THE SKI BATTLE
To begin with, Reed Markham of the Georgia Markhams, had never seen it snow until his Pappy sent him north to a finishing school. He came of what has been described as “warm Southern blood” which perhaps partially explained his feeling that northern schoolmates at Seldon Prep were “cold” to him.
“No wonder you people have to have steam radiators in your homes!” he had been reported as saying once, when provoked at Yankee coolness.
But if Reed, fresh from a land rich in the lore of good old-fashioned hospitality, had felt his sensitive nature react to the more reserved attitudes of those new to him, he had only to remain long enough for cold weather to set in to know that the climate was even icier than the people.
“Brrr!” he murmured, teeth chattering, on the first stinging day of fall. “Why did Pop ever send me to this part of the country? This is terrible! I suppose I’ll have to go out and get some heavy underwear and a ... what’s that word?... yes—a winter overcoat!”
Soft spoken, soft acting, with soft brown eyes and softer black hair, Reed Markham had slid softly into Seldon at the start of the school term. A naturally diffident youth, possessing none too much inclination to make advances, Reed had resented the failure of fellow schoolmates to approach him. On the few occasions that they had, his white teeth had shown, the soft eyes had warmed with a grateful smile and he had done his best to make friends. But a certain self-conscious something—a feeling that he was among fellows who thought differently and acted differently than himself—had always erected a barrier. Sadly, more often bewilderedly, Reed had realized, even as he was speaking to a northern schoolmate, that the youth was not opening up to him. He wondered not a little about this Mason and Dixon line business. Why should fellows be humanly different just because they lived in different parts of the country? Weren’t they all Americans? Reed controlled a hot-tempered tongue with difficulty. His softness was a matter of breeding; his temper a matter of inheritance. A fellow must be the gentleman at all times—according to the best traditions of the Markham family. What Reed unfortunately could not know was that his Southern drawl and his obvious culture had been mistaken by his new acquaintances for a sense of superiority.
“Thinks he’s too good for us!” Sam Hartley, star athlete of the school had declared, after sizing Reed up. “If this is a sample of Georgia crackers...!”
But Reed had merely felt, in his retiring way, that he—a stranger—should be welcomed by the residents of the north and made to feel at home. Down South, these same fellows would be greeted with unmistakable signs of hospitality, having only to reflect this warmth in return to be accepted in the community. For him, however, to make the first advances in this northern atmosphere, would be a breach of ... well ... call it ‘etiquette’...!
The first snowfall Reed had ever witnessed commenced one frigid morning while he was in school. Great, crystal-shaped wet flakes began drifting down, much to his amazement and interest as he gazed from his desk out the window. Yes, he had heard of snow. He had even learned the dictionary definition for it—‘ice in the form of white or transparent crystals or flakes congealed in the air from particles of water, and falling or fallen to the earth.’ And here it was—in the process of falling! A quite strange and beautiful sight, Reed thought, recalling pictures he had seen in news reels of snow-covered country, snow battles and snow slides. There was something cotton-like in the flakes which nestled on the window sill and fluffily covered it. Reed felt a twinge in his throat that he knew to be homesickness.
At recess that day, the two hundred other fellows in Seldon Prep made a mad dash for the out-of-doors, plunging into the thickly falling snow and scooping up handfuls of it to pack into snowballs. Reed, standing timidly in the shelter of the doorway, watched a merry battle being waged, numerous snowballs landing with eye-smacking accuracy. He saw Sam Hartley, who seemed to be the ringleader, single-handedly stand off a concerted attempt to roll him in the snow, tripping up his adversaries, stopping them with whizzing snowballs and dodging back and forth across the campus, laughing the while.
“It looks like real sport,” Reed admitted to himself.
He was not, however, invited to take part. In fact the fellows appeared oblivious that he was even looking on, having relegated him to the sidelines in their activities weeks before. To voluntarily enter into the fun, Reed could never do. Reaching down he caught up a bit of the snow and crushed it beneath his fingers, watching it melt against the warmth of his hand.
“Funny stuff!” he said.
