“My chance for making that prize has gone anyway, Allen,” he said, with a sigh of keen disappointment. “I worked too hard the last week, and you can see I’ve just gone stale. Can’t get any speed out of my legs, no matter how I try. So I call quits right here, and stay with you to help get this poor chap to a doctor.” “Doctor, yes, that’s what I need, boys!” muttered Bill, weakly. “Here comes Keating along,” Mallory continued presently; “and he’s pretty well winded, too; so I reckon he’ll hold over, and give us a hand. That’s better than coming in at the tail-end of the procession, anyhow. People’ll say you might ’a’ had a _little_ chance, only that duty held you on the road. Hi! Keating, we want you here!” The runner was not averse to stopping, for his wind seemed about gone. Indeed, he was even then possibly debating whether he wanted to keep up the hopeless race, or head for Bellport on a walk, to strike the trolley line further down the road. “What’s all this mean?” he asked, in a gasp, as he came up. “A fellow has been badly hurt, and we’ve got to get him to town,” Mallory explained. “If one of you could keep hold of this stick, and not let up on the pressure a little bit, I’d try and find a farm somewhere near, where I could borrow a horse and wagon, to carry him back to town,” Frank remarked just then, knowing that it was their only chance. “Sure, we’ll stick by you, Allen!” was the ready response of Keating, who proved to be a pretty fine sort of a fellow. “Skip out, and get back as soon as you can. I’d like to pike on to the grounds, and see who won the race before all the crowd gets away. But we’ll wait, no matter how long you take, Allen.” “Oh! rats! what have we got to lose?” replied the other, laughingly. “We’re long since out of the swim, anyhow. But I say, Allen, where’d you learn how to put on a tourniquet so well? My dad’s the new doctor in Bellport, and I wager he’d say he couldn’t have done it better himself, in an emergency. If this fellow gets through alive, he’ll owe a heap to you, believe me.” But Frank did not wait to listen to any words of praise. He was on the run even as Keating spoke in this strain. For he had remembered that when hunting squirrels in these woods, he had come on a little farm that was almost lost among the tall timber; and secured a most refreshing drink of buttermilk from a pleasant woman who seemed to be running the place. It was to look for this that he now set out. And he was cudgeling his brains as hard as he could while hastening away, trying to figure out just how he could best reach this hidden farm. A mistake might lose him much time; and if the life of the wounded boy was to be saved, they must surely get him to the doctor as speedily as possible.