The spectators had begun to leave the grounds and the stands already presented little barren patches. The shadow of the small building wherein was the dressing room stretched far across the oval, and the sun was fast sinking behind the forest of roofs and chimneys in the west. Contestants in previous events were dressed and stood about the turf to watch the last and deciding struggle for the championship of the year.
Pope was restively digging his toes into the path while the penalties for false starting were being explained with much vehemence by the starter. The Warrenton runner on Wayne’s left was working his arms back and forth as though he was going to win the race on his hands and feared his elbows would get stiff. Wayne himself was undeniably nervous. It was his first appearance in a public contest, barring the cross-country run at Hillton the preceding autumn, and the thought of what failure would mean was beginning to take the starch out of him. But nervousness was the one thing that had been prohibited above all others; and so he tried to forget about the possibilities of failure and had begun to wonder, without much interest in the problem, how many men it required to keep the grass cut on the big oval when the starter’s voice brought his thoughts back at a leap.
“On your mark!”
Pope growled something to him about dull spikes and loose tracks, but Wayne made no answer. He was looking straight ahead down the broad path, his thoughts in a tumult.
“Set!”
Twelve bodies leaned farther forward and there was a perceptible sound of intaking breath up and down the line. Then, when it seemed to many that another moment of suspense would make them shout or dance or do something else equally ridiculous, bang! went the pistol, and the line leaped forward and broke into fragments as the runners sped away.
[CHAPTER XXIV]
WON AT THE FINISH
Wayne had made a good beginning; he was already, ere the timers’ watches had ticked thrice, well in toward the left of the track and one of the first five men. He looked for Sturgis and found that dreaded youth close beside him. Before them were Pope, a Maddurn Hall boy, and the pale-faced youngster who had stood beside Wayne. Pope was making the pace, a rather fast one it seemed, and was running with a great expenditure of strength. Sturgis kept beside Wayne until the turn; then, as the latter took the inside edge, he fell in behind. Wayne wished devoutly that he would go ahead. He didn’t like the pace, which was too fast for the first quarter of a mile race, and he would have preferred to have been farther in the rear. When the back stretch began Wayne therefore decreased his speed a little. It had the desired effect. In a few seconds Sturgis was beside him again; in a few more he was a pace or two ahead. Wayne could not but admire the St. Eustace boy’s running. He kept well up on his toes, his thighs moved seemingly of their own volition, and his stride was all ease and swing.