ing to visit me lots of times in my dreams,
with all that double row of white teeth showing, and his red lips drawn
back! Ugh! I'll not forget in a hurry how he looked, I tell you, Colon.
And didn't he take the punishment I heaped on him, though? I used up
every ounce of strength I had in slinging my club. You notice that I'm
toting that along, don't you?"

"Oh! that's the racket, is it? A bow of blue ribbon tied to the club,
and hang it on the wall of your room at home? Well, Bristles, I don't
blame you much, because he was an ugly customer. If he'd ever gotten you
down, it'd been tough on you."

"Here, let up on that style of talk, will you, Colon? It makes me have a
cold chill run up and down my spinal column. Let's talk about something
more cheerful. What d'ye think about this shortcut through the woods?
Fred says it's going to save a lot, and that nearly every fellow will
like as not take to it. A mile of this goes against three by the road."

"So long as every contestant knows the ground, it might pay to take the
cut-off," Colon remarked, "but I noticed some swampy ground that I'd hate
to get lost in. If any runner fails to show up at the tape, they'll have
to send out a searching party to look for him through this section."

"That'll be his lookout, then," observed Bristles, calmly. "Everybody
shinny on his own side. Preparation is part of the battle. The fellow
who is too lazy to go over the course in advance will have to take big
chances, that's all. He won't deserve to win."

"This is certainly a dreary place, all right," the tall runner went on to
say, as he looked to the right, and then to the left. "Why, I didn't
know there was such a desolate stretch of woodland within twenty miles of
Riverport. Some of it's good farming land too, if part is boggy, and
even that would make a cranberry marsh, if anyone wanted to try it out."

"It's all second growth timber, though," called back Fred, who was still
just a dozen paces in the lead, and pushing his way through brush that
often entirely concealed the ground.

"Sure it is," Bristles went on to say. "Long ago the original timber was
cut down, and sent to the sawmills. Listen to the frogs croaking over
that way; must be a pond somewhere around."

"I was going to ask you if you'd run across any snakes yet?" Colon
inquired, with considerable show of interest, because, as well known
among his friends, the tall runner had always felt a decid