"Hurry! Hurry!" cried the latter, dancing excitedly about. "Oh, it's Jack Rogers and Chub Eaton! Hurry, Jack! Hurry, Chub! Oh, can't you run faster?"
"Which do you want to win, my dear?" asked her mother smilingly. Harry answered breathlessly without turning.
"Oh, I don't know! Both!"
Meanwhile across the gridiron Chub and Jack, accompanied by applauding friends and partisans, were fighting it out gamely. Chub had almost made up the distance between him and Jack when the track was reached. Across the cinders they staggered, the gate and finish but a few yards away. Then fortune, thus far quite impartial, turned her face to Chub. Jack stumbled on the wooden rim of the track and, while he saved himself from falling, gave Chub his chance, and in another second the latter youth was through the gate and lying with tossing arms on the lawn. Jack finished a scant yard behind him and keeled over in his turn.
Horace Burlen set down the times on the list he held and others sprang to the aid of the exhausted runners. Then all eyes turned again toward the corner of the field, for someone was struggling over the fence there. Down he jumped and came trotting across, apparently much fresher than Chub and Jack. It was Townsend, of the Middle Class. When he was half way across the field a fourth runner appeared, made several attempts to surmount the bars, leaned against them a moment, and found his breath and then came over.
"It's Pryor," said Horace. "That's two for the Middlers, and one each for the First and Second Seniors."
"What was Chub Eaton's time?" asked Forrest as Townsend finished.
"Four and three-eighths minutes better than the record made four years ago by Gooch," answered Horace.
"Well, I'm glad Roy Porter didn't win," said Harry vindictively. Chub rolled over on his elbows.
"He went down and out—two miles back," said Chub. He looked across at Jack, who was sitting up and breathing like a steam-engine. "Sorry I beat you, Jack. I wouldn't have if you hadn't stumbled."