CHAPTER XXIV

WON AT THE FINISH

Wayne had made a good beginning; he was already, ere the timers’ watches had ticked thrice, well in toward the left of the track and one of the first five men. He looked for Sturgis and found that dreaded youth close beside him. Before them were Pope, a Maddurn Hall boy, and the pale-faced youngster who had stood beside Wayne. Pope was making the pace, a rather fast one it seemed, and was running with a great expenditure of strength. Sturgis kept beside Wayne until the turn; then, as the latter took the inside edge, he fell in behind. Wayne wished devoutly that he would go ahead. He didn’t like the pace, which was too fast for the first quarter of a mile race, and he would have preferred to have been farther in the rear. When the back stretch began Wayne therefore decreased his speed a little. It had the desired effect. In a few seconds Sturgis was beside him again; in a few more he was a pace or two ahead. Wayne could not but admire the St. Eustace boy’s running. He kept well up on his toes, his thighs moved seemingly of their own volition, and his stride was all ease and swing.

At the next turn Sturgis ran close to the inner edge of the track and Wayne dropped a pace or two farther back and cast a fleeting glance over his shoulder. The balance of the contestants were strung pretty well down the back stretch, but Whitehead was about midway between first man and last. Pope had diminished his pace a little and the Warrenton boy seemed anxious to take his place. Then the group about the start was reached and cheers for the leader from the Collegiate contingent rent the air; then one after another of the runners received his applause and went by. Wayne caught a momentary glimpse of Paddy and Don beside the track as he began the second quarter.

Save that the last of the runners began to straggle a little, there was no change in the second quarter. Wayne held his place just behind Sturgis and ran on with a steady, easy stride. Again the start was reached and the race was half run.

“Time enough, Pope!” called a Collegiate coach, and at the same moment Wayne saw from the corner of his eye a runner draw slowly up beside him, hang there a second, and pass ahead. His colors proclaimed him a Collegiate runner and Wayne watched him with interest. By the time the turn was reached he was slightly behind the Warrenton boy, who was still at second place. Then Pope swerved aside, Warrenton was in the lead, with the second Collegiate runner close behind, and Pope had dropped back to a position just ahead of Sturgis. And now Sturgis, too, appeared desirous of falling back, for his pace diminished and the distance between him and the leader grew. But Wayne refused the invitation to pass and suited his speed to that of the wearer of the blue.

Half of the third quarter had been left behind when Wayne heard steps and the sound of breathing beside him again, and in another moment Gould had spurted by and Wayne was obliged to swerve slightly in order to avoid colliding with Sturgis, who upon the appearance of Gould had again lessened his speed. Mindful of his orders, but full of doubt, Wayne in turn fell back and Gould passed on and took the inner side behind Pope. Sturgis was still back of Wayne, and the latter slowed up yet more, striving to secure again a position behind the St. Eustace’s crack. But Sturgis refused to take the lead. The Maddurn Hall boy was dropping back fast, and at the middle of the turn Warrenton still led, followed in order by the two Northern Collegiate runners, Gould, Wayne, and Sturgis. As the home stretch began Gould drew ahead, running superbly, and as the line was crossed he was in the lead by a dozen yards or so, and St. Eustace cheers filled the air.

Then the last quarter began and found Wayne in perplexity. Gould was every instant increasing his lead, although Pope and his fellow-runner had taken up the chase. Warrenton was clearly out of it, and ere the first turn was reached Gould, the two Northern Collegiate runners, and Wayne were speeding along in the order named. Wayne was troubled. He asked himself whether, orders or no orders, he should stay back there when Gould was already thirty yards or more ahead of him and still spurting. Don and the others had quite evidently overestimated Sturgis’s importance and underestimated Gould’s. And if something was not done and done speedily the race was already St. Eustace’s. As though to aid him in his decision, Sturgis began to lag until, although Wayne could not see him, he appeared to that anxious youth to be practically out of the running.

“Here goes!” said Wayne to himself.

They were on the turn now and he left his place beside the inner edge and passed Pope and was soon alongside the other Collegiate runner. The latter gave him a hard race, but ere the back stretch was reached had yielded second place, and Wayne dashed on in what seemed a hopeless effort to reach Gould.

Back at the finish Don pulled his cap over his face and groaned.

“It’s all up; Wayne has fallen into the trap!” One of the Hillton coaches said something under his breath, and Professor Beck frowned grimly.

“But you told him?” asked the coach. “He had his orders?”

“Yes,” answered Don. “But you can see! And I suppose he’s not altogether to blame; it was so smoothly done.”

The coach ground the turf under his heel. Across the oval, Gould had almost reached the last turn, Wayne was some twenty yards behind him, still running like a streak, and back of Wayne sped Sturgis, easily, gracefully, taking his pace from the Hillton runner and covering the ground without overexertion or worry. Behind him again streamed the rest, Whitehead running side by side with Pope and a Shrewsburg chap vainly trying to pass them. But Gould’s work was done, and at the beginning of the turn he slowed up, weary and panting, and soon Wayne had passed him, tuckered but happy.

There comes a moment in every long-distance race when the last ounce of strength and endurance and the last breath seems to have been expended; after that the runner simply performs the impossible. Wayne had reached that moment. His legs ached, his breath tore itself from his lungs, and it seemed that further effort was out of the question. But the finish line was almost in sight, and so he gripped his moist fingers tighter about the corks and hugged the edge of the cinders. At least, he told himself, St. Eustace was beaten!

And then he heard the soft _pat_, _pat_, _pat_, of steps behind him, and at the same instant cries of “St. Eustace! St. Eustace!” Not daring to look behind, he struggled on in an agony of suspense until the turn was left and the broad path stretched clear and straight before him to the finish, where, strange and distorted to his strained eyes, forms leaped and gesticulated beside the track. Then the pursuer drew alongside and Wayne caught the gleam of deep blue ribbon, and could have shouted aloud in rage and mortification had there been breath enough in his body. In a flash he saw it all: Gould’s deceptive spurt, his own blind idiotic credulity, and Sturgis’s pursuit, with him to make the pace. St. Eustace had tricked him finely! For an instant the thought of yielding presented itself, but only to be routed in the next breath by a resolve to keep on, to contest the race to the very end, to run until he dropped.

Sturgis was now a yard in the lead, running well, but he was by no means fresh nor unwearied. Wayne gritted his teeth, gulped down a sob, and put every muscle and nerve to the test. He remembered a remark of Don’s: “When you are ready to drop, just think that the other man is worse off, and keep going.”

“He is, he is!” Wayne told himself. “He’s done up! I can win! I _will_ win!”

The tape was close before them now. Sturgis was plainly in distress, for he, too, had made a hard race. The crowd at the finish was shrieking unintelligible things. Inch by inch the red ribbon was winning its place beside the blue. Ten yards from the judges Wayne was even with Sturgis; five yards more and he had gained, but scarcely enough to be noticed by the throng.

“Hillton’s race! Come on, Gordon, _come on_!”

“St. Eustace wins! St. Eustace! St. Eustace!”

Sturgis threw his head back and strove to draw away, but Wayne, with unseeing eyes, almost reeling, lifted his arms weakly, called upon the last gasp of breath in his body, and hurled himself forward in a final despairing effort. And then the little white tape was gone and he lay in a tumbled heap upon the path.

“Hillton first,” announced the judges.

“Four minutes fifty-eight and four fifths,” said the timekeepers.

Hillton had won the interscholastic.