At that moment the boisterously engaged Sam detected him and became suddenly inspired.
“Hey, fellows!” he shouted. “Look at Reed! He’s not used to snow. Let’s initiate him!”
And, before the lad from the South could retreat, the Northern army was upon him. Protesting, Reed was dragged out to the center of the campus where grinning youths grabbed up the wet snow and applied it none too gently to his face.
“That’s the way—give him the old face wash!” laughed Sam. “How’s that snow feel, Reed? Must be pretty dull down South in the winter time, eh?”
Reed’s brown eyes flashed as he renewed his struggles to get free, snow in his hair and nostrils.
“And now some down his neck!” someone cried.
Reed felt his collar roughly pulled from the neck and a chilling, spine-tingling sensation as a cold, wet lump went sliding down.
“You guys let me go!” he gasped. “I can’t stand this!... Oh!”
“You’ll get accustomed to it!” Sam reassured. “This snow is just a starter. It usually gets three and four feet deep here.”
Reed groaned inwardly. Snow might have been nice to look at but it was far from attractive or pleasant rubbed on his face and shoved down his back. If the fellows thought this was sport ... and intended to hand out such treatment through the winter ... well, he’d pack up his duds and beat it for home. He just didn’t fit in this atmosphere anyway. His father should have known better than to send him to such a place.
“If Pop knew what I have to put up with!” Reed moaned to himself. “I’ll have to write him about it. When he understands...!”
The letter of complaint to the elder Markham was dispatched special delivery that same night, after Reed had made a complete change of clothes and taken a hot bath for fear of possible consequences. To his relief, he contracted no cold, which indicated that he was hardier than he had supposed, having apparently stood the exposure to snow as well as his northern schoolmates.
“That’s something, anyhow,” he said, with a measure of satisfaction.
His father’s reply, also by special delivery, proved disconcertingly unsatisfactory. Rather than sympathizing with his son’s growing predicament and distaste for the north, the senior Markham wrote in part:
“I’m frankly ashamed of you, Reed. I spent three of the happiest years of my late boyhood in the north. Did you ever stop to think that it might not be the other fellows—but you?... Analyze yourself, my boy, and see if you can discover what’s wrong.
“What’s a ducking or two in the snow? Haven’t I seen you dive unflinchingly into iced swimming pools? Give me a few dabs of snow every time.
“I’m afraid the fellows are apt to put you down as a poor sport. I must tell you, that is the main reason I insisted on your going north to school ... you were becoming too self-centered. Your boy friends here knew you too well. They were humoring your weaknesses. Don’t write me, son, unless it’s about your triumphs. After all, you know, you’re a Markham ... and, while a Markham may have his faults, he doesn’t quit....”
Reed read and re-read what he considered to be an amazing letter. His apparently easygoing, soft-spoken father had suddenly spit fire. No mincing of words here—straight from the shoulder stuff. Even the South, it seemed, could be cold and unfeeling on occasion. Reed bit his lips and slipped the letter in a drawer of his desk.
“I won’t write Pop at all,” he said, with a flare of hurt Southern pride. “But I’ll stick this out, somehow ... or die trying!”
Sam Hartley, of all the fellows Reed had so much as a speaking acquaintance with, became the most detested. As the winter tightened its grip and ice and snow sports were more and more indulged in, the taunting Sam seemed to personify the aggravation of the entire school in its relation to the student from the South.
“If he doesn’t leave me alone pretty soon, something’s going to happen!” Reed decided one day after submitting to considerable torment. Among other things he had been caught and forced to dive head first into a five foot drift, being first compelled to climb to the top of a fence post as the diving point. Such stunts as this but increased Reed’s hatred for snow and further outraged his estimate of northern fellows.
“They’re nothing but a bunch of roughnecks!” Reed denounced in private, “who take most of their delight in making me miserable! How I’d like to get even with the crowd of them!”
