Frank of Freedom Hill

by Samuel A. Derieux

He sank on his knees beside the bed, his big arm braced over the heaving little chest, his eyes drinking in the light in those narrowed unseeing ones.

The lips were incredibly hot.

"Old scout!" he choked in the little ear.

He did not look at the faces as he hurried out of the room, nor back at the building when he jumped into his car. He roared through the city, into the silent country. He glimpsed the stone mileposts flash past. He glanced now and then at the clock in the front of the car. He had set an almost impossible time. But he was halfway home at midnight. As he rounded a sharp curve his lights flashed on something far ahead in the road—a hog or perhaps a prowling dog. It sprang aside into the bushes. He passed the spot with a roar.

Behind him Frank leaped back into the road, and stood for a moment staring after the car. He had gotten a glimpse, a whiff—he had thought he knew it. But that car was going the wrong way. He must have been mistaken. Wearily he turned and galloped on toward the city.

He had come many miles. He had many miles yet to go. From sleeping farmhouses dogs bayed him as he passed, running like a big fox, silent and swift. The road turned and twisted among hills and small mountains. Ahead in the sky was a glow unlike the glow of coming day. It grew brighter with the passing miles. It drew him on. The distance would have meant little to him, except for the tremendous speed at which he had been travelling. Now his chest was flecked with foam. His tail, carried usually so proudly, followed the curve of his haunches. His overstrained muscles worked mechanically like pistons. His heart pounded his long, lean red ribs.

Dizzy, almost famished, he came at last to the top of a hill and stopped, ears erect. Below him stretched rows of twinkling lights that, all together, made up the glow in the sky. That was the city with the strange building into which they had carried Tommy Earle!

He could afford to rest, now that he was so near. To the side of the road grew bushes to which coolness and moisture clung. Sides heaving, he scraped his back against them, his heavy tail wagging with inward satisfaction, the glow from those distant lights reflected dimly in his eyes. Then he sank down on his stomach, panting out loud in the sultry stillness.

A roar, a blinding glare were upon him before he sprang wildly to his feet. The wind rushed past as the car flashed by. He glimpsed Earle's tense face.