The chauffeur realized this as well as any one, and he was pulling with all his strength on the emergency brake lever.
"I've got to stop her!" he panted through his clenched teeth. "I've got to stop her!"
Ruth and Alice were in a frenzy of fear now, and Paul, standing up in the swaying auto, and holding to the back of the front seat, was trying desperately to think of some plan whereby he could save the girls.
The car was now at the turn. Now it was beyond the marking stone specified by Mr. Pertell.
"They'll go over the cliff!" shouted Mr. Sneed, who was to take part in the play later.
Mr. Pertell rushed forward as though he would halt the auto by getting in front and pushing it back, and for one wild moment it looked as though there would be a veritable tragedy. But with a last desperate pull on the brake lever, while the metal bands shrilly protested against such strenuous work, the car came to a slow stop.
And so near was it to the fence railing off the descent over the cliff—which fence was, later, to be crashed into by the make-believe auto—so near was the girls' car to this fence that the front wheels bent one of the rails.
"A close call!" said Russ, and his voice was unsteady as he stepped away from the camera.
Ruth and Alice were pale, and Paul, too, had lost some of his color. But it was Alice who first relieved the strain of the situation.
"A miss is as good as a mile," she said, and tried to laugh, but it was not easy.