“Hoo-e-e-e! Hoo-e-e-e!” yelled a shrill voice from the heart of the dust cloud.
“It’s that Miss McCarthy. They call her Crazy Jane,” shouted Dill. “Let’s hold her up.”
Bent on mischief, the boys formed a chain across the road with clasped hands. On came the car careening from side to side, its horn honking hoarsely like the warning of a sentinel crow, its driver uttering her shrill “hoo-e-e-e,” her hair standing out almost straight behind her in the breeze.
The boys stood firm; the car did not slacken its speed.
“Jump for your lives!” yelled the captain of the tramps. “She’s going to run us down!”
A great black object flitted past them just as their ranks opened. There was not even time to get out of the road. The most they could do was to make an opening large enough—and barely large enough at that—to permit the passage of the car, which went roaring past them. A long-drawn “hoo-e-e-e,” floated back to them, a choking cloud of dust and sand showered over them, sending the boys into severe coughing fits as they staggered off to the side of the highway and sat down on the dusty grass.
“Well, what do you think of that?” gasped Sam Crocker.
“I think it’s exceedingly lucky for us that we got out of the road when we did,” answered Captain George, shaking an angry fist in the direction of the disappearing cloud of dust. “Why, she would have run right over us.”
“She would,” agreed the boys in chorus.
“But also she wouldn’t. She knew we would get out of the way,” added Sam Crocker.