If Collins had possessed a magic wand by the touch of which slow muscles could be endowed with marvellous speed, he certainly would have given Archer the benefit of the first application of it. Sam took the privations of training, as well as the regular drill, as parts of his normal day. While he longed to win, and still dreamed of the happy moment when he should show his back to Kilham on the hurdle path, he could laugh good-naturedly at his ambitions, and speak frankly of the likelihood of failure. He did not worry and did not lose courage. He played tennis, enjoyed his friends, did his school work as well as he could, got good hours of rest, shunned the things that weaken,—and grew hard of muscle and sound of wind, living his life with happiness and zest.
Toward the end of May he was sent with a batch of Seatonians to take part in the inter-scholastics in Cambridge. In the final of the one-twenty hurdles, he fell in once more with Kilham and Doane of Noble’s.
“Hello, Archer!” called Kilham, cheerily. “We meet again. It’s your turn to-day.”
“I wish it was,” said Sam.
But luck turned against him. The starter held them a long time on the set, and Sam fell over before the trigger was pulled. He was put back a yard. On the next attempt he erred through overcaution, and lost another yard on the start. Always slow in getting into his stride, he saw his two rivals dash well ahead of him for the first two hurdles. As Sam was topping the third, Kilham and Doane were close to the fourth. Hopeless though the race seemed, he pressed on, taking his jumps in his best form, driving himself in the inter-hurdles paces, as if each were the finish of the race. And lo! he gained! With every hurdle he drew up on the leading pair. At the eighth he was at Doane’s heels. The tenth he crossed abreast of the second man and beat him out through greater strength in the final dash for the line,—but Kilham as usual was first, this time by only two feet.
For a time Sam was disheartened. When he compared the two feet advantage which Kilham had over him at the finish with the two yards lost at the start, and realized that he had plenty of reserve force on the last stretch while Kilham was running weak, he felt that fate was indeed against him. But Collins soon got hold of him and altered the hue of his thoughts. He had never before been put back in a race; it wouldn’t happen again; he had run a yard farther than the victor and finished but two feet behind him. He would have another chance at the Hillbury meet; let him but keep up his courage and work hard, and he would win out yet!
Yes, keep up your courage and work! That had been Collins’s song these two years. But what availed courage and work against fate and a better man?
“He’ll probably beat me,” thought Sam, as the day of the Hillbury meet approached; “he’ll probably beat me, for he always has beaten me, but I’ll run him harder than I’ve ever done before!”
On the day before the meet, Sam dropped in at the Sedgwicks’ to offer two tickets to the games, which his father had written that he could not use. Margaret clapped her hands with delight at the prospect. “We must go, mother, and see Sam win. It’s our last chance. Do go!”
“It’s my last chance, all right,” said Sam, “but don’t go expecting me to win. I always lose.”