" screamed Brackett;
but when he tried to pull up his steed, the Cap'n, now wholly beside
himself and intent only on unrestricted speed, banged a leather
bucket down across the driver's hands.

Brackett dropped the reins, with a yell of pain, and they fell into
the dust and dragged. The horse broke into a bunchy, jerky gallop,
and lunged down the hill, the big van swaying wildly with an ominous
rattling and crashing in its mysterious interior.

There were teams coming along a cross-road ahead of them and teams
rattling from the opposite direction toward the fire, approaching
along the highway they were travelling. Collisions seemed inevitable.
But in a moment of inspiration the Cap'n grabbed the trumpet that
hung from its red cord around his neck and began to bellow in his
turn:

"Goff-off-errow, goff-off-errow!" It was as nearly as human voice
could phrase "Get off the road" through the thing.

The terrifying bulk of the big van cleared the way ahead, even though
people desperately risked tip-ups in the gutter. As it tore along,
horses climbed fences with heads and tails up. There were men
floundering in bushes and women squalling from the tops of
rock-heaps.

The Chief of the Ancients did not halt to attend to his duties at
the fire. He went howling past on the high seat of the van, over the
next ridge and out of sight.

"We're goin' to tophet, and you done it, and you've got to pay for
it," Brackett wailed over and over, bobbing about on the seat. But
the Cap'n did not reply. Teams kept coming into sight ahead, and he
had thought only for his monotonous bellow of "Goff-off-errow!"

Disaster--the certain disaster that they had despairingly
accepted--met them at the foot of Rines' hill, two miles beyond Ide's.
The road curved sharply there to avoid "the Pugwash," as a
particularly mushy and malodorous bog was called in local
terminology.

At the foot of the hill the van toppled over with a crash and anchored
the steaming horse, already staggering in his exhaustion. Both men
had scrambled to the top of the van, ready to jump into the Pugwash
as they passed. The Cap'n still carried his equipment, both buckets
slung upon one arm, and even in this imminent peril it never occurred
to him to drop them. Lucky fate made their desperate leap for life
a tame affair. When the van toppled they were tossed over the roadside
into the bog, lighted on their hands and knees, and sank slowly into
its mushiness like two Brobd