“I’m as right as ever, Frank; and now that the whole thing’s over I’m ready to laugh at it as hard as the next one. It sure was the queerest thing that ever happened to me. A dog had me treed once--a bulldog that guarded an apple tree belonging to our next-door neighbor. Our apples were good, you know, but his seemed to be just the right kind I was lookin’ for.” “What happened?” asked Bones. “Why, the neighbor came along and called the dog off,” Lanky replied, with one of his customary shrugs; “me to the woodshed as soon as my dad heard about it, and--well, what’s the use saying anything more? I never like to think of that same interview, give you my word, fellows.” They had by now started off again. Lanky seemed to show no signs of having suffered because of the strain he had just gone through. These thin, wiry boys are able to stand a tremendous lot of knocking about, without feeling any bad effects. Had it been Buster Billings, now, who was a prisoner in that tree, they could never have effected his release in the way Lanky was saved. His weight would have caused any line to sag, so that the poor fellow would have been an easy mark for the butting horns of the bull. After leaving the farm of Mr. Hobson behind the runners found that they would have to pass over some more dubious ground. Frank realized that unless some better course was found than this it would be the height of folly for a runner to think he could save time by leaving the firm road, and taking to the cross country. And being a good, square sportsman he determined to do all he could to warn the Clifford and Bellport fellows against any such attempt. Still, they had the same privilege of examining the ground that the Columbia High boys did, and if it struck one of them that he cared to take chances that was really his own affair. “There’s the road, fellows!” said Frank, after they had ploughed through a lot of soft ground, and were thoroughly disgusted with it all. “Oh! happy day!” sang Lanky. “When you hear of me trying to take a short-cut on that same Marathon race, just engage a room for me at the insane asylum; won’t you?” “But looky there, what under the sun have we got now, boys?” called out Bones, who happened just then to be a little in the lead of the runners. “Wagons, hey?” exclaimed Lanky; “and all the colors of the rainbow at that. Jupiter whiz! did you ever see such a gay crowd? Say, Frank, these must be the gypsies that hang around Budd’s Corners every other summer; don’t you think so?” “Just what they are,” came the reply; “but there’s twice as many this year as ever before.”