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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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.

CHAPTER IX

THE HERO

The best account of this business was given by Darby Curren, the bus driver, or Curry, as the boys called him.

"We was jes' comin' onter the good road, we was, and I was jes' about goin' ter give Lefty a taste o' the whip ter let 'er know ter wake up.

Them kids inside was a hollerin', '_Hit 'er up!" 'Step on 'er!' 'Give 'er the gas!_' and all sech nonsense. Well, by gorry, I never seed sech a night since Noah sailed away in the ark, I didn't. So ye'll understand I was'n' fer bein' surprised at nuthin' I see. Ghosts nor nuthin'.

"Well, all of a sudden Lefty begins to jump and rear step sideways and was like to drag us all in the ditch when what do I see but that there thing, like a ghost or somethin' it was, hangin' onter her bridle. It was makin' some kind of a noise, I dunno what. First off I thought plum certain it was a ghost. Then I thought it was Hasbrooks' boy, that's what I thought, on account o' him havin' them fits and maybe bein'

buried alive. It was me that druv the hea.r.s.e fer 'im only a week back.

And I says then to Corby that was sittin' with me, I says, no son o'

mine that ever had them fits would be buried in three days, not if I knowed it. Safety first, I said, dead or livin'.

"Well, I hollered to him what he wanted there and I didn't get no answer so I got down. And all the rest o' that howlin' pack got out, and the two men. I guess they thought we was held up, Jesse James like. Only the little codger stayed inside.

"Well, there he was, all tore and b.l.o.o.d.y and not enough duds left to stop up a rat-hole. And we hed ter force his hand open, he was hangin'

onter the bridle that hard."

Well, that was about all there was to it; the rest was told by many mouths. They forced open his grip on the horse's bridle and he collapsed and lay unconscious on the ground. They lifted him and carried him gently into the bus, and laid him on one of the long seats. His left foot was shoeless and lacerated.

There were a couple of first aid scouts in the party, and they did what they could for him, bathing his face and trying to restore some measure of repose to his jangled nerves. They washed his torn foot with antiseptic while one kept a cautious hold upon his fluttering pulse.

They administered a heart stimulant out of their kit, and waited. He did not speak nor open his eyes, save momentarily at intervals, when he stared vacantly. But the stout heart which had served him in his superhuman effort, would not desert him now, and in a little while the brother scout who held his wrist laid it gently down and, in a kind of freakish impulse, made the full scout salute to the unconscious figure.

That seemed odd, too, because at camp he was not thought to be a really A-1 scout....

The two scoutmasters of the arriving troops remained in the bus with the first aid scouts and a queer little codger who seemed to be lame; the others walked. Hervey Willetts had ridden on top of that bus (contrary to orders), but he had never before lain quietly on the seat of it and been watched by two scoutmasters. He was always being watched by scoutmasters, but never in just this way....

So the old bus lumbered on. Soon he opened his eyes and mumbled something.

"Yes, my boy," said one of the scoutmasters; "what is it?"

"S--sma--smashed--br--," he said incoherently.

"Yes, we'll have a doctor as soon as we reach camp," the scoutmaster said soothingly. "Try to bear it. Don't move it and perhaps it won't pain so."

Hervey shook his head petulantly as if it were not his foot he spoke of.

"Br--oken--the--br--look out----" And again he seemed to faint away.

The scoutmaster was puzzled.

In a few moments he spoke again, his eyes closed. But the word he spoke was clear.

"Ahead," he whispered.

The scoutmaster was still puzzled but he opened the bus door and called, "Gilbert, suppose you and a couple of the boys go on ahead and watch your step." Then to the other scoutmaster he said, "I think he's a bit delirious."

So it happened that it was Gilbert Tyson of the troop from Hillsburgh, forty or fifty miles down the line, who shouted to Darby Curren to stop, that the bridge had been washed away.

A funny part of the whole business was that the little duffer in the bus, who was attached to that troop, thought that Tyson was the hero of the occasion. He was strong on troop loyalty if on nothing else. So far as he was concerned (and he was very much concerned) Tyson had saved the lives of every scout in those two troops. Subsequent circ.u.mstances favored this delusion of his. For one thing, Hervey Willetts cared nothing at all about glory. You could not fit the mantle of heroism on him to save your life. He never talked about the affair, he was seldom at camp, except to sleep, and he did not know how he had managed the last few yards of his triumphal errand. For another thing, the Hillsburgh troop kept to themselves more or less, occupying one of the isolated "hill cabins." As for Tom Slade, he seldom talked much. He had seen too many stunts to lose his head over a new one, and he was a poor sort of publicity agent for Hervey.

Thus Goliath, as the little codger came to be known, had the field all to himself, and he turned out to be a mighty "hero maker."

CHAPTER X

PROVEN A SCOUT

The bus came to a stop a hundred feet or so from the ruined bridge and its pa.s.sengers, going forward cautiously, looked down shudderingly into the yawning chasm. For a few seconds the very thought of what might have happened filled them with silent awe.

Goliath was the first to speak. "It's good Tyson saved our lives, isn't it?" he piped up. "We'd all be dead, 'wouldn't we?"

"Very dead," said one of the scouts; "so dead we probably wouldn't know it."

"Wouldn't _know_ it?" asked Goliath, puzzled.

For answer the scout gave him a bantering push and tousled his hair for him. The little fellow took refuge with one of the scoutmasters.

"Will we get to that camp soon?" he asked.

"Pretty soon, I hope. Perhaps some one will come down and show us the way."

"Are we lost?"

"No, we're saved."

"I'm glad we're in Tyson's troop, aren't you?"