CHAPTER II

HELD BY THE ENEMY

Talking was out of the question just then. Every fellow was making his legs go about as rapidly as he knew how; with the bull charging down after them at full speed, his long tail flying in the air, while he at the same time emitted sundry half-muffled bellows that added wings to the flight of the cross country runners.

Speaking about the experience later on Bones Shadduck vowed that he broke all known records in covering the distance that separated himself and Frank from the friendly rail fence.

They sprang for the top of this as though they felt the hot breath of the angry bull. Then, feeling safe for the first time, and with their hearts beating like trip-hammers, the two boys turned to see what had become of their chum.

Lanky had been very much nearer the charging animal than either of his comrades, and he could not choose his course. With him the “longest way around” was not the “quickest way to the fire.”

Perhaps he had heard what Frank called out about the tree that happened to stand about thirty feet from the fence. At any rate, when he ran, he was heading directly for that point.

The bull charged at Lanky. It may have been simply because the tall runner happened to be the nearest moving object. Then again, Lanky had on a sleeveless running shirt upon which, back and front, was a big number seven in glowing red; for he had been known by that sign in the last match in which he took part. And, somehow or other, all bulls, and even some cows, seem to have a deep-seated hatred for that color.

Lanky ran as perhaps he never did before when on the home stretch, and with a rival pressing him hard at his elbow. He had a good reason for making record time. The prize was safety and a whole body. If he fell down those cruel-looking black horns of the bull, even though they had gilt balls at their ends, would be hooked under him to give him a toss in the air; after which the infuriated animal would gore and trample him.

[Illustration: LANKY RAN AS PERHAPS HE NEVER DID BEFORE.

_Boys of Columbia High in Track Athletics._ _Page 12._]

But Lanky knew he could not reach that fence in time to mount. The bull was able to cover ground even faster than the prize sprinter of the school. He might jump to one side at the critical moment--a practiced bull-fighter would doubtless have done this with ease; but then Lanky was a greenhorn when it came to such things. In fact, he could not remember ever having been chased by such an animal before.

The tree loomed before him. A few more desperate jumps and he would be able to dodge around it and escape the first mad rush of his enemy.

Frank was holding his breath. He could not remember suffering more mental agony than when sitting upon that fence watching his chum strive with every muscle in his bony frame to reach the tree ahead of the charging beast. And all because he and Bones were so utterly helpless to assist Lanky.

“Hurrah! he done it!” yelped Bones, with an utter disregard for grammar that might have shocked his teacher at school; but the boy was so excited that he hardly knew what he was saying.

Lanky, with a grand rally at the end, had actually managed to slide behind the big trunk of the tree. The bull went galloping past, unable to immediately bring his forward progress to a stop.

They saw Lanky roll over once or twice, and again Frank gave a gasp, fearing that the other might have received some injury in that fall calculated to prevent him from doing what he must to escape the next charge of the bull.

“There, he’s up again, and making for the tree!” snapped Bones, who could not repress his feelings for an instant.

“Climb up, if you can, Lanky!” shouted Frank; but enough time was not given for this performance, since again the bull was on the move.

Around and around the tree they went, the agile boy eluding each wild attempt on the part of his bovine enemy to get him. Again and again those horns would come against the trunk of the tree with a wicked crash; it seemed as if the animal was growing more and more furious as the seconds sped by without success attending his efforts.

All at once Bones gave a whoop.

“There he goes, Frank! Bully boy, Lanky; you fooled him that time, all right!”

The one who was in peril had made a quick upward leap, seized hold of a lower limb, which doubtless he had been looking at closely with a view to using it; and bringing into play some of his marvelous agility as a climber, he threw his lithe figure up until he could sit astride of the new perch.

But his enemy had by now become aware of what he was doing. The bull had been bellowing in an ugly way, and tossing the earth with his horns; and it was while this performance was going on that Lanky had taken advantage of the attention of the animal being turned away from him to make his upward leap.

Although the bull charged and even tried to reach his dangling legs, Lanky was able to draw them up in such a way that he felt safe.

Then Frank, for the first time, laughed. Since Lanky had managed to get beyond the reach of the black beast, and seemed uninjured after his close call, the humorous side of the adventure struck the other boys.

“Now will you be good, Lanky?” jeered Bones. “He’s got you nailed there in that tree good and fast. What word shall we take to your folks at home? Want to send ’em any message? Expect to get your meals by aeroplane or kite? He’s going to camp right there till you oblige him by coming down, believe me, Lanky.”

“Cut that chaff out, Bones, and be thinking up some scheme to coax the old sinner away!” called back the beleaguered one, who had climbed higher in the tree and could see his chums plainly as they sat upon the fence nearby.

“Huh! I suppose now you’d like me to step over there and call him away; wouldn’t you, Lanky?” demanded Bones. “But all the same I’m not goin’ to do it. There’s only one way you can get out of that tree.”

“Then tell me,” cried Lanky, eagerly.

“Grow some wings and fly!” answered Bones, with a loud laugh.

Frank saw that the situation, while not desperate, had its unpleasant features. He knew something about the persistency of bulls in general. He had heard of one that kept a farmer in a tree all night, and a good part of the next day, nibbling the grass whenever he got hungry, and always guarding the tree so that there was no chance whatever for escape. And the man might have died from weakness had not a neighbor happened to hear his shouts and shot the bull.

Lanky must be saved in some way or other, but just how to go about it was the question. At first Frank thought he might coax the bull by dropping over the fence at some distant part of the field. He tried it, but with no success whatever. The cunning bull declined to nibble at the bait. It was just as if he had decided that a boy in the tree was worth two in the field keeping close to the fence so that it could be scaled.

