to consider.  He plunged ahead down a little hill, and then along on a foot-path by the side of the wagon-track.  The day had grown to be very warm, and Ralph removed his jacket and carried it on his arm or across his shoulder.  He became thirsty after a while, but he dared not stop at the houses along the way to ask for water; it would take too much time.  He met many wagons coming toward him, but there seemed to be few going in to the city.  He had hoped to get a ride.  He had overtaken a farmer with a wagon-load of produce going to the town and had passed him.  Two or three fast teams whirled by, leaving a cloud of dust to envelop him.  Then a man, riding in a buggy, drove slowly down the road.  Ralph shouted at him as he passed:—­

“Please, sir, may I have a ride?  I’m in a desp’ate hurry!”

But the man looked back at him contemptuously.  “I don’t run a stage for the benefit of tramps,” he said, and drove on.

Ralph was discouraged and did not dare to ask any one else for a ride, though there seemed to be several opportunities to get one.

But he came to a place, at last, where a little creek crossed the road, a cool spring run, and he knelt down by it and quenched his thirst, and considered that if he had been in a wagon he would have missed the drink.  The road was somewhat disappointing to him, too.  It seemed to turn away, after a little distance, from the direct line to the city, and to bear to the west, toward the river.  He feared that he had made a mistake in leaving the railroad, but he only walked the faster.  Now and then he would break into a run and keep running until his breath gave out, then he would drop back into a walk.

His feet began to hurt him.  One shoe rubbed his heel until the pain became so intense that he could not bear it, and he sat down by the roadside and removed his shoes and stockings, and then ran on in his bare feet.  The sunlight grew hotter; no air was stirring; the dust hung above the road in clouds.  Deep thirst came back upon the boy; his limbs grew weak and tired; his bared feet were bruised upon the stones.

But he scarcely thought of these things; his only anxiety was that the moments were passing, that the road was long, that unless he reached his journey’s end in time injustice would be done and wrong prevail.

So he pressed on; abating not one jot of his swiftness, falling not one hair’s breadth from his height of resolution, on and on, foot-sore, thirsty, in deep distress; but with a heart unyielding as the flint, with a purpose strong as steel, with a heroism more magnificent than that which meets the points of glittering bayonets or the mouths of belching cannon.

CHAPTER XVI.

A BLOCK IN THE WHEEL.

At half-past one o’clock people began to loiter into the court-house at Wilkesbarre; at two the court-room was full.  They were there, the most of them, to hear the close of the now celebrated Burnham case.