As Matt fell, he caught at the two levers on the right of the driver’s seat and clung to them desperately. Although the car was running wild, with no hand on the steering wheel, yet it bounded away along the centre of the road, dragging Matt along with it.
With his elbows on the footboard, and the lower half of his body trailing in the dust, Matt endeavored again and again to get back on the running board and regain a grip on the steering wheel.
A freight train was almost at the crossing. Unless Matt could check the runabout in its wild flight, it would surely be demolished by the locomotive or else hurl itself to destruction against the sides of the swiftly moving box cars.
The situation was desperate to the last degree. Unless he could get hold of the steering wheel and regain his seat, nothing could be done to avert the threatening catastrophe. If he let go, and abandoned the runabout to its fate, he was in danger of being thrown under the racing wheels.
A demon of perversity seemed to possess the car and to be bent upon the destruction of Matt King.
Again and again the young motorist tried to reach the steering post with one hand and wriggled up onto the running board. Each attempt was unsuccessful until a lurch of the car helped in executing the manœuvre.
Hanging to the wheel, Matt threw himself over the upright levers, dropped into the driver’s seat, disengaged the clutch and jammed both brakes home.
Even then he was in doubt as to whether he would succeed in stopping the car. If it continued mysteriously to refuse control, there was certain destruction for both Matt and the car against the side of the train, the box cars of which were already flashing over the crossing.
But the car stopped—stopped within a yard of the rushing box cars!
Matt dared not throw in the reverse, fearing the machine might move forward instead of backward, so he dropped into the road and lay there, panting and exhausted, while the freight rolled on.