“Kink in my back—strained it someways. Oh, I can drive all right, but I was wonderin’ what I’d do if I had to get out to crank her. But you can go back with me, and it’ll be all right.”
It was after five o’clock when they started, with a little rain falling once more. They both sat in the front seat; the curtains were all closed, and the satchel containing the bank roll was wedged tightly between them on the seat.
Williams drove cautiously, squirming occasionally as he wrenched his lame back. Lockwood offered to take the wheel, but the foreman refused; he said he was used to this kind of road. But they had to proceed at the slowest pace to get any sort of security; at every turning the car skated sideways, and once almost turned end for end.
Even more dangerous were the hollows, where the mud was deep, almost bottomless, it seemed. There was a chance of being “bogged down,” so that it would take a team of mules to free the car. The creeks were up, too, spreading widely out of their channels, and occasionally an overflow crossed the road, so that they splashed through it half-hub deep for a hundred yards.
The rain increased a little. It was plainly going to get dark early.
“Got to get on faster than this,” said Williams. “I wouldn’t like to get caught in the dark, with the roads this way.”
He increased the pace, taking chances, escaping accidents by a continually narrow margin. It was not more than five or six miles to the camp now; he began to recognize familiar landmarks. But it was one of the very worst bits of road, and they were driving slowly through a sea of liquid-yellow slime, when a man came out from the trees, a little ahead, with the evident intention of speaking to them.
Lockwood thought he wanted a lift, a thing usual enough. He wore a long, waterproof coat to his ankles, the high collar turned up to his nose, and a dripping, black hat pulled down to his eyes. Hardly an inch of his face could be seen. Williams slowed the car almost to a stop, to let him aboard. The man stepped on the running board, and pushed his head and shoulders through the curtains, with his hand thrust forward.
“Hand out that money you’re carryin’!” he said in a hoarse, obviously disguised voice.
Lockwood put his hands up. Williams sat as if petrified, still holding the wheel, and the car came to a dead stop in the mud. The bandit reached far in and grasped the black satchel from the seat between his victims.