Fairview Boys and Their Rivals; or, Bob Bouncer's Schooldays — Background and Themes

. He had noticed how his relative had handled the automobile, but in a general way only. As he ran towards the machine now, he hardly knew what he should do to stop it.

The runaway automobile was not going very fast. It was the way it was headed that made Frank realize that something must be done. The machine was tearing up the earth, and running against rocks, and bumping past trees, directly at the edge of the bluff road.

“If it keeps on that way,” said Frank to himself, “it will go over the edge of the bluff.”

If that happened the auto would be wrecked. It would roll over and over down quite a steep slant until it reached Rainbow Lake.

“Don’t get in! don’t get in!” shouted Sammy, his eyes nearly bolting out of his head, as he saw no chance to stop the auto.

Frank could hardly have jumped into the machine, it wobbled about so. But he reached its side, ran along with it, and then jumped to the step.

Once Frank had been with his uncle when his auto, turning a sharp curve, nearly ran into a great load of hay blocking the road. Frank remembered that his uncle had acted as quick as lightning. He had shot out his hand and grasped the side brake, at the same time turning off the power at the wheel.

“That was a narrow graze,” his uncle had told him, as the machine stopped short.

He called it “killing the engine.” All this was in Frank’s mind as he now gave the brake of the runaway auto a quick wrench and at the same time shoved back the controls on the steering wheel. As a sway of the auto threw him off the step, the chug! chug! of the machine stopped, and so did the auto itself.

The big red car had one wheel wedged between two rocks. Frank breathed pretty hard as he noticed that had the auto gone ten feet farther, it would have toppled over the cliff.

“Oh, say, you’ve done a big thing,” panted Sammy, running up to the spot.

“I’m glad it didn’t go over the bluff,” said Frank.

He might well say this. As he glanced down the slant, Frank almost became frightened. Three little huts, where some fishermen and their families lived, were right in the course the auto might take. Just now some small children were playing near one of the huts.

“Say, if it hit those houses—say, if it smashed over those children——” began Sammy, in a gasp.

“Where is Bob?” asked Frank.

“He’s helping the fellow who tumbled out of the auto,” explained Sammy.

Frank turned around, to see Bob back at the spot where the boy in the auto had taken his tumble into the mud puddle.

Bob had helped the boy out of the water and mire. Just now he was rubbing the mud from his coat with some dry grass. The victim of the accident was mopping his face with a handkerchief.

“Here comes the man who owns the automobile, I guess,” said Sammy.

Frank saw a man rush down the road from the direction of the vacant house. He was in a great hurry, and excited. He shouted some words at Bob and his companion, and, passing Frank and Sammy, gasping for breath, ran to the automobile.

As he looked it over and saw that he could get it back into the roadway without risk or damage, he walked up to the boys.

“One of you stopped that machine,” he said, glancing from Frank to Sammy.

“It was Frank, mister,” said Sammy, pointing to his chum.

“I haven’t got much with me,” spoke the man, his voice trembling.

First he shook Frank’s hand warmly. Then he groped in his pocket and drew out a bright new silver dollar.

“You take that till I see you again,” he said.

“No, no,” replied Frank. “I don’t want any pay for doing the little I did.”

“Little!” cried the man, pressing the coin on Frank. “That machine is worth three thousand dollars, and you saved it.”

“Well, I’m glad if I did,” said Frank.

“If that boy back there was my boy,” spoke the man, with a look at the lad who had tumbled out of the auto, “I’d either teach him how to run the machine, or handcuff him when he was aboard.”

“Oh, isn’t he your boy?” inquired Sammy.

“No, I’m his father’s chauffeur.”

They all went up to the mud puddle. Bob was helping his companion get cleaned up in as friendly a way as if they had been chums for years.