The others had identified the reckless driver and his passengers. At least, all had recognized the party save Montmorency Shannon. He just managed to jump out of the phaeton in time. The pony was still asleep when the rear of the skidding red car crashed against the phaeton and crushed it into a wreck across the curbstone.
CHAPTER III—A FLARE-UP
The red car stopped before it completely overturned. Then, when the exhaust was shut off, the screams of the two girls in the back seat could be heard. But nobody shouted any louder than Montmorency Shannon.
The red-haired boy had leaped from the phaeton and had seized the pony by the bit. Otherwise the surprised animal might have set off for home, Amy said, “on a perfectly apoplectic run.”
The little animal stood shaking and pawing, nothing but the shafts and whiffle-tree remaining attached to it by the harness. The rear wheels of the racing car were entangled in the phaeton and it was slewed across the road.
“Now see what you’ve done! Now see what you’ve done!” one of the girls in the car was saying, over and over.
“Well, I couldn’t help it, Belle,” whined the reckless young Brewster. “You and Sally Moon aren’t hurt. And you asked to ride with me, anyway.”
“Oh, I don’t mean you, Bill!” exclaimed the girl behind him. “But that horrid boy with his pony carriage! What business had he to get in the way?”
“Hey! ’Tain’t my carriage, you Ringold girl,” declared Monty Shannon. “It’s Cabbage-head Tony’s. He’ll sue your father for this, Bill Brewster. And you come near killing me and the pony.”
“I don’t see how you came to be standing just there,” complained the driver of the red car. “You might have been on the other side of the drive.”