Joe Strong on the high wire

A STRANGE INTEREST

With an involuntary cry of alarm, Joe started to run toward the scene of the accident. All thought of trying to recover the plank was now gone. That could wait. The men in the automobile were in desperate straits, if indeed they had not been killed when the big car overturned.

"I wonder if they are alive," mused Joe, as he sped on. "I've got to get them out or they'll be drowned."

The water was about up to Joe's waist at the point where the automobile rested in it, and without stopping to think of his clothes, Joe waded out. The engine of the car, which had been chugging away even after the upset, had now stopped, and from the interior of the car came cries for help.

"I'm coming!" shouted Joe. "Be with you in a second!"

He noted that the car did not seem to be smashed. This, he thought, gave the men a better chance for their lives.

"At least they're not dead yet," thought Joe, for he could hear their muffled cries.

Reaching the side of the car, Joe tried to pull open one of the side doors. But he could not, for the reason that the top of it was jammed down deep in the mud and the stones on the bottom of the stream. He looked in through the glass and he saw the two men standing together on the roof, which had now become the floor of the overturned automobile. One of the men—he who had been steering—seemed to be hurt.

"Probably he got jammed against the wheel," Joe thought.

"Try the other door!" the second man called to Joe, when the former circus performer had tugged in vain at the one he had reached. "Try the other door. Maybe you can open that."

Joe waded around through the mud and water to the opposite side of the car. But that door was as firmly wedged shut as the other.

"Shall I break the glass?" asked Joe.

"No," the man answered, with a shake of his head. "It wouldn't do any good if you did. The opening wouldn't be big enough for us to crawl out of—we're both pretty large, and my friend is hurt. We can't get out unless the car is righted or pulled over on one side."

"Well, I can't do that without help," Joe called back. "I'll ride down the road and get some men to come with ropes. Then we'll pull the car back if we can. Anyhow we'll tilt it enough to get you out through the door."

"Please do that!" urged the man. The one who had been steering the car seemed too much hurt to give any orders.

"I'll be as quick as I can," Joe said, and he was glad he had his motor-cycle with him. On that he could speedily summon help. He gave another look at the glass panels of the side doors. As the man had said, the opening, if all the glass were taken out, would not be large enough to permit the egress of himself and his friend, for they were both of large build. And though the front of the car was partly of glass, it, too, was of small panels set in a wooden frame, and that would have to be chopped away. Joe had no axe for such work. The car seemed of foreign make, which, Joe thought, accounted for the rather peculiar construction.

"Don't be any longer than you can help," urged the man who had been doing the talking. "It's beastly uncomfortable in here."

"He speaks like an Englishman," mused Joe.

He waded up out of the stream and, hurrying to his motor-cycle, rode off down the road, intending to stop at the first house he saw and get help for the imprisoned men.

"I sure am a sight!" the youth reflected as he sped on. He glanced down at his muddy feet and legs. His trousers were much in need of a cleaning. "It's lucky I brought along a change of clothes," he said half aloud, feeling around to make sure his valise was strapped to the rear seat. It was safe. "If I didn't have them I'd have to lay up here over night until a tailor could make me presentable," he reflected. "As it is, I don't believe I'll make Hertford to-night. But I can't refuse to help those men. It's lucky they weren't both killed when the car went over."

It was a rather startled farmer's wife whom Joe greeted a little later as he rode up to the side door of a big white house—the first he saw along the highway.

"Are any of the men around?" cried Joe, jumping off quickly.

"Men? Mercy-sakes! What's the matter?" the woman demanded.

"There's an automobile upside down in the creek back there!" said Joe, motioning back toward the stream. "There are two men caught in the car and——"

"Caught under the car? Then they must be killed!"

"No, they're inside, but they can't get out. Are there any of the men around—your husband and some others? It will take three or four of us to pull the car to one side so the men can get out. One's hurt, but not badly, I hope."

"My husband is out in the barn with the two farm hands," the woman said. "I'll call him!"

She took down a tin horn that hung on the back porch, and blew several quick blasts.

"They'll know that isn't the supper call," she told Joe, "and they'll come a-running. How did it happen? Who are the men? Did the bridge fall down?"

"No, but it's almost ready to," said Joe. "That was the cause of the whole trouble. The bridge ought to be fixed, or a warning posted."

"Yes, the commissioners have been talking of it for some time now," she said.

