CHAPTER XXX

JUST A CHANCE

“Who you suppose could have sent that stuff?”

“We’ll have to look into it.”

“Yes, we ought to tell Dr. Churchill, and have him help us.”

Phil, Sid and Frank thus expressed themselves in whispers, as they sat in their room. Tom had been moved to the infirmary, and Dr. Marshall was working over him with the assistance of Professor Langley, who, as physics instructor, knew something of medicine.

The three chums had just received word that Tom was practically out of danger, and would be all right in a day or so, but that he was still quite ill, and suffered much discomfort.

“Well, I don’t know how you fellows feel about it,” spoke Sid, “but I’ve got my own opinion as to how that stuff came to be fixed, so as to make Tom ill.”

“How?” demanded Frank.

“You mean----” began Phil.

“I mean Shambler, and I don’t care who knows it,” went on Sid, raising his voice. “He’s a cad--and he’ll never be anything else. He and Tom were on the outs from the first, partly over Miss Tyler, and for other reasons.

“Then came the charge against Shambler, and, though Tom had nothing to do with that, Shambler has probably heard that Tom has taken his place for the mile run. He hates Randall, and he wants to see her lose after what happened to him, and, he wants to make Tom, by slumping, bring it about. That’s why he tried to ‘dope’ him. Oh, if I had Shambler here!” and Sid clenched his fists with fierce energy.

“Do you really think Shambler did it?” asked Frank.

“I’m sure of it!” declared Sid. “He is the only one who would have an object.”

“What about Exter--or some of our enemies from Boxer Hall--or even Fairview?” asked Phil. “You know the bottle came from Fairview.”

“It might have come from there, but no one from Fairview Institute sent it,” declared Sid confidently. “I’m going to look into this.”

“But we ought to keep it quiet,” suggested Frank. “I don’t see that any good can come of raising a row about it.”

“Me either,” agreed Phil. “Let’s work it out ourselves, with Dr. Marshall to help us.”

Sid finally agreed with this view. The night wore on, and Tom, by energetic measures, was soon brought out of danger. In fact he never really was in what could be called “danger,” the only effect of the stuff that had been put in the tonic, Dr. Marshall said, being to make him ill and weak. This, in all likelihood, was the object of the person who had fixed the dose. He hoped that Tom would be incapacitated for a week or more.

For it developed that the original bottle, of what was a standard remedy, had been opened, and a certain chemical oil added, that would neutralize the good effects, and make the stuff positively harmful.

“Say, but it was a scare all right, though,” remarked Sid, as the three sat talking about it, too engrossed to go to bed. And, in their case the usual rule of “lights out,” was not enforced on this occasion. “I sort of think it was ‘up to me,’ for recommending Tom to take the stuff.”

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Phil. “You meant all right. It was that cad Shambler who ought to be pummeled.”

“It’ll be hard to fix it on him,” was Frank’s opinion; and so it proved.

The next morning the three friends arranged with Dr. Marshall and the college authorities to keep the real reason of Tom’s illness secret from the students. It was given out that he was overtired from training. Then they set to work to unravel the mystery.

But it was hard work. In the first place they learned that the girls at Fairview knew nothing about the matter. Then Wallops was interviewed.

He gave a good description of the boy who had brought the bottle, and this personage developed, later, into a young employee of a local express company. The boy was sought out.

All that he knew was that the bottle had been given him at the Fairview office to take to Randall, and at the office a clerk had only a dim recollection of the person who brought it in to be dispatched.

Shambler was described to him, and he said that youth might have been the one. But it was flimsy evidence, and though Phil and his chums were well enough satisfied in their own minds that Shambler was the guilty one, there was no way of proving it.

So the matter was dropped, as much “for the honor of Randall,” as for any other reason. For, as Phil said:

“Fellows, we don’t want it to get out that any lad who once attended here could be guilty of such a thing.”

And so the affair rested.

It was two days before Tom was on his feet again, and though he had a wretched time he was, in a measure, even better off than before he took the unfortunate dose. For the rest had done him good, and when he got back to practice, rather pale and uncertain, he soon picked up his speed.

Sid, meanwhile, had been doing hard work, and the other candidates were up to the difficult standard set by Holly and Kindlings.

It was two days before the postponed games. All the difficulties caused by the change of date had been overcome, and there was every prospect of a successful meet.

“Now, Tom, do you feel like letting yourself go?” asked Holly, as the pitcher came out for a trial on the track.

“Yes, I’m all right again,” was the answer. “In fact I think I’m better than I was. Shall I do the whole distance?”

“No, try a half at first. Then, after you warm up, go the limit. We’ll ‘clock’ you.”

As Tom sped over the cinder track for the half mile run, he felt within himself a confidence that he had not been conscious of before.

“I believe that fit of sickness did me good,” he reflected. “It rested me up, at any rate.” When he had come to the finish mark, and the time was announced, it was two seconds better than he had ever done before.

“Now for the mile,” suggested Kindlings. “But take a little rest.”

“No, I’ll go at something else,” decided Tom. “I don’t want to get stiff.” So he did a little work at putting the shot, jumped over a few hurdles, tried some high and broad leaping, and then announced that he was ready for the mile test.

