AN ENCOUNTER WITH A "CHARACTER."
Jack jammed down the emergency brakes, which were pneumatic and operated from the pressure tank, with a suddenness that sent Dick Donovan almost catapulting out of the tonneau.
"Jumping jiggers of Joppa!" he shouted, for he had not yet seen the obstacle in the road, "what's happened? Are we bust up?"
"No, but if I hadn't stopped when I did we'd have bust someone else up," declared Jack. "Look there!"
"Can you beat it?" exclaimed Tom.
As the brakes brought the car to a stop within a foot of his stout, rotund figure, the little man in the center of the road looked up with a sort of mild surprise through a pair of astonishingly thick-lensed eyeglasses secured to his ears by a thick, black ribbon. He wore a broad-brimmed black hat and wrinkled, baggy clothes of bar-cloth, and a huge pair of square-toed boots that looked as if their tips had been chopped off with an ax.
Over his shoulder was slung a canvas bag which appeared to be heavy and bulged as if several irregularly shaped, solid substances were inside of it. The spot where this odd encounter took place was some distance from any town, but a bicycle leaning against a tree at the roadside showed how the little man had got there.
"Say, would you mind letting us get by?" asked Jack.
The little man raised a hand protestingly.
"I'll be delighted to in just a moment," he said, "but just now it's impossible. You see, I've just discovered a vein of what I believe to be Laurentian granite running across the road. I am trying to trace it and—what's that? Good gracious! Back up your machine, please. I believe it runs under your wheel. I must make sure."