ON THE ROAD TO KARNAC LAKE
The Speedwell boys could have imagined no better outcome of this affair.
Yet they were both too independent to have courted Mr. Robert’s
attention and complained to him of the unfair treatment they had
received at the hands of the superintendent of the shops.
As for the car itself, the boys knew very well that they could leave
their Breton-Melville in no better hands. Mr. Robert, though
college-bred, had put on overalls and worked every summer in the shops
since he was fifteen years of age. He was a finished mechanic. That is
why his men respected and liked him so much.
Dan and Billy retired, full of glee over the turn matters had taken.
Their car would be put in order—in first-class order—and they need have
no fear but that the work would be done promptly. In fact, the first of
the week Mr. Robert sent word to them that they could take the car home.
They settled their bill at the office like any other customer, and it
was no small one. They doubted if Mr. Robert had charged them much for
his own time; but the repairs cost over eighty dollars. When they ran
the car out of the yard the enamel paint was scarcely dry. But the
mechanism worked like that of a fine watch!
Were they proud as they sped swiftly through the Riverdale streets?
Well!
There was nothing beautiful about the drab car, saving her lines. She
was neither a touring car nor one built for show. But Mr. Robert had
assured them that he had never gone over and assembled the parts of a
finer piece of auto work than this same Breton-Melville car.
“I shall have to look out for my own laurels, I very well see,” laughed
the acting head of the Darringford shops. “And Mr. Briggs himself will
have to get the best there is out of his Postlethwaite if he expects to
beat you boys in that endurance test.”
So Dan and Billy had reason for feeling proud of their car, although it
had few of the attractive qualities of the usual auto. It was plainly
furnished, and there was not so much brass work as on most cars. As it
sped along, to the observer from the sidewalk it had the appearance of
being stripped down to the very skeleton of a car.
The Stetson’s run to Karnac Lake was arranged for Friday afternoon,
immediately after the close of classes. Dan and Billy were hard-working
boys, both in school and on the dairy farm; they had to arrange their
schedule, as Billy said, with considerable care to be able to accompany
their friends on this run to the cottage in the woods.
Karnac Lake was a beautiful spot, some fifty miles up the river, and the
road was a good automobile path all the way. Burton Poole and Chance
Avery were boasting of having “done it” in an hour and a half.
“If they can do it in that time, in that machine of Burton’s,” declared
Dan Speedwell, after they had tried out their Breton-Melville car for
two evenings along the county pike, “we can do as well. Take my word for
it, Billy.”
“I believe you,” agreed his brother.
“Then we won’t leave it all for dad to do on Saturday morning,” Dan
said. “We can run back, help him milk, take our routes as usual, and
then race back to Karnac and get there by mid-forenoon again.”
“Agreed!” said Billy. “I wish we had motor-wagons to use in distributing
the milk, anyway. Wouldn’t that be a great scheme?”
“All to the good. But one motor-wagon would do it. We could get over
both routes in less time than it takes us to deliver one route with a
horse.”
“It’s us for a motor-truck, then,” cried Billy.
“I’ve got a scheme,” said Dan, slowly. “Maybe it won’t work; and then
again——”
“What is it?” asked Billy, eagerly.
“I don’t know as I’ll tell you just yet,” said Dan, grinning at him.
And just then something called Billy away—some duty or other—and he
forgot later to ask Dan to explain his tantalizing statement.
The Speedwells made their preparations well in advance, and between
sessions Friday noon ran home on their Flying Feathers and came back to
town in their Breton-Melville car. They backed it into Holliday’s
garage, where it would come to no harm during the afternoon, and as soon
as school was over they ran to the garage, filled up their tank,
strapped a spare five gallon can of gasoline on the running board, as
well as a pair of extra tires (that had cost them a pretty penny) in
their enamel-cloth covers, and ran out on the street.
Dan guided the car around to Mildred’s house, where the girls and boys
who were to ride with them had agreed to assemble. The doctor’s daughter
with Lettie and Kate and Maybell were already there and Wiley Moyle and
young Fisher Greene soon arrived. Fisher was always being crowded out of
the auto belonging to his family; but he had objected so strenuously on
this occasion that room had to be found in one of the machines and he
had elected to come with the Speedwells, for he and Billy were pretty
good chums.
Fisher sat beside Dan on the front seat; four of the party squeezed into
the rear of the tonneau and the remaining two—Wiley Moyle and Katie
O’Brien—faced the latter quartette. They were comfortably seated, their
possessions stowed away, and Dan ran the car out into the Court House
square just as the clock in the tower struck four.
