But what a distance sixty yards is when seventeen hundred have gone before it! And what a deal may happen in that little stretch of cinder path! The stand was almost deserted and the spectators were lined along the track almost from the corner to a point beyond the finish, so that the runners came on through a lane of gesticulating arms, waving flags and caps and frantic noise.
Suddenly Connor’s head tipped back a little. Dick, watching, saw and realized that the last struggle had begun. With a gasp for breath to carry him on, he began his sprint at the same moment that Connor strove to draw away. A dozen strides and Parish was no longer beside him. A dozen more and he was almost even with the Hammond crack. But now his breath threatened to go back on him utterly at every aching gasp and his legs weighed hundreds of pounds. The hope of victory, born suddenly back there by the turn, withered under the knowledge of defeat.
Then into his range of vision, standing sharply out against the confusion of dark figures lining the track to the right, leaped a girl in a white dress, a small, slim form with the reddest of hair and a pale, entreating face. And in the moment that he saw her her hand shot out toward him waving a little slip of white paper and beckoning him on. And in the instant he remembered that there was more in this than a victory over Hammond; that on his winning or losing depended the success of the F. H. S. I. S.! To win meant a new dormitory for the school; to lose—But he wasn’t going to lose now!
[“‘And something else, too!’”]
Stride! Stride! Gasp! Gasp! He had an idea that Connor had vanished into thin air; at least he was no longer at his elbow! Faces swept by like strange blurs. The line was in front of him, half a dozen yards away. He wondered why nobody spoke, why everything was so still; then awoke to the knowledge that the shouting was deafening. Cries for “Ferry Hill! Ferry Hill!” for “Hammond! Hammond!” rent the air. Another stride—another—and then somebody got in his way and he couldn’t stop and so tumbled over into somebody’s arms.
He had a dim idea that he was being dragged across the cinders. Then he had no ideas at all for a minute. When he got a good, full hold on his faculties again he opened his eyes to find Chub and Roy beside him. He smiled weakly.
“Did I—win?” he gasped.