CHAPTER II
THE DEADLY RATTLER
The days flew by as though on wings. Reddy brought his men along by easystages. He was far too wise to be impatient. He believed in the oldmotto of "hastening slowly." But every day saw its quota of work mappedout and performed, and before long his persistent effort began to tell.The little group of athletes under his control rounded into form, and itbecame certain that the Blue colors would be carried to victory in morethan one event when it came to the final test.
Upon Bert, however, he banked more heavily than on any other. He feltthat here he had an ideal combination of brain and brawn. Nature hadgiven him the material to work with and it depended entirely on thetraining to turn him out in the "pink of condition" for the decisiverace.
Not once, however, did he let him run the full Marathon distance oftwenty-six miles. In his expressive phrase it would "take too much outof him." From fifteen miles he gradually increased the distance, untilon one occasion he let him run twenty-two, and then he stopped him,although Bert protested that he was easily good for the remaining four.
"No, you don't," said Reddy. "I'm only asking your legs and lungs tomake the twenty-two. The last few miles will be run on your nerveanyway, and I want you to save up every bit of that until the day of therace. You'll need every ounce of it when the time comes."
For Bert it was a time of stern self denial. As he neither smoked ordrank, it was no sacrifice to be forbidden these indulgences. But thecarefully restricted diet, the cutting out of the many things hisappetite craved and had been accustomed to, the hard and unending workrequired to perfect his wind and develop his muscles called on all hiscourage and determination to see the thing through.
"Gee," said Tom one day, when after an especially severe practice theywere walking toward their rooms, "I don't see how you stand it, Bert. Aslave in the cotton fields before the war had nothing on you in thematter of work."
"Work certainly does seem to be my middle name, just now," laughed Bert,"but the pay comes later on. I'll forget all this slavery, as you callit, if I can only flash past the line a winner. And even if I don't havethat luck, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I have done mybest and gone down fighting."
"You'll end up fighting, sure enough," said Tom emphatically, "but youwon't go down unless you sprain an ankle or break a leg. The onlyquestion with the boys here is not whether you will win--they're deadsure of that--but whether you'll hang up a new record."
"There really isn't any such thing as a record for the Marathon," saidBert. "The conditions are so different in each race that no one canfairly be compared with another. If it were simply a matter of paddingaround on a flat track, you could get at the time easily. But the roads,the hills, the wind and the weather all come into the account, andthey're never just alike. The fastest time so far is two hours andthirty-six minutes."
"The day you ran twenty-two miles, Reddy said that you were going at therate of two hours and twenty-five minutes for the whole distance," saidTom. "That's some speed, all right."
"Yes," replied Bert, "and as far as feeling went, I could have kept itup to the end. Those last four miles though would have been the hardestand probably the slowest. But I never cared much about records anyhow.It's men that I have to beat. Time is a thing you don't see or hear andyou can't work up much enthusiasm over it. But when another fellow isshowing you the way or pushing you hard, then's the time you reallywake up. The old never-give-up feeling comes over you and you tellyourself you'll win or drop dead trying."
Just at this moment Dick ran up, waving a telegram.
"Hello, old scout," called out Bert, "what's up? You look as thoughyou'd got money from home."
"Better even than that," answered Dick. "I've just had a wire from Mr.Hollis that he's on his way in the Red Scout and is going to drop in onus."
"Good," cried Bert, and "Bully," echoed Tom. "When's he going to gethere?"
"Some time to-morrow if nothing happens. Say we won't be glad to seehim, eh, fellows?"
There was no need of the enthusiastic whoop that followed. Their formerCamp Master had always held a warm place in their hearts. A gentlemanof means and culture, he had been identified with their plans andexperiences for several years past. Under his wise and genial leadership,they had passed some of the happiest hours of their lives in the summercamp of which he was the ruling spirit. His help and advice had alwaysbeen so sound and kind that they had come to look upon him almost as anolder brother. While never indulging in the "familiarity that breedscontempt," and firm almost to sternness when that quality was needed,they felt that he was always looking for their best interests and makingtheir cause his own. And now that they were in college he had still keptin touch with them through letters and occasional reunions of the oldsummer campers at his home.
