Half-way down was the Post Office, and on
the steps of it stood the postmistress and a policeman hard at work
conning a telegram. When they saw me they wakened up, and the
policeman advanced with raised hand, and cried on me to stop.
I nearly was fool enough to obey. Then it flashed upon me that
the wire had to do with me; that my friends at the inn had come to an
understanding, and were united in desiring to see more of me, and
that it had been easy enough for them to wire the description of me
and the car to thirty villages through which I might pass. I released
the brakes just in time. As it was, the policeman made a claw at the
hood, and only dropped off when he got my left in his eye.
I saw that main roads were no place for me, and turned into the
byways. It wasn't an easy job without a map, for there was the risk
of getting on to a farm road and ending in a duck-pond or a stable-
yard, and I couldn't afford that kind of delay. I began to see what
an ass I had been to steal the car. The big green brute would be the
safest kind of clue to me over the breadth of Scotland. If I left it
and took to my feet, it would be discovered in an hour or two and
I would get no start in the race.
The immediate thing to do was to get to the loneliest roads.
These I soon found when I struck up a tributary of the big river,
and got into a glen with steep hills all about me, and a corkscrew
road at the end which climbed over a pass.
Pages:
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69