Gerard nodded, and crossed the narrow road with an unexpected turn that drew a baffled explosion from the checked car behind. A brass nut smacked the Mercury's gasoline tank. It was not difficult to imagine Corrie's excited tempest of defeat, to those who knew him.
"The turn's ahead—we'll call it off there," Gerard answered mirthfully. "Give her some oil."
The two cars were rushing down the last half-mile of straight road. Rupert was stooping to reach the oil pump when the pink car made its final attempt to pass and was again forced back, but across his outstretched arm he glanced up to Gerard, and glimpsed the last flying missile as it came.
"Duck!" he shouted harshly, "Look out——"
There was no time for action. As Gerard turned his head, the heavy steel wrench struck him below the right temple. Even Rupert's swiftness was too slow; the driver fell forward across his steering-wheel before the mechanician could snatch it from the inert grasp. With a lurch the speeding Mercury caught in a rut, swerved from the road and, leaping a yard-high embankment, crashed through a row of trees to roll over and over like a broken toy, scattering splintered wreckage over the farmhouse enclosure beyond.
The light breeze of half an hour earlier had freshened and gained strength, the pale-gray sky was changing to delicate blue. When the horrified knot of reporters and motor enthusiasts from the nearby Westbury corner swarmed into the orchard to join the pale-faced farmer already there, the sun emerged brilliantly from a bank of clouds, glinting across the heap of twisted metal and the still figure that lay beneath it, illumining the dishevelled, gasping mechanician who struggled dizzily to rise from where he had been flung to safety, fifty feet from the wreck.
It is difficult for any group of men, however willing, to work without a leader. While the inexperienced rescuers stood hesitating on the verge of action, Corrie Rose in his pink racing costume sprang up the bank, his blue eyes burning in his white face, his lips stained with blood where his teeth had bitten through.
"Get those logs, over there," he commanded savagely. "The car's got to be jacked up. Hurry up—do you want him to die under there? Jump!"
His fiery energy ran through the men with a vivifying shock. Torpor transformed to animation, the grim work was attacked. Under Corrie's brief orders they scattered in search of the logs, a telephone, and such aid as the place afforded. The farmer's wife assumed charge of the semi-conscious Rupert, for whom no one else had time.
Into the prim, staid country parlor they carried Gerard, fifteen minutes later, and laid him on a horse-hair couch under a square-framed lithograph of The Trial of John Knox. A plush photograph album was jostled on its marble table by the driver's shattered mask and a glove upon whose wrist still clung and ticked his miniature watch, the flowered carpet was trampled under the heedless feet and streaked with dull red here and there.