“What’s that mean? What’s that mean?” whispered Shultz over and over.
Suddenly the door of the house was flung open. A man came running out, some one calling after him. Down the steps he sprang; across Lake Street he dashed; along Middle Street he raced.
Panting, one hand clutching a nearby fence-railing, Shultz was certain he knew the cause of this commotion. Mr. Hooker was running for the doctor. They had just discovered that Roy was dead.
Turning sharply about, Schultz ran also.
[CHAPTER XVIII—FLIGHT.]
As he ran, the terrible fear that had clung to him grew to gigantic proportions. Panting and gasping, he exerted every effort in that first burst of speed. The sound of his flying feet echoed through the silent streets, and those echoes, flung back to his ears, made it seem that a part of the sound was produced by other feet than his own. It seemed that there was a fearsome pursuer at his very heels, reaching for him with eager, clawlike hands. He dared not pause an instant in his flight to look back. On and on he ran, down through Cross Street, retracing his course up the slope to Lake Street, and still on past the silent and gloomy academy.
From exhaustion and lack of breath his pace had slackened perforce. In all his experience in athletics, never before had he exerted himself until, the breath wholly pumped from his lungs, he could only gasp in exquisite pain, while his very head threatened to burst.
At length, just beyond the academy, he stumbled and fell. Half stunned by the shock, he fully expected to feel himself pounced upon by that unknown pursuer.
Recovering, he looked around as he struggled to his feet. He was quite alone; he could see no moving, living object.
“Still,” he thought, as he stood gulping in air to relieve his collapsed lungs, “I could swear something chased me. It was right behind me all the way. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. If it’s that sort of a thing, it’s no use to run; I can’t run away from it.”