“Nothing bigger than a rabbit, I guess,” agreed their neighbor.
“Well—”
Neale increased the speed of the car again, turned a blind corner, and struck a soft place in the road before he could stop. Having no skidding chains on the rear wheels of course, the car was out of control in an instant. It slued around. Agnes screamed. Mr. Pinkney shouted his alarm.
The car slid over the bank of the ditch beside the road and both right wheels sank in mud and water to the hubs.
“Some pretty mess—I’ll tell the world!” groaned Neale O’Neil, shutting off the engine, while Agnes clung to his arm grimly to keep from sliding out into the ditch, too.
“Now, you have done it!” shrilled the girl.
“Thanks. Many thanks. I expected you to say that, Aggie,” he replied.
“M-mm! Well, I don’t suppose you meant to—”
“No use worrying about how it was done or who did it,” interposed Mr. Pinkney, briskly getting out of the tonneau on the left side. “The question is, how are we going to right the car and get under way again?”
“A truer word was never spoken,” agreed Neale O’Neil. “Come on, Agnes. We’ll creep out on this side, too. That’s it. Looks to me, Mr. Pinkney, as though we should need a couple of good, strong levers to pry up the wheels. You and I can do that while Agnes gets in under the wheel and manipulates the mechanism, as it were.”