Simultaneously with the words, Matt, in his nondescript racing-attire, made his way along the track toward the tape.
There followed a breathless pause. Although the word had gone around that King was coming, the Prescott rooters tried to treat it as a canard. They didn't want King.
Dace Perry, as Matt walked toward him, reeled back from his machine. His face went white as death, and a hopeless look arose in his eyes. Without a word he caught his machine by the handle-bars and made for the paddock. His thunderstruck adherents, Spangler, Drake and the others, were waiting to offer what consolation they could give.
Following the breathless pause, a veritable roar went up from the grand stand and all around the track. It was a Phœnix roar, of course, and it was Phœnix people who stood on their seats, threw up hats and shook canes and handkerchiefs. The high-school boys, clustered together, let loose with their triumphant yell. Colors were waved—Phœnix colors—and the flags of Prescott High were temporarily retired.
"King, King, King-King-King!" chanted Phœnix High, in unison.
"Oh, he ain't so much!" came a feeble wail through a megaphone. "Hold your shouting until after the race!"
"Drown him!" whooped Phœnix. "Send him to the asylum! Back, back to the padded cell!"
O'Day took Matt's sizing with a troubled eye, then clenched his teeth. He would do his best—but he had doubts. A half-confidence is worse than no confidence at all.
"Buck up, O'Day!" implored the Prescott rooters. "You can do the trick! Don't let him throw a scare into you. He's ridden twenty miles and he must be about all in!"
That last was the key-note. When O'Day heard it he brightened. Matt was in from a trying trip, just in, and he had to go the round on a pound of crackers and cheese! But Prescott didn't know him.