Burned Bridges

He stared after a passing sedan driven by a uniformed chauffeur, one

half the rear seat occupied by a fat, complacent woman, the other half

of the ten-inch upholstery given over to an equally fat and complacent

bulldog. And while he reflected in some little amusement at the

circumstance which gave a pampered animal the seat of honor in a

six-thousand-dollar car and sent an able-bodied young man trudging down

the road in the heat and the dust, another machine came humming up from

the south.

It was a red car, crowding the state limit for speed, and it swept down

on Thompson with a subdued purr like a great cat before a fire. When it

was almost abreast of him there burst from it a crack like the report of

a shotgun. There was just a perceptible wabble of the machine. Its hot

pace slackened abruptly. It rolled past and came to a stop beside the

road fifty yards along--a massive brute of a red roadster driven by a

slim girl in a pongee suit, a girl whose bare head was bound about with

heavy braids of corn-yellow hair.

Thompson half rose--then sank back in momentary indecision. Perhaps it

were wiser to let sleeping dogs lie. Then he smiled at the incongruity

of that proverb applied to Sophie Carr.

He sat watching the machine for a minute. The halting of its burst of

speed was no mystery to Thompson. Miss Carr proceeded with calm

deliberation. She first resurrected a Panama hat from somewhere in the

seat beside her and pinned it atop of her head. Then she got out, walked

around to the front wheel, poked it tentatively once or twice, and

proceeded about the business of getting out a jack and a toolkit.

By the time Thompson decided that in common decency he should offer to

lend a hand and thus was moved to rise and approach the disabled car she

had the jack under the front axle and was applying a brace wrench to the

rim bolts. But the rim bolts that hold on a five-inch tire are not

designed to unscrew too easily. Sophie had started one with an earnest

tug and was twisting stoutly at the second when he reached her. He knew

by the impersonal glance she gave him that he was to her merely a casual

stranger.

"May I help you?" he said politely. "A big tire is rather hard to

handle."

Sophie bestowed another level look upon him as she straightened up from

her task. A puzzled expression showed briefly in her gray eyes. But she

handed him the wrench without parley.

"Thanks, if you will," she said. "These rim bolts are fearfully stiff. I

daresay I could manage it though. I've done it on a lighter car. But

it's a man's job, really."