On came the roaring racer. The car was just a gray blur that hardly seemed to touch the beach, and begoggled Dan Dacy looked like the hooded messenger of death.
Then with an ear-splitting roar the great machine passed the scouts on the last mile of the course!
"By Jiminy, it's a new record or I'll— Oh mercy! Look! Look! She'll be killed!"
The scouts stood transfixed with horror. Up the beach in the very path of the flying motor stood little May Herrick, clutching a red rubber ball in her hand and looking at the coming machine with horror written in every line of her childish face.
The whole situation was clear. The tot had dropped her ball, which had rolled out onto the sloping beach. With her mind only on rescuing the plaything, she had pulled herself out of her nurse's grasp and run out onto the race course. And then when she found herself in the path of certain death she had become panic-stricken.
Dan Dacy's heart must have leapt to his throat when he saw the little one in his way. But if it did it in no way affected his nerve. He knew that to turn the steering wheel but an inch meant certain destruction to the careening car and a broken neck for himself perhaps. Yet he braved this hideous fate and wrenched at the steering gear.
There was a terrific roar, a crash of shattered metal and in a cloud of sand the big gray racer turned abruptly and plunged end over end down the beach into the curling breakers. The crowd gave vent to a shriek of alarm when they saw Dan Dacy's limp form shoot clear of the wreck and go whirling, arms and legs flying out toward the point where the combers were breaking.
Like every one of the five thousand witnesses of the tragedy, the scouts stood paralyzed for a moment—but only for a moment—Bruce was the first to gather his scattered wits.
"Quick, Jiminy! We'll get him! Come! He may still be alive! The rest of you fellows follow on foot!"
While he was speaking, Bruce rushed into the station and started the motor cycle. Jiminy was right behind him and an instant later the powerful machine was making forty miles an hour over the sandy beach. Bruce bent low over the handle bars while Jiminy clung on and sought to buckle the life buoy belt about his waist.