A host of recollections came up before them as they talked of hiscoming. They saw him as he faced the scowling mob of gipsies who hadstolen Dick's watch and forced them to give up their plunder. Theyrecalled the glorious outing that his thoughtfulness had planned for theorphaned youngsters of the county town. They heard again the crack ofhis pistol as he started that memorable race between the Red Scout andthe Gray Ghost, and the delight in his face as the good old Scout withBert at the wheel had shown the way to its rival over the finish line.
So that when they heard the familiar "honk-honk" of his car the next dayand saw the Red Scout slipping swiftly up the drive under the elms, Mr.Hollis had a royal and uproarious welcome that "warmed the cockles ofhis heart."
"Say, boys, remember that my hand is flesh and blood and not Bessemersteel," he laughed, as they bore him off to their rooms.
After the first greetings were over, he came straight to the purpose ofhis visit.
"I ran out here to kidnap you fellows," he explained. "None of you lookweak and wasted"--and he smiled as he looked at their bronzed faces,glowing with health and vitality--"and I don't have any idea thatyou're killing yourself with over work. Still, a few days change is agood thing for all of us at times. I'm going up to my lodge in theAdirondacks to get it ready for my family who expect to stay there thissummer. I shan't be gone more than a week, and as your mid-term vacationstarts to-morrow it won't interfere with your studies. It's a wildplace there--no neighbors, no telephones, no anything that looks likecivilization. The nearest town is fourteen miles away and I plan toleave the Red Scout there while we go the rest of the way on foot. We'llhave to rough it a little, but it's a glorious bit of 'God's outdoors,'and I'll guarantee that you'll eat like wolves and sleep like babies andcome back kicking up your heels like thoroughbreds. Will you go?"
Would they go! Could anything keep them from going? But after the firstwild shout of assent, Bert's face fell.
"I don't know just how Reddy will look at it," he said slowly. "You knowhow strict he is about training. He may kick like the mischief at mygoing out of his sight just now. I'll have to put it up to him."
So put it up to him he did, and that autocrat promptly put his foot downhard.
"Not for a minute," he snapped. "I wonder at your asking me."
But as he saw Bert's disappointment, he hesitated.
"Wait a bit," he said, "till I think." And he fell into a brown study.
At length he looked up. "I tell you straight, Wilson," he said slowly,"if it were any other fellow on the track team, I wouldn't do it. Butyou've never shirked or broken training and I'm going to let you go.You're drawn pretty fine, just now and perhaps a few days up in the pinewoods won't hurt you any. I've been thinking of letting up on you a bitso that you wouldn't go stale. Just at present you're right on edge andfit to run for a man's life. Go easy on the eats and do just enoughtraining each day to keep in condition. I don't mind if you take on fivepounds or thereabouts, so that I'll have that much to work off when youget back. And turn up here in a week from to-day as fit as a fiddle. Ifyou don't, may heaven forgive you for I won't. Now go quick," he endedup with a twinkle in his eye, "before I take it back."
; Bert needed no urging and rushed back to his rooms with the good newsthat made his friends jubilant.
"Hustle's the word from now on," cried Tom. "Let's get our thingstogether in a hurry."
And they hustled to such good purpose that within an hour their trapsand outing togs were thrown into the capacious tonneau of the Red Scoutand they piled in ready for the start.
Bert's fingers thrilled as he grasped the wheel and threw in the clutch.The noble car almost seemed to recognize its driver and flew along likea thing alive. The roofs and towers of the college buildings faded awaybehind them and their journey to the Adirondacks was begun.
The roads were fine and the weather superb, and they figured that ifthese conditions held out they would reach their destination theafternoon of the following day. An ordinary car with a mediocre drivercould not have made it. But the Red Scout had long before demonstratedits speed, and under Bert's skilful handling it fairly ate up the milesthat intervened between them and their journey's end. Of course they hadto slow up a little when they passed through towns, but when the roadstretched far ahead like a white ribbon with no other vehicle in sight,Bert let her out to the limit. If the speed laws weren't exactly broken,they were at least in Tom's phrase "slightly bent." Occasionally Tom andDick relieved him while he leaned back in the tonneau and talked withMr. Hollis.
