The crowd was now yelling like mad, and the names of the racers were mingled by many voices.
"Channing! Wheeler! Armstrong! Warwick! Queen's! Dixon!"
On they came, Channing holding his own a couple of yards in advance. Do his best, Frank could not catch either him or Dixon. He felt that he might go faster, but for some reason could not make his legs drive any harder. On the skaters dashed and now they were entering the lane of human beings.
True to his word, Jimmy had wormed himself through the crowd, and was stationed forty or fifty yards from the finish line. He leaned far over to get a view of the skaters, and saw with dismay that Frank was behind. As they neared him he gathered into himself a mighty breath, and as the three flashed past him, yelled "Go!"
It was so shrill a cry that the spectators jumped from the very force of it. On Frank, the yell of his friend, the signal he had been waiting for and thought would never come, was as though a spring had uncoiled inside him. At the shout he fairly sprang from the ice, and in that one leap reached Channing who, at the rush of the boy at his left, turned his head.
Another leap carried Frank even, and then something like the power of a six cylinder motor grew within him. He must, he would win for the school. They couldn't beat him! And driving his legs like pistons, he shot ahead of Channing who struggled desperately to make up the lost ground, but without avail. Frank went over the finish line fairly flying, at least two good yards ahead of his rival. Chip in his effort to follow Frank, when the rush of the latter carried him past, put too much strain on his tired muscles, stumbled and fell, and before he got to his feet and could cross the line, a Warwick skater slipped across ahead of him. He was officially counted out.
How Queen's did yell! This time they got Frank up on their shoulders and lugged him up the course for twenty-five yards or more.
"Armstrong! Armstrong! Armstrong!"