Title: Shaming the Speed Limit
Author: Standish, Burt L.
Language: English
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SHAMING THE SPEED LIMIT

By Burt L. Standish




CHAPTER I

A GIRL, A DOG, AND A MAN.


When Miss Elizabeth Wiggin settled herself comfortably in the shade
of the spreading oak in Libby’s pasture, she looked forward eagerly
to a pleasant and quiet hour with her book, “Wooed, Won, and
Wedded.” As may be surmised from the title of the book, Miss Wiggin
was romantic. She was likewise just eighteen years of age, and the
daughter of Judge Nathan P. Wiggin, of Greenbush, the village that
could be seen nestling in the valley something like a mile distant
from that hillside oak.

Miss Wiggin lived in Greenbush, but on pleasant afternoons she had a
habit of wandering away, accompanied only by an aged shepherd dog,
in search of some spot where she could read without fear of
interruption. For her grim old father objected to trashy love
stories, and her ascetic spinster aunt, who had acted as the judge’s
housekeeper since the death of Mrs. Wiggin, held all such fiction in
abhorrence.

Indeed, the animus of Aunt Sally Wiggin against stories depicting
the ravages wrought by the little god of the bow and arrow was so
extreme that, by consigning such terrible tales to the flames
whenever she found them about the house, she conscientiously did her
best to prevent them from turning the head of her niece. She even
forbade the village news dealer to sell Bessie any more books of
that type.

In these days, however, it is no easy matter to deprive any one of
the mental pabulum that is desired, and Aunt Sally had set herself a
task that she could not accomplish. Lemuel Dodd, Judge Wiggin’s
hostler and man of all work, red-headed, freckled, and homely as a
slump fence, undeterred by the discouraging fact that his persistent
efforts to make love to Bessie seemed merely to arouse her
amusement, became her secret and faithful ally. Twice a week, at
least, he spent twenty-five cents of his wages for a paper-covered
novel to be smuggled into her possession, and invariably he chose
the ones whose titles seemed to promise that their contents would
come up to Elizabeth’s requirements.

“There ain’t many single fellers left round this town,” Lemuel told
himself, “and mebbe if she reads enough of them yarns she’ll git so
desprit she’ll have to grab what’s handy. And when she gits the
notion to grab, I’m going to take keer that I’m the handiest thing
in reach.”

And so, on this sunny September afternoon, Bessie Wiggin was seeking
the shade of the oak in Libby’s pasture, presumably afar from
interruption, and prepared thoroughly to enjoy Lemuel’s latest
contribution. Her face was almost hidden by one of Aunt Sally’s
extremely old-fashioned sunbonnets, which she had hastily taken when
she slipped out of the house with the book. Shep, the old dog,
stretched himself in the short grass at her feet and prepared to go
to sleep comfortably.

The view from this spot, at a considerable distance from the brown
road that wound, ribbonlike, down into the village, was pleasant to
the eye, but the judge’s daughter lost no time in admiring the
scenery. She was soon absorbed in the pages of her novel.

So absorbed did she become that she failed to hear the approaching
steps of a somewhat dusty and soiled, but decidedly good-looking,
young man in a brown Norfolk suit, knee-length leather leggings, and
a motoring cap. He was within a few yards of her when he saw her and
stopped.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” he said, looking down upon the obscuring
sunbonnet.

She uttered a little startled scream, and looked up, her blue eyes
wide, her red lips parted. A glimpse of the pretty and youthful face
which the sunbonnet had concealed caused the stranger to catch his
breath.

“Reginald!” exclaimed Miss Wiggin, beholding before her the living
incarnation of the hero of her book just as her fancy had pictured
him.

“Daphne!” said the young man, thinking of the mythological wood
nymph.

“Woof!” barked the old dog, awaking and springing up as quickly as
age and rheumatism would allow.

The stranger backed round to the opposite side of the tree. “Keep
that beast away from me, please,” he begged, in evident
apprehension.

With a swift sweep of one slender hand, Miss Wiggin thrust back the
sunbonnet, which, held by the loosely knotted ribbons, hung
suspended on her shoulders, exposing a mass of wavy, golden-brown
hair. At the same moment, with remarkable agility and grace, she
half rose and half turned. On her knees, her right hand clasping the
book, the fingers of her left hand lightly touching the ground, her
gaze followed the shrinking young man, who was now fearfully
watching the ominously growling dog. Surely this was unexpected and
disappointing behavior for Reginald, the brave, who—in her
novel—had unhesitatingly faced the most frightful perils for his
lady fair.

Made suspicious by the actions of the stranger, Shep advanced,
bristling and snapping. As if contemplating instant flight, the
young man gave one hasty look around. The nearest fence was some six
or eight rods away, and it did not promise to stop a ferocious and
angry dog in pursuit of a fleeing fugitive, and there was no other
refuge in sight.

“Keep that creature away, won’t you?” again entreated the agitated
man, placing the trunk of the tree between himself and the animal.
“I detest dogs!”

“Oh, Reginald!” sighed Bessie Wiggin in bitter disappointment!

“Oh, hang it!” exploded the stranger, with shocking violence. “If I
had a gun——”

Shep charged, barking violently. He meant to stop out of reach of
the man’s feet in case he showed a disposition to kick. But, making
a great leap, the stranger clutched a stout lower limb of the tree,
and swung himself up out of the reach of harm with the most amazing
celerity, the dog snapping at his heels as they receded skyward.

Perched astride the limb, with his feet drawn up, the refugee shook
his fist at the raging animal, which, inflamed by success, made
another great jump into the air and fell back on the ground, his
age-enfeebled legs collapsing beneath him.

Still kneeling, the girl burst into a peal of laughter.




CHAPTER II

ROMANCE JUSTIFIED.


“Go to it!” said the exasperated man in the tree. “Get in your laugh
while the laughing’s good. If your confounded dog had succeeded in
chewing some chunks out of me, I suppose you’d simply have collapsed
with merriment.”

“Oh, dear!” gasped Miss Wiggin, trying to suppress her mirth. “If
you only realized how ridiculous it is! Old Shep couldn’t hurt a
sick kitten.”

“Huh!” grunted the stranger skeptically. “Perhaps not, but he
certainly showed a strong desire to plant a few teeth in any part of
my person that he could reach.”

Miss Wiggin continued to laugh. “It would have to be a _few_ teeth,
as he’s lost almost all that he ever had, and he’s so old that he’s
half deaf and getting blind. That’s why he didn’t warn me that you
were coming. If you hadn’t shown that you were scared, he’d never
have made an offer to touch you.”

“How was I to know that?” demanded the man on the limb, flushing.
“On such short notice I couldn’t tell whether he was a senile and
harmless old dog or a young and savage one bent on making a meal off
my person.”

“You’re an awful coward, aren’t you?” asked the girl, rising to her
feet and regarding him with open contempt.

She was slender, willowy, and graceful. He considered that she was
the prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he wondered how, even with
the sunbonnet hiding her face, he had made the blunder of mistaking
her for a middle-aged woman. He felt his heart thumping queerly. He
also felt his face burning beneath her unmasked disdain.

“Let me explain,” he pleaded hastily.

“It isn’t necessary,” she cut him short. “I don’t suppose there are
any Reginalds to be found outside the pages of fiction.”

“The Daphnes,” he returned, “are myths.”

She tossed her head. “Besides being a ’fraid cat,” she retorted,
“you’re just about the most impolite person I ever met. What were
you doing prowling around in this field, anyhow?”

“Being in haste to secure a conveyance to Albion for two gentlemen
whose motor has broken down back yonder on the road, I was making a
short cut to town and avoiding the most of the hill. The gentlemen
must catch the three-forty train at Albion. It is now,” he stated,
balancing himself on the limb and taking out his watch, “seven
minutes past two.”

“And twenty-three miles to Albion. Your gentlemen will have to
hurry.”

“They may make it if I can get an automobile in town.”

