In another minute we were on the margin of the canal, and the next moment the splash of a double "header," and the shouts of the assembled onlookers, proclaimed that we had made a plunge for it.

The canal was only about thirty feet wide, and we were across it in a twinkling, our light flannel clothes scarcely interfering with our swimming, and certainly not adding much to the weight we carried after being soaked through.
Three hundred yards now! Ah! that cheer behind means that Forwood has followed our plunge.

What are they laughing at, though?
Can he have foundered?
No! Another shout! That means he is safe over, and hard at our heels.
For the last three hundred yards we run a regular steeplechase.

The meadows are intersected with lines of hurdles, and these we take one after another in our run, as hard as we can.

Only one more, and then we are safe! Suddenly I find myself on my face on the grass! I have caught on the last hurdle, and come to grief! Birch in an instant hauls me to my feet, just as Forwood rises to the leap.