A NARROW ESCAPE.
But Roy's quick eye had noted one loophole of escape,--a gap in the bank.
Truly it was taking a terrible risk to dash the car through it. The boy
did not know what lay beyond, and in taking the chance he was running
almost as great a risk of annihilation as if he kept straight on. But to
have done the latter would have been to crash into a solid wall of moving
freight cars as they bumped across the grade crossing.
It was almost certain that they would be thrown out and maybe injured.
But Roy did not hesitate. With a quick twist of his steering wheel he
sent the car spinning on two wheels for the gap. For an instant it seemed
as if the vehicle would capsize under the sudden change of direction. But
it did not, although it tilted over at a dangerous angle.
Whiz-z-z-z-z!
In a flash they were through the gap, the landscape blurring, so terrific
was the speed.
The next instant there was a sickening shock. Instinctively Roy threw out
an arm to protect his fair companion. Hardly had he done so before he
felt himself impelled through the air as if from a catapult, and all grew
blank.
When Roy came to himself his head ached as if it would burst. It was some
few seconds, in fact, before he realized what had occurred. When he did
he looked about him. A few paces away lay the still form of Jess
Bancroft. She was stretched out on a cushion upon which she must have
fallen. For an instant, as he gazed at her features as pale as marble,
and her closed eyes, a dreadful thought flashed across Roy's mind. What
if she were dead?
But to his great relief he speedily ascertained that the girl was
breathing. An ugly bruise on her forehead may have accounted for her
continued swoon although she had fainted with terror the instant the
train appeared beneath them on the crossing.
The car, its hood crumpled up as if it had been made of paper instead of
metal, stood at the foot of a tree not far off.
"No wonder we were thrown out," thought Roy, as he gazed at the wreck and
considered the speed at which they had encountered the obstruction. "The
wonder is we escaped with our lives."
After a brief and ineffectual attempt to arouse the girl the boy looked
about him for some means of assistance. The cowardly train crew had not
stopped when they saw the accident. Visions of damage suits and summary
discharges may have drifted through their minds, for extra freights were
supposed to send flagmen to the crossing to warn all traffic of the
train's approach.
Suddenly Roy recollected the two men he had seen spring from behind the
hedge as the runaway auto approached the gap. What had become of them?
Apparently they had taken to their heels also, for not a sign was to be
seen of them.
"Odd," thought the boy to himself; "one would think the first instinct of
a human being at seeing an accident like this would be to stay and help.
But, hold on, maybe they've gone for a doctor. A retired physician, Dr.
Mays, lives not far from here. In the meantime if I could only get some
cold water."
Suddenly he spied a small brook at the foot of the hill. Ill and dazed as
he felt Roy sprinted toward it, and wetting his handkerchief hastened
back to Jess. Kneeling by her side he bathed her forehead. He was
rewarded in a few moments by beholding her eyelids flutter and open. In a
few seconds more she was fully conscious, but weak and shaken. Roy
collected the scattered cushions from the wreck, and placing them like a
mattress laid the girl upon them.
She thanked him with a wan smile and then lay still once more. Roy wisely
did not speak. He judged that perfect quiet was what she wanted at that
moment.
While he sat by her side meditating what to do a sudden noise caused him
to look upward.
It was a noise like the drone of a giant bumble bee. It came from
directly above his head.
"The Golden Butterfly!" shouted Roy, springing to his feet.
Above him, at an elevation of some thousand feet, the yellow wings of the
Prescott aeroplane were outlined against the blue, like the form of one
of her namesakes.
Roy shouted and waved frantically. Presently he was rewarded by the
flutter of a handkerchief from the chassis of the 'plane. At the same
instant it was swung about, and revolving in graceful circles began to
spiral down to the earth.
"Hooray! It's Peggy and Jimsy!" cried Roy. "I recollect now Jess told me
that Jimsy was to have a lesson to-day."
Ten minutes later the aeroplane lighted in the field not a hundred yards
from the wreck. As it reached the ground Peggy started the engine at
reduced speed. The aerial marvel began to scoot across the field toward
Roy as obediently as if it had been an automobile under perfect control.
