But the limping increased and the speed became slower. A half-dozen times the horse stumbled and almost fell. Then it stopped, doggedly refusing to make another effort. It was dead lame.
Frank realized now why this horse had been left and the other taken. Probably Inza’s abductor had not meant to take the other horse as he drove out, but his own horse falling lame, he had seized the one driven by Bink and Danny. Fortunately for his plans, Inza was seated in that sleigh, making the work easier for him.
Seeing that it was useless to depend further on this animal, Frank sprang out of the sleigh.
He would have continued the chase on foot, but glancing back, he saw Starbright coming on the horse cut loose from the buggy. Behind Starbright, at varying distances, streamed the students and the spectators.
“Let me have your horse!” Merriwell commanded, as Starbright came up, for Dick seemed about to ride by.
Starbright reined in with a jerk and slipped to the ground.
“You’re lighter than I am,” he said, “and can get more speed out of the beast. Take him and welcome. You must get Inza out of the clutches of that rascal. He must be crazy!”
Frank vaulted to the back of the big black and was away. The horse was fleeter than the other at his best, and Frank’s hopes began to rise. Yet so much time had been already lost that it began to look impossible for him to overtake the sleigh before it reached the tangle of city streets, if it could be done at all.
“Crazy as a loon!” was Frank’s thought as he tore along, a terrible dread at his heart. “It’s singular that he drives straight toward the city!”
The lights were beginning to glow in the streets when Frank, still a considerable distance behind, saw the sleigh turn down a side avenue and disappear behind some buildings.
He had ridden his horse at such high speed that he had greatly decreased the distance separating him from the sleigh. Riding hard for the avenue down which the sleigh and its occupant had vanished, Frank saw them again at the crossing of another street.
Then the houses shut them from sight, and when he again beheld the sleigh it was returning to the principal street. When he reached that street, however, it had again vanished.