“This is the first thing to do!” she cried, holding it up triumphantly. “If we can get it under the car, and make the car rise up in the air, the hardest part will be done.”
Daisy placed the tool upon the ground under the front axle, and began to work the lever. But the attempts at raising it into the higher notches proved all in vain; each time she lifted it up, it slipped back again the minute she released her hold. She gazed at Florence in despair.
“It won’t work!” she exclaimed, resigning her position to the other girl. “I wish you’d try it!”
“Maybe it’s broken,” remarked Florence dolefully.
“No, I don’t believe so. Only there’s some trick to it—”
Florence took Daisy’s place now, and began to manipulate the obstinate tool, and found it just as disobliging for her as it had been for her companion. She did not even attempt to conceal her distress; in fact she looked so mournful that the occupants of a passing car would not have been human had they not stopped to offer assistance.
“Puncture?” inquired a pleasant voice behind them, and a middle-aged man drew up his car beside the road. “Perhaps I can help?”
Both girls looked up eagerly and noted with bitterness that this man was just the sort from whom one might accept assistance, had it not been for the conditions of the journey. Florence hesitated a moment, as if she could not decide how to word the refusal, so as to make it seem courteous. At last she determined to tell the truth.
“I’m awfully sorry,” she explained, “but we are crossing the continent with a party of girls who have pledged themselves not to accept help from men along the road. It’s—it’s hard, too, for we don’t know much about automobiles!” There was a little catch in her voice as she concluded.
A whimsical smile came over the face of the stranger and he glanced stealthily at the woman beside him.