Again she laughed. “Automobiles aren’t popular in Greenbush. Peter
Beedy is the only citizen who owns one. He’s been arrested and fined
four times for exceeding the speed limit of eight miles an hour. The
last time that happened he was so mad he swore he’d never start the
machine again, and he had it towed to his barn and stored away.”

“Thanks for the information. Me for Peter Beedy.” He glanced
downward. Sitting on his haunches and gazing upward with a wistful
eye, Shep was licking his old chops. “If you will be good enough to
call your dog away and keep a firm, restraining hand upon him, I’ll
hit the high spots between here and Mr. Beedy’s domicile.”

“As long as you’re so completely lacking in sand,” said she, “I’ll
collar Shep and hold him until you get a fair start. But let me warn
you that if you succeed in getting Beedy’s auto you’ll certainly be
pinched and fined if you’re caught driving faster than eight miles
an hour anywhere within the town limits.”

“It’s always necessary,” was his retort, “first to catch your hare.
If Beedy’s bubble has any speed at all, somebody will be handed a
laugh. When you give the word, I’ll come down.”

Now it chanced that neither of them had noticed the approach of
Libby’s bull, confined in that same pasture. The bull was ugly, and
resentful of intrusion on its domain. And just as the girl placed
one hand on the dog’s collar the bull charged, with a snort and a
bellow. The man on the limb shouted a warning. The girl screamed and
dodged behind the tree. The dog, seeing the charging beast by
accident, bounded lamely to meet him. And the bull, with one sweep
of his horns, tossed the dog fifteen feet into the air.

The man in the tree was paralyzed with horror. The disastrous
attempt of the dog to protect his mistress seemed to check the
charging bull for barely a fraction of a second. With glaring eyes,
the beast came on, dashing straight at the terrified girl.

“The fence!” shouted the man. “Run!”

Even as he uttered the words he realized what would happen if she
attempted to obey. The infuriated beast would overtake her, toss her
with its horns even as the old dog had been tossed, gore her,
trample the life out of her delicate body. For the briefest fraction
of time, he was sickened by the thought. Then he dropped from the
tree directly in the path of the mad creature. As he dropped, he
snatched the cap from his head. The instant his toes touched the
turf, he sprang to one side. The bull missed him by a foot, and he
struck the animal across the eyes with his cap.

It seemed like a feeble thing to do, but he had time for nothing
else, and he hoped desperately to turn the attention of the beast
from the girl; hoped somehow, by diverting the creature’s fury to
himself, to give her an opportunity to flee to safety beyond the
fence.

The girl had circled round the tree, keeping it between herself and
the bull. As the man struck the animal, the latter swerved and
turned with amazing speed, surprised, perhaps, by the appearance of
a second human being on the scene. The stranger waved his arms and
shouted challengingly. The animal accepted the challenge promptly
and charged at him.

“Oh!” gasped Miss Wiggin. “He’ll be—killed!”

But, almost with the agility of a capeador, the young man again
leaped aside at precisely the right moment to foil the beast. Again
he struck with his cap, but this time it was impaled on one of the
bull’s horns and torn from his hand.

Without glancing round at the girl, he cried sharply, commandingly:
“Run for the fence! I’ll keep him busy till you are safe.”

Bessie Wiggin ran, just as she was ordered to do, although she did
not realize what she was doing until she had almost reached the
fence. Too terrified to look back, she actually sailed over the
barrier almost as a frightened deer might have done, scarcely
touching the top rail, falling safe on the far side amid some
bowlders and bushes, where for a moment she lay panting and
helpless.

She was aroused by Shep. The faithful old dog had not been killed.
Limping and whining, he had followed her in her flight and dragged
himself through the fence. Still whining plaintively, he was licking
her face.

With a sobbing cry, she seized the fence and pulled herself to her
feet. Still baiting the bull, the young man was dodging round and
round the tree, the enraged beast making every effort to reach him.
He had kept his word; he had held the attention of the animal while
she escaped; the handsome stranger she had called a coward had taken
this dreadful risk for her.

Realizing the danger he was in, she called to him wildly: “Oh, look
out—look out! Jump—quick! Run! Do something!”

He certainly was doing something; in fact, he was an extremely busy
person just then. Again and again he appeared to avoid the rushes of
the bull barely by a hair’s breadth. Each time this happened the
girl’s heart seemed ready to burst with terror. It could not last
long. The snorting, bellowing beast would get him at last. A slight
miscalculation, the slightest slip, and it would all be over.

Bessie Wiggin grasped a stake of the fence, and tried desperately to
tear it loose, intending to return to the assistance of the stranger
with this weapon. She was the coward, after all! She had run away
and left him to be killed!

Then she saw him “put over” a bit of strategy on the bull. The
animal had paused for a moment, and turned slowly upon him, pawing
the ground. Instead of placing the tree between himself and danger,
the man planted his back against it, his eyes never leaving the
beast for an instant.

Waving his hands in gestures of disdain, he taunted the creature.
“Come on, old lumberheels! Wake up and show a little pep! Throw into
high gear and give us some speed. Don’t quit now; the fun’s just
begun. Wake up! Come on!”

The bull leaped forward like a hurricane. And just as the pale and
horrified girl expected to see the man impaled to the tree, he
slipped deftly behind it. The head of the bull crashed against the
oak, and the animal staggered as if struck by a butcher’s maul.

The stranger laughed. “That ought to give you a slight headache,” he
said.

“Run!” cried the girl. “This way—quick! Now’s the time!”

Dazed, the bull was backing off slowly, shaking his head. Evidently
the man agreed with Bessie that the moment was propitious, for he
turned and raced toward the fence. But the animal had not been
injured nearly as much as one might have supposed, and, seeing his
mocking foe in flight, he plunged in pursuit.

The stranger was fleet-footed, but the bull was a trifle fleeter.
Just as the runner gathered himself to take the fence with one clean
leap, the beast overtook him. Through the air sailed the man,
propelled by the head and horns of the bull, as well as by the
spring of his own legs. Over the fence in a great curve he came,
crashing head downward amid the rocks and bushes.

When the young man opened his eyes again, he discovered that his
head was resting in the lap of Miss Bessie Wiggin, who, sobbing
hysterically, was wiping his forehead with a bloodstained
handkerchief.

He looked up at her and smiled. “Daphne!” he whispered.

“Reginald!” she cried.




CHAPTER III

IT NEVER RAN SMOOTH.


“You’re not killed, are you?” she sobbed, trying to stanch the flow
of blood that trickled from a gash at the edge of his hair near his
temple.

“If I am,” he returned, with a feeble effort to jest, “I don’t know
it yet.”

“But you’re hurt. You struck on your head.”

“Probably that saved my life. Solid ivory, you know. I will admit
that I feel a trifle upset, so to speak. No, don’t move—please
don’t! The mere thought of your moving gives me pain.”

“But I must go for help. You’re wounded.”

“I am,” he admitted, gazing up into her blue eyes in a manner that
gave her a most peculiar sensation. “Mortally wounded. I fear. I
never was hit so hard in my life, and I am afraid I can’t recover.”

Again she cried out in apprehension and distress. “Oh, I was afraid
you were done for when that beast caught you!”

“I am,” was his singularly cheerful acknowledgment; “I’m done for.
I’ve got mine. The jig is up with me.”

“Is it your arms, your legs? Your ribs—are they smashed? Where do
you feel it most?”

“Here,” he answered, putting his hand to his heart. “Rut it isn’t my
ribs; it’s something deeper, Daphne.”

“That isn’t my name; it’s Bessie.”

“Bessie! Mine’s George. Awfully commonplace, isn’t it? Now, if my
folks had only called me Reginald——”

“You mustn’t try to talk. I’m sure it’s painful. You must keep
still.”

“I will if you’ll keep on talking yourself. The sound of your voice
soothes me like the murmuring of a brook. Your eyes are like
springtime violets. The touch of your little hand is as delicious as
a draft of pure water to a person dying of thirst. Now I’ll leave it
to you if a Reginald could beat that speech much.”

She stiffened and drew back a bit, the color beginning to return to
her pale cheeks. They looked at each other steadily, and the
returning flush covered her face.