Agitated as he was Roy could not help feeling enthusiastic as the huge,
glittering, flying thing came closer, its engine roaring and its
propeller whirring angrily, and yet, the dainty girl in the motor bonnet
who was driving it had it under perfect control every second. Throwing
back a lever and cutting off the spark and the gasolene, Peggy brought
the aeroplane to a stop with a jerk.
Jimsy, with alarmed questions on his lips, sprang out, while Roy helped
his sister to alight.
"Good gracious, whatever has happened?" gasped the girl, as she stood on
the ground and viewed the still form of her chum Jess, over which Jimsy
was bending in genuine alarm.
"It's all right, sis," Roy assured her, "Jess is not badly hurt. See--she
is looking up at you."
Peggy sped lightly over the turf to her chum's side.
"Oh, Peggy, dear, I'm so glad you've come. It was dreadful. But Roy was
so brave. I'm sure I owe my life to him, for the last thing I recollect
we were heading direct for the train."
She would have said more, but Peggy held up an admonitory finger. Turning
to Roy she sought an explanation of all that occurred. It was soon told,
and then the question of summoning a physician came up.
In the midst of the discussion Peggy gave a glad little cry.
"The aeroplane! I can fly over to Doctor Mays' house. There's a dandy big
pasture in the rear in which to alight."
"By George, that's so," agreed Roy, "and I guess, although it sounds a
bit startling, it's the only thing to do. We can't run the car and nobody
will be along here for hours perhaps. This road isn't travelled much."
But Peggy, with that quick decision which was characteristic of her, was
already half way to the aeroplane. A moment more and she was in the
chassis, and slipping into the driver's seat began adjusting the motor.
"I'll leave you to look after Jess," said Roy to Jimsy, "while I go along
with Peggy. I'm not sure that she is as expert in managing an aeroplane
as she thinks she is."
"Well, she brought me over here at a great rate, anyhow," put in Jimsy,
loyally.
"And in the nick of time, too," said Roy, warmly pressing the other's
hand.
"Oh, do be back as quickly as possible, my foot hurts dreadfully," moaned
poor Jess, "and my head feels as if a thousand dwarfs were hammering away
inside it."
"We'll be back before you expect us," Roy said, cheerily. Jimsy shouted
something, but his words were drowned in the roar of the motor as Roy
clambered into the Golden Butterfly and Peggy started the engine.
The aeroplane dashed forward over the smooth turf and then seemed to take
the air as lightly and easily as a bit of gossamer. Straight up it
soared, high above the tree tops, and was speedily reduced to a fast
diminishing speck in the northwest in which direction lay Doctor Mays'
home. Looking downward from the speeding flyer the boy and girl aviators
could see, spread out below them like a checkerboard, the fertile Long
Island landscape.
Through it ran the railroad, looking like a glittering ribbon of steel.
Off to the north the sea sparkled, a few white sails dotting its surface.
The Black Rock lighthouse, painted in bands of red and white, formed a
conspicuous object.
All at once, on the road beneath them, Roy spied a solitary motor-cyclist
whom, even at the height to which they had now risen, he recognized as
Fanning Harding. He called his sister's attention to the rider.
"He must have passed right by where the accident happened," he remarked;
"that road has no outlet for some distance. Funny that he didn't come to
help us."
"You must remember that the banks and hedge hid the place from the road,"
Peggy reminded him. "Even Fanning Harding wouldn't have willfully passed
by you when you were in such straits."
"I don't think so, either," agreed Roy, "and come to think of it, bending
over his handlebars as he is, he would not be likely to have noticed the
gap we ploughed through."
"Look," cried Peggy suddenly, "he's stopping."
The girl was right. The motor-cycling boy, whose pace had hitherto been
as fast as that of the aeroplane, could now be seen to slacken his
machine and finally stop it. Leaning it against a fence he clambered into
an adjoining field, and with every evidence of extreme caution he crept
toward a patch of woods at no great distance.
"What can he be doing?" exclaimed Peggy.
As she spoke they saw the boy below them take something from his hip
pocket.
"A pistol!" cried Roy.
The next instant Fanning Harding had vanished into the patch of woods
without having noticed the aerial observers, or, at least, so it appeared.