In the Line

by Albertus T. Dudley

Hillbury was jubilant, for was not this Joslin’s own event? The first prize counted five points, the second and third together but three. If Joslin won, Hillbury was victorious; if Joslin lost—but he could not lose! There was his record made but a few days before; no one now in Seaton had come near it. The timid Seatonian hushed his cheering and prepared himself for defeat; the braver cheered the more loudly to keep up his spirits.

“If we only had Dickinson again for just five minutes,” said Poole, as he sat with Lindsay and Planter on the top bench, “I could enjoy every second of this race. As it is, I wish it were over. I’m terribly afraid Strong hasn’t sand enough to keep ahead of that Joslin on a long stretch. It would be horrible to get so near and then lose.” He drew a long breath and passed his hand hurriedly over his eyes to dispel the blur into which the strain of intense watching had plunged the distant figures.

“Oh, pluck up!” returned Planter, whose less impetuous temperament stood better the strain of waiting. “A fellow who could lift himself out of probation as Strong has done has sand enough.”

Wolcott smiled at the idea of Strong’s lifting himself out of probation, but he made no comment, while Poole was too intent on the white-clad figures across the end of the track to heed anything else.

Meanwhile another and more serious conversation was going on at the starting line, where Salter stood with his champion to give him a last encouraging slap on the back and a last word of good cheer.

“It’s yours, Bill; you can beat him,” Salter was saying. “The two-twenty belongs to the hundred yards man, not to the quarter miler, remember that!”

“It’s the last two hundred feet that I’m afraid of,” returned Strong. “He’s used to the longer distance, and may be going his fastest when I’m giving out.”

“Get away from him at first, then, but not too far. Keep something in reserve for a spurt.”

The starter called the men, and Strong settled upon his mark. Joslin had the inside—a great advantage when the course begins with a turn, like the two-twenty stretch on the Hillbury track. At the start the four men rose together, but a second later two were ahead,—number one and number three. The outside man was moving a little faster, just enough to keep his position at the side of number one, as the two on the same radius swept round the circular end of the track, neck and neck, until they reached the straight stretch, where Strong forged two yards ahead and hung. It was this hanging, this apparent inability to increase his lead, that set the Hillbury contingent to yelling like crazy men; for here was being accomplished what the Hillbury coach had promised—that Strong would run himself out in the first two-thirds of the race and let Joslin pass him at the finish.

And Strong sped onward, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, yet feeling and knowing that his rival was gradually creeping up, was even, was a foot,—two feet, ahead. Thirty yards from the finish line, when the race seemed Joslin’s,—as safely as any race can be counted before the yarn is broken,—when Hillbury flags were already waving in the exultant disorder of triumph, the Seaton runner, drawing on his last reserve of strength, dug his spikes into the track, and with a burst of speed like the convulsive spurt of a forty-yards man, overhauled Joslin, passed him, threw up his arms for the line of colored yarn, and fell, limp and gasping, into the arms of waiting friends.