CHAPTER XXXI

AT THE GAMES

It was a day to be proud of--a day when nature was at her best. The sun shone, the sky was cloudless, the grass was green, and there was just enough wind to make it cool, without endangering any such delicate operation as putting a fifty-six pound weight, or interfere with an athlete hurling himself over the crossbar in the pole vault.

“Say, things couldn’t be better!” cried Tom, as he jumped out of bed, and stood at the open window, breathing in the balmy air. “It’s a good thing Randall’s luck postponed the games a week.”

“Feeling fit?” asked Frank.

“As a fiddle. Say, old man, I wish you were with us,” and Tom put his arm around the Big Californian.

“Oh, well, you’ll win without me, and maybe I’ll be with you--next time,” replied Frank, with the semblance of a laugh. None but himself knew the bitterness of his heart, and how much of a strain it had been for him to step aside, “for the honor of Randall,” when he was sure, in his own mind, that he was in the right, and that not a blot of professionalism stained his record.

“Come on, Sid,” urged Tom, as he pulled the blankets off his still slumbering chum. “As the old school readers used to say: ‘The sun is up, and we are up, too.’ Tumble out, and get your lungs full of good air. Then we’ll have a bit of breakfast and do some practice.”

“Um!” grunted Sid, and he rolled out.

All was astir at Randall, and so, too, in the other colleges. For, though the games did not take place until afternoon, there was much yet to do, many final arrangements to make, and the candidates, nervous as young colts, wanted a last try-out.

Running and jumping shoes had to be looked after, tights and shirts in which were rents, or from which buttons were missing, were being repaired by the rough and ready surgery of the college lads.

“This is the time when I wish we were at Fairview,” remarked Tom, as he gingerly handled a needle, repairing a tear in his shirt.

“Why?” demanded Sid.

“So I could ask some of the girls to fix these rips. I never can get used to a thimble.”

“Same here,” agreed Phil. “I shove it through with a nail file.”

“Threading a needle gets my goat,” confessed Sid. “Some authorities say to hold the thread still, and shove the needle at it. Other text books claim that the only proper way is to stick the needle upright in your knee and, after shutting your eyes, keep poking the thread at it until you make a hit. Then knot it and proceed as directed.”

“I never can get the right kind of a point on the thread,” admitted Frank. “It’s always too long, and then it curls up, and shoots around the needle like a drop curve, or else it’s too short, and blunt, and breaks the eye out of the needle.”

“There’s some kind of a thimble, that you stick your needle in, and it has a funnel so you can sort of drop your thread through it, and get it in the hole sooner or later,” remarked Tom. “Guess I’ll get one.”

“I had one of ’em,” said Sid. “The trouble is that after you get the needle in the thimble you can’t get it out again, and you have to break it off. Then you have to hunt up a new needle.”

“It’s a wonder some fellow doesn’t invent a kind of court plaster that you could stick over a tear, and mend it that way, as we do a cut,” suggested Phil. “I think I’ll work on that, instead of my perpetual motion machine after the games.”

Thus the jolly talk went on, until the lads, being excused from chapel for that day, had gotten their athletic suits into some sort of shape, and had gone out on the field for a final practice.

“Well, I trust the eleven will give a good account of itself to-day,” mildly remarked Dr. Churchill, as he met Holly and Kindlings with a squad of candidates. The doctor knew rather less about athletics than some girls do of baseball.

“It isn’t football, to-day, Doctor,” said Holly gently.

“Oh, of course. I ought to know that. Football comes in the Fall. The nine plays for the championship to-day, does it not? Ah, yes, I hope you win both halves.”

“It’s the track team that’s going to compete--for the all-around championship,” whispered Dr. Marshall, with a wink at the young trainers. “The track team, Dr. Churchill.”

“Ah, yes. I should have remembered. Well, I’m sure they will win,” and, with this cheering remark, the head of Randall passed on, thinking of a new book on the history of Sanskrit that he contemplated writing.