If wishes had been the father of thoughts, Reed would have been given the power to douse each of the two hundred fellows in the ice-caked water fountain which graced the campus. He would have shouted in fiendish delight at their discomfiture, quite willingly forgetting the supposed propensities of the gentleman. Even a gentleman, Reed had about made up his mind, could give vent, under due provocation, to an expression of righteous indignation. To make the instance more concrete, his patience was being tried to the point of exasperation.
“I wonder what I might be able to do to turn the tables?” Reed commenced to ask himself.
There is an old saying that “he who asks a question must find the answer” or, with equal aptness: “the answer must find him who asks the question.” In this case the answer found Reed in the form of Seldon’s Annual Winter Carnival.
“As you boys all know,” announced the dean in chapel one morning, “this Carnival attracts the populace of the town and surrounding countryside. It has become an occasion to be anticipated. Particularly the spectacular ski jumping event down the now famous slide of Seldon Hill. This season, Sam Hartley, our ski jumping champion has assured me that he will be out to break his former record jump of one hundred and nine feet....”
The rest of Dean Hogart’s announcement suddenly meant nothing to one Reed Markham who had been listening, up to this time, with lukewarm interest. Sam Hartley!... Sam Hartley!... Sam Hartley!... There didn’t appear to be an activity worthwhile in which he did not prominently figure. Reed was sick of hearing the name mentioned. It was about time that Mr. Hartley was taken down a few pegs. He had the other fellows under his thumb. A suggestion from him and they’d all but tear the school down ... or turn upon the only student from the South to perpetrate further hazings. How they loved to pick on him! And how this Sam Hartley person enjoyed his leadership!
“I’ve dived from a sixty foot perch and I’ve sailed gliders,” Reed considered, quietly. “I wonder if that’s anything like the sensation of shooting through the air on skis?”
With the Carnival but one month away, the majority of the two hundred students went into training for the various sporting events to be run off. The slide, thanks to abundant snow, was in excellent condition and, the first night of practice, Reed waited in the clearing below the incline to watch a group of schoolmates, led by the one and only Sam Hartley, take the jumps.
“Wow!” cried a townsman as Hartley was seen to be whizzing down the slide, first to take-off from long-established precedent. “What form that baby has! Look at his forward crouch ... watch him straighten after he leaves the incline ... there he goes—soaring like a bird! Isn’t that beautiful? Oh! Oh! He spoiled his landing ... took a header....”
“Yes, I see he did!” commented Reed, with a surge of satisfaction.
But Reed’s blood had tingled at the sight of this magnificently built youth skimming down the slide. Whatever he might think of Hartley personally, he was forced now to concede that the fellow had a natural athletic grace which approached perfection. This was the second sport Reed had seen him in, the first sport having been football.
“This looks like his star event,” he estimated. “And it looks like something I could do if I just had a chance to get in some practice without the fellows being wise...!”
Skiing, as the boy from the land of no snow was to discover, was not the easy sport he had imagined. Old Steve Turner, recreational director of Seldon Prep, had smiled as he had listened to Reed’s “confidential” proposal.
“But why do you want to learn how to ski when the other fellows aren’t around?”
The Southerner’s face flushed. “Because I’ve been laughed at enough,” he retorted, and felt sorry that he had even brought himself to speak to the Coach. Northerners were all alike—old or young.
“Perhaps,” suggested Old Steve, observing the youth closely, “if you learned how to laugh at yourself before you tried to learn how to ski, you’d get along better.”
“I guess,” was Reed’s rejoinder, “you folks up here have a different sense of humor than I have.”
But the upshot of Reed’s request that he be taught how to ski in private, was the granting of a concession by Coach Turner wherein Reed was to be excused from his last two study hours for skiing practice on the promise that he would make them up out of school.
“Winter sports are all new to me,” Reed explained, his heart warming to the Coach’s unexpected kindness. “The other fellows are taking advantage of it. But I’ve stood just about as much as I’m going to!”
“That’s the spirit!” Coach Turner encouraged.
Reed Markham had always been a conundrum to Seldon’s recreational director, he was secretly glad to see the boy venturing from his shell.
