"You don't want much, do you?" laughed Bert. "Your nerve hasn't suffered from the heat. But get your lead and I'll start from scratch."
Tom, quick as a cat, was not to be despised. On more than one occasion he had circled the bases in fifteen seconds. But he was no match for the fellow who at the Olympic games had won the Marathon race from the greatest runners of the world. For a little he seemed to hold his own, but when Bert once got into his stride—that space-devouring lope that fairly burned up the ground—it was "all over but the shouting." He collared Tom fifty feet from the tree and cantered in an easy winner.
Tom had "bellows to mend" and was perspiring profusely, but to Bert it had simply been an "exercise gallop" and he had never turned a hair.
"Well, you got me all right," admitted Tom disgustedly. "I've got no license to run with you under any conditions. But at any rate the run has waked me up. I've lost some of my wind, but I've got back my self-respect. But now let's go and hunt Dick up. I wonder where he is anyway."
"Probably stretched out on a couple of seats and taking a snooze," guessed Bert. "I'll bet he's lazier even than we are, and that's saying a good deal."
"Well, let's rout him out," said Tom. "Come along."
But when they reached their section of the car, Dick was nowhere to be seen.
"Taking a snack in the buffet, perhaps," suggested Bert. "There's something uncanny about that appetite of his. I'd hate to have him as a steady boarder."
But here their search was equally unavailing. The attendant at the buffet did not remember having seen any one of his description lately.
"Great Scott," ejaculated Tom. "Where is the old rascal anyway?"