At railroad crossings they were perhaps unduly careful, for allremembered that awful moment when they had been caught on the tracks andonly Bert's lightning calculation had saved them from a frightfuldisaster.
"Will you ever forget," asked Tom, "how the old Scout bumped over theties at the rate of a mile a minute while the express train came roaringup behind us?"
"Never," replied Dick. "More than once I've dreamed of it and lived itall over again until I woke in a cold perspiration. Once it actuallyseemed to strike and throw me up in the air, and when I landed I almostjumped out of bed. It gives me the creeps just to think of it, and Idon't want anything more of that kind in mine."
"It sure was a case of touch and go," chimed in Bert. "I could feel theheat from the engine on my neck as I bent over the wheel. Of course weknew that the engineer was working desperately to stop, but the questionwas whether he could do it in time. If anything had given way in theScout, it would have been all up with us."
"But she pulled us through all right," said Dick, patting the side ofthe car, "like that famous horse on his way to the battlefield:
'As though it knew the terrible need, It stretched away at its utmost speed.'
But we can't gamble that way with death more than once and hope to 'putit over,' and after this I don't need to have any railroad sign tell meto 'Stop. Look. Listen.' I'll do all three."
With chat and song and laughter the hours sped by. They were young, liferan warm in their veins, the world lay before them full of promise andof hope, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. A happier, morecarefree group it would have been hard to find in all the broad spacesbetween the Atlantic and the Pacific. Had any one told them of the awfulhazard, the haunting fear, the straining horror that they were soon toundergo they would have laughed at him as a false prophet of evil. Thepresent at least was theirs and they found it good.
At about two o'clock in the afternoon they reached the county town, andhere they reluctantly said good-bye for the present to the Red Scout.The one road through the wilderness up to Mr. Hollis' house was a roughpath to be trodden only on foot or, at need, in one of the mountainbuckboards that could bump its way along over spots and around stumpsthat might have wrecked a machine. So after arranging for the care ofthe auto, they shouldered their few bundles and set out on foot. It wasan ideal day for walking. The sun scarcely made itself felt as itfiltered through the trees, and the balsam of the woods was like atonic. Long before dusk they reached the lodge where a good supperawaited them, prepared by the caretaker whom Mr. Hollis had notified ofhis coming.
The night came on clear and almost cold in that high mountain altitudeand it was hard to realize that men were sweltering in cities not faraway.
"We'll sleep under blankets to-night," said Mr. Hollis, "and in themeantime what do you say to building a roaring camp fire right out herein the open? It'll be a reminder of the old days in camp when DaveFerris used to spin his famous ghost and tiger yarns."
The boys hailed the suggestion with enthusiasm. They speedily gathered asupply of dry branches, enough to replenish the fire the whole evening.Then while the flames crackled and mounted high in the air they threwthemselves around it in all sorts of careless attitudes and gavethemselves up to unrestrained enjoyment of the time and place. At lastslumber beckoned and they turned in.
They slept that night the dreamless sleep of health and youth and wokerefreshed the next morning ready, as Tom put it, "for anything frompitch and toss to manslaughter." A plunge in a nearby stream whettedtheir appetites for the hearty breakfast that followed, and thenthey went out for a stroll, while Mr. Hollis remained in the lodge,discussing with the caretaker the approaching visit of his family.
It was a glorious morning. The dew still sparkled on the grass, birdssang in the trees, and the newly risen sun flooded the landscape withbeauty. A mountain brook rippled over the stones. Partridges drummed inthe tangled thickets, chipmunks flitted like shadows across the mountainpaths, squirrels chattered noisily in the branches. Everywhere was lifeand movement, but all the artificial noises of the town were conspicuousby their absence. To the boys, so long used to city life, the change wasdelightful beyond words.
By the side of the path, about a quarter of a mile from the lodge, was agreat dogwood tree snowy with its fragrant blooms. Tom reached up tobreak off a branch, but just as he snapped the stem it slipped throughhis fingers and fell in the bushes beneath. He stooped over to pick itup. There was a whirring sound, a rattle that struck terror to theirhearts and Tom jumped back with a great, gray, writhing thing hanging tohis sleeve. He shook it off and staggered backward, while the rattlerinstantly coiled to strike again.