“Well, we don’t know any more about these roads than you do, Waltham,” Dick had replied. “We are simply going by the guide book and the signs.”
“I hate to use up my brains studying an automobile guide,” Chester Waltham had returned with a yawn. “When I am on an outing I like to take it just as easy as I possibly can.”
“It’s a wonder you didn’t bring a paid chauffeur along,” had been Sam’s comment.
“I thought something of doing that, but my sister objected. She said if she was to go along I must run the car. You see, she wants me to risk my neck as well as her own,” and the young millionaire had smiled grimly.
They had been running for several miles over a road that was comparatively straight. On either side were tidy farms, with occasional farmhouses and barns. Now, however, the road became winding, and they soon passed into a patch of timber.
“Four miles to the next town,” announced Sam, as they rolled past a signboard. He looked at his watch. “Quarter after eleven. Do you think we had better stop there for dinner, Tom?”
“No, we are going on to Fernwood, six miles farther,” was the reply. “They say the hotel there is much better. And, believe me, when you get away from the big cities the best hotel you can find in a town is none too good.”
It had been rather warm on the open road, and all those in the automobiles welcomed the shade of the woods.
“It’s a pity we didn’t bring our lunch along,” said Dora to Dick, as they moved along at a slower rate of speed. “We could have had a good time picnicking along here.”
“Yes, we’ll have to dine out in the woods sometimes on this trip,” put in Mrs. Laning. “I like that sort of thing much better than taking all our meals in hotels or restaurants.”
The first automobile had reached a spring by the roadside, and here Tom came to a halt, presently followed by the others. Collapsible cups were handy, and all were ready for a drink of the pure, cool water which the spring afforded.
“Fine! isn’t it?” exclaimed Dick, after the ladies had been served and he had had a cupful himself.
“You’re right,” answered Tom. “A good deal better than that bottled water we have down in the New York offices.”
“But it can’t beat the water on the farm,” said Sam. “I must say no matter where I go the water doesn’t taste quite as good as that at Valley Brook.”
“Oh, that’s only sentiment, Sam!” cried Grace. “Now, I think the water at Cedarville is just lovely.”
“I think you are taking a little chance in drinking from a spring like this,” was Chester Waltham’s comment. “It may be pure, and then again it may be full of all sorts of germs.”
“Sure! it may be full of tadpoles and bullfrogs, too,” added Tom, gaily. “But you’ve got to take some chances in this life, as the fly said when he flew down into the molasses jug and got stuck there,” and at this little joke there was a general smile.
Beyond the spring the road went uphill for a long distance, and then took a turn to the southward, past more farms and over a bridge spanning a tiny stream. Then they came to a small town, looking dry, dusty and almost deserted in the midday, summer sun.
“I am glad we didn’t arrange to stop here,” was Nellie’s comment, as she glanced around.
The sleepy little town was soon left behind, and once again they found themselves passing over a series of hills, dotted here and there with farms and patches of woodland. Then they came to a place which was very uneven and filled with rocks.
“Got to be careful here unless we want to get a puncture,” announced Tom, and at once reduced speed.
They were running on another winding road which seemed to bear off to the northward. Here there was something of a cliff, with great, rocky boulders standing out in bold relief.
Suddenly, as Tom reached a bend, he saw a man coming towards them. He was an Italian, and carried a small red flag in one hand.
“Back! You-a git-a back!” cried the man, waving his red flag at them. “Blas’! Blas’! You git-a back!”
The grade was downward and the man had appeared so suddenly that before Tom could bring the first automobile to a standstill he had gotten at least a hundred feet beyond the Italian, while the second car, run by Dick, was by the man’s side.
“What’s the trouble here?” demanded Dick.
“You git-a back! You git-a back!” exclaimed the Italian, frantically. “Blas’ go off! You git-a back!”
“Hi, Tom, come back here!” yelled Dick. “This fellow says there is a blast going off.”
Tom was already trying to heed the warning. He had stopped so suddenly, however, that he had stalled his engine and now he had to take time in which to use the electric starter. In the meanwhile, the Italian workman ran still farther back, to warn Chester Waltham and anybody else who might be coming along the road.
“Oh, Tom! can you turn around?” questioned his wife anxiously.
“Maybe you had better run the car backward,” suggested Sam. He had noted the narrowness of the roadway and knew it would be no easy matter to turn around in such limited space. Besides that, there was a deep gully on one side, so that they would run the risk of overturning.
“Yes, I’ll back if Dick will only give me room,” muttered Tom, as he pressed the lever of the self-starter. Then after the power was once more generated he threw in the reverse gear and allowed the car to back up.
“That’s the way to do it, Tom,” yelled Dick. “Come on, I’ll get out of the way,” and he, too, began to back until he was close on to the Waltham runabout.
“Look out! Don’t bump into me!” yelled Chester Waltham, who for the moment seemed to be completely bewildered by what was taking place. “What’s the matter anyway?” he demanded of the Italian.
“Oh, Chester, there must be some danger!” shrieked his sister. “Say! they are both backing up. Maybe you had better back up too.”
