Mr. Alexander drove through the Alsatian country with keen interest, for
the costumes and beauty of the peasants were so attractive that the
tourists liked to watch them and take snapshots of picturesque groups.
Mr. Fabian directed Mr. Alexander to take the road to Lyons as he wished
to have the girls visit the factories where silk, velvet and velour were
manufactured. Nancy Fabian had wearied of Mrs. Alexander’s endless
chatter about her million and the Count, and why anyone like the Osgoods
should lift their heads when they were so poor and proud!
So the day the two cars started for the Alps, (Mr. Alexander hoping to
cross them and stop over-night on the other side,) Mrs. Fabian took her
place beside Mrs. Alexander, in the roadster. The small car usually
trailed the seven-passenger car, but this day the order was accidentally
changed, while climbing the mountains.
It was rough travelling at the best, but the higher the cars climbed the
rougher became the road, and at last the steep trail narrowed so that it
was almost impossible to pass another car on the same roadway.
But the views were so wonderful and the mountains so majestic, that
everyone was silent and deeply impressed. The cars ascended one peak
after another, and as each summit was reached the autoists sat and
marvelled at the height of the mountain and wondered at the views. Then
they would seem to drop sheer down again to the valley between the two
peaks. This mode of travelling continued for a long rime, until one of
the highest peaks of the Alps towered before them. This cloud-piercing
mountain-top once passed over, they would reach the border line of Italy
and begin descending the range again.
Mrs. Alexander was a fairly good driver, but she had more assurance in
her ability than her understanding actually warranted. She was talking
nonsensically, as usual, with half her mind on the road and the other
half interested in what she was picturing to her companion, when she
turned a sharp curve in the road.
“Oh-OH!” she screamed, as she tried to use the emergency brake and turn
the wheel to avoid a great boulder which had rolled down upon the path.
But she had not held the machine sufficiently in hand to instantly
benefit her, when the occasion unexpectedly arose that needed presence
of mind. Consequently the new roadster struck the rock with enough force
to crush in the radiator and headlights. The second car came around the
curve, the passengers having heard the shrill scream and looking
fearfully for the catastrophe they believed to have happened to the two
women.
The shock of the collision had thrown Mrs. Alexander across the wheel
while her head broke the wind-shield; but Mrs. Fabian had instantly
clutched the side and back of the seat and was only badly shaken.
Everyone in the touring car jumped out and rushed over to see if either
of the ladies had been seriously hurt. Mrs. Alexander groaned and held
her side but could not speak.
“This is a fine pickle!” exclaimed Mr. Alexander. “On top of the
wurrold, and no sign of any help at hand to do anything for you. Even
the blamed old knob on this peak had to roll down and block the way.”
Mrs. Fabian was trying to make her companion speak and tell them where
she was injured, but she shook her head as if unable to speak. Dodo and
her father addressed her by every affectionate name they could think of,
and begged her to say what hurt. Her face was slightly cut but the blood
made it seem appalling to others.
“If you’ll only get over this, Maggie, I’ll never put another straw in
your way of hooking a title,” begged Mr. Alexander, his expression a
mixture of renunciation and misery.
After many minutes filled with suspense for the motorists, and the same
time filled by Mrs. Alexander’s groans and helpless rolling of her eyes
from one to another of the distracted motorists, she gradually recovered
enough to whisper: “The wheel must have fractured my ribs. I can feel
the sharp ends of the splintered bones cut me everytime I breathe, or
move a muscle.”
Mrs. Fabian then ordered the men to retire back of the big car, while
she helped the girls in gently lifting the injured lady and placing her
out flat on the comfortable seat of the roadster. With many a cry and
catching of breath, the patient was finally stretched out.
“Now I shall have to cut your gown open in front to get at your stays,”
said Mrs. Fabian, using the small scissors she kept in her large
handbag.
Mrs. Alexander tried to object at having her expensive suit ruined, but
Dodo held her hands while the scissors cut their way up and down. Once
the outer clothing was opened the cause of the sharp point of the
“fracture” was revealed.
