quented, so I hit up my pace and began to draw in on his heels. Then all at once there opened out a splendid, long, soaring descent with one or two gentle rises, for the country here is in great undulations, like a big Pacific ground-swell. Better yet, there was a row of poplars on either side of the road.
"If I can only manage to chuck him into one of those," I thought, "I can see where the tide-water clam gets a new lease of life."
The time had come. I gave the big six the accelerator, then opened up the siren. "Wop—wop—Wow-ow," she went. Chu-Chu's mécanicien looked back, then said something to Chu-Chu. He swerved out, never slackening his speed, which must have been around sixty kilometres, while my gauge showed ninety-six—a mile a minute, just. We were soaring down a long three per cent. grade, and the poplar trunks flashing past like the palings of a fence. "If he gets out of this alive the joke is certainly on me," I thought, and gripped the wheel with all of the strength that was in me.
Down I rushed like an angel of death, the silencer open and the exhaust roaring like a gatling gun. Until almost up to him I kept well over to the left, then began to edge in. The mécanicien looked back over his shoulder, and as he saw me crowding them, yelled something in Chu-Chu's ear. Chu-Chu slid over, getting dangerously off the crown of the road and almost into the ditch. I followed him, working closer. I saw the mécanicien's mouth open in a yell and he flung out one arm. Ruthless as a greyhound at the side of a hare, I closed in on him, forging always ahead. My eyes never left the road, but I
