“There they go along the edge of the Dead Timbers,” said Mr. Ashley, watching the runners through a glass. “I’ve counted them all but three. Three seem missing entirely.”
“That’s so,” agreed Paul Proctor, who likewise had a pair of strong field glasses. “They strung out now, but three of them have never issued from the cedars down in the hollow.”
“Can you see anything of Merriwell?” anxiously asked Hodge, who had just mounted the steps to the observatory.
He bore not a mark of his encounter with Hollingsworth, although his face was somewhat flushed and he seemed to be perspiring freely. He had field glasses of his own, and these he quickly trained on the distant moving specks which were creeping up along the edge of the far-away, dark timberland.
“I haven’t been looking for him particularly,” acknowledged Proctor. “I think one of our boys is missing, although I cannot tell which one. I wonder what happened in the cedars.”
Something had happened to Frank Merriwell before he plunged into the cedars. Leaping a bit of thick brush, he thrust his left foot into the hole of some sort of burrowing animal and went down, giving his ankle a fearful wrench. For a moment he fancied he had broken the bone.
“Hurt?” cried Tom Bramwell, as he passed.
“No,” answered Frank, rising quickly.
When he tried to step on that foot, however, he nearly went down, and an excruciating pain shot from his ankle to his hip. This cutting pain threatened to rob him of strength and put him out of the race at once.
But he found the ankle was not broken. It was a wrench or a sprain. He knew sprains were sometimes more obstinate than breaks in the recovery, yet he had no thought of letting that stop him.
So he ran on in the rear of several of the contestants, the whole pack being stretched out and more or less scattered. He could not run fast, and it was only by setting his teeth and forcing himself forward that he got on at all.
More than that, every moment his ankle seemed to get worse. He had thought the pain might cease after a little, but each time his foot met the ground it jabbed him afresh.
Not one fellow in a thousand would have continued in the running. But Frank Merriwell was one in ten thousand. He had the fortitude to endure pain stoically. Not a sound came from his lips. His jaws were set and his eyes filled with unconquerable fire. He forced himself to greater speed and plunged into the cedars whither Bramwell had disappeared.
Instead of keeping straight through the cedars Frank bore to the right. He fought his way into a tangled thicket, where branches whipped him stingingly in the face, and at last came staggeringly through. Close at hand was the border of the Dead Timbers, a wild and seemingly impassable tract of forest, swept and blackened by fire, overtaken some time by a tornado, with tall trunks twisted and tangled in chaotic confusion.
Merry looked for the shattered pine and found it where he looked. It was his guide post. There he plunged into what seemed the most impassable portion of the jungle. He fell on his hands and knees to creep some distance along a hidden path, but soon arose, with the fearful pain stinging him to weakness at each step.
He wondered if Bramwell was far in advance. Together, aided by the hint overheard by Bart Hodge and conveyed to Frank, they had searched for the secret passage and found it. By means of it they could cut off much of the distance, those who knew nothing about it being compelled to follow round the edge of the timbers.
Soon the path became more open. On either side the dead branches had been cut away. Huntley had prepared it so he could run with speed through this portion of the secret cut-off.
Finally Merry arrived at a part of the forest where the trees had been caught and twisted and scattered in such a tangle that passage seemed impossible. There he found a long tree trunk that extended upward slopingly over the tangled mass; and, balancing himself, he used it as a bridge, mounting along it until he was at least twenty feet above the ground, with a dark ju............