It was Lon’s chance to interrupt. “I’m placin’ you now for sure. Done a lot o’ hoss tradin’, hain’t you, in your time?”
“Yep—that’s my reg’lar line. But I got ambitious and wanted to try my luck with one of them chug-chugs. So we settled a trade, we did, and t’other party showed me how to set her goin’, and I climbed aboard and started out to give her a warmin’-up jog, as you might say. But look here, Mister! we hit a race gait right off, and the more I tried to pull her in, the more we touched only the high places. So all I could do was to hope to hold the track and wait for her to run down—which also she didn’t. Say, what do you s’pose was the matter? Feller I got her from—he’s a left-hander, he is. That make any difference, would it, in her riggin’? All I know is, when I pressed a jimcrack, she jumped; and when I quit that and started in on something else, she jumped harder. Wa’n’t half-broke, she wa’n’t!”
Lon stepped back and inspected the wreck in the ditch.
“Dunno’s I can quite place this machine,” he said presently. “Strange make to me. Never saw one like it before.”
“Good reason—there ain’t no other like her. Only one made and then they bust the mold. Leastwise, that’s what the party said.”
“Umph!” said Lon. He was still looking closely at the car, which was—or had been—a runabout or roadster, with a single seat, very high backed, and a peculiarly lumpy, box-like construction at the rear.
Mr. Haskins took a few limping steps, groaning slightly. It was plain enough that, while he had escaped broken bones, he must be sorely bruised. He glared for a moment at the ruins.
“Party allowed he built her himself,” he explained. “Let on he—he assembled her himself—yes, that’s what he called it, assembled. Got tired of takin’ other folks’ dust on the road, so he figgered on givin’ her plenty of power—and, by gum, he done it! He was makin’ his brags about the engine—said ’twa’n’t the ordinary automobile style, but a special high-speed affair, that’d been meant for one of them flyin’ machines—hey, what’s the matter, sonny?”
The question was due to a sudden movement by Poke, who in new eagerness to examine the motor, almost upset Mr. Haskins.
Poke made no reply. Mr. Haskins, having recovered his balance, resumed his observations: