CHAPTER VI POKE TAKES A FLYER

It was nearly a mile from the council rock to the road on which the club was to meet Lon Gates on his return from the Ridge; and as the afternoon was well advanced the boys made a forced march of it. All of them were panting from a dog-trot across the last field, when they came to the highway, and saw the Parker car approaching at a leisurely pace. So, when Lon pulled up and grinned at them cheerfully, evidencing no desire for haste, none of them was in a hurry to climb into the machine.

“What did you think of the pond?” Lon inquired. “And how’s the modern improvements progressin’? Gettin’ to be quite meetropolitan, eh?”

Sam laughed. “We could see a lot of building going on, but we didn’t notice a crowd, Lon. Fact is, we stayed on the other side of the lake.”

“Stumbled on a bully place and tied up there,” Step contributed.

Lon wagged his head sagely. “Reckon you made the best pick, at that. As I remember it, the pootiest side of the pond is across from the syndicate’s land. And there used to be a big rock----”

“Scooped out toward the water--like part of a saucer, you know?” Poke broke in.

“That’s the feller.”

“Well, it’s there yet.”

Lon’s eyes twinkled. “Do tell! And yet I don’t know as it’s so surprisin’, rocks havin’ a way o’ stayin’ put. Set a good example for folks, don’t they? But, as I was sayin’, I remember that old rock and the fishin’ we used to have jest opposite it--bass, mostly. And up back a piece was a spring. I tell you, boys, if I was goin’ campin’ at the pond, that’s jest about where I’d tie up.”

“It did seem to be a good place, and I’d----” Sam began, but paused in mid-sentence. “Why--what’s that?”

Everybody had heard the sounds which had caught Sam’s attention. Up the road, in the direction from which Lon had come, something was happening, something extraordinarily and violently noisy. There was a succession of reports; then a broken and uneven rattle; then another series of explosions, louder than before and evidently nearer.

“Great Scott! It must be a machine-gun!” gasped Step.

“If it is, we’ll have to duck,” said Herman Boyd. “The thing’s coming this way.”

“And here it is!” cried Poke.

Something shot into view, a black something which was raising a tremendous cloud of dust and which was traveling at reckless speed. Lon shouted a warning to the boys to stand aside, threw on his power, and steered his car far into the ditch. As he did so, it was as if a roaring cyclone swept past. The noise of it deafened the club, the dust it sent swirling in clouds choked them, its velocity dazed them. That the cause of the commotion was an automobile they realized, but none of them had an idea what manner of car it might be, or, indeed, how many passengers it carried.

Lon steered back into the road.

“All aboard, everybody!” he called. “There’s a feller that’s findin’ the goin’ too good to last. Let’s follow and see if we can pick up enough o’ the pieces to tell what kind of a machine ’twas.”

No second invitation was needed. The boys swarmed into the touring car.

“Hurry!” Sam urged. “That fellow’s in trouble now. You can’t hear his engine any more.”

It was quite true. The loud reports had ceased abruptly; there were no sounds from beyond the bend in the road where the speeding driver had vanished.

Lon gave his young friends an excellent exhibition of how fast a careful chauffeur can go, on occasion. But he had not far to go--less than a quarter-mile, in fact. Then he was throwing on his brakes, and whistling shrilly as he did so.

The other car--or what was left of it--was across the ditch. It lay on its side, with its front axle jammed against a boulder. The cover of the hood had been torn off, and the engine was exposed. The leather top was in ribbons; the cushions had vanished. One back wheel lay against the stone wall bordering the road.

“Jee-ru-salem!” Lon exclaimed. “I’ll bet a lot o’ things happened to the citizen managin’ that joy ride, and happened all of a sudden! But where is he?”

As if in answer a figure raised itself beyond the wall. Lon drew a long breath of relief.

“Say, but I thought he must ’a’ been killed, sure for sartain! It’s an amazin’ mercy he’s got a leg left to stand on!”

With that, Lon was out of the car, and striding to the stranger’s aid, the boys pressing closely behind him. But, as the event proved, there was very little for them to do.

The man--he was a tall, gaunt person with a wisp of chin beard--seemed to have come to no great bodily harm, though his clothing was ripped and torn, his hat was missing, and the sole of one of his shoes flapped like a loose slipper when he moved. From the clump of brush, into which he had been projected, and which mercifully had broken the force of his fall, he limped forward, a step at a time, pausing to bend a knee, test an elbow, or otherwise investigate the extent of his injuries. Lon tried to offer him a supporting arm, but was waved back.

“No; let me stand on my own feet, Mister--kinder a luxury I find it to be able to,” said the man. “Say, but we must ’a’ been goin’ some!”

“All o’ that--and then a little more,” Lon assured him.

The man rubbed his eyes. “I dunno’s I happen to know you folks, but I cal’late you’re the crowd I passed a rod or so back.”

“Call it a couple o’ forty-rods.”

“Well, mebbe. There was sort of a blur side of the road, but I’d got other things to think about. And say! was we touchin’ ground anywhere when we went by you?”

“Not as I noticed,” Lon told him.

The man nodded. “She was a goer, all right, that machine! But she wa’n’t no lady’s drivin’ car. Feller that let me have her said that, and, by gum, he hit it!”

“Looks that way,” Lon agreed. “But don’t you belong over Waterville way? And ain’t your name Haskins? ’Tis, eh? Thought I’d seen you before.”

“Oh, I’m Jabe Haskins, sure enough,” said the other. “Don’t wonder you didn’t recognize me fust-off. Guess I must have aged twenty years while I was shootin’ over that stun wall. You see, I was wonderin’ which of the fifty-seven possible ways I’d hit when I landed; but pshaw! I was clean off the track, for I hit all of ’em. Guess that’s what saved my neck--kinder distributed the shock, y’know. But I’ll never again be the man I was! Whew! but I’m all one ache, and dented from one end of me to the other!”

“Course, if you want to over-speed----” Lon began, but Haskins cut him short.

“’Twa’n’t what I wanted to do, Mister, but what that blessed machine