The play that won

by Ralph Henry Barbour

From Tuesday until Friday Terry lived in a condition of alternate hope and despair. There were times when he felt that he was bound to fail in the trial and times when he believed that he could make good. He was still working at the quarter, but there was no disguising the fact that at least three of his team-mates had made better progress in their training than he had, and he felt very certain that his only chance of representing Maple Park the following Thursday lay in qualifying with the half-milers.

Mr. Cramer sent them away at a little after four that afternoon, a round dozen in all, of whom no more than six could expect to be chosen for competition against Lacon. After it was over, just two minutes and eleven seconds later, Terry was surprised to think how easy it had been. He had not made the mistake this time of holding back at the start, but had pushed to third place at once and held it to the last corner of the first lap. Then Howland set him back and he passed the line running fourth. Stevens, setting the pace, yielded as they turned into the backstretch and Terry was again in third place. A red-haired senior named Wallace gave him a hard race along the straight, but Terry beat him to the turn by a stride and hugged the rim as he came around into the homestretch. By that time the field was strung out halfway around and two of the competitors had fallen out. Howland had taken the lead and was having it nip-and-tuck with Green. Terry followed a good half-dozen yards behind. Stevens put a scare into him just short of the finish, but Terry had something left and beat him across by a few strides. The next morning Maple Park’s entries for the Dual Meet were mailed to her rival and the name of Terry Wendell was amongst them.

There was no work for the track and field men on Saturday, and so Terry and Joe sat together and saw the Lacon Academy Baseball Team go down to defeat by the score of 6 to 5 in a ten-inning contest filled with thrills. Starting out as a pitchers’ battle, it developed toward the end into a fielding competition. Both sides took to hitting, but hardly a hit got beyond the infield unless it was a high and safe fly, and victory depended on perfect defense. It was, properly enough, Captain Fosdick who broke the tie in the tenth. With one gone and a man on first, Fos laid down a bunt that should have been converted into an easy out. But Lacon’s taut nerves jangled badly and the third baseman, trying for speed, pegged wide of first. The runner on first kept on to third and then, with the ball speeding across to that bag, took a long and desperate chance. He put his head down and scuttled for the plate. Had the third baseman not been rattled by his previous misplay, the runner’s chance would have been poor indeed, but the Lacon player, surprised, doubtful, hesitated an instant too long and then had to throw hurriedly. If the ball had reached the catcher below his waist he might have sent the game into the eleventh inning, but he had to reach for it, and before he could sweep it down on the runner that youth had hooked a foot across the rubber and the baseball championship of the year was Maple Park’s.

That victory cheered the school hugely and was accepted as a good augury for the Meet. And it was reflected in the spirits of the five boys who met in 12 Munsing at two the next day and, a few minutes later clattered downstairs and started off on their picnic. Fos had failed them at the last moment, and so the party was composed of Joe, Terry, Hal, Tolly and Phil Hyde. Each one carried his portion of the provender and cooking apparatus, Hal looking picturesque with a skillet flapping over his hip. Tolly produced a chorus of contemptuous protest when he wheeled his bicycle from concealment alongside the entrance of Munsing and nonchalantly mounted it.

“This is a hike, you lazy beggar!” said Joe. “Get off that thing!”

But Tolly explained. He was a good explainer. “That’s all right for you fellows, but I’m not up to ten miles to-day. Think of what I went through yesterday, Joe! Winning a game like that one takes it out of you!”

“You didn’t even get a hit!” jeered Hal.

“Hits aren’t everything,” answered Tolly loftily. “Someone has to do the brain work. Besides, five miles is a bit of a jaunt when the last two are uphill, and we can take turns on the wheel. And we can strap a lot of things on it, too, and not have to lug ’em.”

That sounded more reasonable and Tolly won. Later they were thankful that he had, for Fate brought about circumstances that made that bicycle a fortunate possession. They didn’t try for a record and consumed nearly three hours in reaching the top of Bald Mountain. The roads were good until they reached the little village of Pearson, at the foot of the mountain, but from there they had rough going. The wagon road which wound to the summit by devious ways was rutted and rock-strewn and the last half of it was pretty steep. But they took it easy and were on top before five and at half-past had their fire going in the stone fire-place that some thoughtful persons had built several years before. They still had three hours of daylight before them, a cooling breeze swept past them from the southwest and they were comfortably weary and as hungry as five bear cubs. Hal cooked and Terry officiated at the coffee pot. After all they had to make coffee over the fire, for, although Joe had faithfully brought along his alcohol heater, he had made the lamentable mistake of forgetting the alcohol! But the coffee tasted all right, even if it was muddy. And the steak—well, when Tolly got his first taste of that steak he just turned his eyes Heavenward and said “Oh boy!” in awed rapture. There were baked potatoes, too, a bit solid in the middle and somewhat charred outside but fine elsewhere, and toast—if you could wait for it—and bananas and cakes of chocolate. Nothing marred the beatific success of the jaunt up to the time that the fog arrived. It was Joe who drew the attention of the others to the fact that the wide-flung landscape below them was no longer visible. As a fog on Bald Mountain is a damp and chilly affair, and as it is no particular aid to finding one’s way down a road that twists like a grapevine, they decided to make an early start.

They still had the sinking sun in their eyes when they began the descent, but when they had dropped a few hundred feet the gray mist was about them and, as the sun took that moment to disappear behind the mountain, they found that they had to proceed slowly and cautiously. It would be no difficult task to walk off the winding road and so get down faster and more painfully than desired. Tolly, who had eaten well but not wisely, had his wheel as well as himself to navigate and was frequently heard regretting the fact that he had yielded to the blandishments of the others and fetched it along! More than once the party came to a pause while Joe, leading, gingerly sought the direction of the erratic wagon road. The fog began to depress them and affected even Tolly’s good-nature. Twilight deepened the gloom and called for an increase of caution, and Joe had just finished an admonition to keep well toward the mountain side of the road when the accident happened.