A deafening roar abruptly filled the whole room with thunderous echoes. Quick gasps and throbs followed, while the exhausts flung to the air whirling clouds of spent gases. The two head and two side lamps threw a brilliant glare over the floor and walls and cut a pathway through the open door to the street beyond.
The trembling machine, responding to its master’s touch, glided forward.
“This sure ain’t no kind o’ a night for joy ridin’,” remarked the man in charge, as he watched the big car swinging into the highway.
CHAPTER XVII
ELEPHANTS
The boys didn’t turn back at the city limits as Captain Bunderley had fully expected they would. Instead, the motor car finally passed through South Milwaukee, and, under the cool and skilful guidance of Bob Somers, plunged steadily along the muddy road, its lamps throwing a strange, fantastic stream of light far in advance. Through its magic, objects continually leaped out of the night, only to be greedily snatched back by the mantle of gloom. Lights suggestive of hobgoblins flitted from tree to tree, or swept across fields and underbrush, but in the immensity of space beyond the glare blackness held supreme control.
Heavy gusts of wind, moaning and whistling dismally in their hurried flight, almost drowned the soft, even purring of the motor. Splashing rain-drops hurled themselves against the wind shield and top; the storm, long delayed, was beginning to let loose its pent-up wrath.
“Guess we’re going to have a peach of a time,” muttered Blake. “If I hadn’t come, though, Tom would have kidded me about it for the next six months.”
The disconsolate “grind” huddled back on the rear cushions listening to the wind and rain and the soft swish of flying mud, as the rubber-tired wheels occasionally plunged through pools and puddles.
“Let ’er out a bit, Bob,” encouraged Tom. “Don’t be afraid.” He pulled the collar of his raincoat about his neck. “No constable around now to stop our scorching. Gee! Ought to have seen me burning up the road to-day, Bob; good you weren’t along, Charlie. Hey—asleep back there?”
“How in thunder could a fellow be asleep with a din like this knocking against his ear-drums?” growled Blake. “Where are we, Bob?”