The Depot Master Part 28

'See me put her around the next buoy ahead there. Hey! how's that?'

"The next 'buoy' was a curve in the road, and we went around it beautiful. So with the next and the next and the next. Bayport wa'n't so very fur ahead. All to once another dreadful thought struck me.

"'Look here!' I yells. 'How in time are we goin' to stop when we--OW!'

"The Ba.s.sett woman had pinched my arm somethin' savage. I looked at her, and she was scowlin' and shakin' her head.

"'S-sh-s.h.!.+' she whispers. 'Don't disturb him. He'll be frightened and--'

"'Frightened! Good heavens to Betsy! I cal'late he won't be the only one that's fri--'

"But she looked so ugly that I shut up prompt, though I done a heap of thinkin'. On we went and, as we turned the next 'buoy,' there, ahead of us, was another auto, somethin' like ours, with only one person in it, a man, and goin' in the same direction we was, though not quite so fast.

"Then I WAS scart. 'Hi, Jonadab!' I sings out. 'Heave to! Come about!

Shorten sail! Do you want to run him down? Look OUT!'

"I might as well have saved my breath. Heavin' to and the rest of it wa'n't included in our pilot's education. On we went, same as ever. I don't know what might have happened if the widow hadn't kept her head.

She leaned over the for'ard rail of the after c.o.c.kpit and squeezed a rubber bag that was close to Jonadab's starboard arm. It was j'ined to the fog whistle, I cal'late, 'cause from under our bows sounded a beller like a bull afoul of a barb-wire fence.

"The feller in t'other car turned his head and looked. Then he commenced to sheer off to wind'ard so's to let us pa.s.s. But all the time he kept lookin' back and starin' and, as we got nigher, and I could see him plainer through the dust, he looked more and more familiar. 'Twas somebody I knew.

"Then I heard a little grunt, or gasp, from Cap'n Jonadab. He was leanin' for'ard over the wheel, starin' at the man in the other auto.

The nigher we got, the harder he stared; and the man in front was actin' similar in regards to him. And, all to once, the head car stopped swingin' off to wind'ard, turned back toward the middle of the road, and begun to go like smoke. The next instant I felt our machine fairly jump beneath me. I looked at Jonadab's foot. 'Twas pressed hard down on the speed lever.

"'You crazy loon!' I screeched. 'You--you--you--Stop it! Take your foot off that! Do you want to--!'

"I was climbin' over the back of the front seat, my knee pretty nigh on Bradbury's head. But, would you believe it, that Jonadab man let go of the wheel with one hand--let GO of it, mind you--and give me a shove that sent me backward in Henrietta Ba.s.sett's lap.

"'Barzilla!' he growled, between his teeth, 'you set where you be and keep off the quarterdeck. I'm runnin' this craft. I'll beat that Loveland this time or run him under, one or t'other!'

"As sure as I'm alive this minute, the man in the front car was Tobias Loveland!

"And from then on--Don't talk! I dream about it nights and wake up with my arms around the bedpost. I ain't real sure, but I kind of have an idee that the bedpost business comes from the fact that I was huggin'

the widow some of the time. If I did, 'twa'n't knowin'ly, and she never mentioned it afterwards. All I can swear to is clouds of dust, and horns honkin', and telegraph poles lookin' like teeth in a comb, and Jonadab's face set as the Day of Judgment.

"He kept his foot down on the speed place as if 'twas glued. He shoved the 'spark'--whatever that is--'way back. Every once in a while he yelled, yelled at the top of his lungs. What he yelled hadn't no sense to it. Sometimes you'd think that he was drivin' a horse and next that he was handlin' a schooner in a gale.

"'Git dap!' he'd whoop. 'Go it, you cripples! Keep her nose right in the teeth of it! She's got the best of the water, so let her bile! Whe-E-E!'

"We didn't stop at Bayport. Our skipper had made other arrangements.

However, the way I figgered it, we was long past needin' a doctor, and you can get an undertaker 'most anywhere. We went through the village like a couple of shootin' stars, Tobias about a length ahead, his hat blowed off, his hair--what little he's got--streamin' out behind, and that blessed red buzz wagon of his fairly skimmin' the hummocks and jumpin' the smooth places. And right astern of him comes Jonadab, hangin' to the wheel, HIS hat gone, his mouth open, and fillin' the dust with yells and coughs.

"You could see folks runnin' to doors and front gates; but you never saw 'em reach where they was goin'--time they done that we was somewheres round the next bend. A pullet run over us once--yes, I mean just that.

