The Boy Scouts of Lakeville High

by Leslie W. Quirk

"I must catch it before it gets to the track!" he told himself. "I must!"

The ice-drive filled his mouth as he spoke, half choking him. Already his eyes were encrusted with a film of frozen sleet, and objects ahead were blurring into an indistinct white mass. For the first time, too, he began to realize the doubt that he might reach the child in time. A cowardly desire to swerve into the snow-bank at one side, as he had done with the bob, fought for a place in his mind. He knew now that he could never pull up even before they reached the railroad track.

But he fought back the temptation. "'A Scout,'" he told himself, "'is brave. A Scout is brave. A Scout is brave.'"

Another sound dinned into his ears. It swept back from the frozen trail ahead of him, and presently he came to know that it was the frightened cry of the child on the other sled. So near it sounded that he could not believe the distance between them was more than the reach of his arm. But it was. When he lifted his head, he saw that a full ten feet still separated them.

The sled ahead was already taking the slight rise to the railroad track. It would clear the onrushing engine by a few precious feet. But in another second or two, the path of the coasting slide would be effectually blocked by the train. This child would cross in time; he himself had no such margin of safety. In all probability, he would strike the very prong of the cow-catcher.

"Too late!" he moaned. "I can't do it!" Then, abruptly, his mind jerked back to what lay beyond: to the turn they had told him about, and the creek below, and the rocks. Resolutely, he held his sled to the course.

As he swept upon the upgrade to the track, he heard from behind Peter Barrett's shout.

"Don't!" it rang out. "Don't try it! You can't—"

The whole world seemed to roar at him. There was the clang of a bell, the hoarse whistle of the engine, the hiss of steam, the rasp of brakes hard-set. To his left, bearing down upon him, was a great monster of iron and steel, with a sharp-pointed triangle skimming low to destroy him.