"Peter," said Mrs. Crane, rather nervously, when her patient, elderly brother had climbed out for the fourth time to pull long ropes of tangled weeds out of the wheels, "don't you think we'd better give up and turn back? It's getting worse and worse."
"No," returned Mr. Black, "I don't. I started out to look at that land and I'm going to find it. Besides, Timothy Burbank drove over this road this spring and he says it's open all the way to Barclay's Point—my place is a mile this side of Barclay's."
"But Timothy rode in a buckboard."
"He said he guessed the Whale could make it and I've no reason to doubt his word. Anyhow, we're going on—we're so muddy now that a little more won't hurt us; and there's one comfort; there are no steep precipices on this road for us to tumble from."
It was fortunate, too, that Mr. Black carried a hatchet, because several times it became necessary to chop fallen trees—luckily they were small ones—out of the road; and once it was necessary to repair a broken bridge; but the girls, who helped with that, thoroughly enjoyed the task. Occasionally, the Whale was obliged to ford a certain small river that crossed the road an astonishing number of times. Also, with increasing frequency, Mr. Black was obliged to crawl under the car to see what was the matter with the machinery; but, on the whole, the Whale behaved surprisingly well.
Presently the road which, up to that moment, had stretched mainly toward the north, turned sharply toward the east.
"Ah!" breathed Mr. Black, with a deep sigh of satisfaction. "Timothy says our place is just three miles from this turn. Does anybody want to go back now?"
Nobody did, so the Whale pushed on; and, wonder of wonders! For a whole delightful mile the road was good, alluringly good. The big car fairly pranced with pleasure, and all the passengers settled back comfortably against the cushions. But after that one deceiving mile! Never was there a more discouraging stretch of road—if it were road. Sunken boulders, slime-covered water, deep black mud, rotting corduroy, jutting logs, weed-grown swamp. The Whale's passengers were jounced and jolted, spattered and scratched. Low-growing branches slapped their faces and reached maliciously for unguarded tresses. Altogether, this final two miles of wilderness surpassed all the rest—suppose there were no bottom to that mud! Even Henrietta was too frightened for speech.
Finally the Whale, with a last despairing gasp that died away to an alarming silence, refused to go a single inch farther.