THE STEADFAST HEART
ing’s horn shrieked out its raucous warning demand for half the road. Then he swerved aside, sitting hunched over the wheel, his chin buried in his breast as if with some thought of hiding his face…. Angus drew alongside, slackened his speed and held the position….
“Judge Crane!…” he shouted.
Above the roaring of the engines the sound reached Crane’s consciousness; he turned his face and his features mirrored first astonishment, then unbelief, then wild, unbalanced terror. For an instant the cars raced side by side, then, as if the strain were too great to be supported, Crane’s hands twitched upon the wheel; their grip must have loosened, for the car swerved sharply…. Its forward wheel overtopped the edge of the ditch and it took the plunge, careening wildly, rocking, swaying, sliding—until with a terrific crash it encountered a tree. There it seemed to pause for an appreciable instant before it buckled, slid to the right and overturned….
Angus brought his car to a stop, leaped to the ground and ran appalled to the wreckage…. Judge Crane lay to one side, his right arm beneath him, a leg bent at a gruesome, impossible angle, his head twisted queerly…. Angus knelt beside him, raised him, looked in his face—and needed no physician to tell him that Judge
301