They had not long to wait for the rest of the party. Chance Avery shot
the Poole car into the square from a by-street, narrowly escaped running
over Rover, Mr. Appleyard’s old dog, and very much frightened old lady
Massey, who was about to cross the street. And he brought the car to an
abrupt stop with a grin on his face, while his open muffler allowed the
exhaust to deafen the whole neighborhood.
“For pity’s sake, close that muffler, Chance!” shouted Monroe Stevens,
who was riding in the Greene’s car, and which now came into sight with
Perry Greene at the wheel. “We can’t hear ourselves talk.”
“I hope the Town Council puts a stop to that,” declared Fisher Greene,
in the Speedwell car.
“Puts a stop to what, young fellow?” demanded Chance Avery, in no
pleasant tone.
“They’re going to fine those automobilists who run through the streets
with their mufflers open,” said Fisher. “Just to show off, you know—make
other folks notice that there’s an auto running by. It’s a good deal
like little Ted Berry smoking cigarettes. It makes him sick, and his
uncle punishes him for it; but Ted thinks it’s making a man of him. I
reckon that would-be chauffeurs who run with their mufflers open, figure
it out the same as Teddy.”
Everybody laughed but Chance; he only scowled and demanded of Jim
Stetson:
“Well, are you folks ready?”
“All right, girls?” asked the master of ceremonies, standing up in the
Greenes’ car.
Even Lettie Parker had forgotten that she was seated beside Billy and
Mildred in the tonneau of the smallest and least showy of the equipages.
They were all so anxious to be off.
“Do go on, boys!” cried Miss Parker. “And, oh dear me! I do want you to
get outside of town where you can race. I never did go fast enough yet
in an automobile.”
“Lettie’s fairly gone on autos,” drawled Billy. “And if she ever gets a
machine of her own——”
“Which I intend to do some day, Mr. Smartie!” cried the bronze-haired
girl.
“Oh, I believe you!” responded Billy, who was nothing if not a tease.
“And then we’ll see her riding around town with her nose in the
air—worse than even Nature ever intended,” he added, with a sly glance
at the tip of Miss Parker’s pretty nose, which really was a little
tip-tilted!
“All right for you, Billy Speedwell,” Miss Parker declared. “You shall
never ride in my car when I do get it.”
“No. I sha’n’t want to. I’d rather be somewhere up near the head of the
procession,” said the teasing Billy.
“Say!” cried Lettie, in a heat, “you don’t call this being at the head
of the procession, do you? We’re number three, all right, and there are
none to follow.”
“Run her up a little, Dannie!” begged Wiley Moyle. “That Chance Avery is
pulling ahead as though he was already running for the golden cup.”
“I didn’t know this was to be a motor race,” laughed Dan, quietly
putting the lever up a notch. “I thought we were out for pleasure.”
“Well, it’s no pleasure to be behind everybody else, and taking their
dust,” complained Lettie Parker.
“Be careful, Dan, no matter what they say to you,” said Mildred Kent,
warningly, in her quiet way. “You know, our mothers all expect us to get
safely home again.”
The Greene automobile, which was a heavy, practical family touring car,
was being put to its best pace. Chance Avery was running away from the
party, being already half a mile, or more, ahead of the Greenes.
Dan’s advancing the speed lever was not noticeable in the throbbing or
jar of the car; the Breton-Melville was one of the quietest-running
automobiles in the market. And this speed was nothing to it—as yet.
But in a very few moments they were running directly behind the heavy
car of the Greenes. The dust was choking.
“Oh, do get out of the wake of that old lumber wagon!” cried Lettie, not
very politely. “This dust will smother us.”
“And you wouldn’t be contented to run far enough behind to escape the
worst of it,” grunted Billy.
“Well, Billy Speedwell!” snapped the council clerk’s daughter, “there’s
only one comfortable place in an automobile run—I see that plainly.”
“Where’s that?” asked the innocent Billy.
“A place in the first car,” returned Lettie. “Let the other people have
your dust.”
Suddenly the girls uttered a startled and chorused “Oh, my!” Dan
Speedwell had sheered the car to the left, it darted ahead as though
suddenly shot from a gun, and in a flash had rounded and left behind the
heavy touring car, and they were running second.
“Oh, Dannie!” gasped Mildred. “How did you do it?”
“Perry must have run backwards,” grunted Billy, with scorn. “Of course!
We can’t get any speed out of this old wreck of a car. Ha! shoot it to
them, Dan!”
The Breton-Melville was humming like a huge top. The road flowed away
beneath the wheels as though it traveled on a great spool in the
direction opposite to their flight. The girls caught their breaths and
held on with both hands.
In half a minute, it seemed, Dan had brought his car up till it was
nosing the rear of Burton Poole’s automobile. Wiley Moyle uttered a
startled cry:
“What you going to do, Dan? Jump her?”