“I think he can cut down a second or two when the games are run off,” said Kindlings, discussing the matter with Holly. “There’ll be a band then, and that always helps a lot, and big crowds, to say nothing of Bean and his shouters.”
“And the girls,” added wise Holly. “Tom’s got a girl in Fairview, I understand, and if she’s on hand he’ll run his head off.”
“Then we’ll have to have her on hand, if we’ve got to bribe her,” declared Kindlings.
“Oh, I guess she won’t need any bribing,” went on his chum. “Now let’s see what Sid can do.”
Sid, on whom the hopes of Randall rested to win the broad jump, was on his mettle. He could easily cover twenty feet, without straining himself, and to-day, in what all regarded as among the last of the important practices, he had several times, gone an inch or two over.
“I don’t hope to equal Bowers who, in 1899, did twenty-one feet, eight and one-half inches,” said Sid, “but I do want to do twenty foot, six, and I’m going to make it, too.”
“Sheran, in 1909, only made twenty feet, seven and a half inches,” Phil reminded his chum.
“Don’t make me envious,” begged Sid. “If I do twenty feet, six, I’ll be satisfied.”
“Don’t be satisfied with anything but the limit,” suggested Kindlings. But then he always was a hard trainer.
And so the practice went on, until Holly and Kindlings, seeing the danger of weariness, called a halt.