Within a half hour the two were off, Mr. Kendrick being quite as alert in the matter of dispatching business and getting under way toward fresh affairs as he had ever been.  It was with an expression of interested anticipation that the old man, wrapped from head to foot, took his place in the long, low-hung roadster, beneath the broad hood which Richard had raised, that his passenger might be as snug as possible.

For many miles the road was of macadam, and they bowled along at a rate which consumed the distance swiftly, though not too fast for Mr. Kendrick’s comfort.  Richard artfully increased his speed by fractional degrees, so that his grandfather, accustomed to being conveyed at a very moderate mileage about the city in his closed car, should not be startled by the sense of flight which he might have had if the young man had started at his usual break-neck pace.

They did not talk much, for Matthew Kendrick was habitually cautious about using his voice in winter air, and Richard was too engaged with the car and with his own thoughts to attempt to keep up a one-sided conversation.  More than once, however, a brief colloquy took place.  One of the last of these, before approaching their destination, was as follows: 

“Keeping warm, grandfather?”

“Perfectly, Dick, thanks to your foot-warmer.”

“Tired, at all?”

“Not a particle.  On the contrary, I find the air very stimulating.”

“I thought you would.  Wonderful day for March, isn’t it?”

“Unusually fine.”

“We’ll be there before you know it.  There’s one bad stretch of a couple of miles, beyond the turn ahead, and another just this side of Eastman, but Old Faithful here will make light work of ’em.  She could plough through a quicksand if she had to, not to mention spring mud to the hubs.”

“The car seems powerful,” said the old man, smiling behind his upturned fur collar.  “I suppose a young fellow like you wouldn’t be content with anything that couldn’t pull at least ten times as heavy a load as it needed to.”

“I suppose not,” laughed Richard.  “Though it’s not so much a question of a heavy load as of plenty of power when you want it, and of speed—­all the time.  Suppose we were being chased by wild Indians right now, grandfather.  Wouldn’t it be a satisfaction to walk away from them like—­this?”

The car shot ahead with a long, lithe spring, as if she had been using only a fraction of her power, and had reserves greater than could be reckoned.  Her gait increased as she flew down the long straightaway ahead until her speedometer on the dash recorded a pace with which the fastest locomotive on the track which ran parallel with the road would have had to race with wide-open throttle to keep neck to neck.  Richard had not meant to treat his grandfather to an exhibition of this sort, being well aware of the older man’s distaste for modern high speed, but the sight of the place where he was in the habit of racing with any passing train was too much for his young blood and love of swift flight, and he had covered the full two-mile stretch before he could bring himself to slow down to a more moderate gait.