“It’s no go, Frank!” called out Bones, after the other had ventured as near to the animal as he deemed safe, without drawing his attention a particle. “You’ll have to try another dodge; or else Lanky’s going to stay in that tree till Christmas rolls around, or the Glorious Fourth.”

“For goodness sake, think up some way of getting him off, Frank!” called out the impatient prisoner of the lone tree.

“I’ve got a scheme!” cried Bones.

“Yes, you have!” Lanky answered in some derision; for he failed to have any great amount of faith in anything Bones Shadduck originated.

“Well, this one’s a corker, I tell you,” the boy on the fence went on, eagerly.

“All right, let’s hear it, and speak low so the bull won’t get on,” Lanky suggested, with mock respect.

“Besides it’ll give Frank and me a heap of fun watching you, Lanky.”

“Oh! it will, hey? Lots of fun, you say? I’ve no doubt you’re enjoying this game right well, Bones; but you’d laugh out of the other side of your mouth if it was you sitting up here, and me on the fence. But go on, tell us about it now.”

“Why, you want to watch your chance,” began Bones, soberly.

“Oh! do I? Chance for what?” demanded Lanky, derisively, for he seemed to feel that the other was only having sport with him.

“To catch the bull off his guard, when you might drop plump on his back. But if you do, Lanky,” Bones went on hurriedly, and with much apparent concern, “be sure you get a good hold, because he’s apt to jump and kick like a bucking bronco, and if he knocks you off it’s good-bye for yours. You’ll be a back number.”

Even Lanky was seen to grin at this wild proposition.

“Well, you are the punk thing, Bones, when it comes to helping a chum out of a hole,” he called out. “Frank, I know I can depend on you to hatch up some smart little trick to shake off this old buffalo that’s got me up a tree.”

“I’ve tried my best to coax him away, Lanky,” said Frank, starting to walk off; “but he won’t budge an inch, and it’s no use.”

“Hold on, Frank; sure now, you wouldn’t be for leaving me here in this fix, would you, and me that’s stood by you through thick and thin many a time? If I had to perch up here long my bones’d be too sore for me to enter any race for a month of Sundays. Where are you going, Frank?”

“To hunt up the farmhouse, and see if I can’t get Mr. Hobson to come to the rescue. I’ll be back before a great while,” was what Frank called out.

“Bless you for a true chum, Frank, I knew you wouldn’t leave me in the lurch; and here’s hoping that you find the farmer at home all right, or his man. Oh! laugh all you want to, Bones, but it isn’t so funny when you’re the frog that gets hit by the stones. Just you try it once and see.”

Time passed slowly to the beleaguered runner. He even complained of feeling a little cold, and talked to Bones about supper as though he began to fear that, after all, he would have to camp there in that tree the whole night.

“If you have to stay there, and it comes to the worst,” Bones had assured him; “mebbe now I might be able to throw a package of grub to you from the top of the fence here. I’m the boss thrower, you know, Lanky. Many a time I’ve got a runner at the home plate by lifting a fly I caught away out when I was playing left field for Ben Allison.”

“There comes Frank now,” the prisoner of the tree exclaimed, he having a greater range of vision than the boy who sat astride of the rail fence.

“Got the farmer trailing along, I hope?” ventured Bones.

“Well, if he has, I don’t see him yet,” replied the other dejectedly. “Reckon I’m just a-goin’ to sit here all night.”

“I can get a squint at Frank now, Lanky; and, say, what’s he got in his hand?”

“Looks like a clothesline to me, Bones,” replied the other, without much enthusiasm in his voice. “I thought Frank was smarter than that. If he thinks he’s going to lasso this big bull with that rope and hold him even one minute he’s sure got another guess coming to him.”

“Now, you leave all that to Frank,” advised the other. “You’ve been goin’ with him long enough to know that he’s smart about getting up schemes; yes, and carryin’ ’em out, too. Wait and see what he says, Lanky, before you decide about eatin’ your supper on a limb.”

Frank came hurrying along and just as Lanky had said, he was carrying what seemed to be a coiled clothesline, for the rope was certainly made of cotton and seemed rather thin at that.

“Where’s Farmer Hobson, Frank?” asked the boy on the limb.

“Gone with a load of stuff to Columbia, and won’t be home till late to-night,” came the reply, as Frank arrived opposite the spot where the determined bull kept watch and ward over his prize.

“And hasn’t he got a man?” wailed Lanky, as though he began to feel that everything was conspiring against him.

Frank went on calmly undoing the rope foot by foot, and testing it.

“Yes; but he’s sick on his back with lumbago, and couldn’t hobble out here; so I told him not to try, and that I’d find some way to get you out, all right.”

“I’m surprised at you, Frank,” ventured Lanky, wishing for information.

“In what way?” asked the other, coolly, once more starting to loop up the rope, as though getting ready to throw it.

“Why, even if you manage to get that rope over his horns it won’t hold a minute. Look at his broad chest and heavy shoulders, would you? Why, that bull could snap such a little rope five times over.”

“I reckon he could, Lanky,” Frank went on, laughing; “but you see, I don’t expect to use it on him as a lasso. Fact is, I mean it for you!”

“What’s that; goin’ to get it over my neck, and yank me out of this tree! I sure like that kind of talk. It shows a kind heart; but my neck is stretched as long as it can go; so you’ll have to think up some other dodge, Frank.”

“Listen,” said Frank, seriously. “If I throw this loop to you, or get Bones here to try it, do you think you could grab hold of it?”

“Try me!” said Lanky, laconically.

“Well, when you get the end, go as far as you can in your tree, and tie the doubled rope there. Afterwards I’m going to fasten the other end to this tree we’ve got on _our_ side of the fence. Understand now what I mean, Lanky? You’ve got to do the tight-rope act; and come out of there by the aerial route, with Mr. Bull prancing under your heels, but unable to reach you. How do you like the scheme?”