Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/147

Rh I stared at the line of poplars. At the foot of one lay a heap of débris; mudguards and marchepied, shorn off against a tree-trunk. Then I looked across at the car. It was still in motion, crawling on first speed through the grain and heading back for the road.

At the same instant I heard the shriek of a siren ahead. Down an opposite slope came a cloud of dust. It reached the bottom of the descent and hit the slight up-grade. Up it came, and at a distance of several hundred metres the people aboard it sighted Chu-Chu, out there in the wheat. The car slowed, then stopped beside my own.

"What is that?" cried the mécanicien. "What are those people doing out there?"

"I am afraid," I answered, "that the fault is mine. I was trying this new car and, passing Monsieur at a high speed, crowded him too close. Fearing to be pushed into the ditch he ran out into the field."

There were three people in the tonneau, two women and a man. They cried out in wonder and excitement.

"He has had a close call," said the chauffeur. "See, he scraped off his mudguards on a tree." And with that they all began to talk at once, and from the trend of the conversation I saw that the popular sympathy was not with me.

Then Chu-Chu did what must have impressed them as an incomprehensible thing. He had made a detour in the wheat and was approaching the road below us, where there was an entrance in the field. Reaching this he turned on to the route, when, with-