As he spoke the bull, seeing his challenge unanswered, charged like a great red thunderbolt. The boys rose into a fine burst of speed; but ere they were halfway across the field Reube felt his legs and wind failing. He vowed inwardly that he would not, could not break down, and he wondered in his heart how Will was holding out. Will was a little ahead, being the lighter runner; but his pace was flagging, and the bull was now gaining upon them with dreadful rapidity. Under fair conditions the fierce and active animal could have given his rivals a hard race; but now, fagged from their long run down the hill, they were no match for him. He was not more than fifty feet behind them, when their course took them right under one of those spreading maples.
“No use!” gasped Will. “Up with you, Reube!” And springing desperately into the air, he caught a branch and swung himself up into safety.
But Reube was not one who could change his purpose thus rapidly. “The Dido!” he groaned; and, pausing under the tree, he glanced irresolutely from the sea to his pursuer.
“Come up, quick!” yelled Will, his voice as sharp and inflexible as an ax blade. Reube saw that there was no help for it. His eyes glared fury at his pursuer, as a tiger glares at the hunters when he reluctantly retires before them, and he started to climb the tree. But his stubbornness was all but fatal. He grasped at a branch, and, missing his hold, fell back. He repeated the attempt, this time more eagerly, but again he would have missed and would have felt the bull’s horns pinning him to the tree had it not been for Will’s readiness of action. Locking his legs between two branches, Will reached down, grasped his comrade under the shoulders, and with a mighty effort swung him around to the other side of the trunk. The bull swerved slightly and shot past. Half climbing, half dragged up by Will, Reube found himself safe among the branches ere the bull had checked its rush and returned to the attack.
“You saved me that time, Will,” said Reube, in a somewhat shaky voice, grasping his companion’s hand and wringing it hard. “But that was an awful grip of yours. I think every finger took a piece out of me!”
Will grinned inscrutably, and it flashed across Reube’s mind that the severity of the grip had had some connection with his own obstinate delay in seeking safety. But the next instant all else was forgotten in his anxiety about the Dido, which was plainly visible through an opening in his leafy refuge. The boat had grounded for a moment on a grassy point, and now the quickening current wrenched her off again and carried her with slow gyrations beyond the very last of the landing slips. Fifteen minutes more, at this rate, and she would be in the open.
“I can’t stand this, Will! I must try another dash,” he groaned.
Immediately beneath was the bull, snorting and bellowing, thrusting with his great forehead against the trunk, and pawing the young turf so energetically that it seems as if he aimed at uprooting the tree.
“All right, old man,” said Will. “Run right along now, and I’ll wait here for you. Or perhaps you will mount the gentle steed beneath us and ride to your destination.”
To this Reube vouchsafed no answer. He sat silent on his branch, glowering across the marshes, and eating his heart in helpless wrath, while Will, stretched face downward across the limbs, eyed the bull pensively, and cudgeled his brains for a way out of the dilemma.