On the campus were a score or more of cadets, who stared in amazement at the sight of the runaway horse with the boy clinging desperately to his back.

“It’s Andy Snow!” cried Henry Lee, the captain of Company A.

“So it is,” responded Bob Grenwood, the quartermaster of the school battalion.  “How in the world did he get on that horse?”

“It’s the one that was hitched to the carryall,” put in Billy Sabine, another cadet.  “Something is wrong.”

“Let’s tell Captain Putnam,” said another.

“Whoa! whoa!” yelled Andy, frantically, when he realized that the horse was not going to pass into the grounds.  “Whoa, I say!  You’ve gone far enough!”

The only effect his words had was to make Jim travel a little faster.  Away they went, past the gymnasium and the stables and then along the country road leading to the farms back of the lake.

“Well, if you won’t stop, go on,” said Andy, presently.  “You’ll get tired sooner or later, old man.  But, remember, you’ve got to bring me back, no matter how tired you are.”

A good half-mile was covered, and then horse and rider reached a sharp turn in the highway.  Here the trees were thick and some of the branches hung low.

[Illustration:  The young major still lay with his eyes closed

    The Mystery of Putnam Hall. (Page 19)]

Andy bent down that he might avoid the branches.  But he did not get quite low enough.  He looked ahead, saw a man standing on one side of the roadway staring in astonishment at him, and the next instant he found himself caught by the throat in a tree-limb and carried off the horse.  Then Jim bounded on riderless, and poor Andy, kicking and thrashing wildly, sprang free of the tree-limb and landed on his shoulder in the roadway.

The man who had seen him coming leaped to one side, and just in the nick of time, for the runaway horse passed within a foot of him.  The man gasped in astonishment, and for several seconds did not know apparently what to do.

“Looks like he was killed,” the man muttered to himself, as he took a few steps forward.  Andy had rolled over on his back and lay stretched out, with his eyes closed, very much as poor Jack had been stretched out only a short while before.

The man looked up and down the roadway and saw that nobody else was in sight, that part of the highway being but little traveled.  Then he came closer to the unconscious boy and bent over him.

“Only stunned, I reckon!” he muttered to himself.  “Wonder if he belongs around here?”

As the man bent over Andy he saw the lad’s watch dangling from its chain, fastened to a buttonhole of the youth’s vest.  Then his ferret-like eyes caught sight of a fine ruby pin in Andy’s necktie.

“He could easily lose that watch on the road, riding like that, and the pin, too,” he muttered to himself.  “It’s a fine chance to make a little haul!”