“You’ll have to win, if we go. And we are going, aren’t we, mother?”
“We’ll see,” answered the cautious mother. “Sam had better stay to dinner and talk it over with your father.”
“Invite me next week, and I’ll come with joy,” answered Sam, ruefully. “You have too many good things to eat for a fellow in training.”
Mrs. Sedgwick and Margaret were on the Seaton special that carried the school to Hillbury. Sam sat in the seat opposite them, and for the time enjoyed complete relief from anxious thoughts of the contest. They parted at the station, when Sam went forward to join the other members of the team in the barge that was awaiting them.
“You must show me your gold medal when we go back,” said the girl, gayly, as she bade him good luck. “You know we’ve come on purpose to help you win it.” Sam lifted his cap and ran smilingly away to quiet the barge-load of impatients who were clamoring for Archer to quit his “fussing” and get aboard. Miss Margaret’s blind confidence had driven Sam’s fatalism to cover. Could it be his day after all?
CHAPTER XXVII
ARCHER versus KILHAM
It was clear, two events before the high hurdles came, that Hillbury was to win the day. In four races Seaton had been beaten by feet and inches in desperate finishes. It may have been luck that the leaders in these four contests were Hillbury men; luck certainly had nothing to do with the fact that in each of the four the third prize went to a wearer of the blue. Kilham had taken the two-twenty hurdles; Hillbury with Kilham in the lead had swept every place in the broad jump. Mulcahy could crawl no higher than third in the pole vault. Collins took the issue philosophically, as a man might well do who had toiled early and late to work second-class material into a first-class product, and who, incidentally, had accomplished more than any three members of the faculty toward establishing throughout the school a standard of right living and honest striving.
But stoically as Collins took the issues of fate, his real feelings broke through the mask of calmness when the one-twenty hurdles were called, and Sam and Pearson, wearing Seaton colors, took the places assigned them and dug their starting holes. Defeat may have its consolations; and to Collins no consolation could be quite so satisfactory as a victory for his long-legged pupil, who had done his work month in and month out like a man of years and responsibilities, and had come up smiling after every knockdown, with determination unquenched. Miss Margaret, on the Seaton benches near the finish line, strained her eyes to see the starting, oblivious to the fact that her pulse was beating ten counts faster than it had any right to. Sam himself, having something definite to do, and something definite to think of, was less agitated than Miss Margaret, or even Collins. The something definite to think of was the uncommon solidity of the Hillbury hurdles. If he struck one, it would throw him—or at least so he feared. He must be sure to clear, even at the waste of a few inches; and unnecessary inches in the rise meant, he knew full well, a fraction of a second in total loss. On the full extent of this handicap he did not dwell. It was enough that he must keep well above the hurdles.
The start was even—at least for Kilham and Archer. They sprang for the first hurdle in step together, like well-matched horses. Sam’s leap was needlessly high; Kilham gained thereby a small advantage, which he increased to a yard as the third hurdle was passed. Then Sam, becoming less fearful of the rise, brought his jump down nearer the top of the hurdle and began to regain lost ground. On the fifth they were together again. After that Sam forged ahead, clearing every obstacle just in front of his rival. As he struck the ground after the tenth he realized that his hopes depended on his holding his advantage against a faster sprinter for a distance of less than fifteen yards. He had been running at full tension throughout the race; he could do no better now.