She clawed the top of the widow's bunnit as we slid underneath her, and by the time she lit we was so fur away she wa'n't visible to the naked eye. Bradbury--who'd got better remarkable sudden--was pawin' at Jonadab's arm, tryin' to make him ease up; but he might as well have pawed the wind. As for Henrietta Ba.s.sett, she was acrost the back of the front seat tootin' the horn for all she was wuth. And curled down in a heap on the c.o.c.kpit floor was a fleshy, sea-farin' person by the name of Barzilla Wingate, sufferin' from chills and fever.

"I think 'twas on the long stretch of the Trumet road that we beat Tobias. I know we pa.s.sed somethin' then, though just what I ain't competent to testify. All I'm sure of is that, t'other side of Bayport village, the landscape got some less streaked and you could most gen'rally separate one house from the next.

"Bradbury looked at Henrietta and smiled, a sort of sickly smile. She was pretty pale, but she managed to smile back. I got up off the floor and slumped on the cus.h.i.+ons. As for Cap'n Jonadab Wixon, he'd stopped yellin', but his face was one broad, serene grin. His mouth, through the dust and the dirt caked around it, looked like a rain gully in a sand-bank. And, occasional, he crowed, hoa.r.s.e but vainglorious.

"'Did you see me?' he barked. 'Did you notice me lick him? He'll laugh at me, will he?--him and his one-horse tin cart! Ho! HO! Why, you'd think he was settin' down to rest! I've got him where I want him now!

Ho, ho! Say, Henrietta, did you go swift as you--? Land sakes! Mr.

Bradbury, I forgot all about you. And I--I guess we must have got a good ways past the doctor's place.'

"Bradbury said never mind. He felt much better, and he cal'lated he'd do till we fetched the Old Home dock. He'd take the wheel, now, he guessed.

"But, would you b'lieve it, that fool Jonadab wouldn't let him! He was used to the s.h.i.+p now, he said, and, if 'twas all the same to Henry G.

and Hettie, he'd kind of like to run her into port.

"'She answers her h.e.l.lum fine,' he says. 'After a little practice I cal'late I could steer--'

"'Steer!' sings out Bradbury. 'STEER! Great Caesar's ghost! I give you my word, Cap'n Wixon, I never saw such handlin' of a machine as you did goin' through Bayport, in my life. You're a wonder!'

"'Um-hm,' says Jonadab contented. 'I've steered a good many vessels in my time, through traffic and amongst the shoals, and never run afoul of nothin' yet. I don't see much diff'rence on sh.o.r.e--'cept that it's a little easier.'

"EASIER! Wouldn't that--Well, what's the use of talkin'?

"We got to the Old Home House safe and sound; Jonadab, actin' under Bradbury's orders, run her into the yard, slowin' up and stoppin' at the front steps slick as grease. He got out, his chest swelled up like a puffin' pig, and went struttin' in to tell everybody what he'd done to Loveland. I don't know where Bradbury and the widow went. As for me, I went aloft and turned in. And 'twas two days and nights afore I got up again. I had a cold, anyway, and what I'd been through didn't help it none.

"The afternoon of the second day, Bradbury come up to see me. He was dressed in his city clothes and looked as if he was goin' away. Sure enough, he was; goin' on the next train.

"'Where's Jonadab?' says I.

"'Oh, he's out in his car,' he says. 'Huntin' for Loveland again, maybe.'

"'HIS car? You mean yours.'

"'No, I mean his. I sold my car to him yesterday mornin' for twenty-five hundred dollars cash.'

"I set up in bed. 'Go 'long!' I sings out. 'You didn't nuther!'

"'Yes, I did. Sure thing. After that ride, you couldn't have separated him from that machine with blastin' powder. He paid over the money like a little man.'

"I laid down again. Jonadab Wixon payin' twenty-five hundred dollars for a plaything! Not promisin', but actually PAYIN' it!

"'Has--has the widow gone with him?' I asked, soon's I could get my breath.

"He laughed sort of queer. 'No,' he says, 'she's gone out of town for a few days. Ha, ha! Well, between you and me, Wingate, I doubt if she comes back again. She and I have made all we're likely to in this neighborhood, and she's too good a business woman to waste her time.

Good-by; glad to have met you.'

"But I smelt rat strong and wouldn't let him go without seein' the critter.

"'Hold on!' I says. 'There's somethin' underneath all this. Out with it.

I won't let on to the Cap'n if you don't want me to.'

"'Well,' says he, laughin' again, 'Mrs. Ba.s.sett WON'T come back and I know it. She and I have sold four cars on the Cape in the last five weeks, and the profits'll more'n pay vacation expenses. Two up in Wareham, one over in Orham, to Loveland--'

"'Did YOU sell Tobias his?' I asks, settin' up again.

"'Hettie and I did--yes. Soon's we landed him, we come over to bag old Wixon. I thought one time he'd kill us before we got him, but he didn't.