n a clap of thunder that sounded as if it had smashed
a tree not fifty feet away.

Joe stopped the car and scrambled back into the tonneau to adjust the
side curtains. He murmured an apology as he brushed against her--just
like a stranger. Quite sharply she felt the change that had come over
their relations. When everything had been adjusted he resumed his seat
and called over his shoulder, "Guess we had better go back, hadn't we?
I'm sorry this rain had to come and spoil things."

They turned slowly around in the narrow road and when they again
faced the west, the rain came beating furiously down against the
wind-shield so that the road ahead was barely visible. Never had she
seen such blinding sheets of water. It tore at the roof, it whipped
about the curtains, it threatened to engulf them all in a torrential
flood. The car was moving slowly forward--she could see Joe's outline
bent slightly over the wheel--and in spite of his care the rear wheels
would slew gently from side to side. As she peered ahead she could see
a yellow flood of water rushing down the road before them so that it
did not look like a road at all but like an angry, muddy stream upon
which they were floating. Once Claybrook leaned forward, his eyes
narrowing. He had been as silent as a mummy.

"Got any chains?" he asked suddenly.

"Think I have," replied Joe. "Under the seat."

"Better put 'em on, don't you think?"

Mary Louise started. "Oh, John! In this rain?"

"Guess I had at that," interposed Joe quickly.

He stopped the car and lifted the cushion on which he was sitting.
Directly he pulled forth a long, tangled confusion of links, opened
the door, and stepped forth. As he thrust out his head Mary Louise
called:

"Haven't you any coat?" and his answer came back cheerily from the
outside, "Never mind me. It'll all come out in the wash."

She looked at Claybrook reproachfully. He sat stolidly in the corner
but there was a look of discomfort in his face.

"Don't want us to slide off one of these hills into the creek, do
you?"

And she felt there was nothing more she could say.

They sat in awkward silence, listening to the downpour and the wind.
The thunder crashed incessantly and the air was alive with the
lightning playing about them in livid flares. They could feel one side
of the car lift slightly as Joe adjusted the chain, and then the other
side; could dimly hear him struggling with the wheel jack. It seemed
criminal to be ex