CHAPTER XIII.

REPENTANT BUMPUS.

There was no mystery attached to it all, and Thad understood the whole occurrence as soon as he saw the car moving down the road with Bumpus in it. As usually happens, meddling was meeting with its customary reward.

Bumpus, as they very well knew, had long been desirous of learning how to run a motor car. Of course his father, being at the head of the Cranford bank, owned a big car, and had a chauffeur to run it; but he had issued positive orders that under no conditions was the boy to be allowed to ever handle the steering wheel. He knew Bumpus, and his capacity for doing the wrong thing, and meant to take no chances of having a smash-up.

Boys are human. What is denied them they most of all yearn to possess. Perhaps had Bumpus never been restrained from trying to run a car, his first little accident would have ended his vaulting ambition. As it was, this desire fed on the fact that it was a forbidden luxury for him.

When, therefore, Thad and the other two scouts were making their way toward the spring, with the intention of satisfying their thirst, he found himself tempted to clamber awkwardly over into the front seat, so as to sit there, and grasping the steering wheel try to imagine himself a bold chauffeur.

The engine was throbbing in restraint, and the trembling motion of the car gave Bumpus an additional opportunity to believe himself IT.

How he ever came to do it no one ever knew. Bumpus himself was so startled when he felt the car give a sudden leap forward that his wits almost left him. He always stoutly maintained that, so far as he could remember, he had done nothing at all to influence the start, but of course this was a mistake, for cars do not run away without some help.

Bumpus still gripped that wheel in a frenzied clutch. He stared hard at the road ahead, which to his excited fancy seemed to consist of a zigzag course as crooked as any wriggling snake he had ever watched.

At one second it seemed as though he were headed for the gully on the right, and no sooner had he wildly given the wheel a turn than the car, in sheer ugliness, Bumpus thought, started for the other side of the road.

The ditch there did not look a bit more tempting to the greenhorn chauffeur, and so he would strive to avoid being overturned by a contrary whirl of the wheel.

There he was going along at a rapid pace, with the crazy car making the most eccentric dives and plunges imaginable.

"After him!" shouted Thad.

He feared for the car, but most of all he felt great concern for Bumpus himself. With all his faults, the fat boy was a general favorite among his comrades of the Cranford Troop. In fact, everybody liked him on account of his sunny nature, his happy-go-lucky disposition, and his genial, child-like and bland smile.

Hardly had Thad given this shout than all of them were on the go. They did not attempt to return to the road over the same course taken in reaching the wayside spring, but started along a diagonal line. This was to overcome the lead which the runaway car had already obtained.

Thad shouted out directions which if heard and understood by Bumpus would have allowed him to bring the car to a sudden stop. Perhaps in his excitement the boy who clutched the steering wheel could not make head or tail of what Thad was calling. Then again it may have been the rattle of the cranky old car prevented him from catching the tenor of the directions.

In fact, as Bumpus afterwards frankly confessed, it would have made little difference whether he heard and understood the order or not. He only had two hands, and they were both needed every second of the time to keep that wheel moving, and thus prevent an accident.

The three scouts found many obstacles in their way from the spring to the road. They climbed fences with a surprising agility, and mounted a wall as though they were hounds coursing after a hare.

The long-legged Giraffe proved himself to be a trifle better than either of the others at this sort of thing, and consequently he came upon the road first. When Thad and Allan arrived he was some little distance along, running like a deer, and utterly regardless of the clouds of dust created by the eccentric motions of the reckless runaway car.

Thad was used to judging distances, and after making a rapid mental calculation he decided that, barring some accident, Giraffe was sure to overtake the car before many minutes had passed.

He only hoped they would come to no abrupt bend in the road, where the inexperienced chauffeur would lose what little command he now possessed over his refractory vehicle.

Of course, Thad did not attempt to voice his opinion. He needed every atom of breath he could get in order to keep up that burst of speed; and, besides, in that choking dust it would have been folly to have opened his mouth.

The car was doing as well as at any time since it came into their possession. Perhaps it meant to show them that even a car may have feelings, and resent constant slurs. Only for that zigzag motion, which consumed more or less time, Giraffe might have found it a much more difficult thing to catch up with the runaway.

More than once it seemed to Thad that his heart was trying to crowd up into his throat and choke him. This came about whenever he saw Bumpus make a more desperate lunge than usual and come within an ace of landing in the ditch, the car wrecked, and his own neck placed in extreme peril of being broken.

As Giraffe afterwards privately said, "There seems to be an especial little cherub aloft given the task of protecting children and fools"; and, if this were true, the angelic being had Bumpus in charge on that wild run.

Now Giraffe by dint of a spurt was close behind the car. Thad still chasing after, with Allan close beside him, waited in suspense to see how the tall comrade would manage. He knew just how he would act under similar conditions, and had enough faith in Giraffe to believe he could do at least as well.