"Well, it's time they did more than talk!" Joe exclaimed indignantly.

Three men, at this moment, appeared in the barn door and looked inquiringly toward the house.

"Come on, Pa!" cried the woman. "There's been an auto accident down at the bridge over Muddy Creek. Two men hurt. Hurry!"

The men dropped some farm implements, and came racing toward the house. One was the farmer, and the other two his helpers. Joe quickly explained what had happened.

"It was a risky piece of business fording Muddy Creek," said the farmer. "It's full of holes, and some are filled with quicksand. It's all right if you know how to keep out of 'em."

"Which these men didn't know," put in Joe. "But I think we'd better hurry to them. They may be in great distress—at least one of them may be. We'll need some ropes and tackle to get the auto right side up again. Have you any?"

"Yes," said the farmer. "Jack, get out the block and fall!" he ordered. "Pete, you hitch up the light wagon. We can carry the tackle better that way," he explained to Joe. "You ride back and tell the men we'll be right along. Do you think you'd better go for a doctor? One lives down the road about a quarter of a mile, though he may not be in."

"I think Dr. Brown would be home," said the farmer's wife. "I saw him ride past a little while ago."

"Maybe I had better go and ask him to come to the bridge," said Joe. "There's no telling how badly that man may be hurt. It won't take me long on my machine."

"Then go," suggested the farmer.

Joe found Dr. Brown in, and the physician at once said he would go to the scene of the accident. As Joe rode past the farmhouse on his way back to the bridge he saw the farmer and his two men just driving out with the tackle in the wagon.

"Tell 'em we'll be there as fast as the horse can bring us," the farmer called to Joe as the latter sped past.

Joe found the condition of the imprisoned men little changed when he reached them. A passing farmer had stopped, but he was unable to render any aid, though he agreed to stay and help haul on the ropes when the men Joe had summoned reached the place.

"How do you feel?" Joe called through the glass door, having waded out to the car again.

The steersman shook his head dolefully.

"The steering wheel knocked the wind out of him," explained the other. "He may be hurt inside."

"A doctor will soon be here," Joe said. "We'll have you out in a little while."

"It can't be any too soon for me," replied the injured man. "Never again will I try to ford a stream I don't know."

"This is a treacherous one, from what they say," commented Joe.

By this time the farmer and his men had arrived. They made an examination of the place, to decide as to the best way to go to work, then they fastened the ropes to the automobile. They had a regular block and fall, with one simple and one compound pulley, and could thus get great power from a comparatively light pull.

When the ropes were in place the farmer, his two men, the other farmer, who had arrived in Joe's absence, and our hero took hold of the cable and began hauling.

"Take it easy," Joe advised. "We don't want to pull it over too suddenly, or it will smash and they may be hurt in the wreckage."

They were tilting the car up-stream, as that was the best way. And it took only a short time to so tilt the big gasoline vehicle that one of the doors could be opened. The uninjured man crawled out and helped the rescuers lift out his companion.

Dr. Brown had arrived by that time, and when the steersman was carried ashore he was ready to attend him. There were no bones broken, though a severe blow in the stomach, when he was flung against the wheel, had well-nigh made the man senseless.

"You'd better not try to go on," urged the physician. "I can offer one of you accommodations in my home."

"And I can take care of the other," said Mr. Wain, the farmer whom Joe had summoned.

"Then I guess we'd better remain here, Floyd," said the uninjured man. "It will take a force of men to right the car, and we can't go on to-night, anyhow. We'd better stay here."

"Yes, I think so," agreed the other. "Excuse us," he went on, speaking to Joe, more than to any of the others. "We haven't had a chance to thank you properly, or to introduce ourselves."

"That's so!" exclaimed his companion. "This is Mr. Floyd Strailey," he said, nodding toward his companion. "I'm Forrest Craige. We're in the mining business, and we've some important matters to attend to. But they will have to wait, I suppose."

"My name is Strong," said our hero. "Joe Strong. I was performing in a circus, but I left to-day."

"What did you say your name was?" asked Mr. Craige.

"Joe Strong."

"Strong—Strong," mused the man. "I used to know a person of that name. I wonder if you could be any relation. I am quite interested since you told me that. I must——"

But he did not finish the sentence, for at that moment Mr. Strailey, who had been sitting on the grass at the side of the road, fell over in a faint.