CHAPTER XVIII

DON LOSES HIS TEMPER

“Connor, you and Middleton will try the full flight together. Get on your mark, and I’ll start you in a minute. Perkins, you took the full distance yesterday, didn’t you? Well, report to Mr. Beck, please, for starting; and you’d better go a hundred and twenty on the flat at about a sixteen-second clip. Hello, Wayne, aren’t you working to-day?”

Wayne suited his step to Don’s and trotted up the track with him to where Connor and Middleton were waiting at the far end of the long line of hurdles.

“I guess so; after a while. Beck’s busy with the broad jumpers. Are you going over the hurdles?”

“If I get a chance. Hang it, I haven’t had any time to practice this week. Connor and Middleton have taken up every minute, and they’re awful duffers at hurdling. Perkins is a good man, though; he just passed you a minute ago. Wait until I get these fellows off and I’ll talk to you.”

Don went to the starting line and Wayne, drawing his coat more closely about his running costume, perched himself on an unused hurdle at the side of the track and looked on. Don took a small revolver from his pocket and stationed himself behind the two hurdlers.

“Both you fellows must try and get over the hurdles lower. Remember that it doesn’t matter if you strike them; it won’t hurt you. Connor, you start well and make your first hurdle all right, but after that you get ragged. Keep your pace up to the end; you ought to finish just as fast as you begin. Middleton, you haven’t got your pace right yet. Your first two steps are always too short, and the result is that your third leaves you too far from the hurdle. You must correct that. I’ll give you both two tries over the full flight. This time take it easy and be careful. On your mark! Set!”

_Bang!_ went the little pistol and the two hurdlers dashed forward toward the first of the three-feet-six-inch obstacles. Don ran alongside on the cinders, watching their performance and shouting instructions.

“Higher next time, Connor, by a half inch.” “Lengthen your stride, Middleton.” “Take your time, both of you.” “That’s better, Connor; good work. Don’t stop; keep on to the finish!”

The three hurdlers came slowly back, listening in patient and respectful attention to Don’s criticisms, and again dug their spikes into the cinders at the mark, crouching low and practicing little starts. Don called to Wayne.

“I’m going over them once, Wayne, to show these chaps what I’ve been talking about. Will you start me?”

Wayne hurried up and took the pistol.

“You fellows,” continued Don, turning to the two tyros, “had better run along and watch me over the hurdles. You’ll see what I mean by jumping low, and you, Middleton, had better watch my stride. All ready, Wayne.”

The latter cocked the pistol. “On your mark! Set!”

At the report of the pistol Don straightened himself quickly from his crouching position and tore lightly down on the first of the ten hurdles, springing off the right foot, turning his body slightly to the right and clearing the bar with a long, low, graceful rise that was scarcely more than a stride. Three long steps and he was again in the air, his rear ankle just tipping the wood as he landed on the ball of his right foot and sped on, apparently without effort. Again and again his white-clad form rose and fell down the line of hurdles until the last one was surmounted and he had crossed the finish running like a deer, swiftly and lightly. Then with a series of high, shortening strides he gradually slowed down and turned back.

“Isn’t it pretty, the way he does that?” said a voice in Wayne’s ear, and the latter turned to find Paddy beside him.

“You bet it is!” answered Wayne warmly. “I wish I could do it!”

“Ever try?”

“No; did you?”

“Once; last year. Don had five hurdles set up out here, and I told him I’d beat him over if he’d give me a start. So I tried. He waited until I was over the first hurdle. Then he started.” Paddy paused and grinned reminiscently.

“Who won?”

“There wasn’t any race, me boy. The spalpeen went across the finish while I was trying to pick myself out of the third hurdle. You see, I got over the first all right, but when I reached the second there was something wrong; I had too many feet or--or something; and I got there on the wrong one. I finally jumped off one of them--I think it was the left hind foot--knocked the hurdle over, ran for the next one, landed on top of it, and then--well, then the hurdle and I were all mixed up together. I think it struck me, but I’m not sure. Oh, hurdle racing is something that I wasn’t cut out for. I’m quite willing that Don should do my share.”

Don and the other two lads came up while Wayne was still laughing over Paddy’s narrative, and, yielding the pistol, Wayne stood aside and watched the next trial. Don got into his overcoat again and Connor and Middleton crouched at the mark.

“Now, see what you can do,” said Don. “I’ll tell you frankly that neither of you can make the team on such work as you’ve done up to date. So, for goodness’ sake, put brains into your hurdling. I’ll time you this try, and the fellow that finishes second will have to work hard next week if he wants to go to the interscholastic meeting.”

Once more the pistol sounded, the two boys left the mark as though shot from a cannon, and together took the first two bars. Then Middleton began to drop behind, and at the last hurdle was a long two yards to the rear of Connor, who finished well and strongly.

“Nineteen and a fifth,” called Don. “Slow work that. But you both showed improvement. Your stride’s all wrong yet, though, Middleton; two short at first; nothing even; you’ll get beaten every time until you mend it. I won’t try you over the full flight again until you’ve had a full week’s work learning the stride. Monday you’d better go back to the low hurdles again and try taking about three of them. That’s all to-day.”

