“You go on,” answered Arthur with a groan. “I’ll go slow for awhile and see if the pain lets up. Maybe I’ll manage to get a place.”
“All right,” answered Gerald. “Don’t give up.”
Hiltz had gained most of a hundred yards, but Gerald set to work doggedly and unhurriedly, and by the time they had skirted the woods and had found the Greenburg road he was once more on Hiltz’s heels, much to that youth’s surprise and displeasure. The race was half run now and Scott and Goodyear were still going easily and well within two yards of each other. But they had pulled ahead of the rest and were far down the road when Gerald felt the hard ground under foot again. The outlying houses of the town came into sight and soon they were speeding along a back street between rows of tenements and laborers’ cottages. Hiltz and Gerald were running twelfth and thirteenth now and the pace had begun to tell on both. Hiltz had eased up perceptibly and Gerald could hear his deep gasps for breath. Gerald was in better shape, but nevertheless he was not at all ill pleased when Hiltz began to slow down. Before they had left the town two Broadwood fellows and French of Yardley passed them. French was making hard work of it, although he tried to grin bravely as he called: “Come on, you fellows! We’ve got it cinched!” A quarter of a mile farther on, however, they overtook him walking at the side of the road with drooping head.
“Sorry,” called Gerald as he trotted by.
French lifted a drawn, tired face, nodded and smiled wryly.
Then the bridge was in sight and, this side of it, the abrupt turn into the Broadwood road that announced the beginning of the final mile. Gerald was watching Hiltz sharply now, wondering whether to try him with a spurt. As they reached the turn he made up his mind and, quickening his pace, ran inside of his rival and gained the lead. But Hiltz, although taken by surprise, wasn’t dead yet, and in the next fifty yards he had passed Gerald and regained the lead. And Gerald, quite satisfied, settled down into his former pace and plugged away with aching muscles and tortured lungs. Far up the road Scott and Goodyear were struggling for supremacy, two white specks in the distance.
[CHAPTER X]
AT THE FINISH
As soon as the runners had gotten away the spectators at the old Cider Mill set out along the country road for the finish, a mile away toward Broadwood. Some few had bicycles, but the most of them walked. Among the latter were Dan and Alf and Tom. Paul Rand had started out with them, but somewhere along the way he had fallen in with friends and had deserted them. When they reached the finish they found a comfortable, sunny place on the hillside and spread their sweaters.