As he thought these things he was starting the car, getting into the car, driving the car away from the house, to the Gaylor ranch.  There was no bad patch of road.  That was an invention of Carmen’s for the plausibility of the plan she had sketched out to Angela.  The road had been finished months ago, and Nick flew along it in the Bright Angel at a pace which might have got him into trouble with the police if there had been any police to spy upon him.  The way ran through disused pasture land which was to be irrigated, enriched, and grown with alfalfa; and at a turn in the road he came upon a sight which flashed to his eyes like a spurt of vitriol.  He saw the wild cattle break through the fence—­the new “bunch” which Carmen had just got from Arizona.  He saw them struggling, and trampling each other down, and sweeping through the gap like a wave through a broken dyke.  He saw a figure in white running toward him, and knew it was Angela May—­knew that she must die unless he could be in time to save her.

Nick turned the car, and sent it leaping off the road, to bound over the rough hummocks, billowing under the heat-baked grass.  He looked like a dead man, with only his eyes and hands—­his strong, firm hands—­alive.  The motor rocked on the green waves as if in a stormy sea, and groaned like a wounded bull—­one of those who had died there at the broken fence, with their hearts’ blood in their mouths.

It was almost on her now—­the wild black wave—­with death in its wake and death in its gift; but he reached her first, and leaning out while the car swerved—­as many a time he had leaned from his galloping bronco in cowboy days, to pick up a hat or a handkerchief—­he caught Angela up beside him.  Then with a twist of the steering-wheel he gave the Bright Angel a half-turn that sent her flying along in front of the cattle, almost underneath the tossing horns and plunging hoofs.  Thus he shot past the surging line of them, since he could not turn round sharply to run before the wave without risk of upsetting.  As the automobile dashed past, the cattle surged on irresistibly; but Nick and Angela in the car were beyond the reach of hoofs and horns.

Three mounted cowboys saw the race won, and yelled a wild yell of triumph, but their duty was to the cattle.  They went about their business knowing that the car was safe; and Nick neither saw the men nor consciously heard their shouts.

Angela was half fainting.  Holding her up, he steered as he could, slowing down now lest the jumping springs of the car should break.  He drove away from, not toward, Mrs. Gaylor’s house.  He would not take Angela back to Carmen even for a moment.  Yet as she was alone and swooning she could not go to his house.  He caught at the idea of a quick run into Bakersfield in search of a doctor.  But when he saw at last that Angela was slowly coming to herself, drawing deep, sobbing breaths, her eyelashes trembling on wet cheeks, he eased the car down on a quiet stretch of road, under the shade of young walnut-trees and oaks.  There he stopped for a while, in the cool tree shadows.