Again the glass compartment lurched; this time on an angle that made both boys brace themselves securely.
“Not too much,” yelled Phil over his shoulder and through the roar of the storm. “Be sure you clear the trees.”
“She’s well over,” called the operator. “Look out for fences!”
The boy on the floor was apparently looking out as well as his two straining eyes could pierce the gloom.
“Not too much,” he called again, warningly. “It’s black as your hat down there. I can’t see a thing.” By this time his head was inside once more. “You know we’ve had that wind behind us. You’re quarterin’ now, but you’ve got to allow for the wind; she’s a stiff one; you’ve got an awful drift and it’s right over the trees.”
“We’re clear of ’em by a mile,” persisted the boy at the wheel. “Get back there and keep your eyes peeled,” he shouted. “We might as well come down here.”
The compartment was now inclined forward and to the left. Phil, only partly convinced, turned his head toward the opening in the floor when, with a crash of thunder, the clouds opened again to release new torrents of rain and the world below lay exposed beneath the flash of more lightning.
“Up!” yelled Phil. “Up!”
The warning was not necessary. Both boys caught their breaths at the sight below them. They were still skirting the edge of a pine forest and now the jagged trunks and branches of dying trees just below seemed reaching out to grasp them. Frank did not even think. As Phil’s alarmed words reached him, both his feet and hands acted. There was a racking tremor—a shock—and then the car righted. It seemed to pause and then, like a relieved spring, shot forward. As it did so there was a new shock; the car curved forward as if held by something; a cracking snap below and then, as a new cry of alarm rose from Phil at the lookout door, once more the car was in a new equilibrium and making new headway.