Scores of timid little woodland creatures scurried away to the shelter of holes and empty logs, surprised and alarmed at the streak of red lightning that flashed by. Mother birds hovered protectingly over their fledglings, ready to defend them against the whole world if necessary, while excited squirrels scolded noisily from the treetops long after they had any excuse for it.
On, on they rushed along roads over which giant trees met, past meadow lands where cattle grazed lazily, over bridges, past sparkling brooks that formed miniature waterfalls as they rushed over the stones—on, on!
As they slowed up to take a sharp bend in the road they came face to face with another automobile dashing along at a reckless speed.
Fortunately both Bert and the driver of the other machine kept their presence of mind. Before anyone had a chance to realize what was happening, Bert had swerved the Scout way over to the right side of the road. There happened to be a fairly deep depression on that side, so Bert had the choice of two evils. He had either to crash squarely into the other automobile or he had to run the risk of having his own machine turn turtle. He chose the lesser danger and ran into the ditch. However, it wasn’t as bad as it easily might have been, for only the front and rear wheels of one side of the car were in the depression. Even at that they had come within a hair’s-breadth of being upset.
As soon as the boys could pull themselves together, they tumbled out of the car. The occupants of the other car were four men, who sprang out at once to see if they could be of service in any way.
“I think we’d better improvise a lever,” Bert suggested.
“That may look all right in print,” grumbled Bob, “but how are you going to do it?”
“I know how we can work it all right,” said one of the men. “See those big stones over there? Well, the first thing to do is to bring them over here.”
“Oh, I see what you mean to do,” Bert chimed in eagerly. “There are lots of big tree branches lying around. Looks as if they had been blown down in some storm. We can use them for levers.”