Part 19 (1/2)
”Have to? My dear parent, you can't keep me from it! Any of the Seattle friends of Gene Gilson who don't appreciate that straight, fine, aspiring boy may go---- Not overdo it, you understand. But---- Oh, take him to the theater. By the way; shall we try to climb Mount Rainier before----”
”See here, my good dolly; you stop steering me away from my feeble parental efforts. Do you wish to be under obligations----”
”Don't mind, with Milt. He wouldn't charge interest, as Jeff Saxton would. Milt is, oh, he's folks!”
”Quite true. But are we? Are you?”
”Learning to be!”
Between discussions and not making hills, Claire cleaned the spark plugs as they acc.u.mulated carbon from the surplus oil--or she pretended to help Milt clean them. The plugs were always very hot, and when you were uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the jacket from the core, you always burned your hand, and wished you could swear ... and sometimes you could.
After noon, when they had left the Park and entered Gardiner, Milt announced, ”I've got to stick around a while. The key in my steering-gear seems to be worn. May have to put in a new one. Get the stuff at a garage here. If you wouldn't mind waiting, be awful glad to tag, and try to give a few helping hands till the oil cleans itself out.”
”I'll just stroll on,” she said, but she drove away as swiftly as she could. Her father's worry about obligations disturbed her, and she did not wish to seem too troublesome an amateur to Milt. She would see him in Livingston, and tell him how well she had driven. The spark plugs kept clean enough now so that she could command more power, but----
Between the Park and the transcontinental road there are many climbs short but severely steep; up-shoots like the humps on a scenic railway.
To tackle them with her uncertain motor was like charging a machine-gun nest. She spent her nerve-force lavishly, and after every wild rush to make a climb, she had to rest, to rub the suddenly aching back of her neck. Because she was so tired, she did not take the trouble to save her brakes by going down in gear. She let the brakes smoke while the river and railroad below rose up at her.
There was a long drop. How long it was she did not guess, because it was concealed by a curve at the top. She seemed to plane down forever. The brakes squealed behind. She tried to s.h.i.+ft to first but there was a jarring snarl, and she could neither get into first nor back into third.
She was running in neutral, the great car coasting, while she tried to slow it by jamming down the foot-brake. The car halted--and started on again. The brake-lining which had been wished on her at Saddle Back was burnt out.
She had the feeling of the car bursting out from under control ... ready to leap off the road, into a wash. She wanted to jump. It took all her courage to stay in the seat. She got what pressure she could from the remaining band. With one hand she kept the accelerating car in the middle of the road; with the other she tried to pull the handle of the emergency brake back farther. She couldn't. She was not strong enough.
Faster, faster, rus.h.i.+ng at the next curve so that she could scarce steer round it----
As quietly as she could, she demanded of her father, ”Pull back on this brake lever, far as you can. Take both hands.”
”I don't understand----”
”Heavens! Y' don't haft un'stand! Yank back! Yank, I tell you!”
Again the car slowed. She was able to get into second speed. Even that check did not keep the car from darting down at thirty miles an hour--which pace, to one who desires to saunter down at a dignified rate of eighteen, is equivalent in terms of mileage on level ground to seventy an hour, with a drunken driver, on a foggy evening, amid traffic.
She got the car down and, in the midst of a valley of emptiness and quiet, she dropped her head on her father's knee and howled.
”I just can't face going down another hill! I just can't face it!” she sobbed.
”No, dolly. Mustn't. We better---- You're quite right. This young Daggett is a very gentlemanly fellow. I didn't think his table-manners---- But we'll sit here and regard the flora and fauna till he comes. He'll see us through.”
”Yes! He will! Honestly, dad----” She said it with the first touch of hero-wors.h.i.+p since she had seen an aviator loop loops. ”Isn't he, oh, effective! Aren't you glad he's here to help us, instead of somebody like Jeff Saxton?”
”We-ul, you must remember that Geoffrey wouldn't have permitted the brake to burn out. He'd have foreseen it, and have had a branch office, with special leased wire, located back on that hill, ready to do business the instant the market broke. Enthusiasm is a nice quality, dolly, but don't misplace it. This lad, however trustworthy he may be, would scarcely even be allowed to work for a man like Geoffrey Saxton.
It may be that later, with college----”
”No. He'd work for Jeff two hours. Then Jeff would give him that 'You poor fis.h.!.+' look, and Milt would hit him, and stroll out, and go to the North Pole or some place, and discover an oil-well, and hire Jeff as his nice, efficient general manager. And---- I do wish Milt would hurry, though!”
It was dusk before they heard the pit-pit-pit chuckling down the hill.
Milt's casual grin changed to bashfulness as Claire ran into the road, her arms wide in a lovely gesture of supplication, and cried, ”We been waiting for you so long! One of my brake-bands is burnt out, and the other is punk.”