A sure hero; scared of nothin'!
Never rode in an auto afore, did you?'

"'No,' says I, peppery; 'and I don't see no present symptom of ridin' in
one now. Cast off, won't you?'

"He cast off. That is to say, he hauled a nickel-plated marlinespike
thing toward him, shoved another one away from him, took a twist on the
steerin' wheel, the gocart coughed like a horse with the heaves, started
up some sort of buzz-planer underneath, and then we begun to move.

"From the time we left my shanty at South Orham till we passed the pines
at Herrin' Neck I laid back in that stuffed cockpit, feelin' as grand
and tainted as old John D. himself. The automobile rolled along smooth
but swift, and it seemed to me I had never known what easy trav'lin' was
afore. As we rounded the bend by the pines and opened up the twelve-mile
narrow white stretch of Setuckit Beach ahead of us, with the ocean on
one side and the bay on t'other, I looked at my watch. We'd come that
fur in thirteen minutes.

"'Land sakes!' I says. 'This is what I call movin' right along!'

"He turned round and sized me up again, like he was surprised.

"'Movin'?' says he. 'Movin'? Why, pard, we've been settin' down to rest!
Out our way, if a lynchin' party didn't move faster than we've done so
fur, the center of attraction would die on the road of old age. Now, my
heroic college chum,' he goes on, callin' me out of my name, as usual,
'will you be so condescendin' as to indicate how we hit the trail?'

"'Hit--hit which? Don't hit nothin', for goodness' sake! Goin' the way
we be, it would--'

"'Which way do we go?'

"'Right straight ahead. Keep on the ocean side, 'cause there's more hard
sand there, and--hold on! Don't do that! Stop it, I tell you!'

"Them was the last rememberable words said by me durin' the next quarter
of an hour. That shover man let out a hair-raisin' yell, hauled the
nickel marlinespike over in its rack, and squeezed a rubber bag that was
spliced to the steerin' wheel. There was a half dozen toots or howls or
honks from under our bows somewheres, and then that automobile hopped
off the ground and commenced to fly. The fust hop landed me on my knees
in the cockpit, and there I stayed. 'Twas the most fittin' position
fur my frame of mind and chimed in fust-rate with the general religious
drift of my thoughts.

"The Cut-through is two mile or more from Herrin' Neck. 'Cordin' to my
count we hit terra cotta just three times in them two miles. The f