Tom Slade's Double Dare

dy marking the very last foot he had been able to go. He would die a

illetts. He would take a chance and start running. Yes, that would be better. There would be just one chance in four of his going in the right direc

in his side was not so acute. The land was not so muddy where he was an

was the little god Billikins of whom you are to know more in these pages. But look behind Hervey Wi

little faster. A little faster still. Now it moved along at an even, steady rate. The long, hard pull up Cheery Hill was over, and the h

had no

fist and a twig in the other. He drew up his belt. He took that precious hat off and stuffed it in his pocket, campaign buttons and all. Ah, no, he did not throw it away. He rip

t eagles live on mountain crags? Why did you not face into the wind and you would have headed north? When the rain did not blow in your face or against either cheek, th

are scouts

ng from behind he could not catch it in time. He was running to intercept it, not to overtake it. He was running at right angles to it and for a point ahead of it.

wind and storm, invincible, indomitable! His head throbbed, his mouth was thick, his side ached, but he seemed beyond the power of these things now. Over the fences he went, lea

, which cheered the runner. He could hear the voices within it. Very faint, but still he could hear them. He knew he could not make himself hea

more moisture from it. He clutched his sweating hands tighter around the knife and twig. He shook the blowing, dripping ha

is course to a point ahead of it. Each maneuver of this kind narrowed the angle between himself and the bus unt

nd intercept the bus before it reached the broad, level stretch to the

iceless. A feeble call was all he could manage, and on the contrary wind and noise of the storm, this was qu

strength. It seemed a kind of perversity of fate that he should have reached

ossessed. He saw the bus go by; heard the voices within it. Throwing his jack-knife from him in a kind of frantic, maniacal desperation, he tried to scream, and finding that he could not, that h

d hurry he tried to wrench it out. A sudden, sharp pain rewarded this insane effort. He lost his balance and went sprawling to t

s went lum