“You get some skis,” the Coach proposed, “and I’ll meet you for an hour every day on the old ball field.” Then the Coach’s face widened in a grin. “But, remember, son—you’re setting out to learn a strictly northern sport. You can’t take this skiing knowledge back to Georgia with you and do anything with it!”
“I know that!” flashed Reed, in a revelation of pent-up feeling. “But you Northerners think you’re so darn good in everything ... I’d like to show you what I can do at your own sport!”
“Go to it!” Coach Turner invited, good-naturedly. “I’ll help all I can!”
Curiosity of fellow students was aroused with Reed Markham’s continued absence from the study periods at school and this curiosity was intensified when it was rumored around by townspeople that the Southerner had been seen in the company of Coach Turner, both with skis under their arms, hurrying for the enclosure of the ball field. As the gates were locked, it was impossible to see what was taking place within but the inference was evident.
“So Softy’s going in for skiing!” Sam Hartley taunted one day as he encountered Reed on the campus.
The Southerner glanced coldly at the fellow whom he so thoroughly detested.
“Well, what of it?” he asked, controlling his smoldering temper with difficulty. This “Softy” nom de plume was a new one.
“Doesn’t Softy know that skiing is a he-man’s sport?” was Sam’s kidding inquiry. “Softy doesn’t like snow ... he hates to be rolled in it. What’s he going to do when he gets his skis crossed going down hill? Or is he just going to ski on the level?”
“None of your business!” Reed retorted.
Sam laughed and the other fellows with him laughed. The idea of a Southerner ... this Southerner, anyway, taking up the manly sport of skiing! Of course the use of the snow was free.
“When you think you’re good,” Sam continued, “come over on the slide some night and I’ll give you a few lessons on ski jumping.”
The fellows winked at one another. If they could ever get Reed Markham on the slide it would be the greatest sport ever. There was no doubt about it—he would be a riot. They could just see him now, his first time down the snow chute, speeding up the incline and floundering off into space! What a howl!
“Yes,” urged Tom Carrow, one of Sam’s friends and closest rival in the ski jump. “Or, better yet—perhaps you can show us something?”
“I doubt that,” said Reed, bitingly, “you fellows know all that’s to be known!”
And when he walked off, it was Sam who, looking after him, remarked: “There goes the queerest duck I’ve ever met. He’s got spunk, though. Now what the deuce do you suppose he’s taking up skiing for? With that superior attitude of his, I should think he’d consider skiing beneath him just because we go in for it!”
Efforts to discover Reed’s possible intentions from Coach Turner proved unavailing.
“Reed is preparing for a climactic change which he expects is going to effect Georgia in the next half century,” the recreational director explained, in all apparent seriousness. “When Georgia’s first big snow comes, Reed hopes to lead his oppressed people from the wilderness...!”
“Applesauce!” branded the inquisitive group about the Coach.
“What if it is?” grinned the director. “I like applesauce.”
Reed Markham’s entry in the ski jumping contest proved the biggest sensation in the history of the school. Students just couldn’t bring themselves to believe it although reports, the last week prior to the Annual Winter Carnival, told of Reed’s going down the slide. While none of the school fellows were eye witnesses, some of the townspeople had paused in their day’s occupations to watch Coach Turner and his lone pupil. They had seen the pupil take three successive tumbles—two at the take-off. “Nasty spills,” as one townsman had characterized it. “If I’d taken any one of ’em I’d have stacked my skis and called it quits. But this kid picks himself up and crawls back up the hill to begin all over again. He listens pretty close to what his Coach has to say and watches this man Turner take a couple of jumps. Then down he goes again. You say he’s a Southerner and he’s been practicing skiing less than a month? Well, you’d never know it!”
Sam Hartley, meeting Reed after his name had been posted on the bulletin board as a competitor in the feature event, could not resist a crack. He noticed as he spoke that Reed was limping.
“Well, so you took my tip and tried out jumping? How’d you like it?”
“Nothing much to it,” was Reed’s laconic reply.
His superior way again.
“What do you mean, there’s nothing much to it?” rejoined Sam, a bit peeved.