“Thank goodness, Mrs. Alexander, that it is no worse!” exclaimed Mrs.
Fabian, and the girls seconded that exclamation as they found the front
steels of the stays had broken and were digging into the flesh under
them.
The silken corsets were soon slashed through and the broken fronts
removed, then Dodo said to her mother: “Take a deep breath, now.”
“O—oh—I’m afraid to, Dodo. It will hurt!” whimpered Mrs. Alexander.
“No it won’t! Mrs. Fabian managed to pull the steels out and she doesn’t
believe any of your ribs are broken.”
So, holding tightly to her daughter’s hand to encourage her, Mrs.
Alexander breathed lightly. As she felt no sharp dagger thrust of pain,
she took a deeper breath, and finally reassured herself that her bones
were as good as ever. At last she sat up and began fretting over her
damaged travelling suit, in such a tone that everyone around her, knew
she was fully recovered.
While this “first aid” had been going on, no one noticed the pebbles
that were dropping from the over-hanging crags that seemed to bolster up
the peak above them. But when Mrs. Alexander found she could move and
get out of the car, some of the stones struck the girls. They gazed up
but could see nothing beyond the high run of crag that faced the
roadway, consequently, they moved from under the shower which kept
getting worse.
Mr. Fabian ran up now and expressed deepest concern as he said:
“Everyone try to get under that great rock, at once. I’ll shove the
roadster under the cliff, too.”
“Where’s Pa?” cried Dodo, sensing some unusual danger.
“Here he comes!” called Polly, seeing Mr. Alexander driving his car
close up under the rocks.
The moment the car was halted close in to the bank, Mr. Alexander jumped
out and ran to help Mr. Fabian push and pull the damaged roadster under
the cliff, also.
“What’s the matter, anyway?” asked Mrs. Alexander, looking about at the
others for information. But they seemed as much at sea as she was. All
but Polly, who knew from experience what the signs portended.
“It looks like a slide, but it may be diverted before it goes over us.”
Her trembling voice and awed expression impressed her companions more
than the words she had spoken.
“That’s what I feared, and we’ve done the only thing possible—to crouch
under the cliff and wait,” added Mr. Fabian.
Mr. Alexander now took out his old black pipe and tobacco bag. As he
carefully pulled open the yellow cord at the top of the cheap cotton bag
he smiled and gazed at his friends. “You-all don’ know how sorry I am
for you, to think you-all can’t take a smoke to kill the time we has to
sit here.”
Mr. Fabian felt encouraged instantly by the wonderful acting of the
little man who could thus speak and smile and joke, in face of what was
now thundering and rumbling overhead—ever coming nearer the group
huddling under the cliffs.
“Nothin’ like tobac to soothe the feelin’s when you’ve had a punctured
rib or tire! If Maggie could only enjoy a whiff of this old friend of
mine, she’d soon have got over her pain.”
That irritated his wife so that she snapped back: “Yes, a whiff of that
would have killed me outright!”
The others laughed uneasily but the tense spell caused by the imminent
danger was broken. Mr. Alexander puffed contentedly, but during this
short exchange of conjugal sentiments of husband and wife, the slide
rolled onward, and the roar now became so deafening that no one could
hear a thing other than the thunder of the avalanche. Polly was the only
one who really comprehended the full danger, but she showed no fear or
nervousness, although she was doubtful as to the outcome of this
mountain disaster.
Rocks, roots, and all kinds of débris half-frozen in snow now rolled
over the cliffs and dropped over down the sides into the ravine that ran
along the other side of the narrow roadway. At the quaking caused by the
onrush of the avalanche, the automobiles rattled like tin toys and the
cowering humans who tried to push still farther back into the rocky
wall, watched the fragments of rock fall from overhead and pile upon the
roadway.
The whole dreadful occurrence, thus far, had not taken more than a few
minutes since the first pebble struck the roadster, but now was heard a
terrible splitting and crashing as if two planets were colliding; then
the very cliff where they sat seemed to roll over and shake the earth.
