“Is there nothing I can do for you?” she asked. “If I can go with you in the motor boat, or if there is anything I can do for you while you are gone—tell me, and I’ll be more than glad to be of service.”
“There isn’t a thing you can do—now—Minnie. God and the doctor have put everything into my hands. The Rocket must make her real race to-night—for the life of dad. And mother and Helen! Oh, what will they find when they reach here! Lanky has gone ahead to get the Rocket out. I’m going now—every minute means something. The doctor says it’s life or death.”
There was the drama which is forced upon people frequently in this life. A pleasure craft, given to be a thing for joy only, trimmed and tried for its foremost activity in the ownership of Frank Allen—the race against the Speedaway—was now called into action by the Fates to race against the greatest contestant in the activities of life—Death.
Yet Frank, still not quite out of the realm of dreams, still suffering the rude shock of the news which the doctor had given to him, comprehended mentally something of the awful tragedy which he faced or which faced him, but the body was unwilling to act in unison with the demands of the moment.
It is not a simple thing to be told, without warning of any kind, to be told with words that come as scathingly and as relentlessly as a bolt of lightning from a stormless sky, that one’s father, beloved, is lying at death’s door and that one’s own action is the only possible thing which might save him to the contact of the worldly things.
He stepped quickly, lightly, to the front door, screened and swinging half open in the breeze which was blowing in from the river, and followed the two boys who had gone out to the broad veranda ahead of him.
“There isn’t a minute to spare!” he said, his cap thrown to his head. “It’s life or death!”
The three boys fairly raced for the foot of the avenue, Frank knew that good old Lanky was probably even now swinging open the doors and loosening the fastenings of the Rocket, ready for the race.
“Hey! Hey!” came a cry from the crossing of Fourth Street as the boys tore at full speed to the river.
“Frank! Frank Allen!” came the cry.