is
speed, Bristles."

"All right; I'm on, Fred!" And with that Bristles started to make as
great and hostile a demonstration with arms and voice as he was capable
of exhibiting.

His chum was doing likewise; so that between them they seemed to
entirely block the road. The runaway horse was, as Fred had said, not
worked up to the frantic stage where nothing would stay his progress.
Indeed, seeing that these determined figures in running costume acted as
though they meant to keep him from passing, the beast gradually
slackened his pace.

The butcher's cart came to a standstill not twenty feet away from the
boys; and the animal even started to back up into a fence corner, when
the driver arrived on the scene, and took hold of the trailing lines.
After that he soon gained the mastery over the horse.

"Got the slip on you that time, did he, Gabe?" remarked Fred,
pleasantly; for he had been given to understand by Miss Muster, who was
keeping track of the boy, that Gabe Larkins was doing what he could to
make good; and Fred believed in extending a helping hand to every fellow
who wanted to better his ways.

"Oh! he's a slick one, I tell you, fellers!" declared the panting and
angered boy, as he reined in the animal that had given him such a scare
and a race. "Nine times out of ten I tie him when I go to deliver meat.
He knows when I forget, and this is the fourth time he's run away on me.
Smashed a wheel once, and nigh 'bout scraped all the paint off'n one
side of the pesky cart another time. Old Bangs says as how he means to
fire me if it ever happens again."

"Well, we're right glad, then, Gabe, that we've been able to keep you
from losing your job," Fred went on to say. "But that horse has a trick
of going off if he isn't tied. I've heard about him before, and the
trouble he gave the boy who was ahead of you. If I was driving him I'd
never leave him unfastened."

"And I ain't a-goin' to no more, you just make sure of that!" Gabe
declared, as no doubt he had done after every previous accident, only to
grow careless again. "But it was nice in you fellers to shoo him that
way. I sure thought he'd run right over you, but he didn't. Must 'a
knowed from the way you talked to him you didn't mean to hurt him any."

"Well, we must be going on, Gabe, as we're in the cross-country run,"
said Bristles, who had been trying to study the face of the butcher's
boy.

"Say, I'd like to be along with you, sure I would," remarked G