On Your Mark! A Story of College Life and Athletics

by Ralph Henry Barbour

And yet, in spite of all these hints, Winter was strangely dense. Instead of folding up his blanket of snow and taking himself off, he showed no sign of contemplated departure, but on the contrary tightened his icy grip on the world, and almost every day sent a new snow-storm to emphasize the fact that he still reigned.

Afternoon practise on the track took place in every sort of weather. Sometimes it snowed so hard that the runners, as they swept around the far end of the track, were only indistinct blurs in the white mist. Sometimes the track was sheeted with a rough skim of ice, through which the men’s spikes broke imperfectly, and on such days the spills were numerous and the turns were things to be carefully negotiated. Sometimes the sun shone and the wind blew, straight and cold, out of the northeast; and such times were best, deluding one for a while, as they did, into thinking that winter’s sway was drawing to its end. But they were deceitful moments, and one could fancy old Winter shaking his lean sides with laughter as he drew the clouds together again and emptied a new shower of flakes upon the bleak world.

But matters progressed. The relay team of six runners was formed, the sprinters and distance men worked themselves into condition, and the hurdlers, jumpers, vaulters, and weight men limbered up their muscles.

A week before the meeting Allan was given a speed trial for the two miles. The track was in fairly good condition, and Rindgely and Thatcher made the pace. With Allan was another two-mile candidate, named Conroy. Allan took the lead at the start and held it for the first half mile. Rindgely went in then and made the pace for the next three-quarters, and then gave place to Thatcher, a half-miler. Conroy was a lap behind at the half distance, and at the finish was entirely out of it. Allan found his sprinting ability sorely tried in the last two laps when Thatcher let himself out and Allan tried to keep up with him. But he finished fairly strong, and Kernahan slipped his watch into his pocket with a nod of approval.

“Ten, one and an eighth,” he said.

But that seemed slow time to Allan, who had entertained visions of doing the distance in something like 9:50, and he said so to Billy.

“Well, that’s good enough to give you a chance of a place,” he answered. “You’ve got three months yet before the dual meet, and Robinson’s best two-miler could only do—9:46, I think it was. You’ll get some experience at the Boston meet, if you don’t bring home a mug, and experience is what you need. You’ll have to get into your pace sooner down there or you’ll get crowded off the track. You try half a dozen starts Monday and try getting your pace in the first six or eight strides. You’d better run along now, and don’t be scarey of the cold water, my boy.”

During that next week the class hockey championship was decided. The freshmen won handily from the sophomores by the score of seven goals to three in the first of the contests, and to Pete went the credit for four of the seven goals. He played magnificently.

To be sure, as has been said already, he knew little of the science of the game, but what he lacked there he made up in vigor and enthusiasm. Thrice he was put off the ice for short periods, but this only caused him to work harder when he was allowed to re-enter the game. In the second half—the first period having ended with the score three to four in favor of ’07—he was played up into the forward line, and when he secured the puck and once got away with it, it was his until he had shot at the sophomores’ goal. If Pete had been able to shoot as well as he skated and dodged the enemy, the score would have been overwhelming.