“That’s just it,” said Grace. “We can’t ask them to toss up for it or draw lots, can we? So the best thing to do is to decide after it’s all over which of them really did the best.”
“But how can we decide that?” asked May Burnham. “How are we to know which did the best?”
“We can,” replied Grace convincedly. “Guy and the others will know if we don’t.”
“Guy will have ten points himself if he wins the pole-vault,” said Louise. “That would make it very simple.”
“I don’t believe he’s going to,” said another girl. “He’s just missed that try, and I think that long-legged Springdale boy did it a minute ago.”
“Oh, dear, if he doesn’t!” exclaimed Louise hopelessly. “There, he’s gone and missed it again! No, he hasn’t! He hasn’t! He went over! Oh, do you think that makes him win?”
Evidently it didn’t, for while Guy was being congratulated by those around the vaulting standard the bar was again raised and a boy with a megaphone announced: “The bar is now at ten feet one and one-half inches!”
But interest was drawn from the prolonged struggle there to the track. At the beginning of the straightaway they were gathering the contestants in the final of the two-hundred-and-twenty-yards-dash, the last of the track events. Clearfield and Springdale had each placed three men in the trials. For Clearfield these were Perry Hull, Kirke and Soper; for Springdale, Knight, Lawrence and Gedge. The trials had been done in twenty-four and three-fifths and twenty-four and four-fifths, rather slow time, but the final promised to show faster performances. It was figured that if Captain Felker could win five points in the pole-vault and the Purple’s sprinters could capture first and second places in the two-twenty, Clearfield might after all squeeze out a victory, for Partridge was counted on to have a very good chance to get the best there was in the hammer-throw, which had been going on for some time in the field across the way. But it was necessary to get eight points in the sprint, as it was reckoned, and there were few who dared hope for such a result. Kirke, it was generally conceded, might possibly win first place, but there were two good runners in the Springdale trio who would certainly make a showing.
Perry drew the fourth lane, with Lawrence of Springdale on his left and Orson Kirke on his right. Kirke looked grimly determined and Perry was pretty sure that he meant to win. And, thought Perry, since he had failed in the hundred he really deserved to. But Perry was not yet conceding the race. He had made mistakes in his first race. He had realized it afterwards. Now he meant to profit by what he had learned. He wasn’t so frightened this time, either. He had been through the fire.