Middleton and Connor, the former looking very meek, seized their wraps and trotted away toward the dressing room. Don joined Wayne and Paddy on the top of the hurdle and the three swung their legs and chatted until Professor Beck approached and summoned Wayne to the starting line of the mile.

It was Saturday afternoon, a week from the date of the handicap meeting, and the track candidates were out in full force. Groups of white-clad boys dotted the field. The broad jumpers and the pole vaulters were busy near by; several sprinters were trotting toward the grand stand after their trials; the hammer and shot candidates were hard at work; a number of fellows were jogging about the track; on the gridiron the spring football squad was learning the rudiments of the game, and the sound of the bat broke sharply on the air now and then where the baseball candidates were at practice. On the links a number of figures moved hither and thither at the will of the speeding white spheres. The scene was a bright and busy one, and overhead the blue April sky arched cloudless from hill to mountain.

“Gordon, get your coat off and limber up,” commanded Professor Beck. “I want you to run your distance to-day on time.”

Wayne threw aside his coat, looked to his running shoes, and trotted down the cinders to the one-hundred-yard post and back again, stretching his muscles and relishing the faint gritting sound that his shoes made on the smooth, level path. Then he got on his mark and listened to the professor’s directions.

“I’ll tell you your time after each quarter,” he announced. “I want you to study it and your pace so that you will be able in a race to judge accurately how fast you are going. Get away quickly and get a good steady pace by the end of the first sixty yards. Remember you’ve got a quarter of a mile farther to run than you’re used to. And remember, too, that on the last half lap you must increase your speed. Keep that in mind and save enough strength for a good hard spurt at the finish. Sutton will pace you on the last quarter. On your mark!”

Wayne sped away from a good start, and, according to directions, found a steady pace ere the end of the first half minute, and ran in good form. At the end of the first quarter Professor Beck announced the time and bade him to slow up a little. The half mile was accomplished well under 2.28. When he reached the line at the end of the third quarter Sutton was waiting and started off beside him at a pace that made Wayne’s eyes open. But he did not try to overhaul the fleet-footed four-hundred-and-forty-yard runner at once, but ran well within himself and saved his strength for the last half lap. He began to feel the pace now, and his feet showed a tendency to drag. As he passed the line on the next to the last lap some twenty yards behind the middle-distance man Professor Beck was waiting watch in hand.

“All right,” he called. “Don’t hurry until you turn for the finish.”

Around the track for the last time the two runners went. Sutton increased his pace and his lead about halfway down the back stretch. Overcoming the impulse to try and run him down then, Wayne kept up his steady, moderate pace until the turn toward the finish. Then he called on his reserve strength and spurted forward, making a fine race to the tape and finishing well up behind the speedy Sutton. As he trotted back to the line Professor Beck met him.

“Your time was five minutes and twenty seconds, Gordon. Try and remember your speed, so that next time you will be able to regulate your pace by to-day’s performance. You kept your arms up as usual and your second quarter was a bit too fast. Next time try and run it about five seconds slower, and put that five seconds into the finish. I expect you to cut that time down by at least fifteen seconds before the meet. That’s all this afternoon. Work yourself easy the first of next week; I think I’d leave out the cross-country run Monday and do about two miles slow on the track. I’ll give you another trial on Thursday.”

Wayne trotted away to the gymnasium, had a refreshing shower and rub down, and had done a full hour’s work at his studies when Don came in at dusk. The latter was not satisfied with his chum’s performance.

“You’ll have to beat that, Wayne. Sturgis, of St. Eustace, ran the mile last year easily in 5.02⅕,” he said. “And Warrenton has men that can do nearly as well. But it’s early yet. I do wish you’d get out of the habit of hugging yourself. I watched you this afternoon. You had your hands over your lungs during the whole last half of the mile.”

“Hang it,” Wayne responded, “you and Beck are awful cranks! I tell you that I can run better that way. I’ve tried letting my arms swing, and it won’t work.”

“No one wants you to swing your arms,” answered Don. “Just let them alone and they’ll look after themselves. Only, for goodness’ sake stop putting them on your chest and loading your lungs down!”

“I don’t load my lungs down,” answered Wayne a trifle shortly. “My lungs are all right. I had plenty of breath when I finished to-day to run another mile.”

“All right; but you wait and see, my boy. Folks that have been at the business longer than you know more about it, I guess; and you’ll discover some fine day that you’ve just thrown away your chances of doing something by sticking to a habit that you could easily break yourself of now if you’d try.”

“I have tried; I can’t run any other way.”

“You haven’t tried hard enough. It’s nonsense to say that you _can’t_ keep your arms off your chest; you just _won’t_!”

Wayne retired behind his Cæsar in silent dignity, and Don, his temper worn by the day’s labor with the hurdlers and jumpers, isolated himself in his window seat and scowled over his history of Greece until hunger drove both to supper, by which time the small quarrel was forgotten and the two raced downstairs and across to Turner Hall in the best of spirits.