automobile to a stop.
Had the roadway been wider he might have sheered to one side, but the
highway was too narrow for that, and with a ditch on either side, to
carry off rain water, he did not want to take a chance of going over.

"Go pack! Go pack!" shrieked Hans Mueller. He was crouching down,
looking with staring eyes through the lowered wind shield of the touring
car.

Suddenly Sam acted. While the biplane was still a hundred feet away he
threw his lever into the reverse and allowed the gears to connect with
the engine. Then the automobile began to move backwards, slowly at first
and then faster and faster, as the youngest Rover put on the power.

"He's coming! He's coming! Ve peen busted up in a minit!" roared Hans,
who was shaking as with the ague. "Oh, vy tidn't I sthay home ven I
come to pay dis visit!"

The biplane had slowed down, for Tom had shut off the engine. But the
_Dartaway_ still had headway enough to catch up to the automobile and it
came up like some bird of ill-omen, that made even stout-hearted Sam
quail. But he stuck to his post, sending the automobile backward as fast
as he dared. He knew the roadway behind was straight, so he simply
steered by keeping the wheel as it was.

"Tom, Tom, can't you do something?" he yelled. "Turn her aside!"

"I'm trying!" yelled back his brother. "The steering outfit is jammed!"

Backward went the automobile and on and on came the big biplane, until
the forward part of the machine was almost over the hood of the touring
car.

"Maybe you had better jump out!" cried Sam to Hans.

But even as he spoke there came a sudden snap from the flying machine. A
caught wire had released itself. At once the biplane could be steered
again, and with a dexterous twist of the wheel and a deflection of one
of the tips, Tom brought it around. Over a rail fence it sailed, to
land gracefully in the open field beyond. Then Sam stopped the
automobile.

"Well!" came from the youngest Rover. And that single word meant a good
deal.

"Hope I didn't scare you to death," sang out Tom, as he climbed from his
seat. "Hans, did you get heart failure?"

"Oh, Dom! Dom! vot for you do him?" asked the German youth, in a voice
he tried in vain to steady. "I dink sure you vos going to cut off our
heads off alretty!"

"It was the steering outfit did it," explained Tom. "I'm awfully sorry I
scared you. I was scared myself. I was going to fly over you and then go
back when all at once I fo