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The Speedwell Boys and Their Racing Auto: or, A Run for the Golden Cup
The Speedwell Boys and Their Racing Auto; Or, A Run for the Golden Cup
CHAPTER I
THE MANŒUVERS OF MAXEY
“Say, fellows! Look at what’s coming!”
“Oh, my eyes! See him wabble! Why, he’ll be over the wall into the river, machine and all, if he doesn’t watch out.”
“Say, Dan, did you ever see a fellow run a car as bad as Maxey? If we didn’t know better we’d think he had a fit,” declared Billy Speedwell, who sat with his brother, and several of their chums, on a high, grassy bank overlooking the Colasha River and above the road, a mile or two below Riverdale.
“He certainly does make a mess of it,” admitted the older Speedwell lad, gazing down the road, as were his friends, at a drab-painted automobile which was approaching them.
They were five boys, all members of the Riverdale Outing Club and all rode motorcycles which just now were leaning, in a row, against the bank. The chums had come out after school for a short spin into the country. It was fall, which fact was proven by the brilliant coloring of the leaves.
Beyond where the Riverdale boys lay on the short turf, and coming toward them, was the erratically-guided car. The drab racer seldom kept the middle of the road for a full minute at a time. It actually “wabbled,” just as Jim Stetson said.
And yet the fellow at the wheel of the machine had been driving it up and down the roads for nearly three months.
No instruction, and no practice, seemed to avail with Maxey Solomons, however. His father was one of the richest men in the county, and when Maxey expressed a wish to own and drive a car, Mr. Solomons made no objection. Indeed, the wealthy clothing manufacturer seldom thwarted the least of his son’s desires.
But the drab auto seemed aiming for trouble now. It nearly ran up the bank on the inner side of the road; then it shifted to the other side under the manipulation of Maxey at the steering wheel, just grazing the stone fence that separated the highway at this point from the sheer drop of fifty feet or more to the bank of the river.
“As sure as you live,” cried Monroe Stevens, “he’ll back over the dump!”