Rupert raised his arms above his head in the signal of acknowledgment, as they flew across the line and swept on to complete the circle to their camp. Lestrange slackened speed to take the dangerous, deeply furrowed turn for the last time, his car poised for the curving flight under his guidance--then the watching hundreds saw the driver's hands slip from the steering-wheel as he reached for the brake. Straight across the track the machine dashed, instead of following the bend, crashed through the barrier, and rolled over on its side in the green meadow grass. "The steering-knuckle!" Bailey groaned, as the place burst into uproar around them. "The wheel--I saw it turn uselessly in his hands!" "They're up!" cried a dozen voices. "No, one's up and one's under." "Who's caught in the wreck--Lestrange or his man?" But before the people who surged over the track, breaking all restraint, before the electric ambulance, Dick Ffrench reached the marred thing that had been the Mercury car. It was Lestrange who had painfully struggled to one knee beside the machine, fighting hard for breath to speak. "Take the car off Rupert," he panted, at Dick's cry of relief on seeing him. "I'm all right--take the car off Rupert." The next instant they were surrounded, overwhelmed with eager aid. The ambulance came up and a surgeon precipitated himself toward Lestrange. "Stand back," the surgeon commanded generally. "Are you trying to smother him? Stand back." But it was he who halted before a gesture from Lestrange, who leaned on Dick and a comrade from the camp. "Go over there, to Rupert." "You first--" "No." There was nothing to do except yield. Shrugging his shoulders, the surgeon paused the necessary moment. A moment only; there was a scattering of the hushed workers, a metallic crash. From the space the car had covered a small figure uncoiled, lizardlike, and staggered unsteadily erect. "Where's Darling Lestrange?" was hurled viciously across the silence. "Gee, you're a slow bunch of workers! Where's Lestrange?" The tumult that broke loose swept all to confusion. And after all it was Lestrange who was put in the surgeon's care, while Rupert rode back to the camp on the driver's seat of the ambulance. "Tell Emily I'll come over to her as soon as I'm fit to look at," was the message Lestrange gave Dick. "And when you go back to the factory, have your steering-knuckles strengthened." Dick exceeded his commission by transmitting the speech entire; repeating the first part to Emily with all affectionate solicitude, and flinging the second cuttingly at his uncle and Bailey. "The doctors say he ought to be in bed, but he won't go," he concluded. "No, you can't see him until they get through patching him up at the hospital tent; they put every one out except Rupert. _He_ hasn't a scratch, after having a ninety Mercury on top of him. You're to come over to our camp, Emily, and wait for Lestrange. I suppose everybody had better come."