“Beat him, Bert! Beat him! Skate! Skate!”
Kid danced about and turned circles on his skates, all the time yelling shrilly, and Nan, her pink cheeks rosier than ever from excitement, clapped her hands and “rooted” for Bert. Down to the line came the two skaters, skating fast but evidently quite tuckered out and showing a lot of effort. The spectators skated to meet them, and then it was that Ben’s wet clothes were noted and questions fell fast. Bert had no thought of the race. He wanted to see Ben wrapped up warmly and started on his way back to school. And he wanted to get there himself, for he felt decidedly weak and sick, and every few moments a shiver went over him. And so he never noticed when Ben slowed down almost at the line and never noticed that he himself had skated across it and had won the race until Lanny smote him on the back, almost sending him on his face, and shouted:
“You won, Bert! He didn’t cross! He didn’t finish!”
But Bert paid no heed. He shouldered his way to Mr. Crane who was stretching out his hand in congratulation.
“Ben went through the ice, sir,” he said, “and he ought to be taken home right away. And I guess—I guess you’d better take me, too.”
Whereupon Bert sank against Mr. Crane and fainted dead away.
VII
LANNY CONFESSES
Bert lay in bed with the remains of a satisfactory if simple repast on a tray at his side. He was feeling a little languid, but aside from that quite his usual self. The Doctor had diagnosed his case as nervous exhaustion following excitement, overexertion and a chill, and had mixed him a dark brown, nasty tasting concoction in a tumbler and sentenced him to bed for the rest of the day. Ben had been dosed thoroughly, but had not been put to bed, and so had gone down to his supper like any ordinary person.
Bert could hear the fellows pushing the chairs away from the tables in the dining-room below, and a moment after there was a knock at the door and Lanny, Small and Kid came in. Kid pounced on the foot of the bed with a whoop of glee and was sternly reprimanded by Lanny.