Beyond the fence the victorious bull pawed the ground; from a
vantage of safety the old dog glared through the rails and regarded
the bull with disapproval, but the man and girl paid no attention to
either of them. The girl had turned her gaze toward the distant road
that wound down into the village.

“I don’t believe you are hurt much,” she said, in a low voice,
which, however, was made unsteady by a queer little throbbing in her
throat. “If you were, you couldn’t talk like that.”

“It’s because I am that I can talk like that,” he declared. “It’s
the first time I ever talked that way to any one.”

“Your friends who have to get to Albion,” she murmured; “I’m afraid
they’ll lose their train.”

“By Jove!” he cried, sitting up suddenly. “I’d clean forgotten
them!”

“You were fooling me!” she exclaimed, as she started to rise.

With a groan he fell back. The crimson, oozing from his wound, ran
down across his temple, and in another moment she was again checking
the flow with her handkerchief. His eyes were closed, and she
imagined he had fainted.

“Oh, dear!” She seemed distraught. “I don’t know what to do! I’ve
got to get help, but if I leave you, you may bleed to death.”

“Don’t let me bleed to death,” he begged faintly. “Don’t leave
me—Bessie. You mustn’t leave me—as long as I live.”

It seemed a great effort for him to lift his eyelids, but he looked
at her again, and the appeal in his eyes filled her with a feeling
of desperation.

“You must have a doctor.”

“You’re the only doctor I want. You’re the only doctor who can cure
me. If you throw up the case and turn me over to a common pill
slinger, I’ll never get over it.”

“But I’ve simply got to get help for you somehow. I’ll hurry.”

“I can’t let you go. I’m an awful coward, you know, and——”

“You’re nothing of the sort! I’ve never seen anybody as brave as you
are.”

A tremor ran over his body. At first she thought it was a convulsive
movement of pain, but when it continued she was overcome by the
astounding conviction that he was laughing. Astonishment gave place
to outraged indignation. There was no mistaking the fact that he was
really shaking with laughter that he sought in vain to suppress. She
leaped up, letting him drop back, and stood rigid, filled with
intense resentment.

“You—you’re making sport of me!” she said, in a low voice that
suddenly had in it something like icy brittleness. “You’ve been
playing on my sympathy! You’re not really hurt—much. It was a very
ungentlemanly thing to do! I hope you have enjoyed yourself!”

He sat up without much effort. “I give you my word of honor that I
didn’t mean to laugh at you. Perhaps my head is affected a little.
This crack on the bean must be the cause. It really was some bump.”

“You—you wretch!” she cried, stamping her foot. “I hate you!”

Her little hands were tightly clenched. She turned away to hide the
tears which welled again into her eyes; but now they were tears of
exasperation, shame, and rage.

He got quickly to his feet. “Please, Bessie!” he said. “You don’t
understand. Not for the world would I——”

He stopped short, staring across at the road, down which a touring
car containing two men was speeding toward the village.

“Great Caesar!” he cried. “There goes the governor! Hitchens must
have got the engine running somehow. They’ll expect to find me in
town.” With all the strength of a good pair of lungs, he shouted,
waving his hands above his head. The automobile sped on. Its
occupants neither saw nor heard him.

“I guess I’m left for the time being,” he said. “They’ll go ripping
straight through to catch that train at Albion.”

“They won’t rip through very far,” Miss Wiggin flung at him.
“There’s a trap just outside the village, watched by a deputy
sheriff and two constables. Your old governor will be nabbed and
pulled up before my father, who will soak him with a fine. And I
hope dad soaks him good,” she finished, laughing, and doing so with
a vindictiveness that seemed to afford her untold relief and
satisfaction.




CHAPTER IV

THE TRAPPERS.


Jeremiah Small, constable of the town of Greenbush, sat on the top
rail of the roadside fence and wedged a load of fine cut into the
bowl of a burned, blackened, odorous corncob pipe, packing it down
with a decidedly dirty thumb. From his perch he could look over the
top of a cluster of low sumacs and keep watch upon a point on the
hillside where the highway wound into view. He could also see,
somewhat nearer, a tall and lonely elm tree, past which the road ran
in a broadside curve.

“Weeping” Buzzell, another constable, was sitting on the ground in
the shade of the sumacs, leaning against the fence, and occasionally
wiping his red-rimmed and watery eyes with a faded and mussed
bandanna handkerchief. His jaws worked wearily at a quid of tobacco,
the presence of which was further advertised by the unmistakable
stains at the corners of his doleful and flabby mouth. He had chosen
his lowly position for comfort, and because his companion was far
better adapted to the task of outlook.

“I tell you, ’Miah,” sniffed Buzzell, “this here job is jest about
played out. A dollar-sixty a day ain’t no livin’ pay for a
hard-workin’ man, and that’s all we git outside commissions on the
fines the jedge imposes, and the deputy sheruff gits the biggest
whack at them. We have to be pacified with what comes outer the
little end o’ the horn. Yis-tidday my share was thutty-two cents,
and so fur to-day we ain’t nabbed only one motor-cycle feller who
come through by accident, havin’ got off the road to Damascus. I’m
gittin’ discouraged.”

Constable Small made a final poke at the pipe bowl, and glanced down
at the complaining individual. “Never knowed you to tackle any job
that you didn’t git discouraged over in a short time, Silas,” he
averred contemptuously. “Gittin’ discouraged is your long suit.
You’ve been discouraged all your life.”

Buzzell moved his slouching shoulders resentfully. “Mebbe that’s so,
’Miah, but I ain’t never had no luck, like some folks. When I was
swore in as constable and put on this job, there was an av’rage of
eighteen or twenty merchines a day that went through town regardless
of speed regerlations. Business was lively, and I sorter guessed my
luck had turned. But now them there automobile fellers has got wise
and sent out warnin’s and posted notices in all the garrages round
about cautionin’ folks to keep away from Greenbush, and they’re
goin’ round by the way of Damascus or Cherryfield, and leavin’ us to
twiddle our thumbs. My opinion, it’s hurt the town, too; Greenbush
is deader’n a salted herrin’.”

Small lifted a broganed foot and struck a match on the leg of his
trousers, after which he held it up until his wheezing pipe was lit.

“Better not go makin’ that kind of talk in the hearin’ of Jedge
Wiggin,” he warned, pulling hard at the rebellious corncob. “If you
done so, he’d tell you what in a hurry, and you’d lose your badge so
quick it’d make your head swim. You know him, Silas. He ain’t got no
use for automobiles nohow, and when he announced that he perposed to
enforce the speed regerlations without fear or favor, he sartainly
meant it. He’d slap a fine onter the President of the United States
if he was to go scootin’ through town faster’n the speed limit
allows.”

“Mebbe he would,” said Buzzell. “He’s so hard-headed and sot it
would be just like him. Jest because he’s alwus been a hoss owner
and a hoss-man, he’s down on automobiles in gen’ral and ev’rybody
that has anything to do with ’em. I reckon that’s _why_he wants to
be representative to the legislator, he wants to go there to put
through some kind of a bill to restrict the use of them merchines to
certain roads so that the drivers of hosses can have the other roads
to themselves. That’s jest how old-fashioned the jedge is.”

“Lemme tell you somethin’, Silas,” said Constable Small, taking his
pipe from between his teeth and striking an impressive attitude with
it. “They better let him go. If the jedge don’t git the nomination
from this deestrict, he’ll upset their apple cart as sure as
preachin’. There’ll be three candidates in the primaries, and the
party don’t want Rufe Crockett, for he’s a windbag, a turncoat, and
a flopper, and he’d be beat at the polls, just as he was four year
ago on the ticket of t’other party. But if Jedge Wiggin can’t win,
I’ll bet you a twenty-cent plug of War Hoss he turns his strength
ag’inst Ephraim Glover, of Palmyra, and throws the nomination to
Crockett. This deestrict is the keystone, and if the party loses it,
they’ll most likely lose the whole county. I understand the governor
himself is ruther fretted over the situation, with the primaries
comin’ on next week.”

