y to be one or more places where he
could cut across lots and never show up at some advanced station at all.
In that way he'd be saved a mile or two of the gruelling run, and that
might be enough to give him a big lead on the home stretch."

"Then I only hope they have every kind of safeguard against cheating,
that can be used," declared Bristles, indignantly, "because for one I'd
die before I'd try to win a thing by trickery."

"I reckon everyone knows that, Bristles," Fred told him, "because there
never was a boy with a straighter record than you. You've got faults, as
who hasn't, but being sly and tricky, like Buck Lemington, isn't one of
them."

"I hear the scheme has created no end of excitement over at
Mechanicsburg," Bristles hastened to say, turning a little red though
with pleasure, at those words of confidence which Fred gave him.

"And at Paulding I'm told the whole town is on edge, with boys in running
togs spinning along every country lane, in pairs or singly," Fred
observed.

"Well," the boy with the mop of bristly hair went on to say, "once again
will good old Riverport have to hustle for all that's going, to hold her
own at the head of the procession."

"We mustn't expect too much," said Fred, modestly. "Up to now we've been
pretty lucky to pull down the plums, but there may come a change any day,
and we've got to show that we can stand defeat just as well as victory."

"They've got some good long distance runners over there in the mill
town," Bristles remarked, seriously.

"Equal to anything we can show, I should say, and it's going to take a
head, as well as flying feet, to beat them at the game, Bristles."

"Of course," added Fred's companion, "none of us have ever gone as much
as twenty-five miles in a single run, so we don't know what we can do,
but, for that matter, I don't believe a Mechanicsburg or Paulding fellow
has, either."

"But we mean to cover the course in a trial run before the great day
comes, you know," Fred told him. "I'm laying great store on one fellow
we've got."

"Of course you mean long-legged Colon, Fred?"

"Yes," replied Fred, "our fastest sprinter, a fellow who can hump himself
like a grayhound or a kangaroo in action, and cover more ground at the
finish than anybody I ever saw."

"But the most Colon's ever gone is ten miles," remarked Bristles, "and we
don't know what his staying qualities are. He may give out before
fifteen miles have been covered. If an