Chatz immediately took out his little nickel watch and held it in his hand, just as though he might have been the judge at a sprinting match.
Before five minutes had crept past, however, there was a cry raised.
"Here comes poor old Landy," said Toby, "mounted on his wheezy bicycle, and pegging for all he's worth. Look at him puffing away, will you? He just knows he's been keeping us waiting here ever so long, and that's making him put on so much steam. Wow! he nearly took a header that time into the ditch. What a splash there would have been, my countrymen, if he played leap-frog into that mud-puddle!"
The boys sat there on the rail fence and began to greet the coming bicycle rider with loud shouts.
"Hit her up, Landy!"
"One good turn deserves another, you know."
"A little more power to your left foot, or you'll be in that ditch yet, Landy!"
"Oh! Landy, does your mother know you're risking your precious old neck on that beaut of a wheel?"
The fat scout did not cease his exertions until he had reached the place where his four chums sat on the fence. Then they saw that while his round face was red, and the perspiration stood out in beads on his forehead, there was a drawn, almost a scared look on his countenance.
"Hey! what ails the fellow?" burst out Lil Artha, as though discovering that Landy was trembling more with some mysterious emotion than fatigue.