BILLY ACTS ON IMPULSE
The sight of Maxey Solomons and his automobile tossed over the
embankment and out of view—as a mad bull might toss a dog—frightened
Billy Speedwell and his mates; at the moment they did not, like Dan,
think of bringing the three men in the maroon motor car to account for
their rashness.
With cries of fear they ran along the road to the broken place in the
stone wall. Motor car and driver had disappeared over the brink of the
chasm. The tops of several trees, the roots of which were embedded in
the soil of the river bank, were visible above the wall. The motor car
had crashed into these tree-tops; but the boys did not dream, at first,
that the branches would stay such a heavy object.
When they came to the break in the stone wall and leaned over it, they
saw the drab automobile hanging in the air, not more than twenty feet
below the road. It was upside down and it had stuck in the crotched
branches of two of the tall trees.
At first they saw nothing of Maxey; but of course, they could not see to
the ground at the foot of the fifty-foot precipice over which young
Solomons and his automobile had fallen.
“He’s dead!” groaned Monroe Stevens.
“Crushed to death down there—poor chap!” agreed Jim Stetson.
“My goodness!” said Billy. “Who’ll tell his father? The old gentleman
will be all broken up. He just about lived for Maxey.”
“And the auto isn’t worth a cent, either,” added Brace Henderson.
At that moment a muffled voice reached their ears, and startled them
all.
“Help! Mercy on us—isn’t this dreadful? Help!”
Billy cried his surprise ahead of the others:
“It’s Maxey! He is under the auto!”
They could not see the owner of the wrecked car—not even his legs
dangled into view. But Maxey’s voice was unmistakable.
“What you doing down there, Max?” cried Monroe Stevens, loudly. “Why
don’t you crawl out?”
“I can’t!” wailed the voice of the hidden youth.
“Why can’t you?” queried Henderson.
“I don’t dare,” admitted Solomons.
All the cushions of the automobile had rattled to the ground. Its driver
was clinging to the wheel, or some other stationary fixture, and not
being a particularly brave youth, he could only hang on.
“Somebody’s got to help him,” declared Billy.
“But we haven’t a rope,” objected Jim Stetson. “How can we get him up
here?”
“Belts, boys!” cried the quick-witted Billy Speedwell. “Buckle ’em
together. I can jump into the top of one of those trees, and I’ll carry
the line of belts down, fasten it to the tree, and then to Maxey, and
swing him off.”
“You’ll fall, Billy,” objected Monroe, who was older and felt himself
responsible for Billy’s safety, now that Dan had gone.
“Not a bit of it!” declared Billy. “Come on with the belts.”
There being no better way suggested, the boys followed Billy’s plan.
They watched him in some trepidation, however, as he let himself over
the broken wall and leaped for a swinging branch of one of the trees
into which the automobile had fallen.
He reached a limb directly below Maxey. That young man was clinging—as
Billy had supposed—to the steering gear. He was afraid to drop upon the
limb where Billy stood. Indeed, had he done so, he would have had no
means of balancing himself. Billy Speedwell had kicked off his shoes
before descending the tree and he was barely able to keep his
equilibrium.
“Catch the end of this belt, Maxey!” he cried.
“Oh, I can’t!”
“I tell you that you’ve got to!”
But, although Maxey was usually easily influenced, Billy could not put
pluck into him at this juncture. The younger boy had to finally climb
into the overturned automobile, cling with one hand and his feet to the
car, and buckle an end of the string of belts around Maxey’s waist.
The rescuer tossed the end of the line of belts to Monroe and Brace
Henderson, and they helped Maxey out upon the roadway again. Billy
followed, and when the adventure was over not alone Maxey Solomons, but
the boys of the Riverdale Club, felt the reaction. The peril threatening
the owner of the wrecked automobile had indeed been great.
“I’m afraid your car is done for, Maxey,” said Monroe Stevens, with
sympathy.
“I don’t care!” sighed the rich man’s son. “I wouldn’t ride home in it
if it was right-side up here in the road. I never want to ride in a
motor car again.”
“Pshaw!” said Jim. “Now you’re talking reckless. It’s too bad you’ve got
the car in that bad fix.”
“I tell you I don’t want the car. If it can be got out of the tree I’ll
sell it. I won’t ever ride in it again.”
“You don’t mean that, Maxey?” said Billy, earnestly.
“Yes, I do.”
“But it’s a new machine.”
“I’d sell her for half what she’s worth,” Maxey persisted.
Monroe Stevens laughed, and said: “According to your own tell, Maxey,
she isn’t worth anything.”
“But, if anybody thinks she’s worth buying?” began the owner.
“Isn’t that just like you?” cried Jim. “I suppose you’d want half what
your father paid for her.”
“I might want—but would I get it?” returned Maxey, shrewdly.
“Just _what_ will you take for the car?” demanded Billy, still in
earnest.
Monroe Stevens looked at Speedwell suddenly, and with interest.
“My gracious, Billy! I forgot that you and Dan are capitalists. You
_could_ buy old Maxey out, couldn’t you?”
“So he could,” cried Jim. “Billy and Dan banked the thousand dollars
reward the Darringfords offered for the apprehension of the fellow who
set the shops afire. Now, Maxey, if you really want to sell, you’d
better put a real price on your car.”
Billy flushed. He was stirred by impulse to buy the wrecked car. He had
seen just how badly it was smashed and he knew that if Maxey would sell
cheap enough somebody would get a bargain. The drab racing machine was
of a standard make and there was good reason why Maxey might have
thought of entering it in the thousand mile endurance run. A car of the
same kind had won such a contest only the season before.
Young Solomons looked at Billy thoughtfully. Something seemed to be
working in his mind.
“You came down and saved me, Billy Speedwell,” he said. “Of course, the
other boys helped, and I’m grateful to all of you. But Billy came first
to my help.”
“Shucks!” grunted Billy. “Forget it!”
“No. I’m not likely to forget it,” returned Maxey, gravely. “If you want
that car—just as it lies there in the tree-top—you can have it for five
hundred dollars. She cost twenty-two hundred and fifty. I can show you
the receipted bill.”
“Whew!” cried Jim. “You don’t want anything for it, do you, Maxey? I
don’t believe you can get it out of the tree.”
But Billy had made up his mind already about that phase of the matter.
And how he wanted to own that racing car!
He and Dan had watched the auto as it was handled by the professional
chauffeur, and knew that it was a wonderfully good machine. But if the
car was lifted safely back to the road, it would cost a good deal to
rebuild it and put it in running shape again. Still——
“I’ll think about it, Maxey,” he said, slowly.
“No, Billy,” said the owner of the wrecked car, seriously. “If you take
time to think about it, so will _I_ take time to think about it. I won’t
feel the way I do now, to-morrow maybe. You see? You can have it _now_
for five hundred dollars. I maybe won’t want to sell at all when I think
about it a while.”
Both Dan and Billy had put their money into the bank untouched. Billy
had just an even five hundred dollars. He could not expect Dan to back
him up with any of his money in such a wild bargain as this. But there
was the car—Billy believed it could be saved and repaired for a
comparatively small sum—and one-fourth of its purchase price, for a car
less than three months old, was a bargain indeed!
Billy took it.