“But you told him?” asked the coach. “He had his orders?”
“Yes,” answered Don. “But you can see! And I suppose he’s not altogether to blame; it was so smoothly done.”
The coach ground the turf under his heel. Across the oval, Gould had almost reached the last turn, Wayne was some twenty yards behind him, still running like a streak, and back of Wayne sped Sturgis, easily, gracefully, taking his pace from the Hillton runner and covering the ground without overexertion or worry. Behind him again streamed the rest, Whitehead running side by side with Pope and a Shrewsburg chap vainly trying to pass them. But Gould’s work was done, and at the beginning of the turn he slowed up, weary and panting, and soon Wayne had passed him, tuckered but happy.
There comes a moment in every long-distance race when the last ounce of strength and endurance and the last breath seems to have been expended; after that the runner simply performs the impossible. Wayne had reached that moment. His legs ached, his breath tore itself from his lungs, and it seemed that further effort was out of the question. But the finish line was almost in sight, and so he gripped his moist fingers tighter about the corks and hugged the edge of the cinders. At least, he told himself, St. Eustace was beaten!
And then he heard the soft pat, pat, pat, of steps behind him, and at the same instant cries of “St. Eustace! St. Eustace!” Not daring to look behind, he struggled on in an agony of suspense until the turn was left and the broad path stretched clear and straight before him to the finish, where, strange and distorted to his strained eyes, forms leaped and gesticulated beside the track. Then the pursuer drew alongside and Wayne caught the gleam of deep blue ribbon, and could have shouted aloud in rage and mortification had there been breath enough in his body. In a flash he saw it all: Gould’s deceptive spurt, his own blind idiotic credulity, and Sturgis’s pursuit, with him to make the pace. St. Eustace had tricked him finely! For an instant the thought of yielding presented itself, but only to be routed in the next breath by a resolve to keep on, to contest the race to the very end, to run until he dropped.
Sturgis was now a yard in the lead, running well, but he was by no means fresh nor unwearied. Wayne gritted his teeth, gulped down a sob, and put every muscle and nerve to the test. He remembered a remark of Don’s: “When you are ready to drop, just think that the other man is worse off, and keep going.”
“He is, he is!” Wayne told himself. “He’s done up! I can win! I will win!”
The tape was close before them now. Sturgis was plainly in distress, for he, too, had made a hard race. The crowd at the finish was shrieking unintelligible things. Inch by inch the red ribbon was winning its place beside the blue. Ten yards from the judges Wayne was even with Sturgis; five yards more and he had gained, but scarcely enough to be noticed by the throng.
“Hillton’s race! Come on, Gordon, come on!”