“No question of my trying, old fellow,” Merriwell smiled. “There’s no use in going into a thing unless you do your best! But they seem to think this fellow is pretty good, and you know I’m out of practice.”
“That don’t worry me a whole lot,” the Texan grinned.
“Say, Merriwell, come over here, will you?” Niles called, standing near Stovebridge.
“We’ll have to toss for positions,” he explained, as Dick walked over to him. “The track is just a mile in circumference, so that you’ll have to make one complete circuit, and of course, the fellow on the inside has a little the advantage.”
He took a coin out of his pocket and sent it spinning in the air.
“Heads, or tails?”
“Tails,” Dick said quickly.
The other caught the coin deftly.
“Heads it is,” he grinned. “You lose. Take your places, gentlemen—Stovebridge, inside; Merriwell, out.”
Dick toed the mark, and his eyes wandered for an instant down the long line of eagerly watching men. As he did so, he caught sight of the dark, sullen face of Jim Hanlon glaring at him from behind two of the clubmen.