They were doubly dismayed now, because they not only had lost their leader, but were themselves lost in some part of the country where they knew neither the landmarks nor the points of the compass. They helped Tug cautiously to his feet, and, for lack of a better medicine, rubbed snow upon the ugly slashes in his breast and legs.

"This ends the race, as far as we are concerned," moaned Bloss.

But Tug had recovered enough from his dizziness to shake his head and mane lion-like, and cry:

"Not much! Come on, boys!"

And before the restraining hand of Sawed-Off could stop him, Tug had somehow wormed himself through the barbed-wire fence and was off across the open; and they were sore put to it to catch up with him again.

Suddenly, as the devoted four followed their leader, the first station, the farm-house at which they were to report, loomed unexpectedly upon the horizon, approached in some unknown way by Tug, who was threading his way through the wilderness with more regard for straight lines than for progress. They were named off, as they flew past, by a watcher stationed there, and without pause they made off toward the railroad junction. Once they thought they saw a few fleeting forms in the distance, and they guessed that they must be Orton and his Brownsville team; but they could not feel sure, and no closer sight of their rivals was vouchsafed to them.

When the last station, the little red school-house, had been passed, they began to feel that there was some hope of their reaching home. They began also to feel the effect of their long, hard journey. Their sides hurt them sorely, their legs ached, and their breath came faster than they wished.

MacManus now showed more serious signs of weakening than any of the 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, racking race, after all; for, just crossing the stake at the finish, he caught a sight of Orton.

The rest of the team saw the same disheartening spectacle. And
MacManus, eager for any excuse to stop running, gasped:

"They've beaten us. There's no use running any farther."

But Tug, having Lakerim ideals in mind, would never say die. He squandered just breath enough to exclaim:

"We're not beaten till the last man crosses the line!" And he added:
"Stage, run for your life."

And Stage ran. Oh, but it was fine to see that lad run! He fled forward like a stag with the hounds in full cry after him. He wasted not an ounce of energy, but ran cleanly and straightly and splendidly. He had the high-stepping knee-action of a thoroughbred trotter, and his running was as beautiful as it was swift.

"Run, all of you, for your lives!" cried Tug; and at that the weary little band sprang forward with a new lease on strength and determination. Tug had no ambition, like Orton, to leave his men to find their own way. Rather, he herded them up and urged them on, as a Scotch collie drives home the sheep at a canter.

Orton's runners were "tailed out" for more than half a mile behind him. He himself was easily the first man home; but Stage beat his second man in, and Bloss was a good third. Orton ran back frantically, now, to coax his last three men. He hurried in his third runner at a fairly good gait, but before he could get him to the line, Tug had brought forward his last three men, Sawed-Off well up, MacManus going doggedly and leaning mentally, if not physically, on Tug, who ran at his side.

By thus hurling in three men at once, Tug made an enormous inroad upon the score of the single-man Brownsvillers. Besides, though Orton got his next-to-the-last man in soon after Tug, the last Brownsviller did not come along for a minute afterward. He had been left to make his way along unaided and unguided, and he hardly deserved the laughter that greeted him as he came over the line.

Thus Orton, too ambitious, had brought his team in with this score: 1, 3, 8, 9, 10—total, 31; while Tug's men, well bunched at the finish, came in with this score: 2,4, 5, 6, 7-total, 24.

Tug richly deserved the cheers and enthusiasm that greeted his management; for, in spite of a team of individual inferiority to the crack Brownsvillers; he had won by strict discipline and clever generalship.