Tom Slade's Double Dare

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

Then it had not passed.

Hervey Willetts was himself now. Tearing a loose shred from his tattered trousers, he soaked it in a little puddle, then stuffed it in his mouth. He clasped his jack-knife in one fist and a twig in the other. He drew up his belt. He took that precious hat off and stuffed it in his pocket, campaign buttons and all. Ah, no, he did not throw it away. He ripped off another rag and tied it fast around his neck and he bound his scarf around his forehead. He knew all these little tricks of the runner. It was not thought, but action now.

But, oh, Hervey, Hervey! What sort of a scout are you? Did you not know that the shriek of the eagle must have been from the mountain in the north? Did you not know that eagles live on mountain crags? Why did you not face into the wind and you would have headed north? When the rain did not blow in your face or against either cheek, that was because you were facing south. It had not stopped raining. It was raining and blowing for your sake and you did not know it. You were hunting for a kerosene lamp!

But there are scouts and scouts.

Bareheaded, half naked, he sped through the darkness like a ghostly specter of the night. He headed for a point some fifty yards ahead of the bus. He knew that coming from behind he could not catch it in time. He was running to intercept it, not to overtake it. He was running at right angles to it and for a point ahead of it. Therein lay his only chance, and not a very good chance. By all the rules there was no chance. By the divine law which gives power to desperation, there was—a little.

He ran in utter abandonment, in frenzy. Some power outside of himself bore him on. What else? Like a fiend, with arms swinging and head swathed in a crazy rag, he moved through wind and storm, invincible, indomitable! His head throbbed, his mouth was thick, his side ached, but he seemed beyond the power of these things now. Over the fences he went, leaving shreds of clothing blowing in the gale, and tearing his flesh on stone walls. In the madness of despair, and in the insane resolve that despair begets, he sped on, on, on....

The bus was now almost even with his course. He changed his course to keep ahead of it. The lumbering old rattle-trap gave out a human note now, which cheered the runner. He could hear the voices within it. Very faint, but still he could hear them. He knew he could not make himself heard because the wind was the other way. Besides which, he had not the voice to call. His whole frame was trembling; he could not have spoken even.

On, on, on. The trees passed him like trees seen from a train window. He turned the wet rag in his mouth to draw a little more moisture from it. He clutched his sweating hands tighter around the knife and twig. He shook the blowing, dripping hair from his eyes. Forward, forward! If he slackened his speed now he would fall—collapse. Like a top, his speed kept him up.

Running straight ahead he would about run into the bus, which meant that it was gaining on him. Again he bent his course to a point ahead of it. Each maneuver of this kind narrowed the angle between himself and the bus until soon he would be pursuing it. The angle would be no more. He would be running after the bus and losing ground.

By a supreme, final spurt, he had now a fair chance to make the road and intercept the bus before it reached the broad, level stretch to the bridge. Should it reach that point his last chance would have vanished.