Mr. Campbell began carefully backing the car to turn it, and this was not easily done as the road was narrow where it approached the bridge. Just as he got the machine around, and was about to start off, there was a crash behind and the sound of broken glass.
“What’s that?” cried the man at the wheel.
“We’ve smashed something,” said Rick. “I’ll see what it is.”
“Here, put your rain coat on and take a flash light,” ordered Mr. Campbell, reaching forward into one of the side pockets. “No use getting any wetter.”
The boys had brought rain coats with them. They were in the rear of the machine and Rick quickly donned his and slipped out back to see what had happened. In the flash of the pocket electric light he saw where the auto had backed into a pole that had held a red danger lantern. Doubtless this had been placed to warn travelers of the broken bridge, but the red light was out when our friends drove up.
“You ran right into it,” Rick explained to Mr. Campbell. “It’s all smashed—I mean the red lantern is.”
“Well, it had probably burned out, anyhow,” was his reply. “That’s why it gave us no warning. But I wish we had some way of letting others who might come along here know that the bridge is down. I’ll stop at the first house we pass and leave word. But meanwhile some one may happen to come this road, though it isn’t likely in the storm.”
“Couldn’t we put a rail, or something across the road?” suggested Chot. “I mean something that would break easy so it wouldn’t damage any car that ran into it. When they hit it they’d stop, and then they could see the broken bridge.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Mr. Campbell. “We’ll do it. As you say, they’ll stop when they crash into a light rail or small tree, and they won’t be going very fast—not on this road in this storm.”
It was not a very agreeable task to get out in the mud, water and darkness, amid glaring lightning and resounding thunder and fix some sort of warning. But at last they managed to span the road with a light barrier that would easily break when a car ran into it. And once a motorist crashed into this harmless obstruction he would, very likely, look ahead to see the reason it was placed across the road. Then he would discover the broken bridge.