sly borne to the left. The best thing to
do, he thought, was to get back to the road, which was somewhere in the
direction he was going. So he pushed on, his trot becoming a walk as the
bushes grew thicker and thicker about him. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes
passed and he had found no road. Up and down little hills he went,
across open stretches and through tangles of leafless bushes. He kept
the wind against his left cheek and went on. It was getting toward
twilight and was still cloudy and cold. His legs began to feel stiff and
his feet would drag in spite of him. A half an hour must have passed--he
had left his watch at school and so could only guess--and he was still
travelling over wind-swept upland. He began to feel a bit uncomfortable;
the prospect of spending the night up there wasn't enticing. Observing a
little bush-crowned hill that looked higher than any he had yet found,
he made his way to it. From the top he could perhaps see the road, or,
failing that, discover where the river lay.

So he climbed up the rise, his feet slipping over loose gravel. At the
top he paused and looked about him. There was no road to be seen, but
behind him were a few twinkling lights, perhaps a mile away, and--yes,
surely, that was the river over there, that ribbon of steely-gray! He
would get to the river, he decided, at its nearest point and then follow
along the bank until he found the school, if he did not stumble across a
road or a house or something before that. So he got the direction firmly
fixed in his mind, broke through the bushes in front of him, gave a cry
of terror, grasped ineffectually at the branches and went plunging,
crashing downward to lie in a silent, motionless heap thirty feet
below.

CHAPTER XI

HARRY FINDS A CLUE

When Chub left Roy lying gasping for breath in the bushes and took up
the race again he was a good hundred yards behind Jack and Pryor, who
were just dropping from sight beyond the brow of one of the little
hills.

"Keep over that way--get back to the road," he turned and shouted. He
saw Roy nod wearily. Then he set out in earnest to make up lost ground.
That was the hardest bit of the whole run for Chub and it took him the
better part of a mile to make up that hundred yards. Jack and Pryor did
their level best to maintain their advantage. But when they were back on
the road once more Chub was running even with them. Pryor tried to slip
aside and make him take the lead and set the