Chapter 8 ON THE DIVIDE.

It was five minutes to three, and there were fifty miles of ca?on and up-and-down trail over the divide to be covered. This meant that Motor Matt must average twenty-five miles an hour for the next two hours. In favorable parts of the trail he must do better than that, to off-set losses of time where the going was most difficult.

The bed of the ca?on was strewn with boulders, ranging in size from a bucket to a hogshead. The road was plainly marked, but the last freshet had sprinkled it with stones, large and small.

Mountain-wagons, constructed for service in such sections of the country, were hauled over the smallest of the boulders, and where the largest were met, and could not be avoided by a detour, the driver of the wagon got out and rolled them away.

As Clip had said, however, the trail was impassable for automobiles. A high-wheel wagon could bump and jerk its way over the stones, but a low-wheel car with pneumatic tires would not have lasted half an hour in the ca?on, nor have traversed a mile of it.

On the other hand, the narrow tread of a motor-cycle enabled it to dodge the rocks, leaving the trail only at points where the rocks were so close together the machine could not get between them.

But sharp eyes, a firm hand, and unerring judgment were needed for every foot of the way. This, of course, made anything like the best speed impossible.

For several miles Matt weaved his way in and out, speeding up on the comparatively clear stretches, and slowing down for places where the most obstacles were encountered. The avoiding of sharp stones and boulders at last became almost mechanical. With his gaze on the road immediately in advance, his hands instinctively turned the Comet right or left, as the exigencies of the case demanded.

When he could spare a little of his attention from the running of the machine, his thoughts reverted to Clipperton and his heart saddened with the hurt pride smoldering in Clip's eyes when they had parted in the notch.

Clip's uncle-his mother's brother, most probably-was a half-breed and a member of Dangerfield's gang. How Clip's sensitive soul must have recoiled from confessing the truth to Matt! And yet Clip had been manly enough to face the issue, and Matt liked him all the better for it.

"What a fellow's people are," thought Matt, "don't amount to a picayune; it's what the fellow is himself that counts. But it was tough on Clip to run into a relative and find him passing smoke-signals along for that prince of rascals, Dangerfield. And then, it was pretty near the last straw to have that relative roll a stone down the bank and put Clip out of the running. I don't blame him for getting worked up."

A study of the speedometer showed Matt that he was not averaging more than twenty miles an hour. This worried him. The necessity for doing better than that was vital to the success of his mission, and yet, without great risk to his machine, he did not see how he was going to accomplish it. Hoping constantly for a better piece of road, he pushed doggedly on.

The walls of the ca?on were wide apart and high. They formed themselves into pinnacles, and turrets, and parapets, and a fanciful mind could easily liken them to the walls of a castle. From these features of the ca?on it had, no doubt, derived its name of "Castle Creek."

A stream flowed through the defile, but a stranger would not have discovered this from a casual survey of the ca?on's bed. The stream was like most water-courses in Arizona, and flowed under the sand and next to the bed-rock. Here and there, at irregular intervals, the water appeared in pools, pushed to the surface by a lifting of the underlying rock.

Once Matt halted to snatch a drink from one of the diminutive ponds, but in less than a minute he was astride the Comet again and pushing resolutely onward.

Here and there he passed a "flat," or level stretch of earth, brought down by the waters from above and lodged in some bend of the gulch. These flats were free from stones and covered with a scant growth of cottonwoods and pi?ons.

Some time was gained by riding across these level, unobstructed stretches.

A little more than half an hour after leaving the notch, Matt passed a flat that lay at the foot of a gully running into the ravine. There was an adobe house on the flat, a corral, and other evidences of a rather extensive ranch. A man was standing in front of the house as Matt hurried past. He was staring at the motor-cycle like a person in a trance.

"What place is this?" called Matt, as he went by.

"Hot Springs," the rancher called back. "What sort of a contraption y'u got thar, anyways?"

Matt told him, but probably the backwoodsman was not very much enlightened.

North of Hot Springs the road was tolerably clear for several miles, and the Comet leaped along it at top speed. When near the end of the good going, the road forked, a branch entering a gap in the right-hand wall and climbing steeply toward the top.

Matt's heart gave a bound.

"Here's where I take the divide!" he muttered, swerving the Comet into the opening and giving it every ounce of power for the climb. "Now for Potter's Gap and Sheriff Burke."

Up and up went the trail, twisting back and forth in long horseshoe curves. But for those curves, no wagon could ever have scaled that frightful ascent. In places the road had seemingly been blasted out of a sheer wall, and it was so narrow that a wagon would have had to rub against the cliff-face in order to keep the opposite wheels from slipping over the dizzy brink.

Matt's view of the ca?on and of the surrounding hills opened as he ascended. He had not much time for the view, however, for when he was not peering at the trail, or catching a look at the face of his watch, he was studying the speedometer. It was after four o'clock, and he was making barely four miles an hour!

Higher and higher he climbed, coming steadily nearer to the top of the divide. A light breeze fanned his face, and all around him he could see mountain peaks pushing upward into the clear blue sky. Only the chug-chug of his laboring motor-cycle broke the stillness. Probably never before, since time began, had those hills echoed with the puffing of a steel horse.

At last the climbing trail dipped into a level tangent just below the top of the mountain. After a straight-away run of a hundred yards, it coiled serpentlike around the mountain's crest.

On Matt's left was a broken granite wall running vertically to the top of the peak; on his right was a chasm, falling hundreds of feet into a gloomy gulch. Between the chasm and the wall ran the ribbon of road, eroded in places by wind and weather until it had a perceptible slant outward.

A skidding of the wheels, the relaxation for an instant of a cool, steady grip on the handlebars, or a sudden attack of dizziness would have hurled the young courier into eternity.

In that hazardous place speed was not to be thought of. "Slow and sure" had to be Matt's motto. He finished the tangent and began rounding the curve. In no place on that fearsome bend was the road visible for more than a dozen feet ahead.

While he was avoiding the fissures, and carefully picking his way around the curve, a savage growl broke suddenly on his ears. With racing pulses, he lifted his eyes and saw a huge dog crouching in the path before him.

The dog was a Great Dane, big enough and seemingly savage enough for a bear. While Matt stared, and wondered how and why the dog happened to be there, a man in a blue shirt, sombrero, and with trousers tucked in his boot-tops, emerged suddenly from behind a shoulder of rock. He carried a club, and a look of intense satisfaction crossed his face as he came in sight of Matt.

"Take him, Bolivar!" yelled the man, and Motor Matt was brought suddenly face to face with unexpected peril.

With a vicious snarl, the dog lifted his great body into the air and plunged toward the Comet. Matt had come to a quick stop, disengaging his right foot from the toe-clip and bracing the motor-cycle upright. He had time for no more than to throw his left arm over his face, when the dog struck him.

The impact of the brute's body was terrific. Matt went down, with the motor-cycle on top of him, head and shoulders over the brink of the precipice.

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