It was even so. Strong was trying Kurtz's trick of rushing by his antagonist with a burst of high speed, and trusting then to discouragement to keep the Hillbury man behind. When he crossed the starting line for the first time he had a lead of five yards; at the end of the second lap his margin was twelve. When Benton took up the race for the final heat, he was indebted to his captain for a ten yards' start.
And here, to the joy of the crowd and the fright of the Seatonians, came an unexpected development. Royce of Hillbury went at his task with startling vigor. On the first round he gained four yards, on the second three, on the back stretch of the third he was close at Benton's elbow, but Benton still held the inside as they rounded the curve; and the yard lost on the outside run the plucky Hillburyite could not make up. He was still a yard in the rear when Benton breasted the tape at the finish line.
It was Rob's first and last race. Delighted yet regretful, trembling in every limb, and suddenly deprived of his strength like Samson under Delilah's shears, he dragged himself into the dressing rooms for his bath and rub down. Here he was congratulated and thanked by Lindsay and Durand and others of the thin cheering line. Here they brought him his prize, which he received with joy tempered with humility. If Strong and Rohrer had not done better than himself and Benton, the prizes would now be in other hands.
AN INTERRUPTED EVENING
The lustre of the victory over Hillbury rested on the quartette about forty-eight hours. Had Royce got beyond Benton on that last curve, as he had almost succeeded in doing, and Seaton's portion been defeat instead of victory, there would have been a cloud over the school for a much longer period. Owen, having never felt the change in atmosphere which defeat brings, did not appreciate his escape. The victory seemed an unimportant matter, taken lightly, soon forgotten. The school looked up, smiled, and went about its daily routine. Rob put his prize in his desk drawer, and followed the school's example.
One of his unconfessed ambitions had been to win a prize for composition. Wolcott Lindsay had put the idea into his head, not by any direct suggestion, but by the respect with which he spoke of some of the fellows who had succeeded. Lindsay himself was on the Seatonian, but Owen felt no ambition to enter into competition before his schoolmates for a position on that paper. The composition was comparatively secret. If he tried and failed, nobody need know the fact but the judges who read the compositions.
Owen's production on—let us not say what—was nearly ready to hand in. He had built no elaborate hopes upon it, but he would have liked sincerely to surprise his father with some achievement which Mr. Owen would value. Prowess in athletics was to Mr. Owen but superiority in play, often shared with the idle and the vicious. In scholarship Rob could never hope to rank above a low B; he had no gift for public speaking; no one ever urged him for office. In the composition, perhaps, he might win some place; it was at least worth trying.