The Whirlwind was now close to Sid’s car.  He heard it coming and looked around.  Then he caught the steering wheel from Ida, leaning over to reach it.

“Foul!” shouted Walter.  “That’s not allowed!”

“Never mind!” panted Cora.  “I’m not afraid to let him steer.  I can beat him!”

Jack stood up in his machine.  He was angry, and showed it in his face.

“Stop, sis,” he called to Cora.  “The race is yours.  Don’t pass him.”

“She can’t!” retorted Sid.

“Oh, I’m afraid!” gasped Bess, beside Jack.  “He’s steering right in front of her to cut her off.  He won’t turn out.”

Then, as if realizing that the race would be counted lost to them for Sid’s violation of the rules, Ida tried to displace the hands of her, companion from the wheel.

“Let me steer"’ she exclaimed.  “I want to!  Let me, Sid!”

“No!” he answered angrily.  “I’m going to run it now.”

The car was swaying from side to side because of the erratic motion imparted to it, due to the struggle between Sid and Ida to gain possession of the wooden circlet.

“Let me take it!  I want to beat her!” spoke Ida in a tense whisper, and Sid, with a queer look at her, nodded.

He released his grip of the wheel, and again Ida took it in a firm grasp.  But the change was not skillfully enough made, and the next moment the Streak cut diagonally across the road, right in front of the Whirlwind.

“Oh!” screamed Cora, in spite of herself, and Bess and Mary added their frightened cries.  Cora swung the wheel as far to the right as it would go.  There was a grinding sound as she threw on the emergency brake, and the powerful clutch of it held the rear wheels in so firm a grip that the big rubber tires fairly slid along the road.

“Sid,” cried Ida, “they’ll collide with us!  Do something!  Do it quick!”

He stood up and tried to take Ida’s hands from the wheel again, but she seemed to have lost her head.  The big car was still careening toward them, though the brakes were slowing it up.  Then Ida, with a flash of instinct, did the only thing possible.  Instead of putting on brakes and trying to stop, she pressed the accelerator pedal, and the little car shot forward at a momentarily increased speed.  Between them Ida and Sid managed to steer it into a ditch, and brought up with a crash against a fence, splintering the rails.  Ida, with more force than she thought she possessed, jammed on the brakes, and the Streak, with a groan and a jar, came to a stop.

Then there came a jolt, a ripping sound, and Cora’s big, four-cylindered machine banged into the Streak, for, in spite of all Cora and Walter could do, the Whirlwind could not be stopped in time.

But, fortunately, the damage to the large car was not great, for as she saw that a collision was inevitable, Cora had quickly shifted the wheel, and but a glancing blow had been struck.  A mud guard was torn from the Whirlwind.  Only Cora’s plucky driving, and her emergency stop, had prevented a worse accident.