nd 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