ose behind him, too. That makes
it an interesting and exciting race. I'm only sorry I have to be up
here, and wait for the last to come past before I can jump in my car and
speed back to town to be in at the finish."

Fred had figured closely, for when he reached the birch trees Ackers had
not as yet appeared around the bend above the station. In this way he
was able to plunge in among the bushes without giving the other runner an
opportunity to follow him, something Fred did not wish to have happen.

Once in the woods, Fred pushed on steadily.

He knew that speed was not of so much value to him now as accuracy. If
he became confused in his bearings, and lost the trail, it would ruin his
chances for coming in ahead of his competitors.

Accordingly Fred bent every energy to observing where he was going.
Colon would be sure to follow in his track, regardless of what Ackers had
done. By taking that road leading from the old farm of Ezekial Parsons,
where they had found Tom Flanders lying in the haymow with a broken leg,
they believed they could gain from five to eight minutes on anyone who
pushed through the thickets and trailed around the tongue of the marsh.

One thing Fred was glad of,---the favorable condition of the weather. He
could not help remembering how that early Spring thunderstorm had burst
upon them at the time he and his chums were investigating this region for
the first time. What a lucky thing it was the weather clerk had ordered
up such a grand day for the long race, with the sun not too hot, and
never a cloud in the blue sky overhead.

Fred, though keeping all his senses on the alert, so that he might see
the "blazes" made on their former trip, and not lose his way, was
nevertheless not blind or deaf to other things around him.

He loved the wide open woods, and was never so happy as when surrounded
by their solitude. The cawing of the crows, the tapping of the
sapsucker, the rat-tat-tat of the bold red-headed woodpecker inviting
insects in the rotten limb to look out, and he gobbled up, the frisking
of the red squirrel as he darted like a flash around to the other side of
a tree trunk---all these and more he noted as he pushed sturdily forward.

Once arrived in the vicinity of the old, ramshackle barn where he and his
comrades had sought shelter from the rain, Fred planned to leave the
zigzag trail and take to the farmer's road. This would bring him to a
point just above the toll-gate wh