“I don’t keer much about politics nohow,” declared Buzzell, wiping
his eyes again. “One party’s bad as t’other, and there ain’t neither
of ’em done nothing for me. Still I s’pose I’m expected to vote for
the jedge jest because I happened to be the most capable man they
could find for this job. Nobody else I know of wanted it. I took it
because it promised to be a purty good thing, not because I’m
partic’ler agin’ automobilists. I’m goin’ to tell you my private
idee: I think Nathan Wiggin’s turned Greenbush into a graveyard by
finin’ ev’rybody ketched goin’ faster’n eight miles in the town
limits. He’s give the place a black eye and set people to dodgin’
it. He ain’t progressive, that’s ail I got to say.”

“And if you’ve got any sense left in your noodle you won’t go round
kow-wowing that kind of talk. If you did—— Hey! By gowdy! Here
comes a bubble over the hill! Git up! Git out your ticker and ketch
him when he passes the big elm. He’s hittin’ it up like a streak of
greased quicksilver.”

There was immediate action in the shade of the sumacs. With a
sniffling grunt, which held something both of protest and eagerness,
Weeping Buzzell heaved himself to his feet, fishing for his watch.
On the fence Jeremiah Small already had his timepiece in hand. His
snaggy teeth gripped the pipestem; his leathery face expressed the
rapacity of the still hunter who has sighted game.

“Ready, now!” he cried. “Ketch him when I give the word. _Now!_”

Down the winding road shot the automobile, trailing a cloud of dust
behind it. Besides the driver, a smoothfaced, bespectacled man of
thirty, it contained only one person, a stout, florid,
worried-looking individual in the middle years of life.

“Careful, Hitchens!” warned the latter, as the man at the wheel made
a turn that barely prevented them from taking to the ditch. “You
know you’re not used to driving. Don’t pile us up.”

“Don’t worry, sir,” returned the driver reassuringly. “You know
you’ve got to catch that train if you’re going to get to your office
for the conference with the chairman of the State committee. You’ll
have to talk with old Wiggin over the phone. No time to stop in
Greenbush and chin with him now.”

“We’ve got to pick up the boy in town. He must have got there twenty
minutes ago. We’re liable to meet him starting out after me with a
hired car. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Around another curve careened the car, and struck the straight,
gentle incline running down into the village. Out from behind the
sumacs dashed the constables, Jeremiah Small planting himself in the
very center of the highway, one hand upflung authoritatively while
the other flipped back his coat and revealed the badge pinned to his
left suspender. Silas Buzzell backed him up, but with a shade more
discretion about blocking the path of the speeding motor car.

“Stop!” shouted Constable Small. “In the name of the law I command
you!”

“Hold up!” wheezed Constable Buzzell. “Stop right where ye be!”

“Pinched!” exclaimed the driver, in disgust and consternation.

“Don’t stop! Go on!” rasped the florid-faced man at his side. Then
he lifted himself above the glass wind shield, flung up his gloved
hands, and roared: “Clear the road, you idiots! Out of the way! Get
out!”

Seeing the automobile whizzing straight at him without slackening
speed to any perceptible degree, Jeremiah Small cast his dignity to
the winds and made a leap for safety. Weeping Buzzell backed off the
shoulder of the road, caught his heel, and sat down amid the dusty
grass of the shallow ditch. The car swished past, the stout man
relaxing on the seat, and tore on its way.

“That’ll cost ye ten dollars more for defyin’ the majesty of the
law!” spluttered Small, shutting his eyes to prevent them from being
filled with the blinding cloud of dust flung over both officers.
“The jedge alwus tucks on an additional ten for that trick. Go it,
you gay birds! The faster you drive, the higher you’ll bounce when
you hit the bumps. Come on, Silas! Deputy Newberry’ll have that gay
pair collared in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

If the defiant autoists fancied they were to escape the clutches of
the speed regulators in that easy manner, they soon realized their
error. Farther on toward the village, running the full width of the
road, were a series of artfully arranged ridges and hollows
calculated to give a severe shaking up to the passengers of any
motor car proceeding at a speed exceeding four or five miles an
hour.

When this particular car struck those speed-killers, the two
occupants were shot into the air with great violence. Coming down,
the car seemed to meet them coming up, and the second and third
bounces were worse than the first. Indeed, it was little short of
remarkable that the florid-faced passenger succeeded in staying in
the car at all. The driver, clinging desperately to the wheel, had a
better chance, although he found it extremely difficult. And ahead
of them the road undulated for a distance of several rods, like
miniature waves of the sea.

“Ugh! Woogh! Woosh!” spluttered the older man, clutching wildly at
the bucking car. “What—in—Halifax! Shut her—unk!—down, Hitchens!
Stop her!”

Hitchens struggled to obey, finally succeeding in throwing the
clutch and jamming on the brake. The wheels, locked, slid with a
grinding sound that meant money in the pocket of some tire
manufacturer, the car bobbed and hobbled over the ragged places, and
the pursuing cloud of dust swooped down over them. When the dust
settled a little and they could catch their breath again, they
beheld a formidable, satisfied-looking man calmly mounting the
right-hand running board.

“I’m the deputy sheruff of this town,” announced the individual who
had boarded them. “And you are took up for breaking the speed limit
and defyin’ two regler authorized officers of the law.”




CHAPTER V

DISPENSING JUSTICE.


The driver bristled with indignation.

“It’s an outrage!” he cried. “We must get to Albion in time to catch
the three-forty train. You can’t stop us.”

“I’ve stopped ye already,” said Deputy Sheriff Newberry serenely.
“Under the circumstances it don’t become you to tell me what I can’t
do. You’ll be permitted to proceed on your way to Albion after Jedge
Wiggin attends to your case. So you might as well soople down and
take it calm.”

“But you don’t understand, you don’t know who you’re holding up in
this high-handed fashion. You are interfering with——”

“Wait, Hitchens!” cut in the other man, giving a glance at his
watch. “Never mind telling him who we are.”

“’Tain’t necessary,” stated Newberry. “You’ll have to tell the
jedge, anyhow.”

“How long,” asked the man with the watch, “will it require to get
through with this business so that we may go on. It is most
important that we should get that train.”

“Wull,” drawled the deputy, “if the jedge is around handy, and he
don’t read you too long a lecture before he slaps on the fine, mebbe
you’ll git started ag’in in half or three-quarters of an hour;
’tain’t likely to be more’n an hour, anyhow.”

“Half an hour will make us miss the train. Can’t we fix it with
you?”

“Now take keer, take keer! Don’t you go for to offer no bribes to an
officer of the law. I couldn’t take them nohow,” he added as
Constable Small came hurrying up with Constable Buzzell wheezing and
sniffling at his heels.

“But,” protested Hitchens, “if you knew who——”

“Never mind that,” interrupted the older man sharply. “The other
business will have to wait. I have a curiosity to see just how Judge
Wiggin handles cases of this sort.”

“Your cur’osity,” assured Deputy Sheriff Newberry, swinging open the
tonneau door, “will be satisfied. Git in, boys!”

When the three men had all piled into the rear of the car the one in
command directed Hitchens to drive straight down the long main
street of the town, and proceeded slowly.

Their appearance in the village was the signal for various
inhabitants who observed them to grin and wag their heads, making
uncomplimentary and derisive remarks, while a number of small boys,
hooting and laughing, assembled and followed the car as far as
Turner’s grocery, over which, in a bare and sparsely furnished room,
Judge Wiggin dispensed justice by mulcting the unfortunate speeders
who were arraigned before him. A number of idle citizens, who had
been gossiping and swapping stories on the store steps, rose at once
and followed the prisoners, conducted by Newberry and Buzzell, up
the narrow back stairs to the “courtroom.” Jeremiah Small had been
sent to fetch the judge.

The automobilists were given chairs facing a table which served as a
desk, and an anæmic-looking young man in horn-rimmed spectacles
seated himself at the table and began making out the complaint,
having first questioned Buzzell about the speed which the offenders
had been making when they ran into the trap.

