"He'll win, he'll win!" cried Clipperton. "The men in the motor-car see him. The cowboy is getting into the front seat alongside the driver. They can't head him! Hurrah for Motor Matt!" Hawley and those with him had seen the sliding streak rushing down from the hill and making for the canal. There was a scramble about the motor-car, a frantic cranking-up and jumping start on the high-gear. But it was plain to the two boys on the hill that Matt would pass the forks of the road before the car and its passengers could get there. Penny danced around excitedly. "Why did Hawley drop that man off at the bridge?" he fumed. "That's what I can't understand. That man at the bridge spells trouble with a big T. What's Hawley butting into this game for, anyway?" "He's been plunging on O'Day," answered Clip. "He knows O'Day loses if Matt gets to the park in time. Of course, he wants to stop him. Put two and two together, Penny." "That's right, Clip," explained Penny. "It's up to Matt, now." "Leave it to him. The game couldn't be in better hands." Then, with staring eyes, Clip and Penny watched the two dust flurries. The cloud kicked up by the _Comet_ passed the forks of the road a full minute ahead of the fog raised by the motor-car. "Three groans for Hawley!" chortled Clip. "But that man at the bridge," groaned Penny. "He sure is worrying me." CHAPTER XV. THE FLIGHT OF THE "COMET." Matt King was on his mettle. Phoenix was sixteen miles away, and he had, as he figured it, forty minutes to get there and make his way to the park. Could he do it? He _could_ and WOULD! The presence of Hawley in his crack machine added an element of danger, but Matt knew in his soul he could slide away from the motor-car as a jack-rabbit slips clear of a bounding greyhound. He saw the dust-fog of the coming car as he whirled past the forks of the road. It was jumping at him with terrific speed, and he saw the chauffeur and the cowboy in front of the big machine and Hawley in the tonneau, standing and leaning over their heads in his excitement and determination. If Matt got clear, Dirk Hawley stood to lose a lot of money; and to touch the gambler in his pocketbook was to touch him in his tenderest spot. Matt laughed as he rushed onward. He felt that the race was his, barring accidents; and the _Comet_ was brand-new, and careful handling made accidents a remote possibility. Seven horses were purring in the cylinders, whirling the racing tires, and showing heels such as seven horses never showed before. The steady murmur of the machine filled Matt's heart with exultation. He was flying, and the tires seemed scarcely to touch the ground they covered. Cactus, rock, greasewood brush shot toward him and were lost behind. At the start he was four miles from the bridge over the Arizona Canal; now the bridge lay before him at the foot of a long slope with a slight curve at the end. In two minutes he would be there!