“They won last year, didn’t they?”
“St. Eustace? Yes, that chap Beaming over there, the little chap that looks like a fox terrier, came in first and won the individual championship. Then House finished next about three yards behind, and I got in ten yards or so back of House. Then they got two more men in before another Hillton runner was in sight. Oh, it was a regular walk-over, Wayne. Come on, they’re ready.”
And Donald Cunningham and Wayne Gordon hurried to the starting line. The former was a tall, lithe youth with not an ounce of superfluous flesh over the firm muscles. The pink hue of his bare arms and legs told of perfect physical condition and his thin face showed energy and resolution. His dark eyes—rather thoughtful eyes they were—had a habit of looking very straight at you as he spoke, and lent an expression of serious dignity to the countenance.
His companion was in appearance and temperament a notable contrast. While scarcely an inch shorter than the captain of the Cross-country Team, Wayne Gordon, by reason of much unnecessary flesh, appeared lower in stature, and lacked the fitness that comes of rigorous training. His muscles, despite some spasmodic practice for the day’s event, were still soft. While Donald’s face showed energy, Wayne’s told of careless good humor and, especially about the lower part, of pertinacity which might under certain conditions develop into stubbornness. The eyes were brown, frank, and honest, and at this moment were gazing before him in smiling tensity.
The starter had cocked his pistol and the referee was warning the runners as to the penalty for starting before the signal. The onlookers, fully two hundred of them in all, were assembled along both sides of the cinder track, and were adding their voices to the referee’s, to the total overwhelming of the latter. The runners were formed in two lines across the track, their shoe spikes griping the earth and their bodies poised forward.
“Has every one got his number?” asked the referee. “Remember, the judges can’t register you if they don’t see your numbers.”
Several fluttering papers were repinned to the white shirts and the starter raised his voice.
“Are you ready?” A moment’s silence ensued.
Bang! The pistol cracked sharply and the runners swept in a bunch around the corner of the cinder track, gained the turf, and headed toward where the red flags indicated the first obstacle.
Of these obstacles the course held six, as follows: A “Liverpool,” a “combination,” two hedge jumps, a bank jump, and a water jump. The first consisted of a four-foot dry ditch in front of a five-foot rail fence, followed, in turn, by a broad and high hedge. The “combination” consisted of a low bank surmounted by a two-foot hedge and followed by a four-foot dry ditch. The hedge jumps differed only in height, the first being three feet and the second three feet six inches. The bank jump was four feet high. All these were comparatively easy of surmountal in comparison with the water jump. The hedges and bank might be scrambled over, the “combination” could be fallen over—one didn’t mind a few bruises—and the “Liverpool” could be climbed over or surmounted by means of the fences on either side or the stays which held up the rails. But the water jump defied every method save a long, clean jump. An eighteen-inch hedge was constructed on the bank of a brook that came under the railway track and crossed the golf course to the lake. The brook was here eight feet broad and several feet deep in the middle, and constituted a very pretty obstacle in the way of a youth tired out by a one- or two-mile run and the conquest of all the lesser obstacles. Only on the last round of the course was the water jump omitted.