Page:Dave Porter in the Gold Fields.djvu/40

28 "Phew; that was a narrow shave!" remarked Bert, as the boys got out of the car. "Roger, what would you have done if you couldn't go ahead? There wasn't room to turn."

"I knew there wasn't room, Bert; that's the reason I made the car go up," was the reply. "It was a bad hole to get caught in."

"I guess it cost you the shoe," remarked Dave, as he examined the article. "Pretty well cut up."

"It was an old one, anyway, Dave. Now we'll have the pleasure of putting on one of those new ones," and he smiled grimly, for he did not like that task any better than does any other autoist.

"Oh, we'll all help," cried Phil. "It won't be so bad, if we all take turns at pumping in the air."

"Wish I had one of those new kind of machine pumps on the car," answered Roger. "But I haven't got it, so it's got to be bone labor, boys." And then the damaged wheel was jacked up and a new shoe with its inner tube was put on and inflated. All told, the job took the boys a full half-hour, for the new shoe was a tight fit and did not want to go over the rim at first.

"Hello, what do you know about this!" cried Phil, as they were finishing the blowing up of the tube. "It's raining!"

"Yes, and look how black it is getting over yonder!" exclaimed Bert. "We are in for a storm now, sure!"