To Madeline’s dismay, that road led down to a deep, narrow wash.  It plunged on one side, ascended on the other at a still steeper angle.  The crossing would have been laborsome for a horse; for an automobile it was unpassable.  Link turned the car to the right along the rim and drove as far along the wash as the ground permitted.  The gully widened, deepened all the way.  Then he took the other direction.  When he made this turn Madeline observed that the sun had perceptibly begun its slant westward.  It shone in her face, glaring and wrathful.  Link drove back to the road, crossed it, and kept on down the line of the wash.  It was a deep cut in red earth, worn straight down by swift water in the rainy seasons.  It narrowed.  In some places it was only five feet wide.  Link studied these points and looked up the slope, and seemed to be making deductions.  The valley was level now, and there were nothing but little breaks in the rim of the wash.  Link drove mile after mile, looking for a place to cross, and there was none.  Finally progress to the south was obstructed by impassable gullies where the wash plunged into the head of a canyon.  It was necessary to back the car a distance before there was room to turn.  Madeline looked at the imperturbable driver.  His face revealed no more than the same old hard, immutable character.  When he reached the narrowest points, which had so interested him, he got out of the car and walked from place to place.  Once with a little jump he cleared the wash.  Then Madeline noted that the farther rim was somewhat lower.  In a flash she divined Link’s intention.  He was hunting a place to jump the car over the crack in the ground.

Soon he found one that seemed to suit him, for he tied his red scarf upon a greasewood-bush.  Then, returning to the car, he clambered in, and, muttering, broke his long silence:  “This ain’t no air-ship, but I’ve outfiggered thet damn wash.”  He backed up the gentle slope and halted just short of steeper ground.  His red scarf waved in the wind.  Hunching low over the wheel, he started, slowly at first, then faster, and then faster.  The great car gave a spring like a huge tiger.  The impact of suddenly formed wind almost tore Madeline out of her seat.  She felt Nels’s powerful hands on her shoulders.  She closed her eyes.  The jolting headway of the car gave place to a gliding rush.  This was broken by a slight jar, and then above the hum and roar rose a cowboy yell.  Madeline waited with strained nerves for the expected crash.  It did not come.  Opening her eyes, she saw the level valley floor without a break.  She had not even noticed the instant when the car had shot over the wash.