means be found to
unmask the secret of this terrible chauffeur.

Moreover, it was not only Pennsylvania that served as the theater of
his sportive eccentricities. The police reported his appearance in
other states; in Kentucky near Frankfort; in Ohio near Columbus; in
Tennessee near Nashville; in Missouri near Jefferson; and finally in
Illinois in the neighborhood of Chicago.

The alarm having been given, it became the duty of the authorities to
take steps against this public danger. To arrest or even to halt an
apparition moving at such speed was scarcely practicable. A better
way would be to erect across the roads solid gateways with which the
flying machine must come in contact sooner or later, and be smashed
into a thousand pieces.

"Nonsense!" declared the incredulous. "This madman would know well
how to circle around such obstructions."

"And if necessary," added others, "the machine would leap over the
barriers."

"And if he is indeed the devil, he has, as a former angel, presumably
preserved his wings, and so he will take to flight."

But this last was but the suggestion of foolish old gossips who did
not stop to study the matter. For if the King of Hades possessed a
pair of wings, why did he obstinately persist in running around on
the earth at the risk of crushing his own subjects, when he might
more easily have hurled himself through space as free as a bird.

Such was the situation when, in the last week of May, a fresh event
occurred, which seemed to show that the United States was indeed
helpless in the hands of some unapproachable monster. And after the
New World, would not the Old in its turn, be desecrated by the mad
career of this remarkable automobilist?

The following occurrence was reported in all the newspapers of the
Union, and with what comments and outcries it is easy to imagine.

A race was to be held by the automobile Club of Wisconsin, over the
roads of that state of which Madison is the capital. The route laid
out formed an excellent track, about two hundred miles in length,
starting from Prairie-du-chien on the western frontier, passing by
Madison and ending a little above Milwaukee on the borders of Lake
Michigan. Except for the Japanese road between Nikko and Namode,
bordered by giant cypresses, there is no better track in the world
than this of Wisconsin. It runs straight and level as an arrow for
sometimes fifty miles at a stretch. Many and noted were the machines
entered for