The Motor Boys Across the Plains; or, The Hermit of Lost Lake

Mingled with the frantic tooting of an automobile horn, there was the shrill shrieking of the brake-band as it gripped the wheel hub in a friction clutch.

"Hi, Bob! Look out for that ox cart ahead!" exclaimed one of three sturdy youths in the touring car.

"I should say so! Jam on the brakes, Bob!" put in the tallest of the trio, while an elderly man, who was in the rear seat with one of the boys, glanced carelessly up to see what was the trouble.

"I have got the brake on, Jerry!" was the answer the lad at the steering wheel made. "Can't you and Ned hear it screeching!"

The auto was speeding down a steep hill, seemingly headed straight toward a solitary Mexican who was moving slowly along in an antiquated ox-drawn vehicle.

"Then why don't she slow up? You've got the power off, haven't you?"

"Of course! Do you take me for an idiot!" yelled Bob, or, as his friends sometimes called him, because of his fatness, "Chunky." "Of course I've shut down, but something seems to be the matter with the brake pedal."

"Have you tried the emergency?" asked Ned.

"Sure!"

Toot! Toot! Toot!

Again the horn honked out a warning to the Mexican, but he did not seem to hear.

The big red touring car was gathering speed, in spite of the fact that it was not under power, and it bore down ever closer to the ox cart.

"Cut out the muffler and let him hear the explosions," suggested Jerry.

Bob did so, and the sounds that resulted were not unlike a Gatling gun battery going into action. This time the native heard.

Glancing back, he gave a frightened whoop and jabbed the sharp goad into the ox. The animal turned squarely across the road, thus shutting off what small chance there might have been of the auto gliding past on either side.

"We're going to hit him sure!" yelled Ned. "I say Professor, you'd better hold on to your specimens. There's going to be all sorts of things doing in about two shakes of a rattlesnake's tail!"

"What's that about a rattlesnake?" asked the old man, who, looking up from a box of bugs and stones on his lap, seemed aware, for the first time, of the danger that threatened.

"Hi there! Get out of the way! Move the cart! Shake a leg! Pull to one side and let us have half the road!" yelled Jerry as a last desperate resort, standing up and shouting at the bewildered and frightened Mexican.

"Oh pshaw! He don't understand United States!" cried Ned.

"That's so," admitted Jerry ruefully.

"Vamoose, is the proper word for telling a Mexican to get out of the road," suggested the professor calmly. "Perhaps if you shouted that at him he might--"

What effect trying the right word might have had the boys had no chance of learning, for, the next instant, in spite of Bob's frantic working at the brake, the auto shot right at the ox cart. By the merest good luck, more than anything else, for Bob could steer neither to the right nor left, because the narrow road was hemmed in by high banks, the machine struck the smaller vehicle a glancing blow.

The force of the impact skidded the auto on two wheels up the side of the embankment, where, poking the front axle into a stump served to bring the car to a stop. The car was slewed around to one side, the ox was yanked from its feet, and, as the cart overturned, the Mexican, yelling voluble Spanish, pitched out into the road.

Nor did the boys and the professor come off scathless, for the sudden stopping of their machine piled the occupants on the rear seat up in a heap on the floor of the tonneau, while Bob and Jerry, who were in front, went sprawling into the dust near the native.

For a few seconds there was no sound save the yelling of the Mexican and the bellowing of the ox. Then the cloud of dust slowly drifted away, and Bob picked himself up, gazing ruefully about.

"This is a pretty kettle of fish," he remarked.

"I should say it was several of 'em," agreed Jerry, trying to get some of the dust from his mouth, ears and nose. "You certainly hit him, Chunky!"

"It wasn't my fault! How did I know the brake wasn't going to work just the time it was most needed?"

"Is anybody killed?" asked the professor, looking up over the edge of the tonneau, and not releasing his hold of several boxes which contained his specimens.

"Don't seem to be, nor any one badly hurt, unless it's the ox or the auto," said Ned, taking a look. "The Mexican seems to be mad about something, though."

By this time the native had arisen from his prostrate position and was shaking his fist at the Motor Boys and the professor, meanwhile, it would appear from his language, calling them all the names to which he could lay his tongue.

"I guess he wants Bob's scalp," said Jerry with a smile.

"It was as much his fault as mine," growled Chunky. "If he had pulled to one side, I could easily have passed."

The Mexican, brushing the dust from his clothes, approached the auto party, and continued his rapid talk in Spanish. The boys, who had been long enough in Mexico to pick up considerable of the language, gathered that the native demanded two hundred dollars for the damage to himself, the cart and the ox, as well as for the injury to his dignity and feelings.

"You'd better talk to him, Professor," suggested Jerry. "Offer him what you think is right."

Thereupon Professor Snodgrass, in mild terms explained how the accident had happened, saying it was no fault of the auto party.

The Mexican, in language more forcible than polite, reiterated his demand, and announced that unless the money was instantly forthcoming, he would go to the nearest alcade and lodge a complaint.

The travelers knew what this meant, with the endless delays of Mexican justice, the summoning of witnesses and petty officers.

"I wish there was some way out," said Jerry.

As the Mexican had not been hurt, nor his cart or ox been damaged, there was really no excuse for the boys giving in to his demands.