The frightened tourists clung to each other and screamed in a panic, but
the worst was really over.
The last horror was caused by the sudden impact of the land-slide when
it struck the solid wall of rock that rose sheer up back of the cliff
which skirted the road for tourists. This wall diverted the avalanche
and threw it along the gully which had been made by other preceding
snow-slides in the past. Had the present slide been able to crush the
rocky wall and come straight on down the mountain sides, nothing earthly
could have spared the tourists from being powdered under the grinding of
rock and ice.
The roar and tumult of the avalanche continued a few minutes longer, but
it gradually died away and Mr. Fabian stood tremblingly upon his feet
and tried to see which way the slide had gone.
“Humph! ‘A miss is as good as a mile’!” quoted Mr. Alex.
“Maybe; but don’t you go out to survey until we-all are sure this shower
of ice and trash is safely past us,” advised Polly.
“Don’t you think we had better get from under this cliff?” asked
Eleanor, nervously.
“If it stood that shock, it will last a few moments more, I reckon,”
replied Mr. Alexander.
The other members in the party were too frightened at seeing the rocks
and ice that still poured over the cliff, to speak a word. When the
dropping had ceased, however, and the roar was diminishing, Polly heaved
an audible sigh.
[Illustration: POLLY WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO COMPREHENDED THE DANGER.]
“Well, folkses! That’s over! I’ve been in slides on the Rockies, but I
never felt so queer as this one made me feel. When you understand your
ground well, and can reckon on what might hold or what might give way,
you feel easier. But on the Alps where all is new and strange to me, I
wasn’t sure of this cliff being able to resist the impact.”
“Then it _was_ very dangerous for us, was it?” gasped Mrs. Alexander,
paling under the rouge on her face.
“Danger! Oh no—no more than jumpin’ off that precipice for a lark!”
laughed Mr. Alexander, knocking the half-smoked ashes from his old pipe,
and tucking the black friend away in his pocket.
“Well, Ebeneezer, when I see you waste good tobacco like that, I know
you are so unbalanced that you don’t know what you’re doing,” retorted
Mrs. Alexander.
This remark caused a laugh and everyone felt better immediately. Then
Mr. Fabian turned to the little man and said: “We had better see how
much damage is done to the roadster. Perhaps it will have to be towed to
the next stopping place.”
It took another good hour to overhaul the little car and even then it
was found to be too badly damaged to travel under its own power. While
the two men were trying to repair the car, the girls worked to clear
away the stones and débris that encumbered and blocked the road. The
large rock that had caused the accident to Mrs. Alexander’s car, could
be avoided, with careful steering, if the other trash was out of the
way.
Polly showed her companions how to construct rough brooms of the brush
that had fallen over the cliff, and soon they were sweeping for dear
life, with the queer-looking implements. But the brush-brooms did the
work thoroughly, and when the cars were ready to continue on the way,
the road was cleared.
“Prof., before we leave here, I think we ought to place a sort of
warning on the other side of that awful heap and the chasms in the
roadway that the avalanche caused. We might use the red-silk shirt-waist
I have in the bag,” said Polly, anxiously.
“Or go on to report to the nearest forester we meet,” said Mr.
Alexander, from his western experience.
“We’ll do both,” returned Mr. Fabian. “It won’t take long to ram a pole
in the débris and tie the red flag on it, but it may save others a great
deal of danger.”
“Better still, if we can crawl over the slide that is piled high up on
the trail, I might tie the flag to a young tree far enough down the
roadway to spare anyone the climb to this narrow pass where they cannot
turn around,” added Polly.
So Mr. Fabian and Polly managed to creep warily over the obstructions
which were heaped over the roadway and, further down the trail, they
found a tree that grew beside the road. Here the red blouse signal was
left flying from the stripped young tree, and a warning was printed on
the white silk cuff, telling of the dangers ahead in the path.
When the tourists were settled in the cars again, the large car leading
and the crippled roadster being towed behind, they felt that they had
done their duty and expressed their deep gratitude for their own safety,
by leaving the signal flag for others to see and read.
