Cobra

by Martin Brown; Russell Holman

After several days of deliberation, Helen Newbold yielded. The date was set and preparations were started. Rodrigo, who had just come down from Oxford for three weeks, was interested at once. For the first time since he had been familiar with his uncle's family, they they were about to do something that seemed to promise him some pleasure. He even asked permission to invite some of his Oxford friends who were in town to share in the fun, and received the permission after some questioning by his aunt as to the respectability of these added guests. He invited William Terhune, a Rhodes scholar from South Dakota, a raw-boned, husky chap, crew man and born pleasure-seeker, and Leslie Bond, a classmate from London whom Rodrigo admired for his witty tongue and suavity.

The Treasure Hunters were to travel in automobiles and Rodrigo secured the use of his uncle's light sedan, neatly side-stepping the suggestion that his two cousins travel along with Terhune, Bond and himself.

A large crowd of colorless people gathered one June afternoon in the drive of the Newbolds' town house and received a light collation and their instructions for the hunt. The first directions were to take them out to a London suburb, and the cavalcade started sedately enough, most of the sojourners undecided whether or not the Newbolds were attempting something revolutionary and not quite respectable in this new type of entertainment.

Rodrigo and his two friends were in a chaffing, carefree mood. Rodrigo was never a conservative driver and soon had the borrowed car moving at a pace that started the bobbies at the street intersections frowning and waving admonitory hands at him. Having attained the open country and the little tea house, to which their instructions had led them, in advance of the others, the young men did not stop to partake of the refreshments arranged for them by their host, but set off rapidly for the next rendezvous. This they never attained.

For a half mile or so beyond the tea house, they overtook an open runabout containing two very attractive young ladies. The blonde who was driving was particularly pretty in a bold, artificially arranged way. The girl at the wheel glanced back at the rapidly approaching car, flashed a friendly but taunting smile at it, and then stepped upon the accelerator and attempted to pull away from it. Rodrigo and his companions were interested and aroused at once. Rodrigo sped up and the race was on.

The sedan's glittering radiator-cap was almost even with the left rear wheel of the other car. Down a hill the cars swooped. Fifty yards farther on, the car of Rodrigo was exactly abreast of the runabout. Then came a sharp turn to the left, which the cars took together and plunged up the grade leading to the little rustic bridge neck and neck.

And here came catastrophe.

For the turn and the bridge were surprises to both drivers. It was a small wooden bridge spanning a ravine and a narrow stream running swiftly far below. A stout railing stretched along either side of the road, across the bridge. There was room for two carefully driven cars to pass each other. But not room enough for two speed maniacs.

The thunder of the flying cars across the loose planks was broken by a splintering crash. When the dust cleared away, the hood and front wheels of the runabout were disclosed suspended in mid-air over the ravine, the glass of the front lights and wind-shield were no more. Yet the motor of the runabout was still throbbing, and the two girls, though dust-covered and with faces bleeding slightly from tiny bits of glass that had pricked their skin, were unhurt. They discovered this after moving cautiously around a little.

When Rodrigo and his companions drove slowly back to them, offering succor, both girls were smiling, though a little uneasily to be sure, and the girl at the wheel was showing disturbing signs of putting the motor into reverse and seeking to back off the heavy piece of bridge-railing that, jammed in between their rear mud-guard and the side of the car, was the only thing preventing the machine from plunging off into eternity.