Gus Wilson, snuggled between sleeping bags in the
back seat, was dreaming of fish - big, beautiful fish that leaped to take
his bait.
A clap of thunder woke him. He yawned, and
stretched humorously. In the front seat his buddies, Pete Vancourt, who was
driving, and Elmer Stoddard, were reminiscing about previous fishing trips
the trio had made to Wilderness Lake.
Gus thanked his lucky stars he had an able
assistant in Stan Hicks to take care of the Model Garage at vacation time.
He looked back and happily eyed the boat-loaded trailer bumping behind on
the mountain road.
Stoddard turned around. "Sounds as though we might
run into some bad weather, Gus."
"Make the fish bite better. Relax, Elmer - think
of it, nothing to do for a week but fish and loaf."
"Then think again, Gus Wilson," Vancourt put in.
"Since I'm furnishing the car, you'll do the chores. We'll have you so busy
chopping wood, cooking, and washing dishes, you'll wish you were back in the
Model Garage grinding valves."
"And since I'm supplying the boat," Stoddard added,
"I'm counting on you to clean all the fish we catch."
"Naturally," Gus agreed, "since I'm the only one
who can catch any."
"Whoa, there, Gus!" Stoddard protested. "Who
caught the heavy-weight last year?"
"Sure, after you shoved a pound of sinkers down its
craw. Why, my big walleye topped your skinny pike by a good pound."
They had been climbing steadily, and as the car
topped the mountain summit, a bank of black clouds, shot with lightning,
moved swiftly in from the north wind. Thunder rumbled along the forested
ridges as the first drops of rain fell, then came the downpour. The winding
dirt road turned to mud.
Suddenly the engine began to miss. Gus spoke up
fast. "Keep pushing her," he warned. "We don't want a breakdown in this
deluge."
"Listen to the back-seat driver," Pete said,
down-shifting to second.
"I'm listening to that engine," Gus said. The
missing became worse, developed into a series of backfires. Then the car
shuddered to a stop.
The three men looked at each other, silently
listening to the rain beating on the car road, the moan of wind through the
swaying trees. "You," said Vancourt pointing at Gus, "are the mechanic."
"Not me. My job is cleaning fish. Remember?"
"Gus has a point there," Stoddard said. "Hop out
and get us rolling, Pete."
Vancourt pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "If
you characters are counting on me, the fish in Wilderness Lake will live to
a ripe old age. I know even less about engines than Elmer here."
"Yeah, I forgot about that," Stoddard said. "It's
up to you, Gus. Get out your tools and make like a mechanic."
"What tools?" Gus asked. "When I'm invited on a
vacation by so-called friends, I expect them to furnish a car, not a
backfiring teakettle. I'm sleepy." He yawned, settled back among the
sleeping bags and closed his eyes.
"Aw, come off it," Vancourt said, grabbing Gus's
arm and shaking him.
"We've still got 50 miles to go."
Gus sat up and peered out into the downpour, "I
might get struck by lightening out there," He grinned. "Oh, all right, but
it's just because I can't wait to get at those fish."
"That's our boy, Stoddard encouraged, as Gus
struggled into boots and a slicker. Pulling a floppy rain hat down around
his ears, he climbed out and dug a tool kit out of the trunk. Opening it he
saw a pair of pliers, a screwdriver and a monkey wrench.
"With this I'm expected to put in new timing
gears?" he asked Vancourt.
"Timing gears?"
"Sure," Gus said. "What did you think was causing
all that backfiring?"
"He's kidding, Pete," Stoddard said.
"Okay," Gus admitted. "But you guys better get
busy putting a canvas tarp over the hood or we'll drown out the engine for
sure."
Working together, Vancourt and Stoddard draped a
canvas over the raised hood. As each held up a corner, Gus ducked
underneath and went to work.
Then he started looking for some trouble that could
have been caused by water thrown up over the engine by the front wheels.
The backfiring in the muffler indicated that raw gas was being shunted
there, and that the cylinders were firing out of time.
"Hand me a flashlight, Elmer," Stoddard dropped his
tarp corner and dug into the glove compartment.
With a better light, Gus noticed that the secondary
wires to the spark plugs were held together by a fiber fixture attached to
the block. The fixture was wet. Suspecting a spark leak, he removed the
wires and wiped them dry with a bandanna. Next he checked ignition
connections, removed the spark plug wires from the distributor cap, and
dried out the contacts by twisting the corners of his bandanna inside.
"Try her now, Pete," he shouted.
When the engine caught, it backfired like a machine
gun and ran so rough it threatened to shake loose from the hangers. Gus was
puzzled. He hadn't really expected to find anything seriously wrong. Now
he wasn't so sure.
"Okay, that's enough, Pete," he yelled, ducking
back under the canvas. It had to be ignition trouble, but locating it under
these conditions was something else.
He pulled the distributor cap, bridged the starter
relay terminals with the handles of the pliers, and rocked the ignition
points open on a cam lobe. The points seemed to have about the right gap,
with no signs of pitting or burning. He turned the distributor cap over and
played his flashlight inside.
There was the trouble - a jagged crack running from
the center, high-tension rotor contact segment to one of the spark plug wire
terminals at the distributor cap edge. High-tension spark impulses were
being diverted along this shorting crack. Meanwhile spark impulses intended
for other cylinders were so weakened that missing occurred.
Gus came out from under the canvas shelter. "We're
in a jam, boys," he announced. "Let's get in out of the rain."
When the dripping trio was seated in the car, he
explained the situation.
"Now isn't that just dandy," Vancourt said. "Elmer
and I bring along a bull-necked, impossible-to-get-along-with mechanic on
our vacation simply because he is supposed to be able to fix things. Then,
the first thing goes wrong, he gives with explanations."
"Leaving us," Stoddard added, "stuck in the mud 50
miles from nowhere. Well, we might as well break out the tent and get
settled here for the night."
"Suits me," Gus agreed.
"Elmer and I'll take care of the tent," Vancourt
said. "You scrounge around for some wood, Gus. Maybe we can have a fire if
the rain lets up a little."
Gus stood ankle-drop in mud, gazing off into the
forest. "Aren't those spruces growing on a little rim over there?"
"What's the difference?" Stoddard asked. "We're
not going to chop down any trees. A few loads of fallen deadwood is all we
want."
Gus was whistling as he walked into the woods. In
a few minutes he was back and stuck his head and shoulders under the
open-hood shelter. His companions, wrestling with the tent, watched as he
emerged, removed the canvas, shut the hood and got into the car. When he
stepped on the starter, the engine sprung to life, running smoothly.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" he called out.
"Hop in and let's go fishing."
Stoddard and Vancourt lost no time in getting into
the car.
"And let it be understood," Gus said, "that I'm
driving the car for the rest of our vacation.
You, Pete, have the fish-cleaning chore."
"For getting us out of that mess we'd serve you
breakfast in bed."
"Don't overdo it," Stoddard said "But just how did
you fix that crack in the distributor cap, Gus?"
"Nothing to it," Gus explained modestly. "I
collected some gum oozing out of a big spruce, smeared it into the crack,
and stuck a bit of paper on top."
"What kind of a fix is that?"
"It stopped the short," Vancourt said.
"We've got 50 miles to go and then 100 back home.
We'll never make it."
"Maybe you can make a more permanent repair up at
the lake," said Elmer.
"Nope," Gus said. "But I wouldn't be surprised if
that spruce-gum job held up for a thousand miles."
"Have it your way," Stoddard said, "but for gosh
sake take it easy so we don't jog that crack open again."
In reply Gus stepped on the gas. "Relax, you two.
We'll make it all right."
They did.
END
