The scientific pioneer

Horse-Sense Hank could answer all the problems of science. He could even apply logic to love. But turnips...!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March 1940. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

One thing about that heap of mine, it always picks the loneliest places to roll over and play doggo. It started spluttering about the time the road changed from concrete to macadam, and when the macadam trickled into a thin silver of bumpy dirt it wheezed, snorted, and gave up the ghost.

I said, "Damn!" and a few things more expressive. I got out and struggled with the hood and looked at the innards and admired their incomprehensible compactness. I jiggled a few wires here and there and nothing happened. Then I looked for telephone wires. There were none. But I discovered that I wasn't alone. There was a man leaning on the worm fence across the road, watching me with drawling incuriosity.

I said, "Hey, you! Is there a telephone anywhere around these parts?"

He shifted a billiard ball from his left cheek to his right, squinted, and shook his head.

"Nup," he said.

"How about a garage?" I asked. "How far is it to the nearest garage?"

He bobbed his head northward. "Two mile. Mebbe two'n a half," he said.

"Thanks," I told him, "for the poisonous information."

I locked the car and started in the direction he had pointed out. I had taken a dozen steps when he halted me.

"Swim good?" he asked.

I looked at him, then at the dull, gray, February sky, then at the dappled patches of unthawed snow clinging to the roots and hollows.

"I'm a duck," I said, "not a penguin. I stick to hot water in the winter. I hold the All-American free-style record for February bathtub paddling. Why?"

"That's what," he said, "I figgered. You can't go thataway, then. Bridge is out, an' river's half a mile wide. You better go 'tother direction."

I glared at him. "Say it," I said. "How far?"

"Fifteen miles," he guessed. "Sixteen, more like."

"Sixteen miles!" I did the only thing I could think of. I kicked my buggy in the bumper, then collapsed onto the running board.

"Hell's beacons, man, I can't walk that far! Not without my Boy Scout axe. What am I going to do? I've got to get to Westville before dark, my car's on the squeegee, and so far as I'm concerned that thing under the hood is a deep, dark mystery."

He said, "Let's see," interestedly, and gangled over the fence. He lifted the hood and stared into the maw of my crate. His eyes darted from one piece of machinery to another; after a while he began to mumble to himself, and once he nodded.

Then he muttered, "'Pears like it oughta be this 'un here--" and reached in and touched something. It clinked. He tightened it.

"Try 'er now," he said. "Wiggle somethin'. Make 'er go."

"Sure," I said caustically. "All I need is a nice long hill."