“All right, if that’s what they want,” answered the young millionaire, and then in his hurry tried to reverse so quickly that he, too, stalled his engine.
“Back up! Back up!” called out Dick. “We’ve got to get out of here! There is some sort of blasting going on ahead!”
“Oh, Dick, be careful!” cried Mrs. Stanhope, and sprang up in the tonneau of the car in alarm, quickly followed by Mrs. Laning.
“You will run into Mr. Waltham, sure!” wailed the latter.
“Don’t smash into me! Don’t smash into me!” yelled the young millionaire in sudden terror. “If you bump into me you’ll send me into the ditch!”
By this time Dick’s car was less than three feet away from the runabout, while Tom’s machine was still some distance farther up the road.
Boom! There was a distant explosion, not very loud; and following this came a clatter as of stones falling on the rocks. None of the stones, however, fell anywhere near the three machines.
“Oh!” cried Grace.
“Is that all there is to it?” queried Nellie, anxiously.
“I don’t know,” returned Tom. He had now brought his automobile once more to a standstill.
All in the three machines waited for a moment. Then they gazed enquiringly at the Italian who stood behind them.
“Say, is that all the blasting there is?” demanded Chester Waltham.
“Dat’s heem,” responded the foreigner. “He go off all right, boss. You go,” and he waved the stick of his flag for them to proceed.
“Some scare—and all for nothing,” muttered Tom. “The way he carried on you would think they were going to shake down half of yonder cliff.”
“Oh, Tom, they don’t dare to take chances,” returned Nellie. “Why, if we had gone on we might have been showered with those stones we heard falling.”
“You fellows want to be careful how you back up,” grumbled Chester Waltham. “You came pretty close
to smashing into me.”
“Well, you should have backed up yourself when you heard us yell,” retorted Dick, sharply. “We didn’t know how bad that blast was going to be.”
Tom had already started forward, and in a moment more Dick and Chester Waltham followed. But hardly had they done this when the Italian on the road suddenly let out another yell.
“Boss! Boss! You-a stop!” he cried. “You-a stop queek! De two-a blas’! You-a stop!” and he danced up and down in added alarm.
Those who had gone on paid no attention to him, and an instant later passed around a corner of the cliff. As they did this they saw a man on the open hillside waving his arm and shouting something they could not understand.
“Tom, something is wrong—” began Sam, when, of a sudden, his words were swallowed up in a fierce roar and rumble that seemed to shake the very ground beneath them. They saw a flash of fire in an opening of the cliff, and the next instant a burst of flames and smoke was followed by a rain of rocks all around them!
CHAPTER XXI
NEWS OF BLACKIE CROWDEN
It was a moment of extreme peril, and what made it seem worse was the fact that the Rovers and the others could do nothing to save themselves. Rocks, small stones and dirt flew all around them, striking with loud noises the hoods and other metal parts of the automobiles, and even landing in the tonneaus of the larger cars.
“Hold up the robes! Protect yourselves with the robes!” yelled Dick, but before the ladies could heed his words the rain of rocks, small stones and dirt had come to an end.
“Great Cæsar! that’s a fine happening!” groaned Tom, who had been hit on the shoulder by a fair-sized stone. He looked quickly at those in the car with him. “Any of you hurt?”
“I got hit in the head with something,” returned Sam. “But it didn’t hurt very much. How about you?” and he looked at Grace and at Tom’s wife.
“I—I don’t think I am hurt any,” faltered Grace, as she looked at some stones and dirt on the robe over her lap.
“I’m all right,” answered Tom’s wife. “But, oh dear! something—I think it must have been a big stone—flew directly past my face!”
“I hope the others got off as well as we did,” remarked Tom. “Let us go and see,” and, suiting the action to the word, he left the machine, followed by his brother.
The second car had a dent in the hood made by a stone as big as Tom’s fist. All those in the automobile had been hit by some smaller stones and also covered with loose dirt, but no one had been seriously injured, although Mrs. Laning declared that some of the dirt had entered her left ear and also her eye.
“Let me look at that eye,” cried Mrs. Stanhope, as soon as she had recovered from the shock of the second blast. And then she went to work on the optic, and presently Mrs. Laning declared that the eye was as well as ever.
As Chester Waltham and his sister had been farther back on the road, around the turn of the cliff, they had not felt the effects of the second explosion excepting a slight shower of dirt which had covered the front of the runabout. But the young millionaire and his sister were greatly excited, and the former got out of his machine to run up to the Italian with the red flag and shake his fist in the man’s face.
“You—you rascal!” he spluttered. “What do you mean by sending us into such peril as this? You ought to be put into prison!”
“I-a, I-a forget heem,” faltered the foreigner helplessly. “I tink only one blas’. I forget two blas’,” and he looked very downhearted.
But this time the man who had been up on the hillside came running to the scene of the mishap, followed by several of the workmen.
“Anybody hurt?” sang out the man, who was an American in charge of the blasting gang.
“Nothing very serious,” answered Dick. “But it might have been,” he added sharply. “You fellows ought to be more careful.”
