CHAPTER XXII.
AN AUTO LEAP FOR LIFE.
What was to be done?
The bridge across the canyon was impassable for an auto--that seemedcertain. While the open space caused by the removal of the two planks orrough trunks was not more than four feet, still it was a distancesufficient to make anyone despair of ever getting a vehicle across it.
"We can cut some trees and split off planks?" suggested Mr. Joyce.
"That would take too long," declared the boys. "Frank and Harry need usin a hurry or they would not have sent such an imperative message. Wehave got to cross the canyon."
Suddenly Lathrop, who had been studying the situation, the steep-sidedcanyon, the roaring river on its rocky bed below the structure of thebridge itself, uttered an exclamation.
"I think I can see a way to get across that gap," he cried.
"Climb across on the stringpiece, I suppose?" replied Bartsarcastically. "I thought of that some time ago; we can easily do that,but we've got to have the auto. It's got all the supplies in it."
"No, my plan is to go across, auto and all," rejoined Lathrop.
"What! Take the auto across that gap?"
"Yes."
"Say, this is no time for fooling, Lathrop," remonstrated Billy Barnes.
"I'm not fooling. I mean it. Did you ever go to the circus?"
"Well, of all the fool questions. Yes, I've been to the circus, but whathas that got to do with this situation?"
"A whole lot."
"For instance?"
"Well, you've seen an act there called 'leaping the gap' or some suchname?"
"Yes, where a woman in an auto comes down a steep incline and jumps abig gap at the bottom?"
"That's it."
"But, in the circus the auto is given an upward impetus by the fact thatthe incline down which it runs down is curved upward at the end,"objected Billy.
"So it is in this case," was the calm reply. "I've been looking it over,and it seems to me that conditions are about the same."
"As how?"
"Well, here we have a steep incline--the hill yonder," Billy Barnesnodded, "and there yonder is the gap where Luther Barr and his gang tookout the boards."
"But you haven't got the upward curve at the end of your incline tothrow the auto into the air and carry it safely across the gap,"objected Billy.
"Oh, yes, that's there, too," was the calm reply; "do you notice thatthe bridge sags in the centre?"
"Yes, it does, that's true," pronounced Billy, after a prolongedscrutiny.
"Well, the boards have been taken out some feet toward the opposite sideof the sag, haven't they?"
"Hum--yes, that's so."
"Well, then, there's your upward curve before you come to the gap."
"Jiminy cricket, Lathrop, you are right. Now, what's your plan--to leapthe gap?"
"Yes, but we must lighten the auto. We all have cool heads, and we canstand on the edge of the gap and throw most of the heavy things in thecar across the space. Then we can pick them up on the other side. Thatis, if we get the auto over."
Even Bart Witherbee had to agree that the plan looked feasible. All ofthe party, with the exception of old Mr. Joyce, had seen the same featperformed in a circus. True, in the show everything was arranged andmathematically adjusted, but the conditions here, though in a rough way,were yet the same practically. There was the descent, the steep drop,the short up-curve and then the gap. The more they thought of it themore they believed it could be done.
It did not take long to transfer most of the heavy baggage to the otherside of the gap, and then came Lathrop's next order--which was that theothers should shin themselves across the stringpieces to the oppositeside of the gap, so that the auto might not be burdened with theirweights. It took a lot of persuasion to make them do it, but theyfinally obeyed, and Lathrop alone walked back up the trail to where theauto stood with its brakes hard set.
The boy himself would not have denied that his heart beat fast as heapproached the car. In a few minutes he was to make an experiment thatmight result in certain and terrible death if the slightest hitchoccurred.
But he thought of his chums marooned and in the hands of their enemieson the other side of the canyon and the reflection of their perilsteeled him to endure his own.
The boy took a quick glance all about him.
The spot where the auto stood was about a quarter of a mile above wherethe bridge joined the canyon's bank. He had then, as he judged, plentyof room in which to get up a speed sufficient to carry him safely acrossthe gap.
For a second the thought of failure flashed across his mind, but he didnot dwell on it.
What he was about to do didn't bear thinking of. It was a thing to bedone in hot blood or not at all.
Slowly Lathrop climbed into the auto. He felt the heavy body of the carsway on its springs as he did so, and wondered at the same instant howit would feel in case of failure to be hurtling down--down--down to thedepths of the canyon with the heavy car.
As he grasped the wheel and prepared to throw off his brake, he lookedahead. From where he was starting he could see the gap in the bridgeyawning blackly.
It looked much further across than he had at first anticipated.
For a minute he felt like weakening and deciding not to take what seemeda fatal chance.
The thought of Frank and Harry in the hands of Luther Barr and his gang,however, steeled him. He gritted his teeth, jammed his hat back on hishead and prepared for the start.
On the opposite side of the gap he could see the white, strained facesof his friends. For one brief second he looked at all this, wonderingvaguely if it was to be the last time he was to see them, and then, witha deep intake of his breath, he released the brake and threw in theengine clutch to top speed. At the same moment he advanced his spark andfelt the machine leap forward on the steep incline like a creaturesuddenly let loose from a leash.
Down the steep grade dashed the machine, sometimes seeming to leapseveral feet in the air and come down with a terrific crash as it struckthe ground.
"Good thing she's not more weight in her," Lathrop thought to himself asthese convulsive leaps occurred.
So terrific was the speed, it was like traveling on the back of awhirlwind, if such a thing can be imagined.
"There's no stopping now," thought Lathrop, as with a brief prayer onhis lips the huge machine hustled onward like a shot from a cannon. Onand on it dashed.
Showers of rocks hurled upward from its wheels were blurred discs at thepace they were making.
And now the bridge and the dark gap loomed right in front of him.
Clenching his teeth tightly, the boy gripped the steering wheel till thevarnish came off on his hands. He felt the machine bound forward ontothe narrow span--felt it sag beneath the unaccustomed weight.
Everything grew blurred. All he thought of now was clinging to thatsteering wheel to the end.
His hat had flown off long ago--torn from his head by the wind generatedby the awful speed.
And now the gap itself was there. Seen momentarily, dark, forbidding--adoor to death.
Suddenly, just as it seemed he was about to be plunged into the depths,the boy felt the huge machine rise under him as lightly as if it hadbeen a feather.
It shot upward like a stone impelled by a giant's fist, hesitated for amoment at the apex of its spring, and then crashed down onto the bridge.
But the gap had been crossed.
It was several hundred feet before Lathrop could control the auto, andwhen he did, and the others rushed up, they found a white-faced boy atthe wheel, who was as nearly on the verge of a collapse as a healthy ladcan be.