rest. He straggled along the way with feet that seemed to get into
each other's path, and with a head that wabbled uncertainly on his
drooping shoulders.

Tug fell back and ran alongside him, trying to console and encourage
him to better speed. MacManus responded to this plea with a spurt, and
suddenly broke away from the four and ran wildly ahead with the speed
of desperation.

He came upon a little brook frozen across with a thin sheet of
ice. Here he found a log that seemed to have been placed, either
providentially or by some human being, to serve as a foot-bridge.
MacManus leaped gaily on it to cross the stream ahead of the rest.

To his breathless dismay, the log turned under his foot; and wildly as
he tried to get a good grip on the atmosphere, nothing could save him,
and he went ker-smash and ker-splash through the thin ice into the
water.

Now he was indeed willing to run without any more coaxing than the
bitter air upon his wet skin. His only hope of getting warm was in
his heels. And he ran like a maniac till Tug and the rest must put on
extra force also, or leave him completely.

Almost before they knew it, now, they were on the outskirts of
Kingston village. Their arrival at the beginning of the home stretch
was signaled in a very startling manner; for Tug, who had regained the
lead, saw ahead of him a bright, shining strip that looked for all the
world like a little frozen stream under the moonlight. He did not care
to risk stepping on any more thin ice, so he gave the quick command:

"Jump!"

And he jumped, followed almost immediately by his devoted attendants.
The next thing they all knew, they were in half-frozen mud up to
their knees. The bright patch they had supposed to be a brook was a
frost-covered sidewalk!

And they had carefully jumped over the sidewalk into the mire beyond!

Tug was disgusted but not disheartened, and he had his crew under way
again instantly. He kept up his system of short cuts even now that
they were in town. He led them over back fences, through orchards and
kitchen-gardens, scattering a noisy flock of low-roosting hens in one
place, and stirring up a half-dozen more dogs in another.

The true home stretch was a long downhill run straight to the goal.

By the time they reached this MacManus was once more in bad shape, and
going very unsteadily.

As they cleared the brow of the hill, Tug's anxious heart was pierced
with the fear that he had lost the long, rac