THE SHORT-CUT WAY
"Now, where did you drop down from, Colon?" asked Bristles.
"Me?" exclaimed the tall chum, with a broad smile on his face. "Why,
straight from town, if you want to know. You see, I found out, after
all, I could get off, and hurried to where you said you'd start, but
Fred's ma told me you had half an hour the lead of me. Still, as I
happened to know the layout of the trip, I made up my mind I'd follow
along, and hump myself a little to overtake you fellows.
"But how'd you know where we left the road, and started across the
woodland, tell me, Colon?" asked Bristles; whereupon the other nodded
his head, and looked wise.
"Oh! well!" he explained, "you see, Fred told me about where he expected
to break away and so of course I kept looking; and I saw that you'd
turned out just about under that bunch of birch trees. Why, you left a
plain track in the dust on the road. After that I used my eyes and my
head, and kept pushing right along. I'm reckoned something of a scout in
the woods, you must know."
"You certainly have done a big thing in that line this time, Colon,"
asserted Fred, vigorously; "I never would have believed him, if someone
told me you'd done it. And let me remark that you certainly came in on
us at the right time."
"I should say he did," assented Bristles, joyfully. "I was getting tired
of swinging my club, and whacking that terrible critter. Talk to me
about being able to stand punishment,---I never before saw a dog that
could come up fresh every time you keeled him over. Most curs would run
away, howling like mad, but he just set his teeth, and took a fresh grip.
Whew! I'm sure glad it's all over."
"Either of you get nipped anywhere?" asked Colon, anxiously.
"I hope not," Fred replied, "it's a dangerous thing to have a dog bite
you, because you never know what's going to happen. Often the scratch
from the claws of a tiger or a lion is followed by blood poisoning,
because they tear their prey, you know. I was sent over once, and seem
to have a few scratches on my shins, but they came from the stones and
thorns. How about you, Bristles?"
"I kicked one of those smaller runts that tried to bite me, but I don't
think he got his teeth in my leg. Those blood marks are scratches, where
I ran into the thorn bush while I was jumping around so lively. Oh! it's
all right, and no damage done, boys. Everything's lovely, and the goose
hangs high!"
"But what does all this rumpus mean?" Colon wanted to know. "Whose dogs
were they, and what had you done to make the push mad?"
Bristles undertook to tell him, passing on some of the information which
he had received from Fred.
"Now I'm posted. I seem to get a grip on the business," Colon confessed,
"and I want to tell you I'm mighty glad I made up my mind to follow
after, and see if I couldn't come up before you got back home again."
"And believe me we're happy to know you did, Colon," Bristles assured
him, "because there's no telling what sort of a hard time we'd have been
up against, with that pack trying their level best to pull us down. We
might have had to climb up in a tree, and sit there all night, for all we
know. But Fred, what'd we better do about it now?"
"About what?" asked the other.
"This dog here," continued Bristles, pointing down at the animal that
looked so fierce even in death.
"I was just thinking," Fred told him, "whether we had better lift him
into the fork of a tree, so he could be found if we let the farmers know
about it, or try to drag him along to the tollgate house."
"It can't be so very far away, I should think," observed Colon, "and I'd
be willing to take my turn at dragging him there."
"Nothing like showing the proof, when you tell a whopping big story,"
declared Bristles, "and I know a lot of fellows who'll like as not lift
their eyebrows, and grin to beat the band when they hear about this warm
time we've had. We want to be able to stamp the yarn as true as anything
that ever happened. So take hold of one leg, Colon, and I'll manage the
other. Sho! that's easy enough going, and for one I don't mind it a
bit."
"Call on me to take my turn any time, boys," announced Fred, as he
started off in the lead.
The wild dog pack had evidently been effectually broken up by the
energetic action of the Riverport runners. Not a single bark or yelp was
to be heard in any direction. Scattered to the four winds the dogs were
apt to return to their respective homes, and change their bad habits.
With the loss of their savage ringleader, the impulse to live a wild life
would possibly leave them all.
Fred once more began to figure on their course. He knew that the faint
trail he and Bristles had been following through the woods had begun to
bear away in a quarter that made it impossible for them to pursue it any
longer, if they expected to come out near the Belleville tollgate.
Thanks to his possession of the compass, and something of a knowledge of
the general conditions, Fred was able to decide on this without much
trouble.
They did not make any attempt at speed indeed, that would have been
utterly impossible, while they continued to drag the slain dog along
after them. Colon finally gave a hint that he was ready to abandon the
idea of showing the result of their encounter to the toll-gate keeper,
notwithstanding that through him all the farmers in that neighborhood
would eventually learn of their good luck.
"But I don't like to quit anything I've started on," objected Bristles,
when the long-legged runner had thus casually mentioned that it was no
fun dragging the big beast over rough ground. "Think how far we've kept
it up already. Huh! want to have that work just wasted? Not much for
me! If you're tired, Colon, just say the word, and I'll lug him along by
myself, or else Fred ahead there might lend me a helping hand."
