A MOMENT OF PERIL
"This is the life!"
"That's right, Tom. This kind of touring suits me to death," returned Sam Rover.
"Tom, how many miles an hour are you making?" broke in his wife. "Remember what you promised me—that you would keep within the limit of the law."
"And that is just what I am doing, Nellie," he answered. "But it's mighty hard to do it, believe me, when you are at the wheel of such a fine auto as this. Why, I could send her ahead twice as fast if I wanted to!"
"Don't you dare!" burst out Grace, who sat in the tonneau beside her sister. "If you do I'll make you let Sam drive."
"He's got to let me drive anyway after dinner," said the youngest Rover boy. "That's the arrangement."
It was the second day of the tour, and Valley Brook Farm, and in fact the whole central portion of New York State, had been left far behind. The weather had turned out perfect, and so far they had encountered very little in the way of bad roads. Once they had had to make a detour of two miles on account of a new bridge being built, but otherwise they had forged straight ahead.
Tom and his wife, with Grace and Sam, occupied the first automobile, the remaining space in the roomy tonneau being taken up by various suitcases and other baggage. Behind this car came the one driven by Dick Rover. Beside him was his wife, with Mrs. Stanhope and Mrs. Laning behind them. Some distance to the rear was the third machine, a brand-new runabout, containing Chester Waltham and his sister Ada. Waltham had at first wished to take the lead, but had then dropped behind, stating he did not wish to get the others to follow him on any wrong road.
"You go ahead," he had said to the Rovers. "Then if you go wrong you will have only yourselves to blame."