Page:Top-Notch Magazine, May 1 1915 (IA tn 1915 05 01).pdf/113

 hay, and human beings were going to be mixed in a spectacular and tragic smash.

Then, as the uncontrolled automobile reached the middle span of the bridge, the miracle took place. Shooting suddenly to one side, the machine struck the wooden railing, and went through it as if it had been constructed of clay pipestems. Into the deepest part of the river it plunged, flinging up a great splash of spray, and disappeared from view. Nathan Wiggin, of Greenbush, vanished with it.

HE shouts of the startled crowd in front of Turner's grocery had brought those within the store rushing out to learn the cause of alarm. The governor came with them, followed a second later by the young man who had been tossed by Libby's bull. They beheld the motor car well under way, and the judge struggling frantically and ineffectually to restrain it.

"Great guns!" groaned the governor, turning pale. "Wiggin's started the demonstration on his own hook. He'll smash a four-thousand-dollar car and his neck at the same time!"

The young man with the bandaged head stiffened. If he felt weak or dizzy at that moment, he flung it off instantly. With a single bound he was at the foot of the store steps, against which leaned a bicycle, left there temporarily by some one. He grabbed the bicycle, uttering a ringing shout for everybody to get out of the way.

Through the scattered crowd he dashed, leaping to the saddle and catching the pedals with his nimble feet. Bending over the handlebars, he started in pursuit of the automobile, which, by this time, was halfway down the hill, with the wailing siren in full blast.

Continuing to jabber and shout, the crowd followed, stringing out in a straggling line. Boys and younger men were in the lead. Middle-aged, bewhiskered, bald-headed men came next. The rear guard was made up of the aged and decrepit; the very last one of all, bent with rheumatism, and hobbling with the aid of two canes, being Zebediah Titcomb, the sage of Greenbush.

Never since its foundation had the sleepy town of Greenbush beheld such a spectacle. Never in its history had there been such tremendous excitement within its boundaries. The end of all things terrestrial could scarcely have created a greater hullabaloo in that torpid community.

The young man on the bicycle was not able to overtake the runaway motor car before it reached the bridge, but he was not far behind it. When the automobile smashed through the railing and leaped into the river, he jumped from the bicycle and followed it without the slightest hesitation.

He was an excellent swimmer, and, rising from the plunge, he saw the head of Nathan Wiggin bob to the surface within reach of his arm. Immediately he fastened a hand on the man's collar.

"Keep still! Stop thrashing," he said, "and I'll get you out."

The somewhat difficult task of rescuing Judge Wiggin from drowning was accomplished, while the panting throng that had reached the bridge looked on and cheered. Reaching shallow water, the young man assisted the judge to his feet, and both waded forth to dry land.

Arriving on shore, the older man immediately sat down facing the river, beneath the sluggish surface of which Governor Bradley's automobile lay immersed. After a few choking gulps, he began to speak in accents and words of the utmost self-contempt.

"Nate Wiggin," he said, addressing himself, "you've lived to be fifty-four