They saw him lay hands on the rear of the car. Then he seemed to make a mighty effort, and the next thing they knew he was clambering, scrambling, getting aboard any way at all, so that he accomplished his aim.

No doubt he was also holding his peace so that poor, clumsy Bumpus might not be still further "rattled" with the knowledge that help had arrived in his sore extremity.

Then all at once Giraffe was seen to bend over and clutch the steering wheel. It was heartening to notice how quickly the car stopped that erratic wabbling, and settled down to doing a fairly straight run.

No doubt Giraffe was not telling Bumpus just what he must do with his freed hands, for they saw the fat boy lean over, while the car began to run slower and slower until it came to a dead stop.

Then for the first time did Thad allow himself to say a word. The relief from all that suspense was so great that he had to give expression to his satisfaction, which he did by gasping:

"Thank goodness, he did it--bully for Giraffe!"

"It sometimes pays to have _extra_ long legs!" was the characteristic remark made by Allan, as they both ran on, though at a reduced pace.

When they arrived at the now motionless car they found an extremely repentant Bumpus awaiting them.

"Don't ask me how it happened, Thad," he said sadly, "because I don't know. I was sitting there, turning the wheel this way and that, and trying to imagine how it felt to be a real chauffeur, when all at once she gave a snort and a kick, just like an army mule that feels the lash, and commenced to start whizzing along the road. Oh! look at me, soaking wet with perspiration. Whew! I've had a lesson I won't forget in a hurry. You don't catch me fooling with a buzz saw again in a hurry, I promise you."

With such a contrite culprit owning up to his faults what could Thad say? To scold Bumpus seemed almost cruel, and besides, Thad was feeling too well pleased over the successful outcome of the adventure to hurt the poor fellow's feelings any more than was absolutely necessary.

Giraffe was not quite so tenderhearted, though feeling flushed with satisfaction over his recent victory.

"Guess you know now why your dad wouldn't let you learn to run your big touring car at home, don't you, Bumpus?" he jeered.

"I'm beginning to think he knew a heap better than I did about it," admitted the humble Bumpus.

"It takes brains to run a car," asserted Giraffe meaningly. "Some people never should try it, because they get rattled at the least little thing out of the ordinary, and go all to pieces."

Bumpus heaved a great sigh; then one of his old-time smiles crept over his face, now white no longer on account of alarm.

"Well, I'm mighty glad I didn't quite do that, Giraffe, by bringing up in the ditch, you know," he started to say. "Gimme a little credit for escaping smashing things to splinters. And, Giraffe, I want to say that I'm ever so much obliged to you for doing what you did. It was a noble deed, and there are few fellows who could have carried it out half as well as you."

After that splendid compliment, of course there was no use of Giraffe feeling hard toward the one who had just given them all such a scare. He smiled back at Bumpus, and the subject was dropped, so far as finding fault or laying down the law went.

"What shall we do now, Thad?" asked Allan.

"We might go back again to where we were," suggested the other, with a curious look toward Bumpus, which the other noticed, and understood.

"What for, Thad?" he demanded. "If you're meaning to let me get a drink, I refuse to allow it. I'm going dry, to make up in part for what I did. Serves me right, and I'll get it rubbed in all the time I'm being half choked by the dust."

Thad saw he meant it, too, and knew that Bumpus could be very stubborn when he wanted to. Besides, perhaps it would be just as well for him to punish himself in this way, since the more he suffered the less likelihood there was of the incident being repeated.

"Just as you say, Bumpus," he remarked, as he climbed into the car again; "we'll keep our eyes on the watch for a chance to stop at one of these cottages where they have a well in the yard, and you can get a drink there."

"Thank you, Thad; it's a lot more than I deserve," said Bumpus; "but I tell you I had the surprise of my life when she gave that snort, and started to run away with me. I'm shivering yet with the excitement; just feel my hand, will you, Giraffe?"

Another start was made, everybody feeling satisfied that there had been no serious outcome of the adventure. To have had the car put out of the running would have caused them considerable distress; but they might have even forgiven that if only their jolly chum came through the accident unscathed.

It was really Thad himself who discovered a wayside cottage, with a well in the yard. Possibly Bumpus, bent on severe atonement, would never have called their attention to the same if he had been the only one to glimpse it.

He even began to demur when Thad said they would stop and ask for a drink; but Giraffe told him not to be foolish.

"Think we want you to get choking pretty soon, and scare us half to death?" he told the fat boy severely; but then Bumpus knew very well this was all assumed, and that Giraffe really wanted him to assuage his raging thirst.

So they came to a stop, and when a woman accompanied by several children came out of the cottage, Thad managed by signs to ask permission to drink at her well. She quickly understood what he wanted, and nodded an assent, even starting to draw a fresh bucket of water, though Thad took the rope from her hands, and completed the job.