And--and--all the birds were there,
With yellow feathers instead of hair,
And--

Frenziedly as a runaway horse trying to escape from its own pursuing
harness and carriage the Senior Surgeon poured increasing speed into
both his own pace and the pace of his tormentor. Up hill,--down
dale,--screeching through rocky echoes,--swishing through blue-green
spruce-lands,--dodging indomitable boulders,--grazing lax, treacherous
embankments,--the great car scuttled homeward. Huddled behind his
steering wheel like a warrior behind his shield, every body-muscle taut
with strain, every facial muscle diabolically calm, the Senior Surgeon
met and parried successively each fresh onslaught of yard, rod, mile.

Then suddenly in the first precipitous descent of a mighty hill the
whole earth seemed to drop out from under the car. Down-down-down with
incredible swiftness and smoothness the great machine went diving
towards abysmal space! Up-up-up with incredible bumps and bouncings,
trees, bushes, stonewalls went rushing to the sky!

Gasping surprisedly towards the Senior Surgeon the White Linen Nurse
saw his grim mouth yank round abruptly in her direction as it yanked
sometimes in the operating-room with some sharp, incisive order of life
or death. Instinctively she leaned forward for the message.

Not over-loud but strangely distinct the words slapped back into her
straining ears.

"If--it will rest your face any--to look scared--by all means--do so!
I've lost control of the machine!" called the Senior Surgeon