“I told Tony to keep everybody back for two blasts,” answered the man. “Why didn’t you stay back until you heard the second blast?”
“He told us to go on,” answered Tom.
“I make mistake,” cried the Italian. “You forgive, boss,” and he looked pleadingly at Dick and the others.
“Well, you don’t want to make any more mistakes like that,” returned Dick. “If we had gotten a little closer somebody might have been killed.”
“That’s the second time you have failed to obey orders, Tony,” said the gang master, sternly. “You go on up to the shanty and get your time and clear out. I won’t have such a careless man as you around.”
At these words the Italian looked much crestfallen. He began to jabber away in a mixture of English and his own tongue, both to his boss and to our friends. But the boss would not listen to him, and ordered him away, and then he departed, looking decidedly sullen.
“I can’t do anything with some of these fellows,” explained the man in charge of the blasting. “I tell them just what to do, and sometimes they mind me and sometimes they don’t. I’m very sorry this thing happened, but I’m thankful at the same time that you got through as well as you did,” and he smiled a little.
“You’re not half as thankful as we are,” put in Sam, dryly.
“I hope there is no damage done to your cars, but if there is I’m willing to pay for it,” went on the man.
“A few dents, but I guess that is all,” answered Dick, after a look at both the car he was driving and the one run by his brother. “We’ll let those go, for we are on a tour and have no time to waste here.”
“All right, sir, just as you say. But here is my card; I don’t want to sneak out of anything for which I’m responsible,” continued the man. “If you find anything wrong later on you let me know and I’ll fix it up with you.”
“We ought to sue this fellow for damages!” cried Chester Waltham, wrathfully. “It’s an outrage to treat us like this.”
“Were you hurt in any way?” asked the man, quietly.
“We got a lot of dirt and stones on the runabout,” growled Waltham.
“Oh, Chester! don’t quarrel over the matter,” entreated his sister, in a low tone. “The man didn’t want to do it.”
“Oh, these follows are too fresh,” grumbled the young millionaire. “The authorities ought to take them in hand,” and then he reëntered his runabout, looking in anything but a happy mood.
“Do you think we can go ahead on this road now?” asked Dick, after a few more words had passed between the Rovers and the man who had the blasting in charge.
“I think so,” was the reply. “Just wait a few minutes and I’ll have my gang of men clear a way for you.” He was evidently a fair and square individual who wanted to do the right thing in every particular, and the Rovers could not help but like him.
“It was all that Italian’s fault,” remarked Sam to Tom, while they were waiting for the road to be cleared of the largest of the rocks. “If he had kept us back as he was ordered to do there would have been no trouble.”
“He looked mighty mad when he went off,” was Tom’s answer. “If that fellow in charge here doesn’t look out, that chap may put up some job on him.”
Inside of ten minutes the man in charge of the blasting told them they could go ahead, and so on they went as before, with Tom again in the lead. As they passed by they saw numerous places along the face of the cliff where other blasting had taken place. The man had explained that the work was being done by the contractors in order to widen the road in that vicinity.
About a mile and a half beyond the cliff, nestling in the midst of a number of pretty farms, they came to the town of Fernwood, the place at which they were to stop for their midday meal. They had the name of the leading hotel on their list, and found the hostelry a fairly large and comfortable one.
“I think we’ll want a good washing up after that experience,” remarked Dick, when the automobiles had
been placed in the hotel garage. “My! but that was a narrow escape!” and he shuddered at the recollection.
“You fellows were mighty easy with that man,” observed Chester Waltham. “He ought to have been made to suffer for his carelessness.”
“Well, if you want to sue him, Waltham, you go ahead and do it,” said Dick somewhat sharply. He was beginning to like the young millionaire less and less the more he came in contact with him.
A table had been reserved for the entire party, and soon the well-cooked meal put even Chester Waltham in better humor. Now that the danger from the blast was a thing of the past, they could afford to smile over the somewhat thrilling experience.
“Maybe after this it would be a good idea to ride with the tops up,” said Tom. “Only we’d have to make them stone proof as well as rainproof,” and at this remark there was a general smile.
“Remember, Tom, I’m to be at the wheel this afternoon,” announced Sam, who thus far had not had much chance to do any steering on the trip.
“All right, little boy, you for the pilot act!” returned his fun-loving brother, gaily. “But remember what the girls told you—no speeding. The law in this state is four and one-eighth miles an hour, except on turning corners, where it is two and one-sixteenth miles,” and at this little joke there was a titter from the girls.
As it was so warm during the middle of the day, it had been decided that they should not proceed on their tour until about three o’clock. This gave the ladies a chance to rest themselves, something which was particularly satisfying to Mrs. Stanhope and Mrs. Laning.
“I think I’ll take a look around the town,” said Tom, after the ladies had gone to one of the upper rooms. “Will you go along?” and he looked enquiringly at his brothers and Chester Waltham.
“I am going to write a letter to dad,” answered Dick.
“I think I’ll write a letter myself and enjoy a smoke,” came from the young millionaire.
“I’m with you, Tom,” returned his younger brother. “Let’s go out and see if we can’t capture a nice box of chocolates for the girls.”
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