It was slow work zig-zagging down the great height, as the little car
could not work its brakes very well, and it had to be held back by the
rear mud-guards of the leading car. But the breathless descent was
finally accomplished and in the valley they found a tiny garage, placed
there for the repairing of damaged automobiles.
“I shouldn’t think it would pay you to keep up a shop in this isolated
spot,” remarked Mr. Fabian, when the mechanic was working on Mrs.
Alexander’s car.
“But you don’t know how many tourists cross the Alps in summer; everyone
finds something wrong, or runs out of gas, by the time they reach this
valley,” explained the man.
Before the tourists were ready to depart, a number of cars had driven
up, asked for gas or repairs, and then were told of the land-slide on
top of the peak. This spared them climbing, as they could go by another
road. The passengers in these cars were most grateful to Mr. Fabian’s
party for the information, thus several parties had been benefited,
before a crimson car drove up and a handsome young man called to the
mechanic.
“Is this the right road over Top Pass?”
“Yes, but you can’t pass,” returned the man, then he told of the
experiences the people in the American party had just had.
“My, that must have been some excitement! Wish we had been there,” cried
the other young man, eagerly.
“Are you an American?” asked Mr. Fabian, certain of it even as he spoke,
because the accent and manner of speech was Yankee.
The two young men exchanged looks with each other, and one replied: “We
lived in the United States for many years.”
This speaker was about twenty-two or three, but the other one was
younger. They both were exceptionally good-looking and free in their
manner. It could be readily seen that their car and clothes were of the
best, and one would naturally conclude that they were wealthy young men
touring Europe for pleasure.
The roadster was now repaired and ready to be used, so the bill was paid
and Mrs. Alexander got in. Mrs. Fabian was rather timid about trusting
herself with such a chauffeur again, so Mr. Fabian seated himself beside
the owner of the car.
“Which way do you go from here?” called out one of the strange young
men.
“On to Turin,” answered Mr. Alexander.
“Do you mind if we follow you? We lost our way to Turin, somewhere, back
there, and when we found ourselves here we decided to go on and not stop
at Turin.”
This sounded rather lame for an excuse, but no one could refuse
permission for the boys to follow, if they wanted to—so Mr. Alexander
shouted back at them: “This air is free, and so is the earth! Foller
what you like, as long as you don’t run us down and make us stop for
another over-haulin’ of the cars.”
The young men laughed and thanked the sarcastic little man, but the
girls smiled as they wondered if this change in route—or minds of the
two young men—was caused by seeing a number of pretty misses in the
touring car?
The day was far spent when the roadster was in a shape to continue the
tour, and Turin was many a mile away. So it was found to be impossible
to reach there that night. The recent experience with the avalanche had
caused a reaction, too, and as everyone felt worn out with the tension,
it was decided to stop at a small inn in the foot-hills of the Alps.
The automobiles had been left in the shed that was used for the cows and
oxen, and the travellers entered the low-ceiled primitive room with
ravenous appetites. The inn-keeper was cooking at a huge fireplace at
the end of the room, and the odor of bacon and onions permeated the
entire place.
“Oh!” sighed Eleanor, rolling her eyes upwards, “I never smelled
anything so delicious!”
“Yet you abominate onions at other times,” laughed Polly.
“It all depends on the state of your appetite,” retorted Eleanor.
When the tourists were refreshed by washing and brushing, they returned
to the great living-room. The two young strangers were there before
them. The older of the two acted as spokesman and now introduced himself
and his companion.
“This is my cousin, Alan Everard, of Winnipeg, Canada. And I am Basil
Traviston, a resident of California, but not a native of that State.”
Mr. Fabian introduced his wife, and the other members of his party by
name only, without mentioning the city or state whence they came. All
through supper hour he maintained a dignified attitude which was meant
to warn off any young men with dangerously good looks. But he might as
well have tried to build a snow-man under the heat of a July sun.
Both young men were so charming, and told many witty stories which kept
their audience in stitches of laughter that it was generally conceded,
afterward, the two were most desirable fellow-travellers. Mr. and Mrs.
