“I know Nat didn’t mean to,” said Dorothy, the peacemaker. “It is awfully dark.”
Nat only grunted, but he drove more slowly. The deer had been actually hypnotized by the lamps; Nat did not want to play the same rough joke on another.
“Huh!” he muttered to his brother. “If the law had been off and we’d come up this way hunting deer, we wouldn’t have gotten within a mile of one!”
“Life is full of disappointments—just like that,” chuckled Ned, turning so that the two girls could hear him. “There was the old farmer who saw something in the clothing store window that kept him marching up and down before it for an hour, looking frequently at his watch.
“Finally he went inside and demanded of a salesman: ‘What’s your time?’ ‘Twenty minutes past five,’ says the salesman. ‘That’s what I make it,’ says the farmer, ‘and I’ll take them pants,’ and he pointed to a ticket in the window which read: ‘Given Away at 5.20.’ But he was disappointed, too.” concluded Ned.
“How ridiculous,” said Dorothy. “Oh! here’s the end of the woods. I’m so glad.”
“It’s the end of this piece,” said Ned. “But there’s more ahead.”
It was much lighter when they came out into the farming lands, and Nat could speed up his engine a little. Behind the Fire Bird coughed the other car. They met nobody, nor overtook any vehicle. This was a lonely road by night. They were still a long distance from Portersburg, and it was after eleven o’clock.
“You’d better get a wiggle on, boy,” declared Ned. “We don’t want to miss that train.”
“And I do want to miss any other deer that may be loafing about this right of way,” grumbled his brother.