CHAPTER XVI—THE DEAD END OF NOWHERE
Mr. Pinkney and Neale went to work to hoist the motor-car into the road again. No easy nor brief struggle was this. A dozen times Agnes started the car and the wheels slipped off the poles or Neale or Mr. Pinkney lost his grip.
Before long they were well bespattered with mud (for there was considerable water in the ditch) and so was the automobile. Neale and their neighbor worked to the utmost of their muscular strength, and Agnes was in tears.
“Pluck up your courage, Aggie,” panted her boy friend. “We’ll get it yet.”
“I just feel that it is my fault,” sobbed the girl. “All this slipping and sliding. If I could only just get it to start right—”
“Again!” cried Neale cheerfully.
And this time the forewheels really got on solid ground. Mr. Pinkney thrust his lever in behind the sloughed hind wheel and blocked it from sliding back.
“Great!” yelled Neale. “Once more, Aggie!”
She obeyed his order, and although the automobile engine rattled a good deal and the car itself plunged like a bucking broncho, they finally got all the wheels out of the mud and on the firm road.
“Crickey!” gasped Neale. “It looks like a battlefield.”