As he saw the horses dashing toward him he leaped into the middle
of the street and stood there, eyes alert and limbs ready, directly in
their pathway. They swerved aside as they approached him, but with a
quick upward spring he grabbed the bit of the one nearest him, and
hung there with all his weight. This frightened and maddened the
horse, and he plunged and reared and flung his head from side to side,
until he succeeded in throwing the boy off. The delay however, slight
as it was, had given the driver time to come up, and he speedily
regained control of his team while a crowd quickly gathered.
Tode had been flung off sidewise, his head striking the curbstone, and
there he lay motionless, while faithful Tag crouched beside him, now
and then licking the boy's fingers, and whining pitifully as he looked
from face to face, as if he would have said,
"_Won't_ some of you help him? I can't."
The crowd pressed about the unconscious boy with a sort of morbid
curiosity, one proposing one thing and one another until a policeman
came along and promptly sent a summons for an ambulance; but before it
appeared, a tall grey-haired man came up the street and stopped to see
what was the matter. He was so tall that he could look over the heads
of most of the men, and as he saw the white face of the boy lying
there in the street, he hastily pushed aside the onlookers as if they
had been men of straw, and stooping, lifted the boy in his strong
arms.
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