“Is Fudge still in it?” asked Perry wonderingly. Lanny nodded.
“Yes, he’s been doing well, too. So far he’s only six feet behind the Springdale chap, I understand. I only got here about five minutes ago. There’s Guy Felker over there with the pennant the girls gave him.”
“Oh, did he win it? I’m glad of that. How many points did he make, Lanny?”
“Ten; first in the high-jump and pole-vault. Here goes Harry again.”
Partridge walked into the circle, dragging his hammer, and the measurer, far out across the field, scuttled for safety, the yellow tape fluttering behind him. The crowd laughed and then grew silent. Partridge spun and the weight went hurtling through the air. But the result failed to equal his best throw.
“Now comes Fudge,” whispered Lanny. “Gee, but I wish he might beat that Springdale chap. If we could get second place out of this we’d have the meet!”
“Would we?” asked Perry, startled. “I thought——”
“Eight points would give us fifty-four and a half,” said Lanny, “and that would be enough, wouldn’t it? Funny Falkland is out of it. I thought he was almost as good as Harry.”
Perry, dodging behind the heads and shoulders in front of him, saw Fudge throwing off his dressing-gown and step, a rotund but powerful-looking youth, into the ring. Applause greeted him. Fudge glanced around and was seen to wink gravely at someone in the throng. Then he placed the ball of the hammer at the back of the ring, closed his fingers about the handle and raised his shoulders. Silence fell once more and anxious faces watched as the hammer came off the ground and began to swing, slowly at first and then faster and faster above the whitewashed circle. Fudge’s feet sped around, shifting like a dancer’s, until he was well toward the front of the ring. Then his sturdy young body set suddenly, his hands opened and off shot the flying weight, arching through the air, to come to earth at last far across the sunlit field.
The crowd broke and hurried to cluster about the ring, excited voices speculating eagerly on the distance. Out where the hammer had plowed into the sod the measurer was stooping with the tape. Then: