The audience was marveling, too. They were frantic, some for Sullivan, but most for Dickie, because he was so small and had borne his previous share so nobly. Their yells were deafening. But Dickie never heard them. He was taken up with a different thing—with the unbearable strain of the race. Every nerve in his body quivered under the rack of his effort. Every little molecule and atom was crying out with the torture of it—but would not Webster be disgraced if he did not win? He knew what they would all say. Could he make it? Still behind—what a hard fighter—this Sullivan! He would never underrate a Scotian again.
One foot and twenty yards to go. Now then! No use. O Dickie! Who called? All Webster was calling. O Dickie! What a horrible thing! Hot, heavy iron in his loins—great lead weights on his feet—and his chest! What an awful collapse in his chest! Would it hold out? And his knees—if they would but keep off the ground he would win yet.
A foot, still a foot—what an awful lot to make up! Half a foot! Was Sullivan going, too? Ten yards—even! Was it even? Was it worth this awful agony? Even—one more, two more, another—and—sh-h-h!
It was the frenzied Ludwig who caught him as he fell. And it was Ludwig and MacArthur who bore him in a blanket across the field and laid him on two thicknesses of mats in the athletic building. It was these two, and a doctor from among the officials, who worked on him until he knew where he was.
It was Ludwig on one side, sponging his face, and MacArthur on the other, drying him off, when he looked up with the first sign of intelligence.
“There you are, you little bronco! Changed your mind and came back to life, did you? Know what we’ve a good mind to do to you? A little of this, now—there, how’s that? That’s witch-hazel we’re rubbing on. Sniff it up, that’s right. Fine, eh? Feel better than when you crossed the tape-rather! Get up? Not for a while yet—not till the carriage comes.
“Who won? Why, you, of course!”
“I didn’t know. I was almost afraid to ask—afraid it was Sullivan. Last I remember he was ahead. Couldn’t see—”
“Ahead? I should say he was ahead until a yard from the string, and then a miracle happened. Of course you couldn’t see. Wonder you could breathe after that finish—and setting the pace all the way round! Why, your knees weren’t six inches off the ground! You crossed on your hands and knees—crossed, no, you never crossed—you fell over, and Sullivan fell alongside. Wait till Webster gets hold of you.”
“Poor Sullivan, wasn’t he game? And we beat Scotia?”