Without a word he rushed out of the house and across to the combination livery and garage where the machine was stored. There it stood, the most conspicuous object in the place, with all trace of its journey removed and its cylinders shining. It was the work of a moment to explain matters to the proprietor and see that there was plenty of gasoline in the tank. He sprang to the driver’s seat, threw in the clutch and glided swiftly out to the road. So that when the doctor drove around the side of the house he was astonished to see the great car come swooping down upon him.
“All ready, doctor,” shouted the wild-eyed youth at the wheel, “come along.”
“You’ll never make it,” he protested, “on this road. You’ll split it apart. You’ll tear it to pieces.”
“We will make it,” cried Bert. “We must make it. Jump in.”
For a moment the doctor hesitated. He knew—none better—the need of haste. Still his own life was precious. Then he rose to the occasion. His sporting blood was roused. He would take a chance. He swung his case into the tonneau and leaped in after it. “Let her go,” he called.
And Bert let her go!
The doctor saw some “demon driving” that day. The great machine sprang forward like an arrow released from the string. The cheer that rose from the little knot of townspeople who had hastily collected was lost in the roar of the exhaust. The town itself melted away like a dream. The wind whistled past them with a shriek. In a moment they had passed the straggling farmhouses and entered on the road that led upwards through the woods.
Crouched low over the wheel to offer as little resistance as possible to the wind, Bert kept his eye glued on the path ahead. To strike a tree meant death. Collision with a stump would be wreck and disaster. The car lunged from side to side and the doctor, down on the floor of the tonneau, held on for his life. Again and again they grazed death by a hair’s-breadth and escaped as by a miracle. Yielding to Bert’s slightest touch, the Scout evaded a stump here, a gully there, part of the time on two wheels, again on three, but always righting in time. And all the while, it was climbing, climbing——.
Now they had covered three-fourths of the distance and his heart leaped in a wild riot of exultation. He patted the wheel, soothed it, talked to it as though it could understand.
“Go it, old scout,” he muttered, “keep it up. We’ll get there yet. We’re running for Tom. You know Tom, good old Tom. You’ve carried him many a time. Now perhaps he’s dying. Hurry, hurry, hurry.”