"Bill!" he began.
"I heard it," Royce muttered. "An' I've heard it before! In a
minute----"
Royce broke off. The sound, stilled a second, came again, seeming
already much closer and more hideous. Steve's horse snorted and
plunged; some of the colts in the pasture flung up their heels and fled
with streaming manes and tails. Royce calmly filled and lighted his
pipe.
Stillness again for perhaps ten or twenty seconds. Steve, about to
demand an explanation from his companion, stared as once more came the
shrieking noise.
"You can hear the blame thing ten miles," grunted Royce. "It's only
about half that far away now. Keep your eye glued on the road across
the valley where it comes out'n Blue Bird Canon."
And then Steve understood. Into the clear air across the valley rose a
growing cloud of dust; through it, out of the canon's shadows and into
the sunlight, shot a glistening automobile, hardly more than a bright
streak as it sped along the curving down-grade.
"Terry Temple?" gasped young Packard. Royce merely grunted again.
"Jus' you watch," was all he said.
And, needing no invitation, Packard watched. The motor-car's siren--he
had never heard another like it, knew that such a thing would not be
tolerated in any of the world's traffic centres--sounded again a long,
wailing note which went across the valley in billowing echoes.
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