Almost at the same instant, a second figure in athletic shirt and track pants came hurtling over the fence, pulled up abruptly, and stood hanging on to Merry’s shoulder. This second person was Billy McQuade, with whom Frank Merriwell, junior, was spending a few days of the spring vacation.
The two friends had left home for a cross-country hike together. It was now the middle of the forenoon, they were on their way back, and had still four miles to go before reaching Carsonville.
The crisp spring air of morning gave the two runners new life at every breath. To many a languid youth it spelled laziness and lack of all effort, but Merry and his friend knew from experience that “spring fever” is only a convenient name for doing nothing. Both of them were looking forward to a luxurious relaxation in the long grass by the Carsonville mill pond that afternoon, but they intended to make it all the more enjoyable by an honest physical weariness.
At the point where the two friends struck the highway, it curved in a wide horseshoe bend in order to avoid a tongue of undrained swamp land that struck up from the river. Merriwell had come to the road on one side of the curve, intending to follow the highway back to town.
As he took the hedge bordering the road with a flying hurdle, he had caught sight of a buggy in the white stretch directly ahead of him. That one flashing glimpse had shown him a man in the buggy, and, as he came to earth, he saw the horse give a sudden leap, shying frantically at sight of the flying figure.
Merriwell regretted instantly that he had not looked before he had leaped, but it was now too late. Before Billy McQuade took the leap in turn, the mettlesome steed hitched to the buggy was tearing around the bend of road, while the lone occupant stood up sawing savagely at the reins.
“That’s a lesson I should have learned before this,” Merriwell murmured regretfully. “The horse shied when I came over the hedge, and he’s run away.”
“No doubt about that,” commented Billy, watching with startled eyes. “He looks as if he didn’t intend to stop this side of Fardale.”
The course of the runaway was anything but reassuring. The startled horse was racing madly around the horseshoe bend, with the buggy leaping and rocking behind him, threatening at every instant to go over.
The driver still stood erect, however. He was shouting in an angry tone of voice, and trying vainly to curb the frightened animal. Disaster was imminent at any moment.