“Not after gliding,” Reed explained, “it’s rather tame.”
“Gliding?” repeated a crowd of interested fellows. “Where did you ever do gliding?”
“Where do you suppose?” Reed asked, his soft eyes burning.
Later, through Coach Turner, who had gained a degree of Reed’s confidence, astounded Seldon Prep schoolmates learned that this quiet mannered, self-effacing youth, had won the Southern States Gliding Contest with a flight of six hours and fourteen minutes ... and with a glider he had built himself. Sam Hartley, when he heard this, spent some uncomfortable moments running a finger underneath a tight collar band.
“How far has this Softy ski jumped?” he asked the Coach, finally.
Upon this point, however, Coach Turner was non-communicative.
“You’ll find out the day of the meet,” he said.
Seventeen of an enrollment of two hundred were entrants in the famed ski jump which was the event responsible for the big turn-out of spectators. Seldon Prep was one of the few northern schools giving attention to ski jumping and the fact was recognized by news reel camera men who stationed themselves below the incline with cameras commanding a range of the landing area. With ice skating and bob-sled races out of the way, the course along the ski slide and beyond it was lined with a colorful winter crowd. The sky was overcast with just a suggestion of snow in the air. Newspapers, having gotten wind of the Southern boy’s participation in the meet, had advertised Reed Markham as the “dark horse” so that spectators were discussing him and trying to pick him out.
Seldon’s method of operating the ski jump was a system of her own. Sam Hartley, as defending champion, was entitled to jump last. The other competitors were required to draw lots for places and a sober-faced Reed winced as he found that he had drawn number “one.”
“So I’ve got to start the meet,” Reed murmured to himself. “Here’s a tough break right off.”
“Remember,” warned Coach Turner, who was the official in charge, “for distance to be counted on your jumps, you must land clean, on your skis, and continue. What happens after that, of course, is of no consequence. But no jumps will be recognized if the jumper falls in landing. Is that clear?”
The contestants nodded and looked to their skis. All were atop the hill which provided a fine view of the surrounding country ... the Seldon Prep school buildings and grounds on the right ... straight ahead and precipitately down in the valley—the town of Seldon. The Rapid River separated the town from the school property. The clearing in which the skiers were to land was a park on the Seldon Prep end of the bridge. Skiers completing the jump successfully would carry on, passing over the bridge and coming to a stop on the other side the river. Either that or turn their skis sidewise and bring up short, risking a tumble into the banked snow on the sides around the clearing. To the left, looking from the top of the hill, was open country. The landscape today looked particularly attractive since a thin coating of additional snow had fallen the night before. The sliding lane was dotted black with humanity ... the dots merging into a blotter-like area below where the skiers were to finish.
“Suppose you’re all ready to take us?” queried Sam as he skied over beside Reed who had knelt to be sure his feet were firmly fastened to the skis.
Reed gave no answer. In truth, his heart was pounding like mad. He did not dare venture a comment for fear his voice would quaver. This thing of demonstrating before a crowd he felt to be hostile; schoolmates waiting to ridicule, and in a sport he had attempted to master within a short, concentrated period, had all tended to affect Reed’s nerves. Thousands had watched the glider contest and he had not cared. But never had he wanted so much to make good ... to give these swell-headed Northerners a Southern spanking—where it hurt the worst—in their own sport.
“Each contestant gets three qualifying jumps,” announced Director Turner. “And three chances to better the marks of his opponents. If he fails he, of course, drops out. Are you ready, Reed Markham?”
“Yes, sir!” said Reed, and wondered in a flashing thought, what his father would say if he could see him now.
“Course clear!” came the shout from below and the small figure of an official, looking up, waved a green flag at him.
Conscious that every eye was on him, the fellow from down South prepared to take-off. He surveyed the incline up which he must shoot and calculated the breeze which was blowing, taking these factors into account as though he were about to leave the ground in a glider.
“Well, here goes!” he said, and caught his breath as he whizzed down the slide.
