IV
Shep and Whitford won the foursome against Bruce and Carroll, a result due to Whitford’s superior drives and Carroll’s bad putting. They were all in high humor when they returned to the clubhouse, chaffing one another about their skill as they dressed. Shep made a tour of the verandas, greeting his friends, answering questions as to Connie’s health. The four men were going in at once and Shep, who had driven Carroll out, suggested that he and Bruce change partners for the drive home.
“There are a few little points about the game I want to discuss with George,” he explained as they walked toward the parking sheds.
“All right,” Bruce assented cheerfully. “You birds needn’t be so set up; next week Carroll and I will give you the trimming of your young lives!”
“Ah, the next time!” Shep replied ironically, and drove away with Whitford beside him....
“Shep’s coming on; he’s matured a lot since he went into the trust company,” remarked Carroll, as he and Bruce followed Shep’s car.
“Good stuff in him,” said Bruce. “One of those natures that develops slowly. I never saw him quite as gay as he was this afternoon.”
“He was always a shy boy, but he’s coming out of that. I think his father was wise in taking him out of the battery plant.”
“No doubt,” Bruce agreed, his attention fixed on Shep’s car.
Shep had set a pace that Bruce was finding it difficult to maintain. Carroll presently commented upon the wild flight of the car ahead, which was cutting the turns in the road with reckless abandon, leaving a gray cloud behind.
“The honor of my car is at stake!” said Bruce grimly, closing his windshield against the dust.
“By George! If Shep wasn’t so abstemious you’d think he’d mixed alcohol with his gas,” Carroll replied. “What the devil’s got into him!”
“Maybe he wants a race,” Bruce answered uneasily, remembering Shep’s wild drive the night of their talk on the river. “There’s a bad turn at the creek just ahead—he can’t make it at that speed!”
Bruce stopped, thinking Shep might check his flight if he found he wasn’t pursued; but the car sped steadily on.
“Shep’s gone nutty or he’s trying to scare George,” said Carroll. “Go ahead!”
Bruce started his car at full speed, expecting that at any minute Shep would stop and explain that it was all a joke of some kind. The flying car was again in sight, careening crazily as it struck depressions in the roadbed.
“Oh, God!” cried Carroll, half-rising in his seat. Shep had passed a lumbering truck by a hair’s breadth, and still no abatement in his speed. Bruce heard a howl of rage as he swung his own car past the truck. A danger sign at the roadside gave warning of the short curve that led upward to the bridge, and Bruce clapped on his brakes. Carroll, on the running board, peering ahead through the dust, yelled, and as Bruce leaped out a crash ahead announced disaster. A second sound, the sound of a heavy body falling, greeted the two men as they ran toward the scene....
Shep’s car had battered through the wooden fence that protected the road where it curved into the wooden bridge and had plunged into the narrow ravine. Bruce and Carroll flung themselves down the steep bank and into the stream. Shep’s head lay across his arms on the wheel; Whitford evidently had tried to leap out before the car struck. His body, half out of the door, had been crushed against the fence, but clung in its place through the car’s flight over the embankment.