Bramwell took the lead, as Merry had suggested, but Frank kept at his heels. Together they came out from the Dead Timbers and pressed on.
With the endurance of a man of iron, Merry seemed to pay no heed to the pain and his now badly swollen ankle. He talked to his companion, giving him advice and instructions as they ran. Where the ground was rough and uneven he warned Bramwell to run loosely, in order not to jar and shock himself as he would were his muscles taut. He corrected Bramwell’s too long stride in descending steeps and urged him to a steady, strong gait in mounting ordinary slopes.
“Why,” said the Ashport man, “with you for a coach we might, all of us, have learned much more about cross-country running than we now know.”
Together they passed the first point where watchers noted their numbers and recorded them. From a height they looked back and discovered the most of the runners behind them.
One man, however, was in advance.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE WINNER OF THE TROPHY.
No one save Merriwell himself ever knew how much he endured and how keenly he suffered during that cross-country run. Considering what he accomplished no one could have appreciated his unconquerable determination not to give up and drop out.
Toward the end, when all the greater difficulties were passed, he and Bramwell still clinging together, they came to Ragged Hill. They knew that not more than one man was ahead of them, and that man they had seen disappearing over the crest of the hill as they mounted its lower slopes.
Once or twice before this Bramwell had urged Frank to take the lead. This he now did once more.