field
in an effort to get to the horses' heads. If he had been able to do
this, the other boys, coming up, could have helped to hold them. But the
distance was too great, and when he reached the road the team was twenty
feet ahead and going too fast to be overtaken by any one on foot.

Behind the others pounded Teddy, the cause of it all. How he hated
himself for yielding to that impish impulse that had so often gotten him
into trouble! Now, all he could think of was that somebody would be
killed, and it would be his fault and his alone. His heart was full of
terror and remorse.

"I've killed them!" he kept repeating over and over. "Why did I do it?
Oh, why did I do it?"

There was not a spark of real malice in Teddy's composition. He was a
wholesome, good-natured, fun-loving boy, and a general favorite with
those who knew him. His chief fault was the impulsiveness that made him
do things on the spur of the moment that he often regretted later on.
Anything in the form of a practical joke appealed to him immensely, and
he was never happier than when he was planning something that would
produce a laugh. When Teddy's brown eyes began to twinkle, it was time
to look for something to happen.

He was a born mimic, and his imitation of the peculiar traits of his
teachers, while it sent his comrades into convulsions of laughter, often
got him into trouble at school. Notes to his parents were of frequent
occurrence, and he was no sooner out of one scrape than he was into
another. When anything happened whose author was unknown, they looked
for Teddy "on general principles."

Sometimes this proved unjust, and he had the name without having had the
game. More often, however, the search found him only too certainly to be
the moving cause of the prank in question. His fourteen years of life
had been full of stir and action, both for him and all connected with
him, and nobody could complain of dullness when Teddy was around. Still,
he was so frank and sunny-natured that everybody was fond of him, even
those who had the most occasion to frown. He was a rogue, but a very
likable one.

Fred Rushton, his brother, a year older than Teddy, was of a different
type. While quite as fond of fun and full of spirits, he acted more on
reason and good judgment than on impulse. As in the instance of the
batted ball, where Teddy had seen only the fun of making the horses
jump, Fred had thought of the runaway that might follow.

Teddy was th