“Gee, Bert,” said Tom, “that was a wonderful sprint in the stretch. You didn’t have legs; they were wings. Just as the other fellows too were thinking it was all over except the shouting.”
“Yes,” added Dick, “it would have been tall running even for a hundred yard dash. But how you did it after running fifteen miles is beyond me. By George, I wish I had timed you on that last lap. I’d have hated to be in your way as you came tearing down to the line.”
“There might have been a mix-up for a fact,” laughed Bert. “That tape looked awfully good to me and I’d surely have felt peevish if any one had hit it before I did. And it wasn’t any sure thing at that. Thornton and Brady were certainly running some. I looked for them to crack before they did. If they’d had the least bit in reserve, they might have made it hot for me. But they’d killed themselves off in making the pace. I just kept trailing and watching, and when the right moment came I made my run. But they’re dandy runners,” he added, with the generosity that was one of his leading traits, “and in another race they might reverse the verdict.”
“Not in a thousand years,” maintained Tom stoutly. “They never saw and never will see the day they can outrun you. It’s you for the Olympic team all right. There’s no one this side of the ‘big pond’ who can make you take his dust.”
“No,” chimed in Dick, “nor on the other side either. There isn’t a fellow who saw you run to-day that wouldn’t back you to beat anything in Europe and America put together.”
“Not so fast fellows,” remonstrated Bert. “Remember I haven’t even made the team yet. This is only a preliminary tryout for the Eastern cracks. I’ve got to come up against the Western bunch and if all I hear is true they are going ‘great guns’ in practice. Then too they grow some speedy sprinters in the amateur athletic clubs—regular streaks of greased lightning. I may prove only a false alarm when I match my wind and speed against theirs.”
“Yes,” said Tom with fine scorn, “we’ll worry a lot about that, won’t we Dick? Didn’t Thornton hold the American record up to to-day?” he demanded, “and didn’t you run rings around him?”
“But this mightn’t have been his day,” began Bert.
“No,” said Dick mockingly, “it wasn’t. Suppose we say it was Bert Wilson’s day and let it go at that.”
Their faith in Bert could not be shaken, nor was this surprising, since it was founded on repeated incidents in their own experience. Again and again they had seen him put to the test, and he had never failed to measure up to the emergency. Dangers that might have daunted the stoutest heart he had met without quailing. His physical prowess was beyond dispute. He was a typical athlete, strong, quick, muscular, and a natural leader in all manly sports. In most of them he stood head and shoulders above his fellows. He had borne off trophy after trophy on field and track. This alone would have marked him out as one to be reckoned with, but it was only a part of the reason why he was the idol of his friends and comrades.