“We can never make that turn!” exclaimed Bob.
“I’m afraid not,” agreed Jerry.
They were all clinging to the sides of the car, while Ned gripped the steering wheel with a desperate hold.
“Look out for the turn!” cried the professor as they came to the sharp curve.
But, to the surprise of all, Ned, instead of shifting the wheel in at least an attempt to swing around the half circle kept straight on the course. The boy had resolved on another plan.
Directly in front of him, and to the left of the road was a big field of tall waving Pampas grass, the plumes nodding eight feet above the ground. It was shut off from the thoroughfare by a frail wooden fence.
“I’m going to steer into the grass!” cried Ned. “It’s our only chance!”
The next instant there was a splintering sound as the auto crashed through the fence, which offered no more resistance, because of the great speed, than a paper hoop does to a circus performer. Then it seemed to the travelers as though they had been plunged into a tossing, waving sea of grass.
The tall Pampas plumes and the stems wrapped themselves about the boys and the professor, almost choking them by the pollen that was shaken off. The feathery-like tops tickled them in the eyes, nose and mouth as, carried by the runaway auto, they were dashed through them.
But the grass had just the effect Ned had intended and hoped for. It clogged the wheels of the machine, and though soft, offered so much resistance that the machine soon began to slow down, as does a locomotive when it runs into a snow drift.