As he ran, the terrible fear that had clung to him grew to gigantic proportions. Panting and gasping, he exerted every effort in that first burst of speed. The sound of his flying feet echoed through the silent streets, and those echoes, flung back to his ears, made it seem that a part of the sound was produced by other feet than his own. It seemed that there was a fearsome pursuer at his very heels, reaching for him with eager, clawlike hands. He dared not pause an instant in his flight to look back. On and on he ran, down through Cross Street, retracing his course up the slope to Lake Street, and still on past the silent and gloomy academy.

From exhaustion and lack of breath his pace had slackened perforce. In all his experience in athletics, never before had he exerted himself until, the breath wholly pumped from his lungs, he could only gasp in exquisite pain, while his very head threatened to burst.

At length, just beyond the academy, he stumbled and fell. Half stunned by the shock, he fully expected to feel himself pounced upon by that unknown pursuer.

Recovering, he looked around as he struggled to his feet. He was quite alone; he could see no moving, living object.

“Still,” he thought, as he stood gulping in air to relieve his collapsed lungs, “I could swear something chased me. It was right behind me all the way. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. If it’s that sort of a thing, it’s no use to run; I can’t run away from it.”

But when he started on again the fear returned, and it was only by the most tremendous effort that he restrained the impulse to resume running. Every moment or two he looked back, and sometimes he stopped and turned squarely in his tracks.

His relief was great when he saw, near at hand, the house where he boarded. He would get inside, close the door quickly behind him, and shut the unseen pursuer out.

But the door did not open beneath his hand. He tried it again and again, presently realizing with dismay that he had failed to fasten back the catch of the spring lock when he came out. Yesterday, in changing his clothes, he had discovered that his latch key was missing. Search for it had been vain, and Mrs. Carter had not been able to furnish another key.

“Well, this is a fix!” he whispered. “I’m locked out. I don’t want to rap and get them up, for I would have to explain. Then, too, if they got a look at me they’d know there’s something wrong. I must show it plain enough.”

He walked silently around to the rear of the house. There was the ell, upon the roof of which his window opened, and close to the end of the ell stood the chestnut tree, with one stout branch projecting over the roof. He thought of climbing the tree, reaching the roof by means of that limb, and crawling along to obtain admittance through the window of his chamber.

Remembering the fearsome spectacle revealed to him outside that window this very night, he faltered and drew back. He was terrified lest, having climbed to the roof, he should find himself once more face to face with the apparition.

“It’s no use,” he almost sobbed; “I can’t do it! Anyhow, why should I wish to get in there? If it’s a ghost, I couldn’t shut it out. I may need the things in my bag; I’d certainly like to have them; but I must do without them.”

He knew that a hostler slept all night in Hyde’s livery stable, and that there was a bell by which the man might be aroused. Now, however, for the first time it occurred to him that he lacked money. Having paid Osgood a small debt, less than three dollars remained in his pocket. It was thirty-four miles to Watertown, and it would require many times three dollars to pay for a rig to carry him there.

“Perhaps they’ll trust me,” he muttered. “I’ll tell a good story. I’ll make it out a case of life or death—and perhaps it is.”

Then something seemed to whisper in his ear that he could not endure the scrutiny of any one without betraying himself. Furthermore, if he should hire a rig and a man to drive him to Watertown, that would betray the direction of his flight. Should they desire to stop him and bring him back, the telephone would serve them well.

“I’m done for,” he groaned—“done for! I don’t know what to do.”

Desiring sympathy, longing for advice, he thought of Osgood, and at once he decided that Ned ought to know without delay what had happened.

Crossing lots and open fields, he avoided the streets of the town as far as possible. He was still pursued by the conviction that some unseen thing was following him, but with set teeth, he restrained the desire to run, holding himself down to a sharp, jerky walk, which was interrupted occasionally as he looked back. Finally he saw before him the big white two-story house of Mrs. Chester.

Now another problem arose, how to reach Osgood. If he rang at the door he would eventually bring either the maid or Mrs. Chester to answer the bell. What could he tell them?

“I know what I’ll do,” he decided, stooping to run the palm of his hand over the loose earth of the street bed.

It did not take him long to gather up a handful of small pebbles, and with these he approached the house. One after another he flung them upward and heard them clink against the window glass, but he used them all without perceiving a token that he had awakened Osgood. The house remained dark and silent. A rising breeze caused the limbs of some trees to knock together; it swept Shultz’s clammy cheek and made him shiver.

