“Hey! what ails you, ‘Just’ Smith?” he called out, wasting some of his precious breath in the bargain.  “This isn’t the way to win a Marathon, don’t you know?  What if you have barked your shin?—­forget all about it, and get moving again!”

The Smith boy looked very sad, as he shook his face dolefully.

“Huh! wish I could, Hugh,” he hastened to mumble, still rubbing his shin, and making faces as though it hurt him considerably.  “I’ve tried to run, but shucks; what’s the use when you can hardly limp at the best?  I’m through, Hugh, sorry to say.  You keep on, and bag the prize; next to winning it myself I’d love to know you took it away from that Whipple chap.”

“But—­how did the accident happen, ‘Just’ Smith?” continued Hugh.

“Accident nothing!” snapped the other, between his set teeth.  “It was all a set-up game to knock one of us out of the race, I tell you.  If you’d been leading at the time, why, that shower of rocks must have met you.”

“Rocks, did you say?” exclaimed Hugh, looking dark.

Just then the sound of footsteps was heard.  A runner went past them on the full tear.  It was Nick Lang, and when he turned his face toward the two on their knees the wicked look on his grinning face told more eloquently than words how his brain had been the one to hatch up this miserable trick whereby he hoped to gain an advantage over one of his schoolmates who might happen to be leading him in the race.  He vanished down the road, still running strong.  “Just” Smith almost howled, he was so furious.

“That’s the chap who engineered this rotten game, I tell you, Hugh!” he snapped.  “And chances are ten to one it was Leon Disney and that Tip Slavin who threw all those stones, and then ran away laughing, so I couldn’t glimpse ’em.  Say, I was struck in half a dozen places.  I’ve got a lump on my head nearly as big as a hen’s egg; and my elbow hurts like everything.  I was so flustered that I must have got twisted in a vine, or else struck a root, for I fell, and barked my shin something fierce.  I wanted to chase after the cowards, but knew it was silly to think of such a thing.  Then I tried to keep on, but it wasn’t any use, and I gave it up as a bad job.  But Hugh, I hope you don’t mean to let that skunk profit by his trickery.  Please start off, and beat him out, if it takes a leg.”

“But I hate to leave you here, ‘Just’ Smith, much as I’d like to chase after Nick, because now he deserves to be beaten.”

“Oh! don’t bother about me, Hugh.  I’ll try and get to the main road, even if I have to crawl.  Later on you can come back for me in some sort of rig.  Whew! but I’m as mad as a hatter because I’ve lost my fine chance, when I was going so strong, with plenty of reserve force held back.”

Hugh realized that duty called upon him to do as his chum demanded.  It would be a shame if Nick Lang actually profited through such a rank act of treachery toward his fellows of Scranton High.  An individual should be ready to sacrifice his school or its interests to his own personal ambition, and certainly never should it be allowed that he gain his ends through such a dastardly trick as the waylaying of another on the road, and his being assaulted, as “Just” Smith had been.