Were they proud as they sped swiftly through the Riverdale streets? Well!
There was nothing beautiful about the drab car, saving her lines. She was neither a touring car nor one built for show. But Mr. Robert had assured them that he had never gone over and assembled the parts of a finer piece of auto work than this same Breton-Melville car.
“I shall have to look out for my own laurels, I very well see,” laughed the acting head of the Darringford shops. “And Mr. Briggs himself will have to get the best there is out of his Postlethwaite if he expects to beat you boys in that endurance test.”
So Dan and Billy had reason for feeling proud of their car, although it had few of the attractive qualities of the usual auto. It was plainly furnished, and there was not so much brass work as on most cars. As it sped along, to the observer from the sidewalk it had the appearance of being stripped down to the very skeleton of a car.
The Stetson’s run to Karnac Lake was arranged for Friday afternoon, immediately after the close of classes. Dan and Billy were hard-working boys, both in school and on the dairy farm; they had to arrange their schedule, as Billy said, with considerable care to be able to accompany their friends on this run to the cottage in the woods.
Karnac Lake was a beautiful spot, some fifty miles up the river, and the road was a good automobile path all the way. Burton Poole and Chance Avery were boasting of having “done it” in an hour and a half.
“If they can do it in that time, in that machine of Burton’s,” declared Dan Speedwell, after they had tried out their Breton-Melville car for two evenings along the county pike, “we can do as well. Take my word for it, Billy.”
“I believe you,” agreed his brother.
“Then we won’t leave it all for dad to do on Saturday morning,” Dan said. “We can run back, help him milk, take our routes as usual, and then race back to Karnac and get there by mid-forenoon again.”
“Agreed!” said Billy. “I wish we had motor-wagons to use in distributing the milk, anyway. Wouldn’t that be a great scheme?”