beneath.  Achilles was not thinking of the pursuit, yelling behind him—­he had no thoughts—­only two eyes that held a car far in the distance, and two hands that gripped the wheel and drove hard, and prayed grimly.  If his eye lost that car!  It was turning now—­far ahead and his eye marked the place and held it—­fixed.  His car jolted and bumped.  Men swore and made way before him, and noted the hatless head, and looked behind—­and saw the police car—­and yelled aloud.  But no one saw him in time, and he was not stopped.  He had reached the corner where the car disappeared from sight, and he leaned forward, with careful turn, peering around the corner.  They were there—­yes!  He drove faster—­and the great, ugly car lifted itself and flung forward and settled to long sliding gait.  The car ahead turned again in the whirling traffic—­and turned again.  But Achilles’s eye did not lose its track... and they were out in the open at last—­the plain stretching before them—­no turn to left or right—­and the machine Achilles drove had no equal in the country.  But Achilles did not know his machine.  Good or bad, it must serve him and keep his men in sight—­but not too near—­not to frighten them!  They had turned now and were glancing back and they spoke quickly.  Then they looked again—­at the flying and hatless head—­and saw suddenly, on behind it, the service car leap softly around the corner into the white road.  They looked again—­and laughed.  They turned and dropped the matter.  “Some damn fool with a stolen car.”

XXVI

AND RACES FOR THE CLUE

Under the great bowl of sky, in the midst of the plain, the three cars held their level way—­three little racing dots in the big, clear place.  They kept an even course, swaying to the race on level wings that swept the ground and rose to the low swale and passed beyond.  Only the long free line of dust marked their flight under the sun.

The men at the front, in the car ahead, did not look back again.  They had lost interest in the race pressing behind—­most anxiously, they had lost interest in it.  They wished, with a fervent wish, that the two cars driving behind them should pass them in a swirl of dust—­and pass on out of sight—­toward the far horizon line that stretched the west.  They were only two market gardeners returning from business in the city.  If they drove a good car, it was to save time going and coming—­not to race with escaping fugitives and excited police.  They had no wish to race with excited police—­fervently they had no wish for it—­and they slackened speed a little, drawing freer breath.  Let the fellow pass them—­and his police with him—­before they reached a little, white, peaceful house that stood ahead on the plain.  They did not look behind at justice pursuing its prey... they had lost all interest in justice and in the race.  Presently, when justice should pass them, on full-spreading wing, they would look up with casual glance, and note its flight over the far line—­out of sight in the distant west.  But now they did not know of its existence.