The next moment the Wondership was in the road on the other side of the hay wagon, having hurdled it like a high jumper, and was once more on her way.

“Jove, you boys are marvels!” exclaimed the doctor.  “Is there anything you can’t do with this craft, or auto, or whatever it is, of yours?”

“Lots of things, I guess,” said Tom, “but we haven’t found many of them yet.”

At uninterrupted speed the journey was resumed.  At times so swift was the pace that the Wondership seemed to be half flying.  Thanks to her shock absorbers, but little motion was felt, although in places the roadway had been washed out by the torrential downpour and was very rough.

“Whereabouts are we?” shouted Tom, as they rushed along.

“Near the Coon Creek Bridge,” flung back Jack over his shoulder.  “We ought to sight it at any moment now.”

He peered through the blackness ahead.  The searchlights failed to show any bridge.  But the young driver saw an abandoned cottage by the roadside which had formerly been used as a toolhouse.  Just beyond it he knew the bridge should loom up with its white railings.

But there was not a sign of it.

Not till it was too late to stop did Jack realize what had happened.  The bridge had been washed away by the rising waters of the creek and he was tearing at top speed for the steep banks.

It was a moment for lightning thinking.  Right ahead loomed a black pit which he knew marked the water course.

Suddenly it flashed into Jack’s mind that in former times, before the bridge had been built, there had been a ford at the point.

The banks, steep elsewhere, almost wall-like in fact, were still graded at the place where the old crossing spot had been.

He jerked over the steering wheel with a suddenness that threatened to overturn the Wondership.  The auto-craft plunged wildly to one side and then rushed downward.

Before he realized it, Jack had steered her into the rushing waters of the swollen creek.

“All the power you’ve got,” he cried to Tom, as the Wondership careened and tipped madly and then recovered an even keel.  Jack headed her up stream while Tom, who hardly knew what had happened, blindly obeyed orders.

Jack’s chief fear was that the rush of the torrential water would carry him too far down to make a landing on the opposite side of the old ford.  In that case they would be in a bad fix, for the creek ran for some distance between steep walls of limestone rock.

It was a hard struggle.  The twin propellers beat the air furiously, clawing the Wondership up stream, while the water hissed and roared all about her, and the engine labored with a noise like that of a giant locust.

And then, almost before he knew it, and before either Tom or the doctor realized in the least what had happened, they found themselves safe on the other side.  They had gained the opposite slope of the ford with hardly an inch to spare, but that was enough.