Elizabeth screamed as she felt the swaying of the car. She had to hold her sister from being tossed but, for Isabel was incapable of taking care of herself.
Straight for the field rushed the car, the engineer of the train now tooting his whistle as if in gladness at the narrow escape.
Splash!
The auto fairly dived into the brook, and gradually slackened speed. Right toward a clump of willow trees it surged, throwing a spray of water in advance. Then it became stationary in the middle of a spot where the brook widened into a pond.
Cora was dimly conscious of a figure on the opposite bank of the stream. A figure of a young man, with a fishing-pole in his hands. She saw a spray of water, cast up by the auto, drench him. She even heard him cry out, but at that moment she gave him not a thought.
Everything centered on her narrow escape, the condition of her two chums, and, last, but not least, whether her new auto had been damaged.
Cora leaned over the side and looked at the water flowing past the mud guards.
"Safe!" she exclaimed. "I—I thought we were doomed, girls. Didn't you?"
"Doomed?" echoed Elizabeth. "I never want to go through that experience again."
"Me either," added Cora fervently. "Has Belle fainted?"