On the shining ice just below Queen's a measured course was laid off by Mr. Parks, and the boys who intended to skate did their practising there. The course for the contest was to be laid equi-distant from each school so that there would be no favor to either, and where the ice was not so much cut up as it was near the schools.
That evening Jimmy and Lewis dropped into Frank's room to talk it over. They had all been out on the ice trying the various distances. Lewis thought his distance was the hundred yards.
"All you have to do in that," he said, "is to take one big breath and let 'er go. I think I made the best time over that distance."
"You did like fun," said Jimmy. "You were half way down the course when I started and I passed you before we got to the finish. If Channing had suggested a ten-yard dash, I'd have bet on you, Lewis. As it is, I don't think you'll do better than tenth in the hundred."
"I wish I had a decent pair of skates," said Frank. "These old ones of mine are too small for me, and when I get to going fast they don't run well. I guess it's because they haven't enough bearing surface on the ice."
"What are you going to enter, Frank?" asked David.
"Seems to me," said Frank, "that the half mile is my best distance. I can't get going in the hundred. Jimmy goes the hundred like a breeze. And the whole mile is too much for me. If I had a longer pair of skates I could do better, but there's no time to get any so I'll have to do with these."
"Wheeler has entered in the half mile, I see," said Jimmy, "and he's a terror. Not particularly graceful, but he's as strong as a bull. Have you noticed that Dixon hasn't entered any of the races?"
"I was looking for his name, but it isn't on the list. Just the same, he was out practising this afternoon."