“Track! Track! Keep back there! Give them room, fellows!”
“Grafton! Grafton! Grafton!”
“Tray! Tray! Tray!”
“Come on, Towne! Mount Morris! Mount Morris!”
“You can do it! Come on! Come on!”
Then a veritable babel of sound as a white-clad runner stumbles into sight at the end of the throng, is caught by ready arms and borne staggering to the turf. Grafton cheers fill the air. Another runner subsides on the grass. Cries of “Track! Track! Let them finish! Everyone off the track!” And then Milton, white of face, dragging his unwilling feet beneath him, fighting for breath, crosses the line a scant two yards ahead of a Mount Morris youth and plunges forward on his face. After that they jog in one by one, but no one sees them, for the race is over and Grafton has won first place and third and added eight much-needed points to her score!
Dud, separated in the confusion of that rush down from the stand from his companion, waited to hear the announcement of the time, hoping to learn that Foster Tray had made a new record for the mile. But four minutes and fifty-four seconds was not sensational, and so he followed the crowd to the pole-vault. The broad jumpers had just finished and Mount Morris had won first place, leaving four points for Grafton, and the figures stood 46 to 44, the Green-and-White still two points ahead. The hammer-throw had not yet been heard from, Dud learned, but Quinn was sure of first in the pole-vault. Dud joined the ranks of the anxious onlookers and watched while Mount Morris’s talent tried and failed to equal Jim Quinn’s ten feet and one inch, watched while Hanson of Grafton struggled for third place in the vault-off between him and Joy of Mount Morris and grieved when he lost out. And then, while Dud was figuring and calculating and staring at the unwelcome result which showed Mount Morris still a point ahead, a wildly leaping junior shot around the stand bringing an end to suspense.
Grafton had won first and second place in the hammer-throw! Driver had thrown a hundred and thirty-nine feet and four inches! And Gowen had done almost as well! And Mount Morris’s best was only——
But Dud didn’t care what Mount Morris’s best had been! He was scrawling a big black 8 on his program and shouting to no one in particular:
“What do you know about that? Grafton, 57; Mount Morris, 51! Well, I guess! Six points to the good! Oh, we’re not so bad, not so bad! Fifty-seven to fifty-one! What do you know about that?”