“No, I just found I couldn’t do it, Perry. How’s the track?”
“Fine! Say, I wish Kirke had got placed. They’ve got four to our two in the final.”
“Never mind, you or Soper will get a first. Those chaps aren’t fast. Give me a pull up, will you?”
Perry got back into his dressing-gown and joined the throng across the field, at the finish of the 440-yards. Sears, Todd and Cranston lined up for the Purple in the quarter-mile and Springdale placed five runners at the mark, amongst them Davis, the Blue’s captain. It was Davis who took the lead at the end of the first hundred yards and, although hard-pressed by Toby Sears and a second Springdale runner, kept it to the tape. At the turn Davis was two yards to the good and Sears was leading the third man by a scant two feet. Todd was in fifth place and the other Clearfield entrant in seventh. At the beginning of the stretch Sears gained half the distance separating him from Davis, and until well down the track it looked as if he might get the lead. Davis, however, had plenty of reserve and forty yards from the finish it was evident that Sears had shot his bolt. Davis finished first by three yards and a second Springdale runner ousted Sears from second place almost at the tape. Springdale had made a good start with eight points to Clearfield’s one, and the Blue’s adherents cheered approvingly.
The high hurdles followed and again Springdale triumphed, getting first and third place. Beaton finished second but was disqualified for upsetting too many hurdles, and Peyton got the honor. The time was eighteen seconds flat and bettered the dual meet record by a fifth of a second.
In the final of the 100-yards dash Perry and Soper were opposed to four wearers of the blue. Perry, digging his holes, tried to recall all the good advice Mr. Addicks had given him, but couldn’t remember much of anything. His heart was beating very fast, and he was as nearly frightened as he had been for a long time. He looked over at Soper, who had drawn the inside lane, and saw that even that more experienced runner was plainly nervous. Then the starter’s voice came and Perry settled his toes in the holes, crouched and waited.
“Set!”
Some over-anxious Springdale sprinter leaped away and it had all to be gone through with again. But at last the pistol sounded and Perry, without knowing just how he had got there, found himself well down the track, his legs flying, his arms pumping up and forward and down and back, his lungs working like a pair of bellows and the cries and exhortations of the spectators in his ears. A youth with blue stripes down the seams of his fluttering trunks was a good yard in the lead and Perry, with three others, next. Someone, and Perry silently hoped it wasn’t Soper, was no longer in sight. Perry put the last gasp of breath and last ounce of strength into the final twenty yards in a desperate effort to overtake that Springdale runner, but it wasn’t until they were almost at the tape that he knew he had gone ahead, and then, as he threw his arms up, a third white-clad figure flashed past!
A half-minute later Perry learned that Soper had won and that he had finished in second place by a scant two feet. Soper’s time was ten and a fifth. Perry had feared that the form which had flashed to the front at the tape had been that of a Springdale runner and was so relieved that it didn’t occur to him until some time later to either regret that he had not finished in first place or congratulate himself on capturing second. But Guy Felker, after hugging Soper, almost wrung Perry’s hand off.
“That was bully!” he repeated over and over. “That was bully! We get eight out of it and didn’t count on more than four! You’re all right, Hull! Better rest up now, boy. Remember the two-twenty’s coming. Hello, Lanny! What do you say to that? Wasn’t it bully?”