Fabian sat up a full hour after the girls were asleep, however, trying
to pick a flaw in the behavior of the two strangers, which might form a
basis for the separation from the touring party. When all was said and
done, the only tangible excuse was the fact that they were both so
handsome and unknown.
The next morning the three cars started for Turin, and during the
tiresome ride the two young men managed to keep up an exchange of
interesting remarks that amused everyone. When they stopped for luncheon
in the middle of the day, the two boys insisted upon waiting on the
ladies and making themselves generally useful.
The time came for the tourists to get in their cars again, but Mrs.
Alexander had taken a decided liking for the younger of the two young
men—Alan Everard. So she invited him to travel in her car, and that
left Mr. Fabian without a place.
“It’s only as far as Turin, you know,” explained Mrs. Alexander, trying
to smile sweetly on the guide of the touring party.
Rather than create any unpleasantness, Mr. Fabian got in beside Basil
Traviston. But he was determined, as long as he was forced to accept the
seat, to learn more about the two new additions to his party.
After a perfunctory exchange of sentiments, Mr. Fabian said: “Your name
is very English, and the fact that your cousin is from Winnipeg, leads
me to judge that you both are of English descent.”
“My cousin’s real name is not Everard—that is his first name; but we
both are travelling incognito on the Continent, as our titles and names
are so well-known that people stand to stare, and annoy us with their
interest. So we decided to travel unknown, this season.”
Mr. Fabian frowned, and glanced side-ways from his eyes, to see if the
young man was presuming upon his intelligence. But Traviston was driving
with a most guileless expression. In fact, no handsome babe could have
appeared more innocent than he.
“It really seems as if we have been unusually blessed—or cursed, I
don’t know which—with young men who claim titles. Mrs. Alexander wished
so intensely for titled young men to travel with, it looks as if she
attracted them to our party,” said Mr. Fabian, smiling cynically.
“Is that so?” returned Traviston, but his tone and expression failed to
show any resentment or interest in the information. Mr. Fabian wondered,
and decided not to tread on thin ice any more, just then.
But Mrs. Alexander was faring much better with the young man in her car.
Almost immediately after they had resumed the tour she asked pointedly:
“Your cousin’s name, and yours as well, is very English. Perhaps you
belong to an old family?”
“Oh yes,” returned Everard. “Both of us came over, this year, on purpose
to trace our family-trees. I have learned that my people go back to Adam
without a break.”
“Not really!” gasped Mrs. Alexander, astonished at such a long line of
ancestry.
“Yes, and Basil now believes he can antedate Adam, and trace some facts
about his ancestry that started with a missing link.” Young Everard
laughed softly as he spoke, but his companion never having heard of
Darwin, believed every word he said; whereas he thought she knew he was
joking.
“You and your cousin must be young men of leisure, or you couldn’t spend
a whole summer touring Europe in such an expensive car. I noticed how
sporty the car was, before I saw either of you,” said Mrs. Alexander.
“That’s just it. When Basil and I work, we have to work like Trojans.
But when we finish a contract we take life easy until the next job comes
up.”
“Oh, you work? I wouldn’t have said so. What sort of contract work do
you do?” asked Mrs. Alexander. The pedestal she had used for her two new
heroes, seemed shaking dangerously.
Everard laughed. “Some people laugh at what we call work, but they don’t
realize that playing is the hardest kind of work. I sometimes think I
will chuck the whole game and knuckle down to the real thing—work that
is called work. But money is sweet, and if one likes to spend, then the
weak little decision to work as others do, dies hard and I go on with
the play.”
Mrs. Alexander suddenly realized that she had misunderstood the young
man’s first words. Then he called “playing” his work, and with his money
he found playing as hard a work as a poor man finds his labor. So she
sympathized with his ideals and thought him a remarkable young man.
Before they reached Turin, she had her suspicions that he was a very
_important_ young man; for he had given her certain bits of information
that told how well-known he and his cousin were, and how they dodged at
certain places to travel incognito to avoid publicity.