Page:Upton Sinclair - Oil!.pdf/23

Rh dirt road, wide and level, winding in slow curves through a country of gentle hills, planted in wheat. The road was rolled hard, but there were little bumps, and the car leaped from one to another ; it was armed with springs and shock-absorbers and “snubbers”, every invented device for easy riding. Out in front were clouds of dust, which the wind seized and swept over the hills ; you would have thought that an army was marching there. Now and then you got a glimpse of the speeding car, and the motor-cycle close behind it. “He’s trying to get away! Oh, Dad, step on her!” This was an adventure you didn’t meet on every trip!

“Damn fool!” was Dad’s comment; a man who would risk his life to avoid paying a small fine. You couldn’t get away from a traffic-officer, at least not on roads like this. And sure enough, the dust clouds died, and on a straight bit of the highway, there they were—the car drawn up at the right, and the officer standing alongside, with his little note-book and pencil, writing things. Dad slowed down to the innocent thirty miles and went by. The boy would have liked to stop, and listen to the argument inevitable on such occasions; but he knew that the schedule took precedence, and here was the chance to make a “get-away.” Passing the first turn, they hit it up; the boy looked round every half minute for the next half hour, but they saw no more of the “speed-cop.” They were again their own law.

Some time ago these two had witnessed a serious traffic accident, and afterwards had appeared to testify concerning it. The clerk of the court had called “J. Arnold Ross,” and then, just as solemnly, “J. Arnold Ross, junior,” and the boy had climbed into the witness-chair, and testified that he knew the nature of an oath, and knew the traffic regulations, and just what he had seen.

That had made him, as you might say, “court-conscious.” Whenever, in driving, anything happened that was the least bit irregular, the boy’s imagination would elaborate it into a court scene. “No, your honor, the man had no business on the left side of the road; we were too close to him, he had no time to pass the car in front of him.” Or it was: “Your honor, the man was walking on the right side of the road at night, and