Here Osgood espied another team coming up the main road, and as both traps were about an equal distance from the fork, he considered it a glorious chance for a race; so, giving his horses their heads, he urged them into a run. The driver of the other four, as ready for sport as Osgood, did the same, and the two traps came furiously on to where the roads met. The men cheered while the women held on to their seats, trembling with fright; and as the two traps came together at the fork, the other coachman tried to crowd in front of Osgood by taking some of the latter's road. There was no time to pull up, and seeing that his only safety from a wicked upset was to beat his rival, Osgood called on his horses for an extra spurt. The leaders were neck and neck, and the stranger had crowded him so far toward the edge of the road that he felt his hind wheel slipping down the embankment. The women shut their eyes and screamed while the men prepared to jump, but Osgood, acting with presence of mind, hit his rival's off-wheeler across the head with his whip, and "toweled" his own wheelers a good stinging cut across the shoulders. The wheel horse of the other trap, frightened at this sudden attack, jumped toward the pole, and, with his weight, swayed the vehicle toward the near side of the road, while Osgood's own wheelers sprang forward under the lashing and drew the trap onto the road before it had time to upset. Osgood darted ahead of his rival, and the party breathed freer as all visions of broken limbs and mangled bodies vanished from their frightened minds.
"Well done, old man," called Howard-Jones, who was himself a coaching man. "I like sport, but such a lubberly bit of work as that ought not to go unpunished."
"A man who will do a trick like that ought not to be trusted with a donkey," replied Osgood, as he pulled his team together after the excitement of the spurt.
"That's the trouble, nowadays," continued Howard-Jones. "After a lesson or two in the park, at team work, chaps set up as experienced coachmen."
"Who is the duffer, anyway?" called Duncan from behind.
"Jack Ashton. You know him, don't you?" replied Howard-Jones. "He has the place just beyond Harry's."
"I ought to," said Duncan. "He was in my class at college. I didn't recognize him, though."