a hundred yards of deep sand. In order to have speed left
for the sand after he cleared the stiff up-grade of the V, Drexel was
compelled to hit the trough of the V with speed. Wemple clutched Miss
Drexel as she was on the verge of being bounced out. Mrs. Morgan, too
solid for such airiness, screamed from the pain of the bump; and even
the imperturbable Juanita fell to crossing herself and uttering prayers
with exceeding rapidity.

The car cleared the crest and encountered the sand, going slower from
moment to moment, slewing and writhing and squirming from side to side.
The men leaped out and began shoving. Miss Drexel urged Juanita out and
followed. But the car came to a standstill, and Drexel, looking back and
pointing, showed the first sign of being beaten. Two things he pointed
to: a constitutional soldier on horseback a quarter of a mile in the
rear; and a portion of the narrow road that had fallen out bodily on the
far slope of the V.

"Can't get at this sand unless we go back and try over, and we ditch the
car if we try to back up that."

The ditch was a huge natural sump-hole, the stagnant surface of which
was a-crawl with slime twenty feet beneath.

Davies and Wemple sprang to take the boy's place.

"You can't do it," he urged. "You can get the back wheels past, but
right there you hit that little curve, and if you make it your front
wheel will be off the bank. If you don't make it, your back wheel'll be
off."

Both men studied it carefully, then looked at each other.

"We've got to," said Davies.

"And we're going to," Wemple said, shoving his rival aside in comradely
fashion and taking the post of danger at the wheel. "You're just as good
as I at the wheel, Davies," he explained. "But you're a better shot.
Your job's cut out to go back and hold off any Greasers that show up."

Davies took a rifle and strolled back with so ominous an air that the
lone cavalryman put spurs to his horse and fled. Mrs. Morgan was helped
out and sent plodding and tottering unaided on her way to the end of the
sand stretch. Miss Drexel and Juanita joined Charley in spreading the
coats and robes on the sand and in gathering and spreading small
branches, brush, and armfuls of a dry, brittle shrub. But all three
ceased from their exertions to watch Wemple as he shot the car backward
down the V and up. The car seemed first to stand on one end, then on the
other, and to reel drunkenly and to threaten to turn over into the
su