ee hundred yards we run a regular steeplechase. The
meadows are intersected with lines of hurdles, and these we take one
after another in our run, as hard as we can. Only one more, and then we
are safe!

Suddenly I find myself on my face on the grass! I have caught on the
last hurdle, and come to grief!

Birch in an instant hauls me to my feet, just as Forwood rises to the
leap. Then for a hundred yards it is a race for very life. What a
shouting there is! and what a rushing of boys and waving of caps pass
before our eyes! On comes Forwood, the gallant hound, at our heels; we
can hear him behind us distinctly!

"Now you have them!" shouts one.

"One spurt more, hares!" cries another, "and you are safe!"

On we bound, and on comes the pursuer, not ten yards behind--not _ten_,
but more than _five_. And that five he never makes up till Birch and I
are safe inside the school-gates, winners by a neck--and a neck only--of
that famous hunt.

The pack came straggling in for the next hour, amid the cheers and
chaffing of the boys. Three of them, who had kept neck and neck all the
way, were only two minutes behind Forwood; but they had shirked the
swim, and taken the higher and drier course--as, indeed, most of the
other hounds did--by way of the bridge. Ten minutes after them one
other fellow turned up, and a quarter of an hour later three more; and
so on until the whole pack had run, or walked, or limped, or ridden
home--all except one, little Jim Barlow, the tiniest and youngest and
pluckiest little hound that ever crossed country. We were all anxious
to know what had become of this small chap of thirteen, who, some one
said, ought never to have been allowed to start on such a big run, with
his little legs. "Wait a bit," said Forwood; "Jim will turn up before
long, safe and sound, you'll see."

It was nearly dusk, and a good two hours after the finish. We were
sitting in the big hall, talking and laughing over the events of the
afternoon, when there came a sound of feet on the gravel walk,
accompanied by a vehement puffing, outside the window.

"There he is!" exclaimed Forwood, "and, I declare, running still!"

And so it was. In a minute the door swung open, and in trotted little
Jim, dripping wet, coated with mud, and panting like a steam-engine, but
otherwise as self-composed as usual.

"How long have you fellows been in?" he demanded of us, as he sat down
and began to lug off his wet boots.

"Two