“I must get Ned up,” he muttered. “Fool that I am, I’ve been trying the wrong window. He’s in his bedroom, of course, and the window to that is on the side of the house.”

Back to the street he went for more pebbles. He was crouching froglike, feeling for them with his hands, when he heard a sound that turned him rigid for an instant.

Footsteps were approaching on the sidewalk; some one was coming up the street. Why should any one in that sleepy, well-behaved little town be out at this hour? Was it possible they had already begun searching for him?

Then he heard voices. There were two persons approaching.

Rising to a crouching position, he ran to the fence across the way from Mrs. Chester’s and flung himself over. And, again started in flight, the terror that had driven him in the first place came back with additional force; and this was augmented by the sound of voices shouting after him—the voices of the two men on the street, who had seen his shadowy figure as he vaulted the fence.

“There he is!” “That’s him!” “There he goes!” “Stop! stop!”

Crying after him in this manner, they came on in pursuit. Venturing to look back, he saw them tumbling over the fence he had leaped, and once more he strained every nerve.

There was now no doubt in his mind; they were after him. Perhaps before the coming of the end Roy Hooker’s mind had cleared sufficiently for him to tell who struck the fatal blow. Perhaps Roy’s father, running from the house, had been hurrying to set the officers at work.

In advance, he perceived a dark, straggling line of bushes and low trees. Amid them he turned sharply to the left, hoping somehow to double on his tracks and baffle the pursuers. Through a thicket of shrubbery he plunged, with the tiny branches viciously whipping his face and tearing at his clothes, as if even they sought to grasp and hold him.

Suddenly he stopped short, his mouth wide open, that he might listen the better. The two men had reached the growth, and he could hear them floundering amid it.

“This way!” one of them cried. “He went this way!”

“Keep still!” urged the other. “We ought to be able to hear him. Keep still a minute.”

The crashing sounds ceased, and the listening boy knew the men were listening also. Through a great effort of self-command, he kept himself from resuming the flight, waiting until the noise of their own movements should prevent them from hearing what sounds he might make.

They soon grew impatient and began beating about in the underbrush in an aimless search.

As soon as this happened Shultz moved away, proceeding with a certain amount of caution. Keeping just within the border of the timber and thickets, he went forward as fast as he dared, putting out his hands to part the bushes and slipping through them as silently as possible. At times twigs snapped beneath his feet, but, as he had hoped, the men were themselves making sufficient noise to drown such minor sounds, and gradually he left them far behind.

In the blackness he ran full against a wire fence, and the barbs of the lower strands slashed his trousers and cut his legs. He tore himself free, felt for the smooth upper strand, bent it downward and straddled over.

Following the line of the fence, he turned full upon the course he had been pursuing when he plunged into the timber. Leaving that shelter behind him, bending low, he ran on until he returned to the highway some distance above the home of Mrs. Chester. In the middle of the road he paused uncertainly.

The moon was rising. Its light, although somewhat muffled by the clouds, was sufficient to enable him to perceive the outlines of objects at a considerable distance; it would also reveal him far better to pursuers, and make his escape more difficult were he again seen by them.

“Good-by, Ned,” he whispered. “You’re asleep, and you don’t know anything about it. Probably you’ll never realize just what I’ve had to go through this night.”

Fearing to follow the highway, he again struck across the fields, before him the deep stretch of timberland to the north of Turkey Hill. By making his way through those woods and passing round the hill, he could reach the Barville road some miles from Oakdale.

At the edge of the timber the night wind bore to his ears a sound that again halted him dead in his tracks. The bells of Oakdale were ringing—ringing wildly, furiously, as they might ring to arouse the villagers to battle with a conflagration. Peal upon peal vibrated through the night air, and their clanging strokes stabbed the miserable boy like dagger thrusts.

“I know what it means!” he half panted, half sobbed. “They’re turning the whole town out to hunt me down! I’m alone, alone, with everybody against me! What chance have I got? Well, they’ll have to catch me before I give up.”

The woods swallowed him; he was gone. The bells continued to fling forth their wild alarm. As if wondering at it, and curious to know what it was all about, the silvery moon peered through a break in the clouds, flooding the open space with its light.

But in the woods through which Charley Shultz staggered on it was dark. In his heart it was darker still.