“Your name?” inquired the clerk, turning to the older man.

“Put down John Doe,” said the latter, “and Richard Roe,” he added,
nodding toward his companion. “I am the owner of the car. Richard
was driving when we were held up.”

The younger man gave him a queer look, and leaned closer, whispering
something behind his hand. The answer was a grim smile and a shake
of the head. After slight hesitation, the clerk wrote down the names
as given.

The sound of heavy steps on the stairs preceded the entrance of
Constable Small, who announced that the judge was out somewhere, but
that Willie Baker and Nubby Snell had been sent scouting to find
him.

“I never heard of such an outrage!” exploded the intensely annoyed
Hitchens. “Somebody is going to regret this imposition. Time is
valuable to us, and——”

“Don’t git flustered and fly off the handle, mister,” advised Deputy
Newberry, twisting off a quid of War Horse with his teeth and
stowing it, bulging, into his cheek with a tongue made dexterous by
long practice. “It won’t joggle things along no faster, and I
ca’late you’ll be the one to do the regrettin’ if you go shootin’
off a lot of loose talk. If you git sassy before the jedge, I warn
ye now that it’ll prob’ly land ye in the caboose. ‘Go slow’ is a
motter it’s best to toiler around here.”

“Why don’t you tell them something?” persisted Hitchens, again
appealing to his companion.

“What talking I decide to do will be done to the judge himself,”
said the older man.

In the course of fifteen minutes Judge Wiggin appeared. He was a
lean and wiry man with a somewhat grim jaw and a steely blue eye.
There was dignity in his manner. He scarcely glanced at the
prisoners as he seated himself at the table opposite the clerk and
adjusted his spectacles to read the complaint.

“Hats off!” he ordered, rapping with his knuckles. “John Doe and
Richard Roe, by the complaint of a deputy sheriff and two
constables, by the town of Greenbush duly and legally authorized,
you are hereby charged with catawamping a hossless vehicle over a
public highway, lying within the town limits, at a speed of forty
miles an hour, thereby rupturing the law made and provided, and
wantonly and willfully endangering the peace and safety of other
persons who might find it necessary to locomote upon said highway.

“According to the complaint,” the judge continued, “the
before-mentioned Richard Roe was the driver, and the
before-mentioned John Doe the owner, of said hossless vehicle at the
time of the infraction of said law. That being the fact, the penalty
administered, in case the charge is admitted or proven, will be
applied in full to the person who was engaged in piloting the
juggernaut when you was nabbed. And let me add that in this court,
with the exception of the judge presiding, unnecessary talk is a
luxury, and luxuries add to the high cost of living. A word to the
wise is a seed sown upon good ground that springeth up and beareth
the fruit of economy. Richard Roe, guilty or not guilty?”

Biting his lip with annoyance, the younger of the two prisoners
started to protest: “It was necessary—er—your honor, that we
should catch the westward-bound train at Albion. If you were aware
who we are, who your petty officers, hiding like highwaymen in
ambush, had ventured to hold up——”

Again Judge Wiggin’s knuckles smote the desk. “Apparently,” he said,
“my observation regarding the expense of unnecessary talk in this
court failed to sink in, or even to make a dent. No excuse of
private necessity condones infractions of the law. Your careless
remark, as well as the suspicious nature of the names you have
given, leads me to believe that you are pirooting around the country
under false colors, and makes it rather probable that you are old
offenders trying in that way to dodge the extreme penalty the court
might see fit to administer if your real identities was known. I
shall bear this in mind in passing sentence.”

The grinning spectators tittered guardedly. The older man reached
out and placed a hand on his companion’s knee.

“You can see that you are simply making matters worse,” he
whispered. “Anything you may say will be used against us. Plead
guilty at once.”

Squirming and rebellions, Hitchens complied. However, instead of
passing sentence without delay, the judge squared away on his chair,
locked the fingers of his hands before him, and proceeded to read
the culprits a lengthy lecture anent the rights of the common people
upon the highways and the outrageous and criminal manner in which
these rights were disregarded by automobilists in general.

During this scathing harangue he scarcely looked at either of the
impatient and suffering victims, but kept his gaze fixed, for the
most part, on the rafters above their heads. He was the possessor of
a fluent flow of language, and a somewhat homely native wit that was
keen and stinging; and certain it was that his vituperation was in
no degree delicately barbed. Even the self-restraint of the elder
man was tested to the limit.

And presently, when the fine of twenty-five dollars and
costs—twenty-eight dollars and thirty cents, all told—had been
inflicted and paid over, the owner of the motor car released the
safety valve.

“Judge Wiggin,” he said, “I’m compelled to tell you that it has
never been my misfortune to witness a greater farce or a more
ridiculous travesty of justice. You made it absolutely evident that,
from the very beginning, your mind was made up and that you would
impose a fine, regardless of extenuating circumstances. You
practically warned us that any attempt at defense would merely
increase the sum of money you were determined to get out of us. Such
narrow-minded bigotry stamps you as a man unfit to represent this
district in the legislature.”

Nathan Wiggin bent a grim and steady eye upon him. “And them few
remarks,” he returned placidly, “constitute a clear case of
contempt, for which I shall have to tuck on another twenty-five
dollars, to preserve the dignity of the court. However, considering
the fact that the last time I heard you speak from the stump you
shot off a whole lot of balderdash, for all of which the so-called
intelligent voters of this State saw fit to elect you governor, I’ll
remit the fine. And discretion being the better part of valor, let
me suggest that you bottle up further seething criticism until we
both get outside, where, as man to man, we can tell each other jest
what we think, without mincin’ words.”




CHAPTER VI

A DEMONSTRATION POSTPONED.


A bombshell, exploding in that room, could hardly have created a
greater sensation. The governor! The governor of the State, arrested
for speeding in the little town of Greenbush, had been fined by
Judge Wiggin, who, as a would-be candidate for the legislature,
required the support and votes in his district of the governor’s own
party!

Further than that, more extraordinary, more incomprehensible, having
immediately recognized the governor as one of the two offenders, the
judge had dared to reprimand him precisely as if he were an ordinary
citizen; possibly with a trifle more caustic severity. And Nat
Wiggin was altogether too shrewd and long-headed not to realize that
a single word from the chief executive of the State would be almost
certain to blast his political ambitions.

Nevertheless, a little calm thought would have led Wiggin’s
neighbors there assembled to realize that his fearless action was
precisely what they might have expected of him. Never in his life
had he played the toady, and he was not a person to cringe in the
presence of power and pomp. “Without fear or favor” was his motto,
and, right or wrong, he adhered to it. Hard-headed and obstinate he
might be, but he was not inconsistent.

The spectators crowded forward on tiptoe, gaping, almost aghast.
Frowning and grim, his face purple with anger, the governor stared
at the judge. Calm and unperturbed as a June morning, the latter
announced that court was adjourned, and rose from his seat.
Trembling with deepest indignation, the governor’s secretary pulled
at his elbow.

“Come,” urged Hitchens in a low tone, “let’s get out before I lose
control of myself and twist that old lunatic’s nose.”

“I don’t think you’d better try that, here or elsewhere, under any
provocation,” returned the chief executive. “I’ve a notion he’d take
as much pleasure in fighting as in fining a speeder.”

They turned toward the stairs, the spectators, still staring
wide-eyed, clattering back to open a lane through which they could
pass. Weeping Buzzell was ahead of them, galvanized into unusual and
amazing activity.

“Make way for the governor!” he snuffled, waving his arms.

Down the stairs in advance he stumped, bursting with eagerness to
carry the news to those apathetic townsmen who had not been drawn by
curiosity to the courtroom. Marvelous and incredible was the
swiftness with which that news spread. Small boys carried it,
scurrying. The governor had been nabbed for breaking the speed
limit; Judge Wiggin had reprimanded and fined him. Villagers of both
sexes and all ages came hurrying toward Turner’s store, anxious to
get a glimpse of the notable who had met such summary and impartial
treatment at the hands of the “jedge.” Hitchens saw them assembling.

