"They've beaten us. There's no use running any farther."
But Tug, having Lakerim ideals in mind, would never say die. He squandered just breath enough to exclaim:
"We're not beaten till the last man crosses the line!" And he added:
"Stage, run for your life."
And Stage ran. Oh, but it was fine to see that lad run! He fled forward like a stag with the hounds in full cry after him. He wasted not an ounce of energy, but ran cleanly and straightly and splendidly. He had the high-stepping knee-action of a thoroughbred trotter, and his running was as beautiful as it was swift.
"Run, all of you, for your lives!" cried Tug; and at that the weary little band sprang forward with a new lease on strength and determination. Tug had no ambition, like Orton, to leave his men to find their own way. Rather, he herded them up and urged them on, as a Scotch collie drives home the sheep at a canter.
Orton's runners were "tailed out" for more than half a mile behind him. He himself was easily the first man home; but Stage beat his second man in, and Bloss was a good third. Orton ran back frantically, now, to coax his last three men. He hurried in his third runner at a fairly good gait, but before he could get him to the line, Tug had brought forward his last three men, Sawed-Off well up, MacManus going doggedly and leaning mentally, if not physically, on Tug, who ran at his side.
By thus hurling in three men at once, Tug made an enormous inroad upon the score of the single-man Brownsvillers. Besides, though Orton got his next-to-the-last man in soon after Tug, the last Brownsviller did not come along for a minute afterward. He had been left to make his way along unaided and unguided, and he hardly deserved the laughter that greeted him as he came over the line.
Thus Orton, too ambitious, had brought his team in with this score: 1, 3, 8, 9, 10—total, 31; while Tug's men, well bunched at the finish, came in with this score: 2,4, 5, 6, 7-total, 24.
Tug richly deserved the cheers and enthusiasm that greeted his management; for, in spite of a team of individual inferiority to the crack Brownsvillers; he had won by strict discipline and clever generalship.