"Me tired? Why, whatever put that silly notion in your head, Bristles?
I didn't know you set such great store by showing the old thing; but
since I see you do, why of course I'm game to hold out to the finish.
Hope you don't want to get the blooming dog stuffed, and keep him mounted
in your den at home."
"Well, that'd be the limit!" exclaimed Bristles, laughing at the idea.
"I feel right now that he's going to visit me lots of times in my dreams,
with all that double row of white teeth showing, and his red lips drawn
back! Ugh! I'll not forget in a hurry how he looked, I tell you, Colon.
And didn't he take the punishment I heaped on him, though? I used up
every ounce of strength I had in slinging my club. You notice that I'm
toting that along, don't you?"
"Oh! that's the racket, is it? A bow of blue ribbon tied to the club,
and hang it on the wall of your room at home? Well, Bristles, I don't
blame you much, because he was an ugly customer. If he'd ever gotten you
down, it'd been tough on you."
"Here, let up on that style of talk, will you, Colon? It makes me have a
cold chill run up and down my spinal column. Let's talk about something
more cheerful. What d'ye think about this shortcut through the woods?
Fred says it's going to save a lot, and that nearly every fellow will
like as not take to it. A mile of this goes against three by the road."
"So long as every contestant knows the ground, it might pay to take the
cut-off," Colon remarked, "but I noticed some swampy ground that I'd hate
to get lost in. If any runner fails to show up at the tape, they'll have
to send out a searching party to look for him through this section."
"That'll be his lookout, then," observed Bristles, calmly. "Everybody
shinny on his own side. Preparation is part of the battle. The fellow
who is too lazy to go over the course in advance will have to take big
chances, that's all. He won't deserve to win."
"This is certainly a dreary place, all right," the tall runner went on to
say, as he looked to the right, and then to the left. "Why, I didn't
know there was such a desolate stretch of woodland within twenty miles of
Riverport. Some of it's good farming land too, if part is boggy, and
even that would make a cranberry marsh, if anyone wanted to try it out."
"It's all second growth timber, though," called back Fred, who was still
just a dozen paces in the lead, and pushing his way through brush that
often entirely concealed the ground.
"Sure it is," Bristles went on to say. "Long ago the original timber was
cut down, and sent to the sawmills. Listen to the frogs croaking over
that way; must be a pond somewhere around."
"I was going to ask you if you'd run across any snakes yet?" Colon
inquired, with considerable show of interest, because, as well known
among his friends, the tall runner had always felt a decided antipathy
for all crawling things, and would never handle even an inoffensive
garter-snake; indeed, slimy greenbacked frogs he abominated, claiming
that they had the same clammy feeling as snakes.
"Why, yes, a couple whipped across the trail back there," Bristles
admitted.
"Not rattlers, I hope?" ejaculated Colon, coming to a sudden stop, as he
turned an apprehensive look upon his companion.
"No," Bristles told him, with a scornful inflection in his voice, for he
did not share Colon's antipathy toward crawling reptiles, and could not
understand how any fellow could be so foolish as to shiver at sight of a
mere wriggling object. "Fred says it's too early for rattlers to show
out of their dens. One was a fair-sized black snake, and the other might
have been an adder; he was short and stumpy, and had a flat head."
"Just as poisonous as anything that crawls," said Colon, with a shudder,
and an involuntary hasty look around him. As a rule, he was far from
being nervous, and yet when a stick that had bent under Fred's weight
suddenly sprang back into shape again, the tall runner gave a low cry of
alarm, and even dropped the leg of the dog that he had been clinging to
so sturdily all that distance.
Not liking to be joked about his fears, Colon made out that a thorn had
jabbed him in the leg, and bending down he started to rubbing vigorously
at his ankle. Bristles, apparently, was aware of the true state of
affairs, for he grinned as he waited for the other to assist him once
more.
"These thorns do stick you right smart when they get a chance at a bare
shin, for a fact, Colon," he went on to observe, grimly, "but so long as
they don't draw blood, the damage's not apt to amount to much, I reckon.
There's Fred disappeared from sight, and we'll have to hurry if we want
to catch up with him before we strike that road, which I calculate can't
be a great way off."
It happened that they were passing over some rather rough country just
then, with a number of dark-looking gullies intersecting their course.
In places it was even necessary for them to drop down into these and then
climb up on the opposite side. This took time, but the boys fancied they
must be close to the road they had been aiming to reach.
"See anything of Fred, yet?" asked Bristles. "You're such a tall fellow
you c'n spy a heap farther than me."
Colon looked, and then shook his head.
"He's nowhere around, as far as I c'n see," he remarked, and dropping his
share of the burden, Colon sprang back in alarm, as a voice seemed to
come up out of the very earth at their feet, saying:
"Keep back there, you fellows, or you'll be tumbling down on top of me!"
"Hello! there, Fred, where under the sun are you?" demanded Bristles,
looking around him in sheer amazement.
"I've fallen into some sort of cave here, that's all!" came back in a
muffled voice.