A large automobile was coming toward them at a rapid rate. On the driver’s seat was a white-faced young girl, a cloud of fair hair streaming out about her frightened countenance. She was gripping the steering wheel, and seemed to be striving desperately to check the onrush of the machine. But her efforts were vain. The auto, instead of decreasing its rate of progress, appeared every minute to be gaining in speed.
It bumped and swayed wildly. A cloud of yellow dust arose about it. Behind the runaway machine could be perceived a crowd of townsfolk shouting incoherently.
“Oh, stop it! I shall be killed! Stop it, please do!”
The young girl was shrilly screaming in alarm, as the machine approached the two boys. So rapidly had events progressed since they first sighted it, that not a word had been exchanged between them. All at once, Merritt noticed that he was alone. Rob had darted to the roadway. As the auto dashed by, Merritt saw the young leader of the Hampton Boy Scouts give a sudden flying leap upon the running-board. He shot up from the road as if a steel spring had projected him.
For one instant he hung between life and death—or, at least, serious injury. The speed with which the auto was going caused the lad’s legs to fly out from it, as one of his hands caught the side door of the tonneau. But in a jiffy Rob’s athletic training triumphed. By a supreme effort he managed to steady himself and secure a grip with his other hand. Then he rapidly made his way forward along the running-board.
But this move proved almost disastrous. The already panic-stricken girl took her attention from the steering-wheel for an instant. In that molecule of time, the auto, like a perverse live thing, got beyond her control. It leaped wildly toward the sidewalk outside the Hampton candy store. A crowd of young folks—it was Saturday afternoon—had been indulging in ice cream and other dainties, when the shouts occasioned by the runaway machine had alarmed them.
Instantly soda and candy counters were neglected, and a rush for the sidewalk ensued. But, as they poured out to see what was the matter, they were faced by deadly peril.
The auto, like a juggernaut, was careening straight at them. Its exhausts roared like the nostrils of an excited beast.
Young girls screamed, and boys tried to drag them out of harm’s way. But had it not been for the fact that at that instant Rob gained the wheel, there might have been some serious accidents.
The lad fairly wrenched it out of the hands of the girl driver, who was half fainting at the imminence of the peril. A quick, savage twist, and the car spun round and was on a straight course again. That danger, at least, was over. But another, and a deadlier, threatened.