"Isn't he the careless creature!" laughed Snead. "He always drives this way, and he's never had an accident."
Past Roger Eliot's home and the white Methodist church they whizzed, the automobile gathering speed on the down grade and obtaining enough momentum to carry it a considerable distance even though the power should be cut off and the brakes applied sufficiently hard to lock the rear wheels. With the discordant electric horn snarling a demand for a clear road, the foolish young driver tore up the dust through the very heart of the village, regardless of his own safety and absolutely ignoring the safety or rights of others. The postoffice spun by on the left; the machine shot across the small square; down the steepest grade of the hill it flew toward the bridge.
Despite the fact that he pretended to be as serene and unconcerned as his companions, who, perhaps, did not realize the danger, Herbert Rackliff was not fully at his ease; for he knew that such driving through a place where there were intersecting streets with blind corners was folly indeed.
As the bridge was approached the road swung to the left. At the very end of the bridge an old building cut off the view of the greater part of the structure from any one approaching from the main portion of the village.
The "bump" of which Newbert had given warning was struck with sufficient force to send the boys bouncing from their seats, and the shock seemed to disturb Foxhall's hold on the steering wheel, for the car swerved unpleasantly. The young driver brought it back with a yank, and then——
"Look out!" screamed Herbert, jumping up in the tonneau.
A woman of middle age, seated in a rickety old wagon, with a child on either side of her, was driving a young and half-broken horse into Oakdale. The young horse snorted, attempted to turn round, and then began to back up, cramping the wagon across the bridge. The woman struggled vainly with the reins, in a perfect panic of terror, and the children screamed, clinging to her.
Foxhall knew he could not stop the car, and to his credit let it be said that he did his best to avoid striking and smashing the wagon—and succeeded. Success, however, was costly; for, in attempting to turn aside and shoot past, the wheel was pulled too sharply, and the machine struck the wooden railing of the bridge, through which it cut as if the railing had been built of cardboard.
Dade Newbert was the only one who managed to leap from the machine ere it crashed through that railing and shot off in a clean leap for the water below. Unimpeded by any barrier, Newbert jumped, struck the ground, plunged forward, and went sliding at full length almost beneath the wheels of the old wagon. Rackliff tried to jump, but he was on the wrong side, and the tonneau door bothered him; however, as the machine fell, with Snead sitting paralyzed in his place and Foxhall clinging to the wheel, Herbert succeeded in flinging himself out over the side.
Surprising to relate, Dade Newbert was not seriously hurt, and, still retaining a certain presence of mind, he scrambled back from the wagon wheels and sat up on the bridge, covered with dirt, a rather woe-begone spectacle. He was still sitting thus when the horse, having turned about at last without upsetting the wagon, went galloping away across the bridge; and he continued to sit there until some boys came running down from the village, shouting as they ran, and asked him if he was hurt.