But both girls screamed when suddenly a new voice was heard. Rachael, starting nervously as a man's figure came about the car out of the black night, in the next second saw, with a great rush of relief, that it was Ruddy Simms. He was a mighty fellow, devoted to the Gregorys. He proceeded rather awkwardly to explain that he hadn't liked to think of their trying to cross the Bar, and so had come with them on the running board. "Oh, Ruddy, how grateful I am to you!" Rachael said. "Perhaps you can go back and get us a tow? What can we do?" "Stuck?" asked Ruddy, wading as unconcernedly about the car as if the sun were shining on the scene. "No, I don't think so, not yet. But I can feel the road under us giving already. And I've killed my engine!" Ruddy deliberated. "Won't start, eh?" "She simply WON'T!" "Ain't got a crank, have ye?" Rachael stared. "Why, yes, we have, under my seat here. But is there a chance that she might start on cranking?" she said eagerly. "Dun't know," Ruddy said non-committally. Rachael was instantly on her feet, and after some groping and adjusting, the cranking was attempted. Failure. Ruddy went bravely at it again. Failure. Again Rachael touched the starter. "No use!" she said with a sinking heart. But Ruddy was bred of sea-folk who do not expect quick results. He tugged away again vigorously, and again after that. And suddenly--the most delicious sound that Rachael's ears had ever heard--there was the sucking and plunging that meant success. The car panted like a giant revived, and Ruddy stood back in the merciless green light and sent Rachael a smile. His homely face, running rain, looked at her as bright as an angel's. "Dun't know as I'd stand there, s'deep in my tracks!" shouted Ruddy. Gingerly, timidly, she pushed the car on some ten feet. "What I's thinking," suggested Ruddy then, coming to put his face in close to hers, and shouting over the noise of wind and water, "is this: if I was to walk ahead of ye, kinder feeling for the road with my feet, then you could come after, d'ye see?" "Oh, Ruddy, do you think we can make it, then?" Rachael's face was wet with tears. "Dun't know," he said. He took off his immense boots and gray socks, and rolled up his wet trousers, the better to feel every inch of rise or fall in the ground beneath his feet, and Millie held these for him as if it were a sacred charge.