ack: "Better try."

But by the time this decision was reached the fire in the earthen oven
had almost entirely died out, and the engine of the tractor, which had
been drawn up to it, had become so cold that they had to build another
fire, to get hot water to put into the radiator, before they could get
it started.

And then the perilous journey began.

With Frank at the wheel, and running the engine only in low gear, as
compression against gaining speed, the lieutenant and Joe trotted ahead,
one on either side of the road, to indicate the course of the crude
highway.

Jerry and Slim, inside the big truck, were doing their best to hold
things in place as they rocked and jolted over the deep ruts and
gullies.

It must have been this series of terrible jars that finally splashed
grease and oil in on the brake bands. Whatever the cause, it suddenly
became apparent at one of the steepest and sharpest turns in the whole
route that the brakes were not holding.

"Look out!" Frank shouted to Joe and the lieutenant ahead, as he
realized the truck was getting beyond his control. "Better jump!" he
advised Jerry and Slim, standing just behind him.

As Lieutenant Mackinson and Joe ran to either side of the road, the
tractor slid by them at increasing speed. Slim and Jerry, following
Frank's bidding, leaped from the rear and landed unharmed in a
snow-bank.

"Run her into the side of the mountain," shouted Lieutenant Mackinson,
and that was exactly what Frank was doing. It was the only possible way
of saving the tractor from gathering more and more momentum, and,
finally beyond all control, leaving the road and hurtling down the steep
slope.

With all his strength Frank swung the wheel so as to turn the right side
of the car at an angle up the mountain wall that flanked the road. In
this position the machine was still traveling along with great force
when it struck a thick abutting ledge of rock.

There was a sudden jolt, a sharp crack, and Frank was hurtled forward
head first into the snow.

When they had brushed him off and made certain that he was uninjured,
except for an awful jarring up, they began an examination of the
machine.

The right front wheel had been crushed to splinters, the axle was bent,
and the machine was wedged so far under a split edge of the granite as
to be, for the time at least, totally useless.

"Better go back to where we were first," Lieutenant Mackinson said at
last. "We'll take the pack