of treacherous little hillocks, the usual slant of the wind, the value of
sending their balls toward a certain fence where home-runs count heavily,
and all that sort of thing.

Five miles farther on, and the boys had come to a place where Fred, on
consulting his map, observed:

"The road runs away around, and by cutting across the woods here as much
as two miles can be saved. I understand that the contestants will have
that privilege offered to them if they choose to take it.

"Why, of course everybody will grab the chance," remarked Bristles.

"I'm not so sure about that," he was told by his companion, "and for this
reason: while the shortcut saves considerable distance, it's bound to be
harder going, and some runners might even get lost in the undergrowth, so
they'd be cut out of the race."

"Gee! I never thought of that, Fred; but you're right."

"Then if they have a hard time breaking through," continued Fred, "and
finding the other road above the registering station, they may be winded,
so that the other fellow who's gone all the way around would be in much
better shape for a gruelling finish."

"It all depends, then, on knowing your ground?" pursued Bristles.

"And that's what we want to make sure of as we go through the woods here
right now," continued Fred. "Both of us must take our bearings from
certain trees as we push along. If we strike a trail that leads to the
right quarter, we'll manage to blaze it in some fashion that other
fellows would never notice, though we can put our own crowd wise to the
signs.

"Here's where the head work comes in, eh, Fred?"

"Only a small sample of it," laughed the other, "and there'll be plenty
more to follow before we win this Marathon. If any of the opposition
crosses the tape ahead of Riverport, it'll be because they're better
runners and managers than we are, that's all there is to it. But come
on, let's break away from the road."

Upon that the two boys entered the woods, carefully marking the spot in
their memories by noticing a certain bunch of white-barked birches that
drooped over in a peculiar way, different from anything they had thus far
seen.

Fred had his little compass with him. He had laid out his course
exactly, so as to strike the other road at a certain spot, which it was
believed would be just above the toll-gate, where he knew one of the
registering stations was bound to be placed.

Of course they could not expect to go in a straight