“Why, I didn’t know about that sharp turn,” replied Jerry, “and I didn’t swing her around soon enough. She went right through that guard rail—it doesn’t amount to a toothpick, anyhow—and I got the brakes on her just in time. The lightning showed me where I was going. Otherwise we’d be down there at the bottom of the gulch, and——”
“Don’t talk about it!” begged Ned, with an involuntary shudder. “It’s too horrible!”
For a moment the three motor boys stood in the storm, their faces, each time it lightened, showing the fear they felt at their narrow escape.
Then Bob spoke.
“What are we going to do?” he asked. “We can’t stay here all night in this rain.”
“I don’t see what else we’re going to do,” Jerry answered. “We don’t want to desert the car, and we don’t want to go to sleep in her. She might come loose any moment. Guess we’ll have to camp out here, and make the best of it. ’Twon’t be the first time we’ve roughed it.”
“No, but I don’t see any necessity for it,” spoke Ned. “We have a strong rope in the tool box—a wire cable—and we can take a turn about the rear axle with that, and fasten it to a tree. Then the car can’t slide over, especially if we put plenty of blocking stones in front of the wheels. In fact we could brace the car up enough so that it would be safe to stay in her.”
“Hardly that,” said Jerry. “We’d have a nightmare, give a jump and start her going, I’m thinking. But maybe we can fasten it with the wire rope so that she will be safe until morning. Let’s try, anyhow. Then we can take the robes, and our raincoats, and make a sort of shelter in the woods. If we only had something to eat it wouldn’t be so bad. I wonder if we could find a place where we could get a bite?”
“I—I’ve got some lunch stowed away,” said Bob, half apologetically, as though he feared being censured. “I thought maybe we’d get hungry before supper, so I brought along some grub, and there’s a vacuum bottle of coffee with it. That ought to be hot.”