CHAPTER VIII.
ON THE DIVIDE.
It was five minutes to three, and there were fifty miles of canyon andup-and-down trail over the divide to be covered. This meant that MotorMatt must average twenty-five miles an hour for the next two hours. Infavorable parts of the trail he must do better than that, to off-setlosses of time where the going was most difficult.
The bed of the canyon was strewn with boulders, ranging in size from abucket to a hogshead. The road was plainly marked, but the last freshethad sprinkled it with stones, large and small.
Mountain-wagons, constructed for service in such sections of thecountry, were hauled over the smallest of the boulders, and where thelargest were met, and could not be avoided by a detour, the driver ofthe 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 alow-wheel car with pneumatic tires would not have lasted half an hourin the canyon, nor have traversed a mile of it.
On the other hand, the narrow tread of a motor-cycle enabled it tododge the rocks, leaving the trail only at points where the rocks wereso close together the machine could not get between them.
But sharp eyes, a firm hand, and unerring judgment were needed forevery foot of the way. This, of course, made anything like the bestspeed impossible.
For several miles Matt weaved his way in and out, speeding up on thecomparatively clear stretches, and slowing down for places where themost obstacles were encountered. The avoiding of sharp stones andboulders at last became almost mechanical. With his gaze on the roadimmediately 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 themachine, his thoughts reverted to Clipperton and his heart saddenedwith the hurt pride smoldering in Clip's eyes when they had parted inthe notch.
Clip's uncle--his mother's brother, most probably--was a half-breed anda member of Dangerfield's gang. How Clip's sensitive soul must haverecoiled from confessing the truth to Matt! And yet Clip had been manlyenough 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 apicayune; it's what the fellow is himself that counts. But it was toughon Clip to run into a relative and find him passing smoke-signals alongfor that prince of rascals, Dangerfield. And then, it was pretty nearthe last straw to have that relative roll a stone down the bank and putClip 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 morethan twenty miles an hour. This worried him. The necessity for doingbetter 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 toaccomplish it. Hoping constantly for a better piece of road, he pusheddoggedly on.
The walls of the canyon were wide apart and high. They formed themselvesinto pinnacles, and turrets, and parapets, and a fanciful mind couldeasily liken them to the walls of a castle. From these features of thecanyon it had, no doubt, derived its name of "Castle Creek."
A stream flowed through the defile, but a stranger would not havediscovered this from a casual survey of the canyon's bed. The stream waslike most water-courses in Arizona, and flowed _under the sand_ andnext to the bed-rock. Here and there, at irregular intervals, the waterappeared in pools, pushed to the surface by a lifting of the underlyingrock.
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 pushingresolutely onward.
Here and there he passed a "flat," or level stretch of earth, broughtdown 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 ofcottonwoods and pinons.
Some time was gained by riding across these level, unobstructedstretches.
A little more than half an hour after leaving the notch, Matt passeda flat that lay at the foot of a gully running into the ravine. Therewas an adobe house on the flat, a corral, and other evidences of arather extensive ranch. A man was standing in front of the house asMatt hurried past. He was staring at the motor-cycle like a person in atrance.
"What place is this?" called Matt, as he went by.
"Hot Springs," the rancher called back. "What sort of a contraption y'ugot thar, anyways?"
Matt told him, but probably the backwoodsman was not very muchenlightened.
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 thegood going, the road forked, a branch entering a gap in the right-handwall 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. "Nowfor Potter's Gap and Sheriff Burke."
Up and up went the trail, twisting back and forth in long horseshoecurves. But for those curves, no wagon could ever have scaled thatfrightful ascent. In places the road had seemingly been blasted outof a sheer wall, and it was so narrow that a wagon would have had torub against the cliff-face in order to keep the opposite wheels fromslipping over the dizzy brink.
Matt's view of the canyon and of the surrounding hills opened as heascended. He had not much time for the view, however, for when he wasnot 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 wasmaking barely four miles an hour!
Higher and higher he climbed, coming steadily nearer to the top of thedivide. A light breeze fanned his face, and all around him he couldsee mountain peaks pushing upward into the clear blue sky. Only the_chug-chug_ of his laboring motor-cycle broke the stillness. Probablynever before, since time began, had those hills echoed with the puffingof a steel horse.
At last the climbing trail dipped into a level tangent just below thetop of the mountain. After a straight-away run of a hundred yards, itcoiled serpentlike around the mountain's crest.
On Matt's left was a broken granite wall running vertically to the topof the peak; on his right was a chasm, falling hundreds of feet into agloomy gulch. Between the chasm and the wall ran the ribbon of road,eroded in places by wind and weather until it had a perceptible slantoutward.
A skidding of the wheels, the relaxation for an instant of a cool,steady grip on the handlebars, or a sudden attack of dizziness wouldhave 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 thecurve. In no place on that fearsome bend was the road visible for morethan a dozen feet ahead.
While he was avoiding the fissures, and carefully picking his wayaround the curve, a savage growl broke suddenly on his ears. Withracing pulses, he lifted his eyes and saw a huge dog crouching in thepath before him.
The dog was a Great Dane, big enough and seemingly savage enough fora bear. While Matt stared, and wondered how and why the dog happenedto be there, a man in a blue shirt, sombrero, and with trousers tuckedin his boot-tops, emerged suddenly from behind a shoulder of rock. Hecarried a club, and a look of intense satisfaction crossed his face ashe came in sight of Matt.
"Take him, Bolivar!" yelled the man, and Motor Matt was broughtsuddenly face to face with unexpected peril.
With a vicious snarl, the dog lifted his great body into the air andplunged toward the _Comet_. Matt had come to a quick stop, disengaginghis 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, whenthe dog struck him.
The impact of the brute's body was terrific. Matt went down, with themotor-cycle on top of him, head and shoulders over the brink of theprecipice.