J. Duffield - Bert Wilson, Marathon Winner

Would they go! Could anything keep them from going? But after the first wild shout of assent, Bert’s face fell.

“I don’t know just how Reddy will look at it,” he said slowly. “You know how strict he is about training. He may kick like the mischief at my going out of his sight just now. I’ll have to put it up to him.”

So put it up to him he did, and that autocrat promptly put his foot down hard.

“Not for a minute,” he snapped. “I wonder at your asking me.”

But as he saw Bert’s disappointment, he hesitated.

“Wait a bit,” he said, “till I think.” And he fell into a brown study.

At length he looked up. “I tell you straight, Wilson,” he said slowly, “if it were any other fellow on the track team, I wouldn’t do it. But you’ve never shirked or broken training and I’m going to let you go. You’re drawn pretty fine, just now and perhaps a few days up in the pine woods won’t hurt you any. I’ve been thinking of letting up on you a bit so that you wouldn’t go stale. Just at present you’re right on edge and fit to run for a man’s life. Go easy on the eats and do just enough training each day to keep in condition. I don’t mind if you take on five pounds or thereabouts, so that I’ll have that much to work off when you get back. And turn up here in a week from to-day as fit as a fiddle. If you don’t, may heaven forgive you for I won’t. Now go quick,” he ended up with a twinkle in his eye, “before I take it back.”

Bert needed no urging and rushed back to his rooms with the good news that made his friends jubilant.

“Hustle’s the word from now on,” cried Tom. “Let’s get our things together in a hurry.”

And they hustled to such good purpose that within an hour their traps and outing togs were thrown into the capacious tonneau of the Red Scout and they piled in ready for the start.

Bert’s fingers thrilled as he grasped the wheel and threw in the clutch. The noble car almost seemed to recognize its driver and flew along like a thing alive. The roofs and towers of the college buildings faded away behind them and their journey to the Adirondacks was begun.

The roads were fine and the weather superb, and they figured that if these conditions held out they would reach their destination the afternoon of the following day. An ordinary car with a mediocre driver could not have made it. But the Red Scout had long before demonstrated its speed, and under Bert’s skilful handling it fairly ate up the miles that intervened between them and their journey’s end. Of course they had to slow up a little when they passed through towns, but when the road stretched far ahead like a white ribbon with no other vehicle in sight, Bert let her out to the limit. If the speed laws weren’t exactly broken, they were at least in Tom’s phrase “slightly bent.” Occasionally Tom and Dick relieved him while he leaned back in the tonneau and talked with Mr. Hollis.

At railroad crossings they were perhaps unduly careful, for all remembered that awful moment when they had been caught on the tracks and only Bert’s lightning calculation had saved them from a frightful disaster.

“Will you ever forget,” asked Tom, “how the old Scout bumped over the ties at the rate of a mile a minute while the express train came roaring up behind us?”

“Never,” replied Dick. “More than once I’ve dreamed of it and lived it all over again until I woke in a cold perspiration. Once it actually seemed to strike and throw me up in the air, and when I landed I almost jumped out of bed. It gives me the creeps just to think of it, and I don’t want anything more of that kind in mine.”

“It sure was a case of touch and go,” chimed in Bert. “I could feel the heat from the engine on my neck as I bent over the wheel. Of course we knew that the engineer was working desperately to stop, but the question was whether he could do it in time. If anything had given way in the Scout, it would have been all up with us.”

“But she pulled us through all right,” said Dick, patting the side of the car, “like that famous horse on his way to the battlefield:

But we can’t gamble that way with death more than once and hope to ‘put it over,’ and after this I don’t need to have any railroad sign tell me to ‘Stop. Look. Listen.’ I’ll do all three.”

With chat and song and laughter the hours sped by. They were young, life ran warm in their veins, the world lay before them full of promise and of hope, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. A happier, more carefree group it would have been hard to find in all the broad spaces between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Had any one told them of the awful hazard, the haunting fear, the straining horror that they were soon to undergo they would have laughed at him as a false prophet of evil. The present at least was theirs and they found it good.

At about two o’clock in the afternoon they reached the county town, and here they reluctantly said good-bye for the present to the Red Scout. The one road through the wilderness up to Mr. Hollis’ house was a rough path to be trodden only on foot or, at need, in one of the mountain buckboards that could bump its way along over spots and around stumps that might have wrecked a machine. So after arranging for the care of the auto, they shouldered their few bundles and set out on foot. It was an ideal day for walking. The sun scarcely made itself felt as it filtered through the trees, and the balsam of the woods was like a tonic. Long before dusk they reached the lodge where a good supper awaited them, prepared by the caretaker whom Mr. Hollis had notified of his coming.

The night came on clear and almost cold in that high mountain altitude and it was hard to realize that men were sweltering in cities not far away.

“We’ll sleep under blankets to-night,” said Mr. Hollis, “and in the meantime what do you say to building a roaring camp fire right out here in the open? It’ll be a reminder of the old days in camp when Dave Ferris used to spin his famous ghost and tiger yarns.”

The boys hailed the suggestion with enthusiasm. They speedily gathered a supply of dry branches, enough to replenish the fire the whole evening. Then while the flames crackled and mounted high in the air they threw themselves around it in all sorts of careless attitudes and gave themselves up to unrestrained enjoyment of the time and place. At last slumber beckoned and they turned in.

They slept that night the dreamless sleep of health and youth and woke refreshed the next morning ready, as Tom put it, “for anything from pitch and toss to manslaughter.” A plunge in a nearby stream whetted their appetites for the hearty breakfast that followed, and then they went out for a stroll, while Mr. Hollis remained in the lodge, discussing with the caretaker the approaching visit of his family.

It was a glorious morning. The dew still sparkled on the grass, birds sang in the trees, and the newly risen sun flooded the landscape with beauty. A mountain brook rippled over the stones. Partridges drummed in the tangled thickets, chipmunks flitted like shadows across the mountain paths, squirrels chattered noisily in the branches. Everywhere was life and movement, but all the artificial noises of the town were conspicuous by their absence. To the boys, so long used to city life, the change was delightful beyond words.

By the side of the path, about a quarter of a mile from the lodge, was a great dogwood tree snowy with its fragrant blooms. Tom reached up to break off a branch, but just as he snapped the stem it slipped through his fingers and fell in the bushes beneath. He stooped over to pick it up. There was a whirring sound, a rattle that struck terror to their hearts and Tom jumped back with a great, gray, writhing thing hanging to his sleeve. He shook it off and staggered backward, while the rattler instantly coiled to strike again.