A Young Hero; Or, Fighting to Win

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Dreading, as he did, to fall into the hands of Bud Heyland and his lawless companion, he put forth all the power at his command, and glancing over his shoulder now and then he kept up his flight with an energy that taxed his strength and endurance to the utmost.

When he found that they were not gaining on him he was encouraged, but greatly frightened by the pistol-shots. He was sure that one of the bullets went through his hat and the other grazed his ear, but so long as they didn't disable him he meant to keep going.

He was nearly across the meadow when he recalled that he was speeding directly toward a worm-fence which separated it from the adjoining field. It would take a few precious seconds to surmount that, and he turned diagonally toward the left, as has been stated, because by taking such a course, he could reach the edge of a small stretch of woods, in whose shadows he hoped to secure shelter from his would-be captors.

This change in the line of flight could not fail to operate to the disadvantage of the fugitive, for a time at least, for, being understood by Bud and Cyrus, they swerved still more, and sped along with increased speed, so that they rapidly recovered the ground lost a short time before.

They were aiming to cut off Fred, who saw his danger at once, and changed his course to what might be called "straight away" again, throwing his pursuers directly behind him.

This checked the scheme for the time, but it deprived Fred of his great hope of going over the fence directly into the darkness of the woods.

As it was, he was now speeding toward the high worm-fence which separated the field he was in from the one adjoining.

Already he could see the long, crooked line of rails, as they stretched out to the right and left in front of him, disappearing in the gloom and looking like mingling lines of India ink against the sky beyond.

Even in such stirring moments odd thoughts come to us, and Fred, while on the dead run, compared in his mind the fence rails to the crooked and erratic lines he had drawn with his pen on a sheet of white paper.