CATASTROPHE! For a time no danger seemed to threaten.

Kate was not only fearless as a passenger, but equally intrepid at the wheel.

Many a time and oft she had driven her father's highest-powered car at dizzying speeds along worse roads than the one her machine was now following.

Velocity was to her a kind of stimulant, wonderfully pleasurable; and now, realizing nothing of the truth that Herrick was badly the worse for liquor, she leaned back in the tonneau, breathed the keen slashing air with delight, and let her eyes wander over the swiftly-changing panorama of forest, valley, lake and hill that, in ever new and more radiant beauty, sped away, away, as the huge car leaped down the smooth and rushing road.
Dust and pebbles flew in the wake of the machine, as it gathered velocity.

Beneath it, the highway sped like an endless white ribbon, whirling back and away with smooth rapidity.