He did not want to know the hard, cold truth--not till he was moving.
Here now was the need of nice calculating, and Tom eyed the shore and the tree and the machine with the appraising glance of a wrestler eyeing his opponent.

He broke several branches from the tree, laying them so as to form a kind of springy, leafy mound close to the brink.

Then standing knee-deep he wiggled the wheel's rim very cautiously out to the end of its hanger, so that it just balanced there.
One more grand drive, one more effort of unyielding strength and accurate dexterity and--_he would be upon the road_.
The thought acted as a stimulant.

Lodging one hand under the seat of the machine and the other upon a stout bar of the mechanism which he thought would afford him just the play and swing he needed, he joggled the wheel off its hanger, and with a wide sweep, in which he skillfully minimized the heavy weight, he swung the machine onto the springy bed which he had made to receive it.
Then, as the comrade of a wounded soldier may bend over him, he knelt down beside his companion upon the makeshift, leafy couch.
"Are you all right ?" he asked in the agitation of his triumphant effort.
_Uncle Sam_ did not answer.
He stood the machine upright and lowered the rest so that it could stand unaided; and he tore away the remnant of mud-guard which _Uncle Sam_ had sacrificed in his role of combination engine and paddle-wheel.
"You've got the wires all tangled up in your spokes," Tom said; "you look like a--a wreck.

What do you want with those old sticks of shingles?
How are you off for gas--you--you old tramp ?" _Uncle Sam_ did not answer.
"Anyway, you're all right," Tom panted; "only my arm is worse than your old mud-guard.