To the blasé attendant from the town, the Faculty Shield Meet of that year would have seemed little different from a dozen other events of the kind which he had witnessed. Collins and Bruce, testing it by a standard of their own, called it satisfactory. The old boys who came back from the colleges in fine attire to act as judges spoke of it with patronizing interest as a success. For two contestants, at least, it was the most important event that the school year had as yet developed. Shirley, the duellist, won his trial heat in the forty yards, though some derisive remarks were made about him as he crouched on the starting line. These remarks ceased when he took his second heat, an easy yard ahead of his nearest rival. In the third heat he was again the leader. In the final he was matched against Gay, the best hundred-yards man in school.
Sam and Taylor stood together near the finish line.
“I wish Shirley would beat that Gay, even if Gay does belong to my class,” remarked Taylor, maliciously. “Since he won the hundred last year at Hillbury, he wears a hat four sizes bigger. I don’t suppose there’s any chance for Frenchie.”
“Lots of chance,” returned Archer, wisely. “Shirley strikes his stride in the very first yard. He may get put back, of course.”
There was a false start, but it was Gay who went back a foot; another, and Fairmount joined him. All four hung on the next set, and the pistol cracked. While the others were still rising, Shirley was shooting forward with his feet well under him. He was a yard ahead at the end of ten yards; at the forty no one was within five feet of him.
“Bully for Frenchie!” cried Taylor. “That’ll take down the swelling on Gay’s head an inch or two. What’s the time? Four and three-fifths? Why, that’s the record!” And Taylor ran off to have a hand in the boisterous congratulations which the lower middlers were lavishing on their unexpected champion.
Sam was on his way to the starting line for the forty-five-yard hurdles. He had no chance against Fairmount, he knew well, but Fairmount was not in his heat, and he hoped to survive the first trial at any rate. If he could only get his long legs to swinging faster! He crouched for his start, a little white around the lips, but cool, waited while Somers was put back, and got off reasonably well. Somers was ahead of him at the second hurdle, but he caught him on the third, and breasted the tape a foot ahead. In the finals, Fairmount was outside him and Edmands and Foote inside. This time he was slower. All three got off before him, but Foote stumbled at the first hurdle and fell behind. Edmands he overtook as he passed the second. Together they ran for the third, but Archer cleared with less waste of time, and was close behind Fairmount at the finish. It was not victory, but he was fully satisfied with second place.
After that Sam had nothing to do but sit content in his warm bathrobe and watch the other races. Bruce, of course, took the six hundred yards, and Weatherford the thousand, both veterans who surprised no one. Then old Chouder’s race, the three hundred, was called. Duncan was in the pack that chased at Chouder’s heels, gradually scattering behind as the pace told. Duncan was not the last by any means, nor quick-stepping Shirley, who held the pole behind the leader, and after gaining fifteen yards on the first round, kept himself in the van during the second. Both Peck and Richmond spurted to pass him on the final stretch, but neither could quite reach him. Shirley fell across the line two feet behind Chouder, with Peck a yard farther back.
“I wonder what he’ll say now!” thought Sam, gleefully. “He can’t pretend he beat Frenchie this time!”
But alas! Sam’s complacency was soon to receive a shock. In the indoor pole-vault, which Jones won at ten feet four amid great applause, Archer did his expected nine feet three. Mulcahy, however, who had pretended two days before that he could no longer reach nine feet, vaulted nine six with ease! And when Sam taxed him with the inconsistency of his words and his performance, he smiled contemptuously, and “guessed he had got back his form!”