“Let’s get out of this hole,” he urged. “All the jays in the town
will be here in less than ten minutes.” He made for the automobile,
which stood in front of the store, headed down the street.

“We’ve got to find George,” said the governor, following. “It’s odd
he hasn’t shown up. Wonder what’s become of him.”

As they paused irresolutely beside the motor car the judge, having
issued forth, approached. There was nothing placating or apologetic
in his manner, nor did he wear an offensive, defiant air.

“Governor,” he said, “if you’d seen fit to notify me by telefone
that business of importance made it necessary for you to go
skihooting through this town, I’d have had the speed limit raised to
fifty miles an hour for the occasion, and the officers keepin’ an
open and clear road for ye. But when you was ketched, and hauled up
before me, same as any other private person, and give a fictitious
name, I figgered there was only one way to handle the case, which
was the same as I’d handle any other. I’m agin’ these here highway
locomotives on principle, and I’d fine the Czar of Roosia if he was
took up for speeding in one within the limits of this town.”

Something like a faint smile began to play around the corners of the
governor’s mouth. “How many times have you ridden in an automobile,
Judge Wiggin?” he asked.

“Jest about as many times as you’ve rid on the tail of a comet,
governor. A good, fast-steppin’ hoss suits me.”

“Exactly. And you’ve driven some fast steppers in your time. No
doubt you’ve driven them through the streets of this town at a much
greater speed than eight miles an hour, thus endangering the lives
of pedestrians and others upon the highways.”

“Endangerin’ fiddlesticks! I know how to handle hosses, sir. I’ve
broke and trained hundreds of ’em in my day. I know how to guide ’em
and how to stop ’em.”

“Still you may not realize that an expert driver of a motor car has
far more perfect control over his machine than the driver of a
spirited horse can possibly have over the animal. Likewise, an auto
moving at the same relative speed as a horse attached to a carriage
may be stopped more quickly than the horse. Therefore the machine,
properly handled, is a smaller menace to human safety than a
horse-drawn carriage.”

“Governor,” said Nathan P. Wiggin, “politeness forbids me to tell
you jest what I think of that statement. Besides, I’ve got my coat
on.”

“If you’re too prejudiced,” said the governor, “get into this car
with me, and you shall have a demonstration.” Just how this
invitation would have been received at that moment cannot be said.
Through the crowd came a panting, freckled, red-headed young man,
flinging people aside with his long arms.

“Hey, Jedge Wiggin!” he called chokingly. “Bessie’s gone crazy! Come
home quick!”

“Whut’s that, Lem Dodd?” cried the judge, snapping round and
grabbing the young man by the shoulder. “My darter—gone crazy? What
d’ye mean?”

“Jest whut I say,” insisted Lem Dodd chokingly. “She brung a strange
young feller inter the house, and he’s got a crack on his cabeza,
and he keeled over on the parlor sofy, and he looked like he was a
goner, with his eyes shet, and she hollered and flopped on her knees
beside him, and called him ‘Reginal’ and ‘dear,’ and called herself
a murderer, and kissed him right slap on the kisser.” He caught his
breath with a gulping sound of distress. “And when Miss Sally asked
her who he was, she said she didn’t know, and he don’t b’long round
these parts, for I never see him before, and she’s crazy as a June
bug or she’d never do no such thing.”

“This,” said the judge, “is a case for immejiate investigation.
Under the circumstances, governor, we’ll have to postpone that
demonstration till some future date.”

Then he set off for his home, a short distance up the street,
accompanied by the agitated and urgent Lemuel Dodd.




CHAPTER VII

A NOVICE AT THE WHEEL.


The governor and Hitchens made inquiry of the crowd regarding their
missing driver, but no one present seemed to have seen the man.
Presently the governor turned to his secretary.

“You don’t imagine,” he asked in a low tone, “that the young man who
is injured in Judge Wiggin’s house can be George?”

“The girl called him Reginald, according to that fellow who brought
word to the judge.”

“Still, I’ve got a queer notion that it may be the boy. Let’s
investigate.” When they reached Wiggin’s front door, George, a
bandage tied round his head, was just coming out, followed by the
judge, who seemed to be highly disturbed and indignant.

“I’m all right now, governor,” called the young man reassuringly. “A
disagreeable bull helped me over a fence, and I sort of collapsed
after walking into town.”

“Governor,” said Nathan Wiggin grimly, “as near as I can find out,
your shuffer climbed a tree to git away from a toothless, half-blind
old shepherd dog, and run like the devil when Libby’s bull took
after him. Then he follered my darter home, and walked right into
the house arter her. Whuther or not he was shammin’ when he flopped
on the sofy with his eyes shet, Bessie was upsot and made a touse
over him. She’s a ruther emotional girl. My sister’s lookin’ after
her now, and I’ve told her what I think of shuffers in gen’ral and
young men that climb trees to get away from dogs without teeth
enough to dent a biscuit.”

The governor laughed. “There may be an excuse for the young man,” he
said. “He was bitten by a vicious dog when very young, but I don’t
think bulls could scare him much.” He put his arm across the
shoulders of the young man. “Are you sure you’re not hurt much,
George?”

“Well, not on the head,” was the reply. “But that girl came pretty
near finishing me. She’s a perfect witch, and I——”

“Such a statement concerning my darter is slanderous, considering
the fuss she made over him,” said Judge Wiggin in deep resentment.
“But I don’t s’pose it’s anything more than could be expected of an
ordinary shuffer.”

Again the governor laughed in a peculiar way. “Perhaps not,” he
admitted, turning back to the judge. “I’d like to convince you,
however, that my argument about automobiles was right, and, as long
as you prevented me from catching my train after I had spent three
hours persuading Ephraim Glover, of Palmyra, to withdraw and not
contest you in the primaries, I think it is up to you to give me the
chance.”

First Nathan Wiggin looked astonished, and then slowly his face
turned red.

“Was that whut brought you inter these parts?” he asked.

“That was the principal business. Glover was so hard to handle that
I was delayed until it was only possible for me to get back by train
in time for an important meeting to-night.” Judge Wiggin’s
embarrassment was painful. “Governor,” he said, “circumstances alter
cases. I’m ruther sorry circumstances interfered with that important
app’intment of yours. But whinin’ never stopped a blister from
smarting, and it’s too late to dodge after you’ve been jabbed by the
business end of a hornet. Although I’ve said I’d never set foot in
one of them gas-wagon contraptions, considering who’s invited me, if
you’ll agree to proceed circumspect and decorous within the town
limits, and promise to land me back here safe and sound, I’m going
to take you up.”

“Done,” accepted Governor Bradley. “Come along, judge.”

Back to Turner’s grocery, where the bigger part of the curious
crowds still hovered around the touring car, they went, the governor
walking arm in arm with Nathan Wiggin, greatly to the wonderment of
the staring throng.

“I want you to sit on the forward seat so that you can watch the
driver operate the car, judge,” said the governor, opening one of
the forward doors. “Get in!”

The incredulous and bewildered spectators gasped when the judge
complied without a murmur to this invitation. Lem Dodd had said that
Bessie Wiggin had gone crazy, and now it seemed that Bessie’s father
was ready for a padded cell.

“Wull, what d’ye think o’ that?” mumbled old Abner Nutter, poking
his thumb into the ribs of Joshua Philbrook. “The jedge—goin’
bubble ridin’ arter he’s swore a hundred times that there wasn’t
money enough in the United States treasury to hire him to set in one
o’ them berjiggered things. I’ve heerd him say it with my own two
ears.”

“They’ve hippynotized him,” was Philbrook’s opinion. “Nothin’ else
explains it. He ain’t in his right mind.”

“Perhaps you’d better let Hitchens drive, George,” said the
governor, addressing the injured young man. “I declare, you’re pale!
Sure you’re not badly hurt?”

“Somehow walking makes me dizzy,” was the answer. “Still, I’m
feeling better. I think I’ll step into this store and get a drink of
water.”

