As
on the outward race, Patricia was staring straight ahead, and giving
the little car every throb of speed there was in its machinery. None the
less, he could see that she had it under perfect control.
What finally happened came with the suddenness of the thunder-clap
following a bolt which strikes near at hand. They were on the down-grade
approach to the mouth of Shonoho Canyon, and they could not see beyond
the gentle curve to the left, where the smaller gulch found its
intersection with the main ravine. When they were within a hundred yards
of the curve the stretch below came into view. Blount had a momentary
glimpse of some barrier--a pine-tree, as it proved to be--lying across
the main road. Seeing it, he realized at the same instant that Patricia
was neither throttling the motor nor applying the brakes. After that he
had barely time to snap the switch and to throw the heavy wind-shield
down before the devastating crash came.
XXVIII
THE GOSSIPING WIRES
After his son had left him, the Honorable Senator Sage-Brush remained
standing before the library fire until he heard the machine-gun exhausts
of the small roadster distance-diminishing down the driveway avenue.
Then he stepped aside and pressed the bell-push ordinarily used to
summon the old negro footman.
In answer to the call a door opened beyond the chimney-jamb, and
immediately the gentle twig-tapping sounds resolved themselves into the
clickings of a pair of telegraph relays and the chatter of a typewriter.
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