ALMOST
Well, he would not go back. They should find him right there, his body
marking the very last foot he had been able to go. He would die as those
brother scouts of his would have to die. He would not go back.
That good rule of the scouts to stop and think was not in Hervey's line.
But he would do the next best thing--a thing very characteristic of
Hervey Willetts. He would take a chance and start running. Yes, that
would be better. There would be just one chance in four of his going in
the right direction. But he had taken bigger chances than that before.
Anyway, the rain was ceasing. And he soon overcame the sentimental
notion of just lying there.
The momentary rest had restored some measure of his strength. The
aching in his side was not so acute. The land was not so muddy where he
was and he took off his jacket and washed some of the heavy mud from his
shoes.
Then he started off pell-mell. Who shall say what good angel prompted
him to look behind? Perhaps it was the little god Billikins of whom you
are to know more in these pages. But look behind Hervey Willetts did.
And there in the distance, very tiny but very clear, was a spark bobbing
in the darkness.
He paused and watched it over his shoulder. It moved along slowly, very
slowly. It disappeared. Then appeared again. And now it moved a little
faster. A little faster still. Now it moved along at an even, steady
rate. The long, hard pull up Cheery Hill was over, and the horses were
jogging along the road. Oh, how well Hervey knew that lantern which hung
under the rear step of the clumsy, lumbering old bus.
_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.
In this desperate pass he tried to shout, but found, as the spent runner
usually does, that he was almost voiceless. A feeble call was all he
could manage, and on the contrary wind and noise of the storm, this was
quite inadequate. He could only stumble on, borne up by his indomitable
will. He was weakening and he knew it.
Yet the light of the bus so near him gave him fresh hope, and with it
fresh strength. It seemed a kind of perversity of fate that he should
have reached a point ordinarily within earshot, and yet could not make
his approach known.
Just as the bus was passing his course, and when it was perhaps three or
four hundred feet distant, Hervey, putting all his strength into a final
spurt, sped forward in a blind frenzy like one possessed. He saw the bus
go by; heard the voices within it. Throwing his jack-knife from him in a
kind of frantic, maniacal desperation, he tried to scream, and finding
that he could not, that his voice was dead while yet his limbs lived,
and that his panting throat was clogged up and his nerves jangled and
uncontrollable, he bounded forward in a kind of delirium of concentrated
effort.
Then, suddenly, his foot sank into a hole. Perhaps with a little
calmness and patience he could have released it. But in his wild hurry
he tried to wrench it out. A sudden, sharp pain rewarded this insane
effort. He lost his balance and went sprawling to the ground, another
quick, excruciating twinge accompanying his fall, and lay there on the
soggy ground like a woodchuck in a trap.
The old bus went lumbering by.