“Oh!” gasped both Dorothy and Mabel. The car lunged, then came to a sudden stop, while the engine still pounded to get ahead.
“Hang the luck!” groaned Nat, vainly trying to start the car, which was plainly stalled.
“I told you,” commented Peter, inappropriately. “This here road——”
“Oh, hang the road!” interrupted Nat. “It was that loon—Terry.”
As the young man spoke Terry passed along as mutely as if nothing had happened.
“I’d like to try that whip on him, to see if I could wake him up,” said Ted, as he leaped out after Nat to see what could be done to get the car back on the road.
But it was an impossible task. Pushing, pulling, prying with fence rails—all efforts left the big, red car stuck just where it had floundered.
“I know,” spoke Peter, suddenly. “I’ll get Sanders’s horse.”
“Sanders wouldn’t lend his horse to pull a man out of a ditch,” said Nat. “I’ve asked him before.”
“That’s where you made a mistake,” replied Peter. “I won’t ask him,” and he awkwardly managed to get out of the car, and was soon out on the road and making his way across the snow-covered fields.