He stood up and tried to take Ida's hands from the wheel again, but she seemed to have lost her head. The big car was still careening toward them, though the brakes were slowing it up. Then Ida, with a flash of instinct, did the only thing possible. Instead of putting on brakes and trying to stop, she pressed the accelerator pedal, and the little car shot forward at a momentarily increased speed.

Between them Ida and Sid managed to steer it into a ditch, and brought up with a crash against a fence, splintering the rails. Ida, with more force than she thought she possessed, jammed on the brakes, and the Streak, with a groan and a jar, came to a stop.

Then there came a jolt, a ripping sound, and Cora's big, four-cylindered machine banged into the Streak, for, in spite of all Cora and Walter could do, the Whirlwind could not be stopped in time.

But, fortunately, the damage to the large car was not great, for as she saw that a collision was inevitable, Cora had quickly shifted the wheel, and but a glancing blow had been struck. A mud guard was torn from the Whirlwind. Only Cora's plucky driving, and her emergency stop, had prevented a worse accident.

"Well," remarked Sid in a strange voice, "we're alive, at any rate."

"Yes," added Bess sharply, "and no thanks to somebody, either."

"If you mean me--" began Sid, the color flaming into his face.

"Look at your radiator!" suddenly exclaimed Walter. "It's sprung a leak!"

A stream of water, trickling down from the front of the Streak testified to this. A piece of the broken fence rail had jammed into the radiator, puncturing several coils and bending others out of place.

"No more go in her," observed Sid ruefully. "We'll have to be towed back home."

"Is your car damaged much, Cora?" asked Walter, for the girl had leaped out and was critically examining the auto.

"Only the mud guard," she replied as she reached up to the steering wheel, touched the levers and shut off the engine.

CHAPTER VI

GETTING A TOW

For a few minutes every one seemed to be talking at once, and there was considerable confusion. Sid and Ida came in for a number of rather angry glances, for the mishap seemed to be due entirely to their thoughtless conduct, and that their runabout had been the most damaged did not appear to lessen their offense.

Walter took the wheel of the Whirlwind, which Cora gladly relinquished to him, and soon had the car out of the ditch and upon the highway. The Streak, of course, could not move under its own power for more than a short distance, as the water had all leaked out of the radiator, and, there being none to cool the cylinders, to operate it was to invite disaster. Jack and Bess had alighted from the Get There. Jack was very angry.

"Nice way to race!" he exclaimed. "I've got a good mind to--do something to you, Sid Wilc.o.x!"

"Oh, you have, eh?" sneered Sid. "Well, I don't know but what I might like to take it out of you for your sister cutting so close across my course. I guess I'm the one to get mad."

"You sneak! She did nothing of the sort!" cried Jack.

"Oh, Jack! Please don't!" begged his sister. "If it was my fault, I'm ready to apologize."

"Your fault!" exclaimed Walter. "It wasn't your fault at all. It was--er--well, Sid and Ida were to blame."

"That's the way it looked to me," declared Cora.

Ida stared at Jack's sister for a moment, and then, with an open sneer on her face, turned deliberately away.

"Oh, I'm so glad we escaped, anyhow!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mary Downes. Her voice attracted Sid's attention. He had not noticed the little work girl before. At first he appeared to scowl, and then he smiled most pleasantly. The action was not lost upon Belle, though Cora, puzzling over Ida's manner, had not seen it.

"Come on, get in, girls," called Walter from his seat in the touring car. "No use standing there in the sun."

"You've got to tow me," ordered Sid in a peremptory manner.

"Got to?" repeated Walter, with a curious inflection.

"Hush!" whispered Cora. "Let's do it, Walter. Jack is so angry at him that I'm afraid something will happen."

"Very well. Just as you say," replied Walter gallantly.

Jack turned away in disgust. He was evidently trying hard to keep his temper under control.

"That he and Ida should deliberately endanger the lives of several people, to say nothing of their own risk, seems past belief," Jack murmured to Walter. "I've a good mind to teach him a much-deserved lesson. We ought to leave him to walk home."

"Oh, I do dislike rows!" exclaimed Cora, and she whispered in Jack's ear: "Don't bother with him, Bud. He isn't worth it."

"You're right about that," was the response, and the lad looked affectionately at his sister. She had gotten over the momentary fright, and there was now a pretty flush on her face. "I'll overlook it this time, sis," went on Jack. "Perhaps he'll get his lesson later--without me having to give it to him."

"Aren't some of you going to tow me?" asked Sid rather disconsolately. "I can't run my car the way it is."

"Don't ask any favors of them," Cora heard Ida whisper to Sid.

"We'll walk."

"I will not," he answered sharply. "I'm not going to leave my car here. Will you give me a tow, Cora?" he asked. "Seeing that you made me smash--"

"She did not!" cried Jack. "And if you say so you're--"

"Jack!" exclaimed his sister.

"Well, he knows it was his own fault," concluded Jack, not wishing to accuse Ida.

Sid looked a bit worried.

"We'll tow you," said Cora simply.

"Thank you," responded Sid.

"Got a rope?" asked Walter.

"Here's one," answered the owner of the Streak, producing a strong rope from the rear of his runabout.

"Looks as if you were in the habit of getting towed," remarked Walter.

"Yes. I've had bad luck with this car."

Sid and Walter were soon busy arranging the two cars, so that the big auto would tow the disabled one.

"I want the boys to separate," whispered Cora to Bess. "I'm so Afraid Jack and Sid will quarrel."