Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 156: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

154 cy “HE’S) = going ~to pass’ them,” wea breathed Ruth joyously, and wished SSS that Danny were with her to see Number 8 creep slowly up abreast of the other two and start to nose out to the front. This challenge both drivers took up at once, always willing to sacrifice safety if necessary to win. But Dutro’s car was slower. Her best was not as good as what Bud and Pop Hurley were getting from theirs. Very slowly he began to lose ground. Harding’s car was speedier. As Dutro dropped back, he kept abreast of Number 8 almost to the turn, but the terrific strain at the beginning of the race told now in this supreme test. The tires held, but a cylinder missed, and then another, as he crowded her on. This cost speed, while Bud and Pop Hurley came on terrifically toward the curve with their engine working perfectly. Bud would have taken it again at prohib- itive speed, just for the sake of passing Harding, but Pop Hurley kicked his foot from the gas throttle in time for the needed slow-up. “We've got ’em,”’ he shouted with his lips to Bud’sear. ‘‘Wait until we make the turn, then give her the gun!” A few seconds later they headed into the stretch abreast of Harding and with Dutro a few lengths behind. “Step on her,”’ ordered Pop Hurley, and Bud Cantril, who had never had a spill, and whose nerve had never been shaken, did as he was told. Almost over Danny’s head half a dozen boys clung to the arms of a small electric- light pole, and in their excitement did not notice how it plunged and cracked at each movement of their bodies. As Danny watched, a hastily put up guy wire snapped. “Lay down from aloft!’ he shouted in warning, but the boys did not hear him in the noise, and a moment afterward the pole broke off at the ground and fell across the tops of some parked automobiles. The fall was not a long one, and the wires from the other side of the track eased the fall so that the boys were able to jump down to safety in the crowd. There was a moment’s flurry of excite- ment as the pole fell, which turned to a good-natured laugh as all escaped injury. Then suddenly the crowd grew still as an impending disaster greater than they had dreamed of made them catch their breath in horror. The three heavy copper wires Adventure which the pole had held were stretched taut across the track, only a few feet from the ground, straight in the path of the oncom- ing cars, which had made the turn and were opening up into the back-stretch. “Pull ’em down!’’ yelled some one. “They can’t see ’em for the dust. It’ll cut em in two!” And twenty men tried to push and pull the pole to earth, but the springing wires resisted all the strength they could bring to bear on it, and the tangle of machines and the fence around the course helped to thwart their efforts. “Cut ’em,” yelled a voice. “Keep away, they’re live wires,’’ cau- tioned another. And then DannyWallace, running cat-like up the slanting, swaying pole as he would over a boat boom on his own ship, reached the cross arm at the end, took hold of a glass insulator for safety, and with a wicked looking jack-knife which had a wire-cutting attachment, snipped the three wires clean, and waved to the frantic crowd on the other side to pull them clear. An instant later the racing cars whizzed past, all unaware of their danger, and the treacherous pole, freed of its support, swung giddily to the ground, flinging Danny Wallace on the top of an automobile, where he landed right side up just in time to see Bud Cantril and Pop Hurley, in a last superb burst of reckless speed, pass Harding and win the race. wien) A HAPPY party of four celebrated Newen the victory that night with a supper = at the Crown Hotel. Pop Hurley and Danny Wallace each had a string of race stories, one of the sea and the other of the road, to which Ruth and Bud were glad to listen, Ruth because she was interested and happy, and Bud because of a decision he must make at the close of the evening, one that had been haunting him for a good many days. “It’s getting late,’”’ announced Pop Hur- ley finally. And Bud took the plunge. ‘‘When are you going back?” he asked Danny Wallace. ‘‘T’ll be startin’ in the mornin’,” answered Danny cheerily. ‘‘What about it, Bud?” “T’m not,” blurted out Bud defiantly. “Pop Hurley says I can make good in auto racing, and I’m going to stick to it. Tell him, Pop. Don’t you think I’m right?” MICLOOO® C© C©