oward him quickly.

Enid, being a girl, was frightened, and did not try to conceal it, but
said:

"Oh, Pretty, let's go home at once!"

Pretty, being a boy, thought he must make a display of courage, even
if he didn't feel it; so, while his heart clattered away in his
breast, and he could hardly find breath to speak, he said with some
show of composure:

"Yes, Enid; I think we have walked far enough for to-day."

Then they whirled about and started for home at a good gait. They had
not gone far when Enid, glancing back over her shoulder, noticed that
the tramps were coming up at a still more rapid walk.

One of them, indeed, called out in a suspiciously friendly tone:

"Hey, young feller, hold up a minute and tell us what time it is, will
ye?"

Enid gasped:

"Let's run, Pretty; come on."

But Pretty answered with much dignity:

"Run? What for?" And he turned and called back to the tramp: "I don't
know what time it is."

Then the tramps insisted again that Pretty wait for them to come up.
But when he continued to walk without answering them, they began to
hurl oaths and rocks, and to run toward him. Now Pretty thought that
discretion was the better half of valor, and he seized Enid's wrist
and started off on a run, an act in which she was willing enough to
follow his lead. But he had to explain, just to preserve his dignity:

"They're three to one, you know."

But while Enid understood well enough the necessity for speed, she had
no breath to expend expressing her appreciation of Pretty's delicate
position. She was too frightened to run even as well as she knew
how, and she was going at a gait that was neither very fast nor very
economical of muscle and breath. Pretty, however, ran scientifically:
on the balls of his feet, with his head erect, his chest out, and his
lips tightly locked.

But before long he was doing all the work for two, and laboring like
a ship that drags its anchor in a storm. They came to a hill now, and
here Enid leaned her whole weight upon him. He barely managed, with
the most tremendous determination and exertion, to get her to the top
of this long incline. As they labored up he decided in his own mind,
and told her, that she must leave him and run on for help.

Just one tenth of a second his terrified mind had been occupied with
the thought that he might run on alone and leave her. The tempting
idea of self-preservation had whispered to him that if he stayed
behind, it would