Having become suddenly anxious, the chief executive followed him
into the store. Hitchens, fretful and none too well pleased with the
governor for wasting so much time on Wiggin, left the latter sitting
in the car and mounted the store steps.

Aware that the accusing eyes of his fellow townsmen were upon him,
Nathan Wiggin gave his attention to the mechanism of the car as
displayed before him. He examined the levers and pedals, squinted at
the clock and the speedometer and the gasoline gauge. He wondered at
the numerous contrivances of push buttons and small levers on the
dash. He even bent forward and curiously moved one of the latter
from one side to the other. About that time a bold urchin who had
climbed on the running board released the emergency brake.

It was a cry of warning from somebody in the crowd that made Judge
Wiggin aware that the car was moving. It had been standing on a
gentle incline, with its nose pointing down the long main street,
and had started as soon as the brake was set free.

“Hey!” shouted an excited voice. “She’s goin’! Jump, jedge!”

Nathan Wiggin did not jump. He was not greatly alarmed at first. The
thing had barely started; it was not running away. He had broken and
trained vicious horses that other men could do nothing with, some of
them veritable man-killers, and surely he could stop an inanimate
contrivance like a motor car, especially when it was not under
power. Possibly he was restrained also by a conviction that he could
not abandon the car with dignity, and by the knowledge that to
abandon it at all under such circumstances would possibly make him
an object of ridicule. He knew with what keen gusto the Greenbushers
“harped on a joke” and nagged the victim thereof.

“Whoa!” said the judge, moving quickly over into the driver’s seat
and grasping the wheel. “Whoa back!”

The car moved on, those persons who had been in front of it hastily
scrambling out of the way. The judge braced hard with one foot
against the clutch pedal, but that did not seem to have any effect.
He grabbed one of the levers, thinking it might be the brake, and
gave it a yank. It was the lever that manipulated the gears. At the
same time his foot slipped off the clutch pedal.

Thrown into gear, the moving car cranked itself, and the engine
leaped to life with a sudden vibrating hum. For in shifting the tiny
lever on the dash Judge Wiggin had made connections with the
magneto. The surprised man gasped as the machine gave a sudden
forward lunge, like a horse beneath the stinging cut of a whip.
Almost before he could gasp twice, the confounded thing was running
away.

“Whoa!” shouted the dismayed man commandingly, surging back on the
wheel with all his strength. “If the bit holds, I’ll break your jaw,
you——”

One foot was planted on the accelerator, jamming it down and opening
the throttle wide. The engine roared beneath the quivering hood. The
car made a jump that seemed to take all four wheels off the ground.
Judge Wiggin’s hat flew off, his sparse gray hair stood on end, his
eyes bulged; but between his parted, drawn-back lips his teeth were
set. Behind him he heard the horrified shouts of the crowd, through
which Hitchens had vainly tried to plow a path in time to board the
machine before it could get beyond his reach. Realizing he had
failed, Hitchens stopped and flung up his arms in despair.

“The old fool!” he groaned. “He’ll smash the car! He’ll be killed!”




CHAPTER VIII

WORSE THAN A WILD HORSE.


Annoyed and amazed by the inexplicable and cantankerous behavior of
the automobile, Nathan Wiggin was, at the same time, aroused to
resentment and wrath. The confounded thing was acting exactly like a
wild, viciously ugly, unbroken colt. Immediately the judge’s
fighting blood rose. He was stirred by the tingling joy of contest;
it throbbed in every vein of his body. Still holding the throttle
wide open with one foot, he planted the other on the brake, and
sawed at the wheel.

The things the automobile did then made it seem more than ever like
a strong and furious young horse battling against restraint and
mastery. It bucked and plunged in jerky jumps; it “pitched
fence-cornered” from side to side, after the style of a Western
broncho; it snorted and choked and snorted again.

“Whoa, you dratted catamaran!” snarled the judge. “You’ve gotter
whoa or I’ll take your jaw off!”

Only for the down grade he might have stalled the engine before the
racking of the car caused his foot to fly off the brake pedal. When
that happened, it continued on its way down the hill toward the
wooden bridge that spanned the Swampscott River, swaying from one
side of the road to the other. At times it threatened to climb trees
or telephone poles, or crash through fences and plunge like a
battering-ram into the fronts of houses or stores. But always the
crazy machine swerved in time to avoid disaster, and shot across to
the other side of the road.

When his right hand slipped from the wheel, the judge grabbed the
side of the car body, and his clutching thumb jammed down the button
that operated the electric siren. The button stuck, and the siren
howled like a doomed demon of despair, causing Nathan Wiggin’s hair
to stand up stiff as the bristles on a horse brush.

The fearsome sound of the wailing whistle brought people running to
windows to behold a sight no one in Greenbush had ever expected to
see—Judge Wiggin driving an automobile! To say that he was driving
it more than borders on hyperbole; it would be far closer to the
truth to state that it was driving him—frantic! He was not
habitually a profane man, but he possessed a broad vocabulary of
vigorous expletives of a more or less impious nature; and it must be
admitted that the language he addressed to that motor car would have
shocked a parson. Those who dashed to their windows in time to see
him shoot zigzagging past beheld a man that was little short of
raving mad.

Hens that had been scratching peacefully in the village street fled,
squawking. Barking furiously, a yellow dog charged out. The car
leaped at the animal, struck it with one forward wheel, and sent it,
spinning and howling, into the gutter.

Deaf as a doormat, old Betsy Tucker, going to market with a hand
basket containing two dozen eggs, neither saw nor heard until the
runaway auto was perilously close upon her and the judge was howling
like a maniac for her to “clear the road.” Then she gave a yell and
threw up her arms, flinging basket and eggs into the air. She was
saved by sheer luck, for the judge, plunging at the wheel, turned
the machine so that it missed her by less than a foot. The basket
came down, bottom up, on Nathan Wiggin’s head, and the eggs—well,
for some moments thereafter the judge could not have seen to drive,
had he possessed the required skill. From his shoulders up he
resembled the initial preparation of an omelet.

“Holy sassafras!” he spluttered. “It’s raining fish glue! Everything
happens at once!”

As soon as he could blink a pair of peepholes through that golden
film—he did not dare let go with his hands to wipe his eyes—he saw
that the foot of the hill was almost reached, and that the bridge
across the peacefully flowing river lay just ahead. It was not a
very wide bridge, and Tobias Blaisdell, perched on a load of hay
drawn by two horses, was just driving on to the far end.

“Back up, you blinkety-blank jay-hawker!” yelled the judge. “Make a
clear passage or I’ll bore a tunnel in ye!”

Had he been less excited he would have realized that it was much too
late for such a cumbersome obstruction to get out of the way.
Blaisdell had time only to check his horses and stare in horror at
the shrieking engine of destruction that was charging upon him. He
did not recognize Nathan Wiggin in the egg-bespattered wild man who
seemed to be guiding the humming mechanism of disaster, but he knew
that, in about four seconds, unless a miracle intervened, horses,
motor car, hay, and human beings were going to be mixed in a
spectacular and tragic smash.

Then, as the uncontrolled automobile reached the middle span of the
bridge, the miracle took place. Shooting suddenly to one side, the
machine struck the wooden railing, and went through it as if it had
been constructed of clay pipestems. Into the deepest part of the
river it plunged, flinging up a great sulash of spray, and
disappeared from view. Nathan Wiggin, of Greenbush, vanished with
it.




CHAPTER IX

WHEN THE LIMIT CAME OFF.


The shouts of the startled crowd in front of Turner’s grocery had
brought those within the store rushing out to learn the cause of
alarm. The governor came with them, followed a second later by the
young man who had been tossed by Libby’s bull. They beheld the motor
car well under way, and the judge struggling frantically and
ineffectually to restrain it.

“Great guns!” groaned the governor, turning pale. “Wiggin’s started
the demonstration on his own hook. He’ll smash a
four-thousand-dollar car and his neck at the same time!”

