“What shall I do?” cried Patricia, biting her lips to keep from crying.
“Better report it at the station, and get an officer to go back with you,” advised the man. “I’ll fix your lights; then you drive on one block and you’ll see the station.”
“Would you go up with us and tell your part of the story?” begged Patricia, feeling very much in need of male support in such an emergency.
“Sure,” was the hearty response. “I’ll walk up and be there as soon as you are.”
“Never mind, Pat,” said Katharine consolingly. “You’ve got to run over somebody sometime, and now it’s over.”
Patricia shivered.
The mechanic was as good as his word, and when the frightened girls entered the police station, he was leaning on the desk in earnest conversation with the officer on duty. The few questions which were put to Patricia and her friends were answered so promptly and frankly that they made a most favorable impression; and in twenty minutes, Patricia, was driving back to the woods with a pleasant young policeman sitting beside her. The mechanic and the coroner followed in a small truck.
“There is something!” cried Katharine, as they approached the scene of the jolting, and the headlights showed a dark bundle toward one side of the road. Patricia shuddered as she saw that it was the figure of a man. As soon as she had come to a stop, the policeman leaped out and bent over the prone figure. With the help of the coroner he rolled the body onto its back, and made a hasty examination while the white-faced, trembling girls watched from the car.
“You ran over him all right,” called the officer.
Patricia gave a frightened gasp and clutched the wheel tightly to save herself from succumbing to a wave of dizziness which swept over her.