Bert Wilson at the Wheel

by J. W. Duffield

“Yes, or we might swim, I suppose,” suggested Shorty, sarcastically.

“In that case, we’d let you try it, as its only a matter of twenty miles or so each way, and see if you are as strong as your name,” retorted Bert, and Shorty subsided.

Meanwhile the others had taken their appointed places in the auto, and, after adjusting spark and throttle levers, Bert walked to the front of the machine and cranked the motor.

On the first turn, such was the beautiful condition in which he kept the car, the engine started with a roar, and he quickly climbed into the driver’s seat and threw in the clutch. Without a tremor the big car glided away as if moving on air, which indeed it was, in a way, if the air in the tires could be counted.

With the ease of a driver who thoroughly understands his car, Bert steered the machine around and between the bumps in the road, and even one who had never ridden in an automobile before would have appreciated his masterly handling of this machine.

Suddenly Tom, who, as usual, was riding in the seat beside Bert, leaned over and said, “Say, Bert, do you suppose she would take Dobb’s hill?”

Now, the hill to which Tom referred was one notorious in the neighborhood. More than one gray-haired farmer had shaken his head dubiously while inspecting the “Red Scout,” and said, “Yes, that there contraption may be all right on the level, and there’s no getting over the fact that it can run circles around a streak of greased lightning, but I’ll bet a dollar to a doughnut that it could never get up Dobb’s hill.”

So Bert thought a moment before answering Tom’s question, and then said, “Well, that’s an awfully steep hill, but the old ‘Scout’ has never balked at anything yet, and I have a sneaking feeling that it wouldn’t even stop at Dobb’s hill. However, there is only one way of finding out about it, and that is to try it. What do you say, fellows, shall we try it and show these people around here just what our machine can do?”

There was a unanimous chorus of assent from the other occupants of the car, so at the next crossing Bert turned off the main road in the direction of the famous Dobb’s hill. Soon the hill itself loomed up in front of them, and Bert opened the throttle a trifle. The machine immediately picked up speed, but to the occupants of the machine it seemed almost impossible that anything but an elevator could get up that hill. It looked to them almost like a high wall. Bert, however, was thinking more of the machine than of the hill. He had been gradually giving the engine more gas, and now, when they were almost at the foot of the hill, he realized that the moment had come to call forth the supreme effort of the motor. He opened the muffler so as to get rid of all back pressure, and opened the throttle to its widest extent. With a bound and a roar the powerful machine took the hill, and to the boys in the car it seemed as though they had some powerful, willing animal working for them. Up the great machine climbed, with scarcely diminished speed, the engine emitting unbroken and exhilarating music, or at least that is what it sounded like to the tense boys in the auto. At last with a final roar of the motor, and rumble of the straining gears, the machine topped the hill and started on its long downward coast. Bert threw out the clutch, and giving the engine a well-earned rest after its strenuous work, allowed the “Red Scout” to glide rapidly and smoothly down the hill.

Every boy in the car seemed half-crazy with delight over the performance of their mechanical pet. Some even went so far as to pat the sides of the car, and Bob expressed the general feeling when he said, “Well, I’d rather be a camper and be able to say I held part ownership in a car like this, than to be King of England.”