Butch Brewster, in fifteen minutes, returned, panting and perspiring,
bearing a tape-measure, borrowed at the next farm-house. With all the
solemnity of a sacred rite being performed, the youths waited, as Butch and
Tug, holding the tape taut, carefully measured from the ground to the top
of the barbed wire on the gate. Three times they did this, and then, with
an expression of gladness on his honest countenance, Butch hugged the
dazed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., while Tug Cardiff howled, "Now for the
Intercollegiates and your track B, Hicks! You can do five-ten in the
meet, for Coach Brannigan said you could dear it, if only you did it
once."
"Why—what do you mean, Tug?" quavered Hicks, not daring to allow himself
to believe the truth. "You—you surely don't mean—"
"I mean, that now you know you can jump that high," boomed Tug, executing
a weird dance of exultation, In which, the Brigade joined, until it
resembled a herd of elephants gone insane, "for you have done it—allowing
for the sag, and everything, that gate is just five feet, ten inches high,
and—you cleared it!"
"Ladies and gentlemen—Hicks, of Bannister, is about to high jump! Hicks
and McQuade, of Hamilton, are tied for first place at five feet eight
inches! McQuade has failed three times at five-ten! Hicks' third and last
trial! Height of bar—five feet ten inches!"
This time, however, it was not big Tug Cardiff, imitating a Ballyhoo
Bill, and inciting the Bannister youths to hilarity at the expense of the
sunny-souled T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.; it was the Official Announcer at the
Annual State Intercollegiate Field and Track Championships, on Bannister
Field, and his announcement aroused a tumult of excitement in the Bannister
section of the stands, as well as among the Gold and Green cinder-path
stars.
"Come on, Hicks, old man!" urged Butch Brewster, who, with a dozen fully
as excited comrades of the cheery Hicks, surrounded that splinter-athlete.
"It's positively your last chance to win your track B, or your letter in
any sport, and please your Dad! If they lower the bar, and you two jump off
the tie, McQuade's endurance will bring him out the winner."
"You can clear five-ten!" encouraged Bunch Bingham. "You did it once,
when you believed Caesar Napoleon was after you. Just summon up that much
energy now, and clear that bar! Once over, the event and your letter are
won! Oh, if we only had that bulldog here, to sick on you."
Sad to chronicle, the score-board of the Intercollegiates recorded the
results of the events, so far, thus:
HAMILTON ............35 BALLARD .............20 BANNISTER ...........28
It was the last event, and even did Hicks win the high-jump, McQuade's
second place would easily give old Ham. the Championship. Hence, knowing
that victory was not booked for an appearance on the Gold and Green
banners, the Bannister youths, wild for the lovable, popular Hicks to win
his Bs vociferously pulled for him: