conscious of that school committee she had promised to meet, where she was going to apply for a job. So she went at the matter more vigorously this time and finally managed to swing up that hood and anchor it. She cast a troubled glance inside that mysterious engine, but nothing came of it. She had never had experience in machinery of any sort, and none of those pipes and tubes and screws made sense to her. For the first time, it occurred to her as strange that anyone could have thought out and made a thing so complicated and that, being made, it could manage to carry people around the country. Before this she had always taken cars for granted and thought nothing about them.
And so, having walked all about that engine and studied each part carefully without getting any light, she straightened up and stood there, trying to think what she should do next. Was it thinkable that she could walk down to the village and send somebody back from a filling station or garage after her car? She hadn’t the slightest idea how far it would be, if indeed she was on the right road to Carrollton.
Then suddenly she heard the sound of a swiftly coming car. It was up around that curve ahead. She cast a quick, anxious glance at the road. It seemed so narrow, and her car was right in the middle. There was a deep gully at one side and a steep embankment edged by thick woods on the other.
And then Phil Pilgrim’s car came sweeping around the curve straight at her, and she stood petrified, her big blue eyes wide and startled.
He stopped just before he reached her.
Phil Pilgrim went over to the car and studied it a minute, swung himself in behind the wheel and tried out various parts of its mechanism with no result, swung out to the ground again and back to the engine, stooping to get a better view. Then he straightened up, looked at the girl, and said in a crisp, reproachful tone, as if it was entirely her fault, "Your generator’s shot."
"Oh!" said Laurel meekly. "Just what does that mean? What do I have to do?"
"Well, it means you’ll have to have a new generator," he said with a grim smile. "What are you doing here anyway? This isn’t a road. It’s only a cattle path." He wanted her to understand that it was none of his affair. He had business in other directions.
"Oh!" she said again breathlessly. "I didn’t know. Well, would there be someplace near here where I could telephone for one?"
His smile became a half grin, or was there a shade of almost contempt in his tone as he answered?
"Well, not exactly!" He said it crisply. "They haven’t established public telephone service yet on this highway."
"Oh, of course not," said Laurel with a timid, apologetic smile. "I ought to have known better, of course. You see, I thought this was a shortcut to Carrollton. I must have made a mistake somewhere. But at least I can walk down to the highway, can’t I? It can’t be so far away. Or is it?"
There was an appeal in her voice and her eyes that made Phil Pilgrim ashamed.
"Oh, I guess it won’t come to that," he said gruffly. He would have to take her to the town of course, and that would make no end of delay for him. What a nuisance that would be! He half wished he had not come up to Crimson himself this afternoon, but then, what would the girl have done if he hadn’t? He wasn’t a youth who had practiced looking after himself and his own interests first. His mother had taught him courtesy and gentlemanliness before she left him in this world alone.
Then suddenly, into the middle of his perplexity and the strained silence that his words had brought, came a rushing, stampeding sound of many hooves, pounding along the road around which young Pilgrim had just come. And then, appearing as suddenly as he had done, came cattle. They looked to Laurel like millions as their brown faces and wild, excited eyes surmounted by terrifying horns showed around the curve and pelted straight at her.
She cried out in terror, and then she was speechless with horror as the frightened creatures came on, led by two angry bulls escaped from their keepers, who were now running wildly in pursuit and shouting to them but only adding to the confusion.
It was not a large herd and would not have been unmanageable, perhaps, if it had not been for those two unexpected cars and the man and girl. But now the animals snorted and plunged ahead, climbing up and over one another, angrily dashing this way and that, clambering upon the running boards of the cars, and shying, startled, away. The girl stood paralyzed with fear, her brain refusing to act, every muscle frozen. An instant more and she felt she would be down beneath those awful trampling hooves, crushed and bleeding, and that would be the end!
Then just as she felt that she was losing consciousness and knew it would be impossible either to run or withstand the onslaught that was coming, strong arms behind her caught her up, away above that horde. With what seemed like superhuman strength, she was lifted up the steep embankment, above where the two cars stood.
Though barely higher than the struggling creatures, she no longer felt their hot breath on her face, and even the screaming of the cattle, the roaring of the bulls, seemed below her.
And yet the creatures were still there, struggling past in one wild melee. She could dimly feel their crowding, pushing forms jostling now and again, when one of them struggled up the bank. But they could not reach her, for the young man held her close in his arms. Her face was down on his chest, and his back and shoulders were taking the brunt of the crowding animals, his body protecting her at their every turn.
Gradually she came to herself and realized these things, feeling strangely safe there in the midst of all the confusion.
It seemed an eternity while those puffing, snorting, frightened steers were floundering frantically past them. The young man held his place on that steep hillside, now and then sliding, shoved aside, and almost falling, yet holding his footing, with Laurel in his arms. In reality it was only a very short time, for the animals were not many, and the two men and three boys who were attending them were doing their best to get them back to the road and to corral the angry bulls.
The attendants did not seem even to notice the man and the frightened girl on the bank above the cars. Or if they saw them, they had no time to look at them and wonder. They were just a part of the obstacles that had caused the confusion. Fool people who came onto a cattle road where they had no right to be! If they got frightened or hurt, it was their own fault. There was a sign at both ends of this road, and surely anybody in this age of the world could read. And if this was an accident, it wasn’t their accident, and they had no time to stop. It was their business to prevent an accident of their own. And so they presently passed on.
It seemed hardly credible that the wild, teeming creatures were gone, and the two were alone at last. Then suddenly Laurel realized that she was in the arms of a strange young man! She opened frightened eyes, almost afraid to break this blessed silence that had left them there together, alive and safe.
Pilgrim looked down at her with troubled eyes.
"Are you all right?" he asked in a low tone, almost as if those departed steers were enemies who might hear and return.
The touch of his arms around her, the tone of his voice, thrilled Laurel as nothing had ever done before, but the only reply she seemed able to make was a trembling nod. She was not a girl given to thrills or to tears, but suddenly she felt tears coming and knew they would greatly complicate the scene. She must not let them come. He would think she was a fool. She closed her eyes quickly to drive them back, but two great tears rolled out and down her cheeks.
"You are hurt!" he charged anxiously. "Did one of those beasts touch you? Did their horns reach you anywhere? I tried hard to cover you. Where are you hurt?"
"No,
