long period
of semi-hysteria, when actual existence is dreamlike, and impressions of
events are evanescent. Winifred, therefore, hardly appreciated what was
taking place until the car stopped abruptly, and