He had taken a course that was really next to unknown to any of his chums. They would not be able to guess where to look for him, even if he did happen to be missed.
"And just to think," he went on bitterly, as he exercised his arms to keep his chilling blood in circulation, "Brad even had to tell me not to show up again on the field after I'd made my five miles. So not a fellow will miss me. At home perhaps they'll just believe I've stopped with Sid, as I often do. They may even go to bed with the idea that I'll be along later. Wow! that would mean all night for me in this miserable hole."
How about morning, when Riverport would awaken to the fact that for the second time one of their promising young school athletes had mysteriously disappeared?
"Say, won't there be some high jinks though?" Fred exclaimed, for, somehow, it did not seem quite so lonely when he could hear the sound of his own voice. "I can just shut my eyes, and see the whole place boiling like a kettle, with the fellows running back and forth, and everybody just wild. I wonder now, will they give Buck the credit of this business, too? It seems to be pretty well known that he is suspected of being at the head of the crowd that carried Colon off. Well, for once then, Buck will be unjustly accused. But I guess they'll make life miserable for him."
The thought of the bully being treated to a ride on a fence rail with his legs tied underneath, amid a jeering mob of Riverport schoolboys, amused Fred for just about a minute.
Then the necessity of trying to think up some plan by which he might escape from the pit caused him to put Buck out of his mind.
The boys had always said that Fred was the most ingenious fellow they had ever known. He could invent schemes that often made some of the duller-witted chaps fairly gasp, and declare he must be a wizard.
If ever he had need of that faculty it was now. If wishing could give him a pair of wings, or bring a convenient rope into his hands, the other end of which was tied to a neighboring tree, Fred was ready to devote himself heart and soul to the task.
Outside of his short running trunks, a light, close-fitting shirt, and the socks and running shoes which were on his feet, Fred did not have another particle of clothing along. He was bareheaded. Without even a bit of string, a pocket knife, or even a match on his person, what chance then did he have to escape from that lime quarry pit?
And it was very damp there in the bargain. Water oozed across one corner of the hole. If he had to stay there twelve hours, the chances were he would take a severe cold that might prove serious.