Everybody had heard the sounds which had caught Sam’s attention. Up the road, in the direction from which Lon had come, something was happening, something extraordinarily and violently noisy. There was a succession of reports; then a broken and uneven rattle; then another series of explosions, louder than before and evidently nearer.
“Great Scott! It must be a machine-gun!” gasped Step.
“If it is, we’ll have to duck,” said Herman Boyd. “The thing’s coming this way.”
“And here it is!” cried Poke.
[Something shot into view], a black something which was raising a tremendous cloud of dust and which was traveling at reckless speed. Lon shouted a warning to the boys to stand aside, threw on his power, and steered his car far into the ditch. As he did so, it was as if a roaring cyclone swept past. The noise of it deafened the club, the dust it sent swirling in clouds choked them, its velocity dazed them. That the cause of the commotion was an automobile they realized, but none of them had an idea what manner of car it might be, or, indeed, how many passengers it carried.
Lon steered back into the road.
“All aboard, everybody!” he called. “There’s a feller that’s findin’ the goin’ too good to last. Let’s follow and see if we can pick up enough o’ the pieces to tell what kind of a machine ’twas.”
No second invitation was needed. The boys swarmed into the touring car.