Frank Armstrong at College

by Matthew M. Colton

"A ripping jump!" commented an Englishman as he reseated himself, "but Vare will take his measure." Vare had been sent for, and was even now walking calmly across the track with an attitude which said plainly: "What's all this fuss about anyway? We'll settle this now once and for all."

A ripple of applause and hand-clapping ran through the stands as Vare turned to face the pit at the far end of the runway, and glanced down the narrow way now hedged with faces. He was a champion of champions, and would show them how a champion jumped. But not that time, for his best effort fell under twenty-three feet.

Surprised at his poor jump, he lost his composure and, against the advice of his friends, took a second jump without rest, and that, too, fell below his jump of twenty-three feet.

The news that Armstrong had equaled Vare's best jump spread to the locker rooms of the two teams, and excitement ran high. What had seemed like an event lost for a certainty to the Americans, had in a moment been turned into a possibility.

McGregor had taken his last jump without changing the situation in any way. Thereafter he devoted himself to encouraging Armstrong, whose magnificent leap had raised the hopes of the whole American contingent. "You have him now, Frank," McGregor whispered as, with arm over Frank's shoulder, the two walked down the runway. "He let himself get cold, and I'll bet he can't reach twenty-three feet again."

But McGregor was mistaken. Vare, the champion, after he had had more life rubbed into his muscles, shot down the runway and cleared twenty-three feet, one inch and a half. A little scattering cheer from the Englishmen, and Vare sat down on the jumpers' bench, his face showing the relief he felt. "I'm all right now," he said to an anxious, inquiring teammate, "but I felt jolly well frozen those first two jumps, though."

"The meet," bawled the announcer, facing the grand stand, "now stands six events for America and six for England, with the broad-jump still to be decided. Vare, of Oxford, has the longest jump to his credit—twenty-three feet, one and a half inches, which he made in breaking the tie created by Armstrong, of Yale, with a jump of twenty-three feet, which is his best at present."

At this moment Captain Harrington came onto the track in street clothes. He walked up to Frank: "Armstrong," he said, "Jack told me all about your troubles getting here. I want to tell you you made a game fight to correct the original mistake. I know you were personally not at fault. Here's my hand on it!"

Frank took the proffered hand. His captain had taken him back into the fold, and his heart swelled almost to the bursting point with sudden joy. If Frank needed anything to make him unbeatable that afternoon, the thing had come to pass. "I'll try to justify your faith in me," was all he said, but his eyes shone with a new light.

Coming down the runway with a surpassing rush of speed, he hit the take-off perfectly on his next trial, and soared into the air. Spectators, who saw him, said afterward that he seemed to take a step at the highest point of his flight, but it was only the first appearance of the famous "scissors hitch" used by other great jumpers before him, and which he had simply happened on, in his endeavor to get great distance. He struck squarely on his feet in almost a sitting posture, but his impetus carried him forward so powerfully that he pitched head-first into the soft loam of the pit. He held every inch of his great jump, however.