They were on a dark and deserted stretch of the road. There seemed to be no houses within miles, and the storm was at its height.
Suddenly there was a sound like a gun shot. The motor boys started, but well they knew what it was.
“I should say it was,” agreed Jerry grimly. “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, either. Where in the world are we?”
He peered through a crack in the curtains, out on the dismal rain-soaked blackness, but could make out nothing.
“Well, there’s no help for it. It’s up to us to put a new shoe and tube on,” spoke Ned, who had quickly brought the car to a stop. Then the three lads, having donned rubber coats, which fortunately they carried with them, got out of the car, and stood in the mud, with the rain pelting them, while they made ready to repair the damaged tire.
“Going to stand here looking at it all night?” demanded Jerry after a pause, during which his two chums had vainly sought to prevent the rain from trickling down inside the collars of their coats. “Do you think the tire is going to mend itself, Bob?”
“I only wish it would!” devoutly exclaimed Chunky. “Wow! This is fierce!”
“No help for it,” mumbled Ned, as he wiped the dashing rain drops from his eyes. “Hand me the jack, Jerry, I’ll get the car up, you can take off the tire and we’ll make Bob put on the new shoe and tube. That’s a fair division of labor.”
“I’ll be gum-swizzled if I can see it, as Mr. Sackett would say,” exclaimed the fat lad. “You give me the hardest part to do.”
“Good for reducing flesh,” remarked Jerry as he reached under the seat and got out the jack and a new inner tube. “Fetch around one of the oil headlights, Bob, so we can see what we are doing, and unstrap a shoe.”
Bob started for the lantern, splashed into a deep mud hole, and uttered an exclamation of disgust.
“Wow! Say, I’m in up to my knees!” he complained.
“And I’m gradually sinking down,” added Ned. “It looks as if we were in a bog, or a quicksand. Fellows, I do believe the auto is going down!”
“Hey! What’s that? The auto sinking?” cried the voice of Professor Snodgrass. For the time being the boys had forgotten about him, and he seemed to have either fallen into a slumber, or to have been thinking so deeply there in the darkness that he was not aware of the accident. “Don’t tell me we’re sinking!” he implored.