A white ribbon of snow passed him with almost express train speed; he saw a kaleidoscopic sea of faces, crazily distorted as he shot downward; heard the excited murmur of the crowd which broke into a wild “Ah!” as he crouched and took the air. Below him a rough horseshoe of humanity, blurred trees, houses, the river ... and down, down, down ... swooping low ready for the landing ... he was wavering, losing his balance ... something wasn’t quite right....
“A great take-off!” breathed champion Sam Hartley, following the Southerner’s flight. “But he’s going to crash!... Too bad!...”
Striking on one ski, Reed desperately tried to keep his feet but was catapulted instead, landing head first in a mound of snow and narrowly missing a rim of spectators. Willing hands reached for him and pulled him out, shaken and gasping.
“You all right?” asked the official who had waved him down.
“Yes,” Reed reassured, recovering his skis.
“Too bad, kid!” sympathized an onlooker. “That first jump of yours might have been a record if you’d kept your feet.”
Reed glanced at once at his landing place. He had come down beyond the hundred foot mark.
“Well,” was his comment, “all I can do is try again!”
“The boy’s got nerve!” somebody nearby remarked.
Champion Sam Hartley’s first jump gave early evidence of his superb form when he broke his own record with a leap of one hundred and eleven feet. He mounted the hill, grinning jubilantly and eyeing the fellow from down South who was about to take off on his second try, as much as to say, “Beat that, if you can, you beginner!”
“He’s good all right,” Reed conceded. “This gliding through the air and keeping your balance without wings of any kind is no small trick. When you land it’s usually harder, too.”
Setting himself grimly, Reed leaned forward.
“He’s off!” cried the crowd.
Hurtling off the incline, body perfectly poised, the only contestant from the South carried well over the landing field and came down as gracefully as a bird. This time there was no wavering, his return to earth was as beautifully maneuvered as a pilot’s three point landing. There followed a mighty cheer from the crowd!
“Holy smoke!” gasped Sam, staring. “I believe he’s ... yes, sir—that Georgia riddle has topped my mark. The question is—how much?”
A few seconds later the crowd thrilled at the megaphoned announcement that Reed Markham, number one, had been credited with a jump of one hundred and thirteen feet, six inches!
“Hey, Sam!” kidded Tom Carrow who was now third with a jump of ninety-eight feet. “You’ve got your work cut out for you!”
“Don’t I know it?” Seldon’s champion returned. “I can’t let that baby beat me. I’d never hear the last of it—after all the razzing I’ve handed him.”
For the first time since he had come to Seldon Prep, Reed Markham was supremely happy as, with the plaudits of the crowd resounding in his ears, he toiled up the ice-coated hill to the starting place. Let this Sam Hartley person top this mark if he could. Now the ski was distinctly on the other foot! Sam had broken his own mark and he, Reed, who had taken up skiing but a month before, had topped that! Pretty good for a Southern boy who apparently wasn’t considered much good at all!
“Great stuff!” greeted Sam, considerably to Reed’s surprise. “That’s the greatest jump I ever saw!”
“Thanks,” said Reed, and scowled. “What else can Hartley say?” he asked himself, trying to explain the champion’s gesture of sportsmanship. “But I’ll bet those Northerners are really burning up!”
Trying desperately, the defending champion failed to equal even his previous distance on the next two jumps. Reed, meanwhile, reserving his right as the leading jumper, did not take his turns. And, when each of the other rivals failed in their third tries to better the mark, Reed felt his nerves tingling as the fellow he detested strapped on his skis for his last attempt.
“He can’t beat it!” something told Reed. “I’m going to win! I’m just a novice ... a rank amateur ... but I’m going to beat this cocksure Northerner. They will laugh at a Southerner, will they? This’ll fix ’em, and maybe I won’t have something to write Dad!”
Reed was still exultant as a breathless crowd, pulling for the local favorite to come through, cheered mightily with Sam Hartley’s all-important take-off. Reed followed Sam’s form as it swept majestically off the incline and sailed outward over the clearing. His eyes strained with sudden concern as he noted that Sam had made a prodigious leap and was coming down close to his own record distance. Sam struck the slope, wavered, thrashed his arms violently to keep his feet, succeeded and continued on down over the bridge amid a mad tumult.
