The Argosy, Vol. 82 No. 2 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

GETTING AWAY FROM THOMPSON. ing something fierce; I think there’s a nut 7 in the gear-case or something like that. Then you can’t get any speed out of this carbureter, you know, lady!” “Every time I let her out,’’ he rushed on, “this carbureter begins to—backfire. Once there, I thought she was going to blow back in the tank and burn up the whole shooting match. We could never get to Batesford!”’ Unconsciously his sleeve wiped great beads of inexplicable perspiration from his dusty forehead. Aunt Hettie started up with real decision. | “The man knows best; he is a mechanic,” said she. ‘We must turn back at once.” “Home?” gasped Jane. “Most certainly!” Hope flashed into Cragg’s eyes and grati- tude as well, as the eyes shot toward Aunt Hettie. “That’s right, lady,” said he, with much enthusiasm. “Little old New York’s the only place for this boat. Everybody in it’s risking their lives, the way she is now.” Aunt Hettie shuddered, as did Mary Cal- lum. Mr. Hapworthy seemed more than a little startled and, for the time, his wife looked at him almost without animosity and came near to speaking. Young Mr. Farnham, regarding Jane with a puzzled smile, asked flatly: “Does the car really need repairing, Miss Fayre?” “Flow can it?” Jane said suddenly. “It was overhauled only three days ago and the man who brought it back from the shop said that there wasn’t so much as a connec- tion loose and that it ought to be good for ten thousand miles without ever lifting the bonnet again!” ‘And yet this man—” Mr. Farnham be- gan. ~ “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” the car’s owner stated and frowned at Cragg, who dropped his eyes abruptly. “Engine and everything else is as perfect as it can be made. Cragg, have you any reason for wishing not to go ahead?” she asked sharply. Their driver drew in his breath with a scared wheeze. “No ma’am!” he said thickly. “Maybe -—maybe this car might not be as bad as I thought.” “Ts it bad at all?” Farnham snapped. “We could probably get to Albany, boss,” a faint voice conceded. 211 A sense of bewilderment was stealing over Jane. “Then why don’t you do it?” she asked. “Yes, ma’am, I will,” said Cragg, with- the utmost meekness and let in his clutch once more! His shoulders hunched queerly as the car bounded north again. Jane gazed on their unaccountable dejection until Aunt Hettie, touching her arm, put her own thoughts into words. “That man,” Aunt Hettie declared, “is either drunk or crazy!” “He isn’t intoxicated,” Farnham said softly. “I’m pretty sure of that.” “And he doesn’t look crazy,” Jane added tentatively. “Possibly not, but he acts it to perfec- tion,’ her aunt said sternly, and Mary Cal- lum, whose eyes were round and frightened, nodded timorous assent. “Jane, the only thing to do is to make him stop and then wait here until another car comes along and is willing to tow us to some safe place— unless you can drive, Mr. Farnham?” “T can’t,” that gentleman admitted. “Because this poor soul may see a cliff and conceive the idea of running us all over the edge, or the water may excite him when we come in sight of the river again and—” It was Aunt Hettie’s final utterance be- fore reaching the capital city of Albany. Whatever uncanny mental processes were going forward inside Mr. Cragg’s bullet cranium, they seemed to reach a climax just then. He nodded suddenly and his foot moved over to the accelerator pedal. Jane’s superb six-cylinder toy, rising gaily from the road, essayed a swift flight through several yards of plain, unsubstan- tial air, came to earth again with a light bound, took a better grip with its whirling tires, lifted its voice in one long roar and de- parted from that particular section of the landscape! Jane, looking over the huddle that was James Hapworthy, observed that the speed- ometer lingered at 55 miles an hour and wondered whether the instrument had broken down. They were making more than that, of course; they must be doing seventy or eighty miles now and, except for Farnham, who grinned, Jane’s guests on the lazy jog crouched low and made neither sound nor motion. For her own part, the speed was any- thing but unwelcome. If Thompson were behind them now, he could never be riding CORMICLOOOKS (C@