“Just a moment. Wait till I get my feet clear, so that I can swing out as you go in behind the wheel. Get me?”
“Yes.”
The two cars were not far apart now. The girl was holding to the steering wheel with a desperate grip, her feet on the pedals, trying to make the foot brake hold. The emergency hand brake had given out long ago, and the other seemed to have hardly any power. But she was fighting every inch to regain control.
By this time, a score of people, who had been strolling along the high-terraced walk above the roadway, which overlooked the lake, were watching the two great cars swirling down toward the quarter-mile turn.
They were accustomed to seeing cars moving at a good speed, after safely negotiating this difficult bend, but it was unusual for machines to approach it in this headlong fashion.
At each of the bends was a gigantic signboard, painted a terrifying red, bearing the word “Danger!” in white letters two feet long, and with the additional caution, in rather smaller characters: “Sharp curve ahead! Drive slow!”
There was hardly time for the spectators to express their horror at the catastrophe that seemed imminent, when the two cars swept along side by side.
“Now!” shouted Stanley.
He knew that he could depend on Karl. That rather taciturn young man had proved his courage and intelligence on other occasions. It was his habit to do what came his way without making much fuss about it, and if the task menaced his safety, or even his life, why, it was all in the day’s work.
“Ready, sir!” replied Karl.