His manner was so wild, that Nick Carter turned involuntarily to the left and look up the mountain.
What he saw induced him to open up the engine and send the machine jumping ahead as if it had been shot out of a mortar.
“Can we make it?” cried Chick, wildly excited.
Nick Carter did not answer in words. All he did was to try for a little more speed.
On the brow of the hill—with the six men who had been riding horseback, but who now were afoot, surrounding it—was a bowlder that the detective estimated must weigh not less than four or five hundred pounds.
The bandits obviously had uprooted this enormous mass of granite from the earth, and now were balancing it on the very edge of the hill, preparatory to sending it hurtling down the slope.
It was clear now why the rascals had been riding so fast, to get ahead of the automobile. They intended to crush the machine and the men in it, without giving the victims more than the barest fighting chance.
There was no room to stop and let the quarter-ton mass bound in front of them. Yet, if they tried to get past first, they might be caught squarely in the middle!
It was a matter of close calculation, and, owing to the inequalities on the hill, as well as the many little causes that might turn the immense missile one way or the other, this calculation could not be made with any certainty.
In case of doubt, it is usually the part of wisdom to go on, instead of hanging back, and Nick Carter drove ahead.