He sped across the track where the uprights had been erected for the pole vaulting, and later he became one of the group that formed a crescent behind the football kickers. He watched, with admiration unconcealed, the unerring pedal movements of the heavily shod young men who sent the ball so beautifully skyward.
Meanwhile, Wilma awaited impatiently at the grand stand rail the last heat in the sprint event. She saw the drop-kickers leave the paddock and heard indistinctly the record that was called across from the tower-like judges' stand; but these things were not to her liking. Her eyes upon the track below, she saw a young man in sweater and knee breeches vault the fence beside the stretch and rush across. He shouted a word to the megaphone man who at once lifted the glistening instrument to his lips and shouted:
"Is there a doctor on the grand stand? He's wanted down below. A man has been taken suddenly sick."
The pink fled from her cheeks. Then she smiled. She realized the absurdity of the little spasm of fear that had seized her. She glanced down at her card again.
The runners were jogging up the stretch. She counted them. There was one missing. Another look of fright came into her eyes. She felt some one tugging at her dress. She turned impatiently and gazed down into the now pale face of Willie Trigger.
"It's Bunny!" he muttered almost incoherently, "oh, it's Bunny! A man gave him something to make him sick."
She seized him by the shoulder and held her face close to his.
"What did you say—gave him something!" she exclaimed.
"Yes; come quick," and she felt that the child was drawing her through the thick of the crowd at the rail, to the stairs at the further end. Afterward she could not tell how it was managed or what she did. But she followed the lad around the stand, at the back, to the dressing-room door and then, of a sudden, as though due to the shock induced by the picture she there beheld, her senses returned to her with a rush. The crescent at the door parted and she saw Bunny, his face pale and drawn, stagger forward and lean heavily against the jamb. A man whom she did not recognize clung to one of his arms and beseeched him to lie down.
"No," he mumbled thickly. "Run—run, I tell you—lemme go!" He jerked his arm from the other's clutch.