could not make the least impression on the rocky wall. If he
did manage to get several feet up, it was only to lose his slight grip,
and fall back again.

While he was once more recovering his wind, Fred began to take stock of
the situation, to see where he stood.

"If I only had a good knife now," he told himself, "perhaps I might
manage to dig toe-holds in the old wall; but since a fellow doesn't
carry such a thing in his running togs, here I am left high and dry. And
I declare, it feels rather chilly already down here, with next to
nothing on. I wonder if I can stand a night of it. Not much chance of me
taking part in that road race tomorrow. Well, this has got past the joke
stage, for a fact!"

It certainly had. He no longer laughed when he fell back after losing
his grip on some slight projection in the wall. It was getting more
serious all the time; and the longer Fred considered the matter, the
worse his plight became.

He had taken a course that was really next to unknown to any of his
chums. They would not be able to guess where to look for him, even if he
did happen to be missed.

"And just to think," he went on bitterly, as he exercised his arms to
keep his chilling blood in circulation, "Brad even had to tell me not to
show up again on the field after I'd made my five miles. So not a fellow
will miss me. At home perhaps they'll just believe I've stopped with
Sid, as I often do. They may even go to bed with the idea that I'll be
along later. Wow! that would mean all night for me in this miserable
hole."

How about morning, when Riverport would awaken to the fact that for the
second time one of their promising young school athletes had
mysteriously disappeared?

"Say, won't there be some high jinks though?" Fred exclaimed, for,
somehow, it did not seem quite so lonely when he could hear the sound of
his own voice. "I can just shut my eyes, and see the whole place boiling
like a kettle, with the fellows running back and forth, and everybody
just wild. I wonder now, will they give Buck the credit of this
business, too? It seems to be pretty well known that he is suspected of
being at the head of the crowd that carried Colon off. Well, for once
then, Buck will be unjustly accused. But I guess they'll make life
miserable for him."

The thought of the bully being treated to a ride on a fence rail with
his legs tied underneath, amid a jeering mob of Riverport schoolboys,
amused Fred for just about a minu