Quite a throng gathered about the track to watch Tom at his practice, and he felt not a little nervousness as he got on his mark.

“Go,” shouted Kindlings, as he fired the pistol, and Tom was off with some of the other candidates, who were in more to fill up, and make a showing for Randall than because they, or their friends, hoped they would win. And yet there was always the one chance.

Tom got off in good shape on the half mile track, two circuits of which were necessary to make the required distance.

“He certainly can go,” observed Holly Cross, who, with Kindlings, and some other kindred spirits, was watching the test.

“Come on! Come on!” yelled Bean Perkins, who was getting his voice in shape for the strain that would be put on it when the games were called. “Oh you, Tom Parsons! Come on!”

And Tom came. Running freely and well, he covered yard after yard, doing the half just a shade better than his other performance.

“Now for the real test,” murmured Kindlings, as our hero swung around the track on the final lap.

There were many eager faces lining the rail, and hands that held stop watches trembled a bit. On and on ran Tom, until he breasted the tape at the finish.

“Time! Time! What’s the time?” shouted the eager students who knew that fifths of seconds counted in a championship meet.

“Four minutes, forty-one and two-fifth seconds,” announced Holly. “Tom, that’s the best yet!”

“We’ll win! We’ll win!” screamed Bean. “Come on, boys!” he called to his crowd of shouters, “let’s practice that new song, ‘We’ll cross the line a winner, or we’ll never cross at all.’ All on the job, now.”

“Tom, old man, you’re all right,” cried Phil, as his chum slipped a sweater over his shoulders. “You’re going to win!”

“I hope--so,” was the panting answer.

There was a comparison of records, and it was found that while Tom’s was a little behind some mile run performances, it was better than that of a number of former champions.

“I think he can cut down a second or two when the games are run off,” said Kindlings, discussing the matter with Holly. “There’ll be a band then, and that always helps a lot, and big crowds, to say nothing of Bean and his shouters.”

“And the girls,” added wise Holly. “Tom’s got a girl in Fairview, I understand, and if she’s on hand he’ll run his head off.”

“Then we’ll have to have her on hand, if we’ve got to bribe her,” declared Kindlings.

“Oh, I guess she won’t need any bribing,” went on his chum. “Now let’s see what Sid can do.”

Sid, on whom the hopes of Randall rested to win the broad jump, was on his mettle. He could easily cover twenty feet, without straining himself, and to-day, in what all regarded as among the last of the important practices, he had several times, gone an inch or two over.

“I don’t hope to equal Bowers who, in 1899, did twenty-one feet, eight and one-half inches,” said Sid, “but I do want to do twenty foot, six, and I’m going to make it, too.”

“Sheran, in 1909, only made twenty feet, seven and a half inches,” Phil reminded his chum.

“Don’t make me envious,” begged Sid. “If I do twenty feet, six, I’ll be satisfied.”

“Don’t be satisfied with anything but the limit,” suggested Kindlings. But then he always was a hard trainer.

And so the practice went on, until Holly and Kindlings, seeing the danger of weariness, called a halt.

“I think we’re coming on all right,” was Holly’s opinion as he and his fellow coach left the field. “I’d like to get a line, though, on what Boxer Hall and the others are doing.”

“So would I, and I believe we ought to. Is there anything in the papers?”

“Yes, a lot of surmises, and some stuff that I believe is faked on purpose to deceive us.”

“Well, we’ll see if we can get a line on their form.”

Accordingly certain “spies” were sent out to see if they could get any information. It was regarded as legitimate then, for no underhand methods were used. It was “all in the game,” and there was a sort of friendly rivalry among the colleges.

A day later some of the lads whom Kindlings had sent out made a report. On the receipt of it the young coach did some figuring on the back of an envelope. Holly came upon him engaged in this occupation.

“What’s up?” he demanded.

“Well, I’m trying to ‘dope out,’ where we stand,” was the reply.

“Got any line?”

“Yes, if I can depend on it. The way I figure out is this. We’ve fairly got ’em all on some things. But not the mile run and the broad jump. Of course something might go wrong with the dash, or the hammer and weight throws, but I don’t think so.”

“What’s the matter with the run and jump?”

“Well, if these figures from Exter are true, they’ve got Tom by about three seconds, and Sid by two inches. But I think Exter has been too optimistic in giving the ‘dope.’”

“Maybe they’ve gone under their records to get better odds in betting.”

“No, I don’t think so. The only one I’m really afraid of is Exter. I think we can clean up Boxer Hall and Fairview. They can’t come near us on anything except the weight throw and pole vault, and I know Phil will make good on the vault, and if Dutch doesn’t get the fifty-six over the twenty-five foot mark I’ll punch his head.”

“Then the way you figure it out, we’ve got our work cut out for us?”

“We always had, but I think now that we’ve got just a chance to win. A chance, and nothing more, for the championship. If Shambler and Frank had stayed in it would have been different, but as it is, and not to disparage Tom or Sid, we’ve got a fair chance and nothing more.”

“To quote the raven,” said Holly with a smile. “‘Nevermore,’ Mr. Poe. But I think we’ll do it, Kindlings.”

“I’m sure I hope so,” was the grave answer. “I hope so.”