With that word, and the tense preparations of the sprinters for the start, Merry and Brad began watching Lenning keenly. Merry ticked off the seconds in his mind—one, two, three—and then intuitively he sensed the forward plunge of Lenning, coming a fraction of a second before the crack of the pistol. Lenning had not waited to hear the pistol, and had got away at the explosion.
“He did it, by thunder!” whispered Brad. “Darrel had the skunk dead to rights. Eh, Chip?”
“No doubt about it, Brad!”
Further talk just then was out of the question. The first stride of the race had taken Lenning into the lead, and Darrel, waiting honorably for the signal to start, was rushing to overhaul his competitor.
“Dig, you kid from Nowhere!” whooped Clancy. “The race isn’t done till you breast the tape.”
“Go to it, Darrel!” Merriwell shouted. “You’ll pass him at the eighty-yard line!”
“Wow!” yelped Ballard; “I’ll bet the boy from Nowhere gets Somewhere before he’s many seconds older.”
A murmur went up from the Gold Hill side of the course. The peculiar form in which Darrel was racing was recognized. Various little mannerisms connected with his sprinting were recalled. They were all here, in this clean-cut athlete whom Lenning had declared an impostor! Gold Hill sentiments, it was plain, were undergoing a change.
Not the least interested observer in the Gold Hill crowd was the colonel. He leaned forward, the joy of wholesome sport temporarily brushing aside the sterner proceedings which were to wait upon the finish of that hundred-yard dash. The object of that race—the “boy from Nowhere’s” attempt to prove his identity—did not concern Colonel Hawtrey. He knew Lenning’s competitor was Ellis Darrel, race or no race. What flamed up in him, as he gazed spellbound, was a pure love of track athletics, aroused by a contest that was superb.
In about four seconds after the start the Gold Hillers had loosened up. There were cries of, “Go it, Darrel!” and, “This looks like old times, Curly!” which proved that Darrel was already winning the recognition he coveted, no matter whether he won or lost the dash.