Out from their rooms, or the gymnasium, poured the athletes, eager as young colts, and as confident as all young lads are. Tom Parsons was fully himself again, Dr. Marshall’s treatment having put him on his feet. All efforts to learn more about the “doped” bottle of medicine had been dropped, and very few in the college even knew about it.

Sid, too, was trained to the minute, and the others, on whom Randall based her hopes, gave every promise of making good. Yet there was always the chance of a “fluke,” and Holly and Kindlings were desperately nervous as they checked record after record, cast up table after table of points, trying to figure out a more sure system for Randall to win.

The last of the practice was over. The boys had done all that was humanly possible to warrant their success. Now it all depended on the final outcome.

The athletes were to go to Tonoka Lake Park in autos, which had been supplied by some of the wealthier students of Randall. The rank and file would go in trolley cars, or any other way that suited them.

“Well, we can’t do any more,” remarked Holly to Kindlings, as they stood together, ready to start for the field. “We’ve done our best, and the rest lies with our lads.”

“Oh, they’ll make good, all right; don’t worry,” spoke Kindlings confidently. “Bean Perkins has a lot of new songs to cheer ’em with, and then with the band playing, our colors flying, the crowd yelling, and the girls looking pretty, why, we can’t lose.”

“Cross your fingers,” murmured Holly superstitiously, with a short laugh. “Cross your fingers, Dan, old man.”

“All up!” sung out Dutch Housenlager, as the autos came rolling up to the gymnasium. “All up, fellows. It’s do or die, now.”

“All ready!” yelled Bean Perkins. “A last cheer before we meet ’em at the grounds, fellows.”

The cheer came with resounding energy, and when it had died away, some one called for “_Aut Vincere, Aut Mori!_” “Either We Conquer, or we Die!”

The sweetly solemn strains of the Latin song rang out over the campus, as the competing team rolled away in the autos, waving their hands at their fellows.

“Hang it all, it seems like a funeral!” murmured Sid.

“Cut that out, you heathen!” ordered Phil, thumping his chum on the back.

“Feeling nervous?” asked Frank of Tom, to whom he sat next in the big car, for, though the Big Californian was not to compete, he rode with his chums.

“Just a little. I’m always thinking that I’ll slip, or--something----”

“Let the other fellow do the worrying,” suggested Frank, and it was good advice.

It was not a long ride to Tonoka Park, and when the autos containing the athletes came in sight of it, the lads saw the grounds gay in colors, while a big throng was already on hand. The strains of a band could be heard, and there were cheers and songs, for the crowds from Boxer Hall and Fairview were already in evidence.

“My! There’s a mob!” remarked Tom, as they swung up to the part of the field set apart for them.

“And look at the girls!” added Phil, as he waved his hand toward a section of the grandstand where the maids of Fairview were gathered.

“Will we have time to see ’em before we dress?” asked Sid.

“Oh, you’ll make it, whether you have or not,” retorted Frank. “You’re getting it bad.”

“Dry up!” ordered Sid sententiously.

They left their suit cases in the dressing rooms assigned to them, and started across the field toward the stand where they hoped to see Ruth Clinton and her chums.

As they walked along Tom started, and stared toward a section of the crowd.

“What’s up?” asked Phil.

“I--I thought I saw Shambler,” spoke Tom in a low voice.

“Nonsense! He wouldn’t dare show his face here,” said Phil.

“I guess not,” agreed Tom, and he dismissed the matter.

“Here we are!” cried Ruth, as she spied her brother and his friends. “And we haven’t got your colors, either.”

She shook a flag of Fairview in his face.

“Pooh!” replied Phil. “Enough other girls have ’em,” and he waved his hand toward a part of the stand where the young lady cohorts of Randall sported the yellow and maroon.

Tom greeted Madge Tyler, and, as he stood beside her, he caught a glimpse of something yellow beneath the lapel of her light cloak.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Don’t tell,” she whispered, “or I’d be tried for treason, but--I just couldn’t help it,” and, with a cautious glance around, she showed him a tiny bow of Randall’s colors, under those of her own college. “I--I just hope you’ll win!” she whispered, and Tom pressed her hand as he murmured his thanks.