The young man with the bandaged head stiffened. If he felt weak or
dizzy at that moment, he flung it off instantly. With a single bound
he was at the foot of the store steps, against which leaned a
bicycle, left there temporarily by some one. He grabbed the bicycle,
uttering a ringing shout for everybody to get out of the way.

Through the scattered crowd he dashed, leaping to the saddle and
catching the pedals with his nimble feet. Bending over the
handlebars, he started in pursuit of the automobile, which, by this
time, was halfway down the hill, with the wailing siren in full
blast.

Continuing to jabber and shout, the crowd followed, stringing out in
a straggling line. Boys and younger men were in the lead.
Middle-aged, bewhiskered, bald-headed men came next. The rear guard
was made up of the aged and decrepit; the very last one of all, bent
with rheumatism, and hobbling with the aid of two canes, being
Zebediah Titcomb, the sage of Greenbush.

Never since its foundation had the sleepy town of Greenbush beheld
such a spectacle. Never in its history had there been such
tremendous excitement within its boundaries. The end of all things
terrestrial could scarcely have created a greater hullabaloo in that
torpid community.

The young man on the bicycle was not able to overtake the runaway
motor car before it reached the bridge, but he was not far behind
it. When the automobile smashed through the railing and leaped into
the river, he jumped from the bicycle and followed it without the
slightest hesitation.

He was an excellent swimmer, and, rising from the plunge, he saw the
head of Nathan Wiggin bob to the surface within reach of his arm.
Immediately he fastened a hand on the man’s collar.

“Keep still! Stop thrashing,” he said, “and I’ll get you out.”

The somewhat difficult task of rescuing Judge Wiggin from drowning
was accomplished, while the panting throng that had reached the
bridge looked on and cheered. Reaching shallow water, the young man
assisted the judge to his feet, and both waded forth to dry land.

Arriving on shore, the older man immediately sat down facing the
river, beneath the sluggish surface of which Governor Bradley’s
automobile lay immersed. After a few choking gulps, he began to
speak in accents and words of the utmost self-contempt.

“Nate Wiggin,” he said, addressing himself, “you’ve lived to be
fifty-four year old, and arrived at the conclusion that there wasn’t
anything that traveled on legs or wheels that you couldn’t handle.
Which goes to show that when a man thinks he knows all there is to
know about anything a shrinkage has set in about half an inch
beneath the roots of his hair. A wise fool is about as safe to have
round as a stick of dynamite bakin’ in the oven of a red-hot stove.
If he don’t damage nobody else, he’s pretty likely to blow up and
bust himself.”

The governor and his secretary, followed by a few others, came
hurrying to the spot. Seeing them approach, the judge got upon his
feet, dripping tiny rivulets.

“Governor,” he observed, “there’s no great loss without some small
gain. You’ll save the price of a wash for that there automobile.
Whatever damage or expense may accrue I ca’late I’ll have to
sustain. I guess we can find a way to get her out.”

“I’m thankful,” said Governor Bradley, “that you were not killed.”

“I don’t see why that should choke you with joy. In your place I’d
prob’ly be so blazin’ mad I’d start in to murder somebody.”

His eyes streaming and his nose snuffling, Weeping Buzzell broke in:
“Obadiah Cobb has come along with his hoss and wagon. He’s right
there at the end of the bridge, and he’ll take ye home, jedge. You
better git outer them wet clothes it you don’t want to ketch your
everlarsting.”

“I’m no wetter’n this young feller who yanked me outer the drink,”
said the judge. “He’s got to come along to the house with me and get
fixed up. And you, too, governor, and t’other gentleman—you come; I
insist on it. You’re going to stop with me, the whole caboodle of
ye, to supper. Hosspitality deferred may be hosspitality soured, but
I’ll guarantee to do my best to sweeten it up on this occasion.”

By this time it seemed that by far the greater portion of the
inhabitants of the town were packed upon the bridge or jamming the
roadway. And when Obadiah Cobb took the governor, the judge, and the
other two men into his double seater and started back up the hill
with them, the crowd laughed and cheered again.

“Governor,” said Judge Wiggin, “I dunno whether that’s meant for you
or for the young man who hauled me out of the stream, but either way
it’s proper well deserved. If you hadn’t been dead game, you’d have
kicked like a steer over what’s happened, and if he wasn’t good grit
to the bone he’d never have gone into the river arter me. Which is
admittin’ I made a mistake in sizing him up when I found my darter
making a touse over him.”

Among the few villagers who remained unaware of the recent lively
events were Judge Wiggin’s sister and his daughter. Of course they
were thrown into a great flutter. Miss Sally said: “My stars!” What
Miss Bessie said was whispered into the ear of the water-soaked but
smiling young man, who gave her a look and a sly squeeze of the hand
that brought a rosy flush to her cheeks.

Dry clothes were found; also “a little nip of something to parry off
chills.” Warming up, the participants in the adventure joked and
laughed, even though the judge seemed to have something on his mind
that was giving him some serious thought. What this was appeared
later after they had partaken of a genuine old-fashioned New England
supper, topped off with doughnuts and hot apple pie and steaming,
fragrant coffee.

Turning his eyes to the governor, who sat at the right of Miss
Sally, Nathan Wiggin said: “Governor, putting aside the question of
damages I owe on account of what happened to your automobile,
ca’late it’s up to me to express my appreciation of whut you done to
induce Ephraim Glover to take back and give me a clear field. With a
clear start, I reckon I can carry this deestrict, and help you to
carry the county. Anyhow, I’m going to lay myself out to do it.”

“That sounds good to me,” laughed the governor.

“Furthermore,” pursued the host, “I’ve decided to abolish the
trapping of automobile drivers in this here town. Mebbe,” he
admitted, “this may appear a leetle dite selfish on my part as,
havin’ got my dander up by the pranks played on me by that there gas
go-cart of yourn, governor, I’m contemplating buying one myself and
running the consarned cantraption until I git it tamed. If there was
traps hereabouts, mebbe I’d git took up and have to fine myself for
busting the speed limit. Therefore, henceforth there ain’t going to
be no speed limit in Greenbush.”

Beneath the edge of the table, old Shep, attempting to lick Bessie’s
hand with his tongue, licked also the hand of the young man who sat
beside her. And before sitting down, the young people had found an
opportunity, quite unobserved, to exchange a few words in private.
Somehow neither of them had evinced any great desire for food, but
while George was still unnaturally pale, the roses continued to
bloom in Bessie’s cheeks.

Now George spoke up boldly: “As long as you have abolished the speed
limit, Judge Wiggin, I am going to improve the occasion to ask you
for your daughter’s hand in marriage. Doubtless it will seem rather
hasty to you, but everything has moved with a rush this afternoon. I
have put the question to Bessie, and won her consent.”

The governor stared. Miss Nancy nearly fainted. Bessie Wiggin
trembled visibly. Nathan P. Wiggin gazed hard at the young man for
about thirty seconds, and then scratched his chin, a queer pucker
screwing up his face.

“Wull, I declare!” said the judge at last. “That is going some!
Never quite reckoned on my darter hookin’ up with a shuffer, but,
having saved me from drownding, you’ve took me at a disadvantage. If
Bessie has said yes, and you kin furnish the proper creedenshuls
I’ll have to take your proposition under consideration, I guess.”

The governor looked Bessie Wiggin over appraisingly, and decided
that he had made no mistake in thinking her an unusually pretty and
charming young lady.

“It is sudden,” he said, laughing softly, “and it would not have
happened if George had not offered to drive for me to-day, my
regular chauffeur being ill. In the way of credentials, judge, let
me state that he is my son.”

The judge’s sister sat bolt upright in a jiffy. The judge coughed
behind his hand, the pucker crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“Them creedenshuls, governor,” he stated, “are wholly satisfactory
to me.” His whole body seemed to shake oddly. “I’m afraid I’m going
to have a chill, after all,” he added. “I think the governor and me
had better take a little walk in the moonlight.”


                                THE END


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the May 1, 1915 issue
of the _Top Notch_ magazine published by Street & Smith Company.]



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