"Come on, Hicks—up and over, old man—it's easy!"
"Jump, you Human Grass-Hopper—you can do it!"
"Now or never, Hicks! One big jump does the work!"
"Sick Caesar Napoleon on him, Coach; he'll clear it then!"
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., casting aside that flamboyant bathrobe, for what he
believed was the last athletic event of his campus career, stood gazing at
the cross-bar. One superhuman effort, a great explosion of all his energy,
such as he had executed when he cleared the gate, thinking Caesar Napoleon
was after him, and the event was won! He had cleared that height, it was
within his power. If he failed, as Butch said, the bar would be lowered,
and then raised until one or the other missed once. McQuade, with his
superior strength and endurance, must inevitably win, but as he had just
missed on his third trial at five-ten, if Hicks cleared that height on
his final chance, the first place was his.
"And my B!" murmured Hicks, tensing his muscles. "Oh, won't my Dad be
happy? It will help him to realize some of his ambition, when I show him my
track letter! It is positively my last chance, and I must clear it."
With a vast wave of determined confidence inundating his very being, Hicks
started for the bar; after those first, peculiar, creeping steps, he had
just started his gallop, when he heard Tug Cardiff's basso, magnified by
a megaphone, roared:
"All together, fellows—let 'er go—"
Then, just as Hicks dug his spikes into the earth, in that short, mad
sprint that gives the jumper his spring, just as he reached the take-off,
a perfect explosion of noise startled him, and he caught a sound that
frightened him, tensed as he was:
"Woof! Woof! Bow! Wow! Woof! Woof! Woof! Look out, Hicks, Caesar Napoleon
is after you!"