Bronson looked over at Bell, who wore a short leather jacket and jodhpur riding pants with boots. He wore goggles but no helmet, preferring to hear the beat of the engine. There was a look of unfathomable concentration about him. He looked relentlessly determined to beat Cromwell at his own game. Bronson had never seen anyone with such fierce, decisive resolve. He turned away and studied his map.

Then he tapped Bell on the shoulder.

“There is a fork in the road coming up. Veer left. The road is better inland than along the coast. At this rate, Salinas will come up in another hour. After that, Soledad.”

“How’s our time?” Bell asked without taking his hands from the wheel and digging out his pocket watch.

“Ten past eleven,” Bronson answered over the exhaust. “Without knowing how fast we’re going, I have no way of knowing how much time, if any, we’ve gained on Cromwell’s train.”

Bell nodded in understanding. “The auto does not have a speedometer or a tachometer, but I’d guess our speed to be over ninety miles an hour.”

Bronson had been slowly becoming attuned to the wind rushing against his face, the telegraph poles streaking past at lightning speed. But then a stretch of road became violently rough and rutted, and Bronson soon realized what it would be like inside the rattle of a maddened sidewinder. He clutched the arm of his seat in a death grip with one hand and gamely worked the fuel pump with the other.

They hurtled over the narrow, rolling farm road and crossed into Monterey County before coming to the agricultural community of Salinas. The farmland along the sides of the road was strikingly beautiful, turning green under the spring sun.

Fortunately, the main road through town was quiet, with only one or two automobiles and a few horse-drawn wagons parked along the sidewalks. People heard the booming bellow of the Locomobile’s exhaust as it crossed the city limits.

They turned and looked speechlessly as the big fire red machine shot through the business section of town. They had no time to indulge their curiosity before the hard-charging machine was heading into the open country to the south.

“What’s the next town?” asked Bell.

Bronson consulted his map. “Soledad.”

“How far?

“About twenty-five miles. We’d better fill the tank there, because it’s a good two hundred miles to the next major town.” He turned and looked at the huge cylindrical brass tank mounted behind the seats. “How much does it hold?”

“Forty-five gallons.”

“They should have a garage in Soledad that services automobiles and farm machinery.”

The words were no sooner out of Bronson’s mouth than the left rear tire went flat after striking a sharp rock in the road. The Locomobile fishtailed for a hundred yards before Bell brought it under control and braked it to a stop.