"See here, I hope you don't think I'll drive that thing in the races," Cooper said after a time. "I wouldn't do it for a gold mine. You'll have to do it." "I should say not!" Ford retorted. "I won't take the responsibility of driving her at full speed to win every race that was ever run. Cooper, if that car ever gets really started it will kill somebody, sure." CHAPTER XX CLINGING TO A PRINCIPLE Ford and Cooper regarded the juggernaut car for some time in meditative silence. "Well, I guess you've built a real racer there, all right," Cooper said admiringly. "Yes, it looks as if I had," Ford answered. "The question is, what good is it? Is there a man on earth who'd try to drive it?" "Well, I've got some nerve myself, and I don't want to," Cooper admitted. He walked around the car and then looked again at the engine. "How fast would the darn thing go, I wonder?" he said. "Get in and try her," Ford suggested. Cooper climbed in, Ford cranked the engine, and again sleeping Detroit jumped from its bed. The car leaped and shot down the avenue. When it roared back again Cooper stopped it in the middle of the street. "That settles it for me," he said. "She must have made forty miles an hour, and she wasn't half running, at that. I won't take her out on the track." They confronted the situation gloomily. Couzens was depending on the success of the car at the races to bring his men in line for the organization of a company; here was the car, built at the cost of months of work and some hundreds of Cooper's money, and it developed such speed that it was not safe to enter it for the race. Suddenly Cooper had an idea. "See here! I know a man--if there's a man on earth who would take that car out he's the one!" he said. "He isn't afraid of anything under the shining sun--a bicycle rider I raced against in Denver. Oldfield's his name--Barney Oldfield." "Never heard of him," said Ford. "But if you think he would drive this car let's get hold of him. Where is he?" "He ought to be in Salt Lake now," Cooper answered. "I'll wire him." The message went to Oldfield that night. Couzens was told of the situation, and the three men waited anxiously for a telegram from Salt Lake. It came late the next day, asking some further questions about the car and stating that Oldfield had never driven an automobile. Cooper wired again. The track meeting was to be held the next month. Time was short. Oldfield, if he came, would have to learn every detail of handling the machine. Even with an experienced man, the danger of driving that car in the races was great. Cooper and Ford haunted the telegraph offices. At last the final reply came. Oldfield would drive the car. He would arrive on the 1st of June, exactly one week before the date of the race.