The Boy Scouts' Mountain Camp — Text and Context

CHAPTER I. A TYPICAL BOY SCOUT.

"Hullo, Rob; what's up?"

Merritt Crawford stopped on his way past the Hampton post-office, and hailed Rob Blake, the leader of the Eagle Patrol, of which Merritt was corporal. Both lads wore the natty scout uniform.

"Not a thing is up or down, either," rejoined Rob, with a laugh; "it looks as if things had stopped happening in Hampton ever since that schooner was blown up."

"And Jack Curtiss's hopes of a fortune with it," added Merritt. "Well, I'm off home. Going that way?"

"Yes, I'll be with you in a---- Hullo, what's happening?"

From farther up the street, at one end of which lay the glistening sheet of water known as Hampton Inlet, there came excited shouts. Then, suddenly, into the field of vision there swept, with astonishing rapidity, a startling sight.

A large automobile was coming toward them at a rapid rate. On the driver's seat was a white-faced young girl, a cloud of fair hair streaming out about her frightened countenance. She was gripping the steering wheel, and seemed to be striving desperately to check the onrush of the machine. But her efforts were vain. The auto, instead of decreasing its rate of progress, appeared every minute to be gaining in speed.

It bumped and swayed wildly. A cloud of yellow dust arose about it. Behind the runaway machine could be perceived a crowd of townsfolk shouting incoherently.

"Oh, stop it! I shall be killed! Stop it, please do!"

The young girl was shrilly screaming in alarm, as the machine approached the two boys. So rapidly had events progressed since they first sighted it, that not a word had been exchanged between them. All at once, Merritt noticed that he was alone. Rob had darted to the roadway. As the auto dashed by, Merritt saw the young leader of the Hampton Boy Scouts give a sudden flying leap upon the running-board. He shot up from the road as if a steel spring had projected him.

For one instant he hung between life and death--or, at least, serious injury. The speed with which the auto was going caused the lad's legs to fly out from it, as one of his hands caught the side door of the tonneau. But in a jiffy Rob's athletic training triumphed. By a supreme effort he managed to steady himself and secure a grip with his other hand. Then he rapidly made his way forward along the running-board.

But this move proved almost disastrous. The already panic-stricken girl took her attention from the steering-wheel for an instant. In that molecule of time, the auto, like a perverse live thing, got beyond her control. It leaped wildly toward the sidewalk outside the Hampton candy store. A crowd of young folks--it was Saturday afternoon--had been indulging in ice cream and other dainties, when the shouts occasioned by the runaway machine had alarmed them.

Instantly soda and candy counters were neglected, and a rush for the sidewalk ensued. But, as they poured out to see what was the matter, they were faced by deadly peril.

The auto, like a juggernaut, was careening straight at them. Its exhausts roared like the nostrils of an excited beast.

Young girls screamed, and boys tried to drag them out of harm's way. But had it not been for the fact that at that instant Rob gained the wheel, there might have been some serious accidents.

The lad fairly wrenched it out of the hands of the girl driver, who was half fainting at the imminence of the peril. A quick, savage twist, and the car spun round and was on a straight course again. That danger, at least, was over. But another, and a deadlier, threatened.

Right ahead lay the spot where the road terminated in a long wharf, at which occasional steamers landed. Every second brought them closer to it. If Rob could not stop the machine before it reached the end of the wharf, it was bound to plunge over and into the sea. All this flashed through the boy's mind as he strove to find some means of stopping the car. But the auto was of a type unfamiliar to him. One experiment in checking its motion resulted instead in a still more furious burst of speed.

Like objects seen in a nightmare, the stores, the white faces of the alarmed townsfolk, and the other familiar objects of the village street, streaked by in a gray blur.

"I must stop it! I must!" breathed Rob.

But how? Where had the manufacturer of the car concealed his emergency brake? The lever controlling it seemed to be mysteriously out of sight. Suddenly the motion of the car changed. It no longer bumped. It ran terribly smoothly and swiftly.