The drifting mass was now very near. Many an anxious eye turned toward it, and mental calculations that were made gave the boy but scant time to return to safety before the crash must come.
Tug reached the spot where his belt lay. He made out to snatch it up, but, in his haste, managed to drop it again. Of course that only necessitated another movement, but it broke into the even tenor of his way.
Besides that, in thus bending he seemed to gauge the coming danger at a more acute angle than at any previous time. Hugh judged that something warned Tug he might have made a slight miscalculation that would cost him dear unless he mended his ways and increased his pace.
“Now he’s on the jump!”
“Go it, Tug; you’ve got to hump yourself, old man!”
They were shouting at him again, but if Tug heard he gave no evidence of the fact. He was keeping one eye turned toward the threatening danger, which was in truth the worst thing he could have done, as Hugh might have warned him, if given the chance.
Tug was running faster, probably, than he had ever done before in all his adventurous life. On previous occasions it may have been some angry farmer who was in pursuit of him as a trespasser, but now he was racing with death itself.
The realization of his foolishness must have pierced his heart, for, despite the violent exertions he was making, Hugh could see that his face was very white.
Hugh himself had taken several paces along the planks of the approach to the bridge. If any of his companions noticed the action at all, which is doubtful, as their attention was riveted on the running Tug, they could hardly have guessed what was passing through the mind of the patrol leader.
Suddenly a concerted groan burst from many lips. No cheer captain at a struggle on the gridiron between rival college teams could ever have produced such a concentrated expression of dismay.