Spencer Davenport - The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - or, Great Days in School and Out

But it was too late.

The ball struck the gray horse a glancing blow on the flank and caromed off into the coach, catching the solitary passenger full in the back of the neck. He fell over toward the opposite side, grasping at the seat to steady himself.

The effect was electric. If Teddy had wanted action, he got it–got it beyond his wildest dream.

The gray horse, stung and frightened by the sudden blow, reared high in the air and threw himself against his companion. The sorrel, catching the contagion, plunged forward. The startled driver tried to hold them in, but they had gotten beyond him. The frenzied brutes rushed on down the hill, the old coach bumping and swaying wildly behind them.

Dazed and scared, the author of the mischief dropped his bat. Horror stole into his eyes and his face showed white beneath its coat of tan.

The horses were running away!

At the point where the coach was moving when Teddy’s hit caused all the trouble the road wound down hill at a gentle incline. A few rods further on, however, it became steep, and here it was the custom of every careful driver to gather up the reins and press his foot on the brake, to keep his wagon from crowding too closely on the heels of his horses.

If old Jed Muggs, the driver of the coach, had been able to get his charges under control before they reached the steeper portion of the hill, he might have saved the day. But he had had very little experience with runaways, and it had never entered his mind that the sober old team he drove would ever have spirit enough to take the bit in their teeth and bolt. That they might some day drop in their shafts and die of old age would have struck him as likely enough. But here they were, running like colts, and the shock of it was too much for him.

He grabbed wildly at the reins that had been hanging loosely over the horses’ backs.

“Stop! Whoa, consarn yer!” he yelled, half standing up as he sawed wildly with the reins. “Burn yer old hides! what in Sam Hill’s got inter yer? Whoa, whoa!”

He was agitated through and through, and his wild yells and feeble handling of the reins only made the frightened brutes go faster and faster.

Inside the coach, the passenger was holding on for dear life, as the coach bumped and swayed from side to side of the road.

“Stop them, pull them in!” he shouted, and put out his hand to grasp Jed’s arm.

The driver shook him off with a savage snarl.

“Leave me alone,” he snapped. “What d’yer suppose I’m doin’, encouragin’ ’em?”

Streaming out behind the runaways came the boys, blazing with excitement. Most of them at first had seen only the funny side of the incident. They had howled with delight at the sight of the “old plugs,” as they irreverently spoke of Jed’s horses, rearing up into the air like frisky two-year-olds, and the frightened antics of Jed himself had added to their amusement. It was all a huge joke, and they chuckled at the thought of the story they would have to tell to those who had not been there to see the fun.

Jim Dabney was fairly doubled up with laughter.

“Take it all back, Teddy,” he shouted. “You’re some hitter, after all.”

“Jiminy, look at those scarecrows dance!” exclaimed Jack Youmans.

“Who’d ever think those old has-beens had so much ginger in ’em,” commented Tom Davis.

But boys as a rule, though thoughtless, are not malicious, and the laughter stopped suddenly when they saw that the joke might end in a tragedy.

Fred, alone of all the boys, had seen from the first this danger. Quicker witted than the others, he had thought of the hill that lay before the runaways. But his shout of warning to Teddy had come too late to stop that impulsive youth, and now the damage was done.

“This way, fellows!” he shouted, as he took a short cut across the field in an effort to get to the horses’ heads. If he had been able to do this, the other boys, coming up, could have helped to hold them. But the distance was too great, and when he reached the road the team was twenty feet ahead and going too fast to be overtaken by any one on foot.

Behind the others pounded Teddy, the cause of it all. How he hated himself for yielding to that impish impulse that had so often gotten him into trouble! Now, all he could think of was that somebody would be killed, and it would be his fault and his alone. His heart was full of terror and remorse.

“I’ve killed them!” he kept repeating over and over. “Why did I do it? Oh, why did I do it?”

There was not a spark of real malice in Teddy’s composition. He was a wholesome, good-natured, fun-loving boy, and a general favorite with those who knew him. His chief fault was the impulsiveness that made him do things on the spur of the moment that he often regretted later on. Anything in the form of a practical joke appealed to him immensely, and he was never happier than when he was planning something that would produce a laugh. When Teddy’s brown eyes began to twinkle, it was time to look for something to happen.

He was a born mimic, and his imitation of the peculiar traits of his teachers, while it sent his comrades into convulsions of laughter, often got him into trouble at school. Notes to his parents were of frequent occurrence, and he was no sooner out of one scrape than he was into another. When anything happened whose author was unknown, they looked for Teddy “on general principles.”

Sometimes this proved unjust, and he had the name without having had the game. More often, however, the search found him only too certainly to be the moving cause of the prank in question. His fourteen years of life had been full of stir and action, both for him and all connected with him, and nobody could complain of dullness when Teddy was around. Still, he was so frank and sunny-natured that everybody was fond of him, even those who had the most occasion to frown. He was a rogue, but a very likable one.

Fred Rushton, his brother, a year older than Teddy, was of a different type. While quite as fond of fun and full of spirits, he acted more on reason and good judgment than on impulse. As in the instance of the batted ball, where Teddy had seen only the fun of making the horses jump, Fred had thought of the runaway that might follow.

Teddy was the kind who would make a leap and take a chance of getting away without a broken neck. Fred, while quite as ready to take the leap if it were necessary, would first figure out where he was going to land. A deep affection bound the two boys together, and Fred was kept busy trying to get Teddy out of old scrapes and keeping him from getting into new ones.

At school, Fred was a leader both in study and sports. He was one of the best scholars in his class and it was his ambition to graduate at its head–an ambition that was in a fair way to be realized.

In the field of athletics, his unusual strength, both of body and will, made him easily the first among his companions. Tall, strong, self-reliant, with clear gray eyes that never flinched at any task set before him, the other boys admitted his leadership, though he never made any conscious claim to it.

He shone in football as the fastest and cleverest fullback that the school had known for years, and he had well earned his position as captain and pitcher of the baseball team.

With the boys trailing on in the rear, the coach had now nearly reached the bottom of the hill, and was gathering speed with every jump of the frightened horses. A man rushed out from a house beside the road and grabbed at the bridle of the gray, but was thrown to the ground and narrowly escaped being trodden under foot.

On and on they went, until they were close to the little river that ran along at the foot of the hill. A bridge, about twelve feet in width, crossed the river at this point, and along this Jed tried to guide the horses. But just before they reached it, the passenger, who evidently feared that the team would crash into the railing, took a flying leap over the side of the coach and plunged head first into the river below.