“He did it! He topped that Markham fellow’s distance!” shouted a spectator. “What ski jumping! Records being broken right and left!”
Reed felt nervous perspiration ooze out upon him. Now he had it all to do over again. This was hair-raising, blood-chilling competition. Reduced now, just to the two of them, it would be a bitter fight to the finish ... a battle with no quarter asked and no quarter given ... between North and South.
A tickled Sam Hartley, accepting congratulatory pats on the back, stationed himself below to await his Southern rival’s next jump. He waved his defiance at the figure on top of the hill. Reed Markham would have to surpass one hundred and fifteen feet to take the lead from the champ.
“I guess that finishes him!” Sam said in a low tone to overjoyed schoolmates. “But, boy—he’s made me do some tall jumping!”
Racing down the slide, determined to best his previous jumps, Reed fairly shot out into space.
“Good night!” exclaimed Sam, face sobering. “That guy’s a regular kangaroo!... Hey! Look out, kid!... Look out the way!”
It happened quickly—a couple of playful kids chasing each other across the snow and one of them directly in the path of the descending ski jumper. Reed, looking down, saw that his landing was to be fraught with peril for himself as well as the youngster. There was only one thing to do. With complete disregard for himself he twisted his body in air, hurled himself forward and, just clearing the startled kid, struck the ground on the tips of his skis, upended and rolled and slid for some feet, finally colliding with a tree, where he lay, stunned. Even so, the point of his landing was in excess of the distance Sam had made, indicating that, had he been able to come to earth without incident, Sam’s record might once more have been eclipsed.
“How are you, fellow?” asked Sam, the first one to him, sitting the dazed Reed Markham up and looking him over, anxiously.
“I—I’m all right, I guess. I—I missed the kid, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, that scamp’s okay,” Sam reassured. “That was a nervy thing you just did. Too bad it had to spoil your jump. You’re too shaken up. We’d better call this a day. I’m awfully sorry—really!”
Sam helped Reed to his feet. Director Turner came hurrying up; the crowd commenced gathering around.
“Give me just a minute,” Reed pleaded. “I’ve got two more jumps coming. I...!”
“Two more?” exclaimed Sam. “You’ve got three. We’re not counting that one.”
“Thanks,” said Reed, and gave the fellow he detested a questioning glance. These Northerners were more chivalrous than he had thought.
“You’ve jumped enough,” declared Coach Turner, taking Reed’s arm. “You’ve done wonders as it is....”
“No!” insisted Reed, his soft eyes taking on a look of grim determination. “Whenever a fellow crashes, he’s got to go up and take-off again. That’s an old glider rule. I’m all right. Make way for me, will you please?”
“Well, I’ll be dogged!” cried Sam, in sheer admiration, as the fellow he had pestered brought an ovation from the crowd by starting the long climb up the hill.
“A Markham never quits!” Reed was repeating to himself as he went toward the top.
And he was repeating it after he had failed in two more jumps, the first of which resulted in another tumble and the second falling short by half a foot.
“You’ve still another jump if you feel like it!” Sam offered.
“No,” said Reed, extending his hand in token of surrender. “You win!”
“I’ll never feel quite right about this,” said Sam, as he gripped the hand of the fellow he had dubbed “Softy.” “You’re some guy, Reed! You made me break my own record twice to top you. I’m sorry it’s taken us fellows so long to get to know you ... but I’m glad of one thing...!” He paused, grinning.
“What’s that?” asked Reed, feeling his heart suddenly go out to this Northern foeman.
“I’m glad,” said Sam, “that you didn’t have snow in Georgia! Man—a guy who can jump like you did in a month’s time...!”
Coldness—imaginary and otherwise—vanished quickly after that as fellow schoolmates gathered around for the privilege of shaking the Southerner by the hand ... and, as if to prove that the Northern warmth was to remain—the next day brought a heavy thaw!