Her heart leaped when they came upon the broad mark of the
pneumatic tires still fresh in the lonely mountain road.
"Looks like they might have passed here while we was standin' back there
talkin' to Roxy," Uncle Pros said. "They could have--we'd not have heard
a thing that distance, through this thick woods. Wonder could we catch
up with them?"
Johnnie shook her head. She remembered the car flying up the ascents,
swooping down long slopes and skimming like a bird across the levels,
that morning when she had driven it.
"They'll go almost as fast as a railroad train, Uncle Pros," she told
him, "but we must get there as soon as we can."
After that scarcely a word was spoken, while the two, still hand in
hand, made what speed they could. The morning waxed. The March sunshine
was warm and pleasant. It was even hot, toiling endlessly up that
mountain road. Now and again they met people who knew and saluted them,
and who looked back at them curiously, furtively; at least it seemed so
to the old man and the girl. Once a lean, hawk-nosed fellow ploughing a
hillside field shouted across it:
"Hey-oh, Pros Passmore! How yuh come on? I 'lowed the student doctors
would 'a' had you, long ago."
Pros ventured no reply, save a wagging of the head.
"That's Blaylock's cousin," he muttered to Johnnie. "Mighty glad we
never went near 'em last night.
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