Nine days later the track team, together with Professor Beck and two graduate coaches, assembled after supper in the gymnasium, were cheered individually and collectively by their schoolmates, and were conveyed to the station, where they embarked on the Pacific Express for the up-State city which was on the morrow to be the scene of the interscholastic meeting.
And with them went the hopes of Hillton.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
THE INTERSCHOLASTIC MEET
It had rained in the night, and the young grass was intensely green in the great oval; the quarter mile of cinder track, fresh from the rollers, was smooth, firm, and springy, and the newly turned mold before the vaulting standard gave forth a pleasant odor beneath the rakes. The lime marks and circles shone glaring white in the afternoon sunlight and the bright colors of bonnet and dress and wrap vied in brilliancy with the banners of the contesting schools—with the deep blue of St. Eustace, the brown of Warrenton, the blue and white of Northern Collegiate, the maroon of Maddurn Hall, the green of Shrewsburg, the purple and white of Thracia Polytechnic, and the crimson of Hillton.
The blue and white was most in evidence, for the Northern Collegiate students were on home ground, while the others were visitors from far and near. The collegiate band was discoursing brazen two steps, the circling grand stands were buzzing with talk and laughter, the officials were hurrying, scurrying, hither and thither, and from near by, behind the unlovely high board fences, the electric cars droned and clanged as they drew up to the entrance and discharged their loads. And overhead arched a softly blue May sky just flecked with tiny wads of cottonlike clouds. Northern Collegiate might have drawn a fair augury from that sky.
The clerk of the course was busy placing the runners for the first trial heat of the one-hundred-yard dash. Presently the long line was crouching on the mark, the pistol sounded, and the interscholastic meeting had begun. Other trial heats followed until the contestants for the sprints and the hurdles were sifted down to a few for each event. Meanwhile the broad jumpers were busy at the standard, and in the oval a little group were preparing for the shot putting.
The mile run was down on the card as the last event, and Wayne, who was entered for that only, looked on from the far side of the field, one of a group of many, in front of the dressing room. Paddy, who had in some way smuggled himself inside the ropes, sat beside him.
“We can’t see very much from here,” observed Paddy.