"That couldn't have been Pinky! Why! Why, the car he had was red," cried
Claire.
"Sure. The idiot's got hold of some barn paint somewhere, and tried to
daub it over. He's trying to make a getaway with it!"
"We'll chase him. In my car."
"Don't you mind?"
"Of course not. I do not give up my objections to the roughing
philosophy, but---- You were right about these shoes---- Oh, don't leave
me behind! Want to go along!"
These sentences she broke, scattered, and totally lost as she scrambled
after him, down the rocks. He halted. His lips trembled. He picked her
up, carried her down, hesitated a second while his face--curiously
foreshortened as she looked up at it from his big arms--twisted with
emotion. He set her down gently, and she climbed into the Gomez.
It seemed to her that he drove rather too carefully, too slowly. He took
curves and corners evenly. His face was as empty of expression, as
unmelodramatic, as that of a jitney driver. Then she looked at the
speedometer. He was making forty-eight miles an hour down hill and forty
to thirty on upgrades.
They were in sight of the fleeing Pinky in two miles. Pinky looked back;
instantly was to be seen pulling his hat low, stooping over--the demon
driver. Milt merely sat more erect, looked more bland and white-browed
and steady.
The bug fled before them on a winding shelf road. It popped up a curve,
then slowed down. "He took it too fast. Poor Pink!" said Milt.
They gained on that upslope, but as the road dropped, the bug started
forward desperately. Another car was headed toward them; was drawn to
the side of the road, in one of the occasional widenings. Pinky passed
it so carelessly that, with crawling spine, Claire saw the outer wheels
of the bug on the very edge of the road--the edge of a fifty-foot drop.
Milt went easily past the halted car--even waved his hand to the waiting
driver.
This did not seem to Claire at all like the chase of a thief. She looked
casually ahead at Pinky, as he whirled round an S-shaped curve on the
downslope, then---- It was too quick to see what happened. The bug
headed directly toward the edge of the road, shot out, went down the
embankment, over and over. It lay absurdly upside-down, its muffler and
brake-rods showing in place of the seat and hood.
Milt quite carefully stopped the Gomez. The day was still--just a
breathing of running water in the deep gully. The topsy-turvy car below
them was equally still; no sight of Pinky, no sound.
The gauche boy gone from him, Milt took her hand, pressed it to his
cheek. "Claire! You're here! You might have gone with him, to make
room---- Oh, I was bullying you because I was bullying myself! Trying to
make myself tell you--but oh, you know, you know! Can you stand going
down there? I hate to have you, but you may be needed."