"Oh, Dave, you'll get wet from the knees down!" cried Jessie, solicitously.
"Can't help it," he replied. "I can't see with the windshield closed."
The rumblings of thunder had increased, and now from over a distant hill came various streaks of lightning. The sky was much darker, and in order to see better, Dave turned on the electric lights. Looking back, those in the tonneau of the forward car saw that the Basswood machine was also lighted. By the time the top of the next hill was gained, a distance of fully a mile, the thunderstorm was on them in all its fury. The wind tore through the woods, sending leaves and small branches flying in all directions. From the north and the west came vivid flashes of lightning, followed by sharp claps of thunder, which rolled and rumbled across the hills and mountains.
"O dear, if we only had some place to stop!" cried Jessie, timorously.
"There isn't any sort of a building in sight," replied Dunston Porter, who had been looking on all sides for some time. "If there was I'd have Dave head for it pretty quick."
"According to the map we ought to be within a few miles of Simpson's Corners," said Roger. "How about it, Dave?"
"Just what I was thinking," answered our hero. "I was wondering if it wasn't on the other side of the next rise."
They were running along another small valley, at the end of which was a sharp turn to the left and a rise of several hundred feet. Here the downfall of rain had flooded the road for a considerable distance. Coming to this place Dave had to slow down, but he still kept on some power, not wishing to get stuck.
"Can you make it, Dave?" asked his uncle, anxiously, as the chains of the automobile ground deeply into the mud and loose stones.
"We've got to make it, Uncle Dunston!" cried the boy, grimly.