“A leetle more than twice the width of the car,” he guessed. “Say, old man,” Dick stepped eagerly toward the cowboy, “let me turn it, will you? Back East, one of the crazy things we did at school was to have contests on car turning. I was pretty durn good at it then. Could turn around on a dime, so to speak.” Still Jerry hesitated. “But you don’t know this car—” he began, when Dick interrupted swaggeringly, to try to make the girls think the feat would be less serious than it really would be. “Why, my dear vaquero, a wild car is as docile with me as a wild broncho would be with you—knows the master’s touch and all that.”
Then, as Jerry still hesitated, Dick leaped up under the wheel and called to the girls: “Stand back, if you please, and make room for the world famous—” the engine was starting, the car slowly turning. Dick did not finish his joking speech. He directed all his thought and skill to the turning of the car. There was a tense silence broken by Dora.
“Why, there was lots of room after all!” she cried admiringly.
“Gee whizzle!” Jerry had expected Dick to give up. “I reckon you didn’t rate yourself any too high when you were boasting about your skill.”
He helped Mary up to her seat, then took the place Dick had relinquished to climb in back with Dora. Slowly the small car started down the road which they had ascended hours before.
“What thrilling adventures and narrow escapes we have had today!” Dora exclaimed, loud enough for Jerry to hear.
“I reckon they’re not all over yet,” the cowboy replied,—then wished he had not spoken.
“What do you suppose Jerry means?” Dora asked in a low voice of Dick.
The boy’s first reply was a shrug of his shoulders. “Nothing, really; at least I don’t think he does.” Then, as they rounded an outflung curve in the road and he saw the dull yellow flying cloud far below them, Dick added, as though suddenly understanding, “Oho, I savvy. Jerry is thinking of the sand storm.”
“But, of course, it can’t climb the mountain and equally, of course, Jerry won’t run right out into it,” Dora said. Dick agreed, then asked: