Chapter 9

Suddenly, as the devoted four followed their leader, the first station, the farm-house at which they were to report, loomed unexpectedly upon the horizon, approached in some unknown way by Tug, who was threading his way through the wilderness with more regard for straight lines than for progress. They were named off, as they flew past, by a watcher stationed there, and without pause they made off toward the railroad junction. Once they thought they saw a few fleeting forms in the distance, and they guessed that they must be Orton and his Brownsville team; but they could not feel sure, and no closer sight of their rivals was vouchsafed to them.

When the last station, the little red school-house, had been passed, they began to feel that there was some hope of their reaching home. They began also to feel the effect of their long, hard journey. Their sides hurt them sorely, their legs ached, and their breath came faster than they wished.

MacManus now showed more serious signs of weakening than any of the rest. He straggled along the way with feet that seemed to get into each other's path, and with a head that wabbled uncertainly on his drooping shoulders.

Tug fell back and ran alongside him, trying to console and encourage him to better speed. MacManus responded to this plea with a spurt, and suddenly broke away from the four and ran wildly ahead with the speed of desperation.

He came upon a little brook frozen across with a thin sheet of ice. Here he found a log that seemed to have been placed, either providentially or by some human being, to serve as a foot-bridge. MacManus leaped gaily on it to cross the stream ahead of the rest.

To his breathless dismay, the log turned under his foot; and wildly as he tried to get a good grip on the atmosphere, nothing could save him, and he went ker-smash and ker-splash through the thin ice into the water.

Now he was indeed willing to run without any more coaxing than the bitter air upon his wet skin. His only hope of getting warm was in his heels. And he ran like a maniac till Tug and the rest must put on extra force also, or leave him completely.

Almost before they knew it, now, they were on the outskirts of Kingston village. Their arrival at the beginning of the home stretch was signaled in a very startling manner; for Tug, who had regained the lead, saw ahead of him a bright, shining strip that looked for all the world like a little frozen stream under the moonlight. He did not care to risk stepping on any more thin ice, so he gave the quick command:

"Jump!"

And he jumped, followed almost immediately by his devoted attendants. The next thing they all knew, they were in half-frozen mud up to their knees. The bright patch they had supposed to be a brook was a frost-covered sidewalk!

And they had carefully jumped over the sidewalk into the mire beyond!

Tug was disgusted but not disheartened, and he had his crew under way again instantly. He kept up his system of short cuts even now that they were in town. He led them over back fences, through orchards and kitchen-gardens, scattering a noisy flock of low-roosting hens in one place, and stirring up a half-dozen more dogs in another.

The true home stretch was a long downhill run straight to the goal.

By the time they reached this MacManus was once more in bad shape, and going very unsteadily.

As they cleared the brow of the hill, Tug's anxious heart was pierced with the fear that he had lost the long, racking race, after all; for, just crossing the stake at the finish, he caught a sight of Orton.

The rest of the team saw the same disheartening spectacle. And MacManus, eager for any excuse to stop running, gasped:

"They've beaten us. There's no use running any farther."

But Tug, having Lakerim ideals in mind, would never say die. He squandered just breath enough to exclaim:

"We're not beaten till the last man crosses the line!" And he added: "Stage, run for your life."

And Stage ran. Oh, but it was fine to see that lad run! He fled forward like a stag with the hounds in full cry after him. He wasted not an ounce of energy, but ran cleanly and straightly and splendidly. He had the high-stepping knee-action of a thoroughbred trotter, and his running was as beautiful as it was swift.

"Run, all of you, for your lives!" cried Tug; and at that the weary little band sprang forward with a new lease on strength and determination. Tug had no ambition, like Orton, to leave his men to find their own way. Rather, he herded them up and urged them on, as a Scotch collie drives home the sheep at a canter.

Orton's runners were "tailed out" for more than half a mile behind him. He himself was easily the first man home; but Stage beat his second man in, and Bloss was a good third. Orton ran back frantically, now, to coax his last three men. He hurried in his third runner at a fairly good gait, but before he could get him to the line, Tug had brought forward his last three men, Sawed-Off well up, MacManus going doggedly and leaning mentally, if not physically, on Tug, who ran at his side.

By thus hurling in three men at once, Tug made an enormous inroad upon the score of the single-man Brownsvillers. Besides, though Orton got his next-to-the-last man in soon after Tug, the last Brownsviller did not come along for a minute afterward. He had been left to make his way along unaided and unguided, and he hardly deserved the laughter that greeted him as he came over the line.

Thus Orton, too ambitious, had brought his team in with this score: 1, 3, 8, 9, 10--total, 31; while Tug's men, well bunched at the finish, came in with this score: 2,4, 5, 6, 7-total, 24.

Tug richly deserved the cheers and enthusiasm that greeted his management; for, in spite of a team of individual inferiority to the crack Brownsvillers; he had won by strict discipline and clever generalship.

XXIV

The victorious outcome of the cross-country run, as well as many other victories and defeats, had pretty well instilled it in the Lakerim minds that team-play is an all-important factor of success. But the time came when there was no opportunity to use the hard-learned, easily forgot lesson of team-work, and it was each man for himself, and all for Lakerim and Kingston.

When the ground was soggy and mushy with the first footsteps of spring, and it was not yet possible to practise to any extent out of doors, the Kingston Athletic Association received from the athletic association of the Troy Latin School a letter that was a curious combination of blood-warming hospitality and blood-curdling challenge. The Latin School, in other words, opened its heart and its gymnasium, and warmly invited the Kingston athletes to come over and be eaten up in a grand indoor carnival. Troy was not so far away that only a small delegation could go. Almost every one from Kingston, particularly those athletically inclined, took the train to Troy.

Most surprising of all it was to see the diminutive and bespectacled History proudly joining the ranks of the strong ones. He was going to Troy to display his microscopical muscles in that most wearing and violent of all exercises--chess.

The Tri-State Interscholastic League, which encouraged the practice of all imaginable digressions from school-books, had arranged for a series of chess games between teams selected from the different academies. The winners of these preliminary heats, if one can use so calm a word for so exciting a game, were to meet at Troy and play for the championship of the League.

If I should describe the hair-raising excitement of that chess tournament, I am afraid that this book would be put down as entirely too lively for young readers. So I will simply say once for all that, owing to History's ability to look wiser than any one could possibly be, and to spend so much time thinking of each move that his deliberation affected his opponents' nerves, and owing to the fact that he could so thoroughly map out future moves on the inside of his large skull, and that there was something awe-inspiring about his general look of being a wizard in boys' clothes, he won the tournament--almost more by his looks than by his skill as a tactician. The whole Academy, and especially the Lakerimmers, overwhelmed this second Paul Morphy with congratulations, and felt proud of him; but when he attempted to explain how he had won his magnificent battle, and started off with such words as these: "You will observe that I used the Zukertort opening"; and when he began to tell of his moves from VX to QZ, or some such place, even his best friends took to tall timber.

The Kingston visitors found that the Troy Latin School was in possession of a finer and much larger gymnasium than their own. But, much as they envied their luckier neighbors, they determined that they would prove that fine feathers do not make fine birds, nor a fine gymnasium fine athletes. A large crowd had gathered, and was put in a good humor with a beautiful exhibition of team-work by the Troy men on the triple and horizontal bars and the double trapeze. The Trojans also gave a kaleidoscopic exhibition of tumbling and pyramid-building, none of which sports had been practised much by the Kingstonians. After this the regular athletic contests of the evening began.

In almost every event at least one of the Lakerim men represented Kingston. Some of the Dozen made a poor showing; but the majority, owing to their long devotion to the theory and the practice of athletics, stood out strongly, and were recognized by the strange audience, in their Lakerim sweaters, as distinguished heroes of the occasion.

The first event was a contest in horse-vaulting, in which no Lakerim men were entered. Kingston suffered a defeat.

"Ill begun is half done up," sighed Jumbo.

But in the next event the old reliable Tug was entered, among others; and in the Rope-Climb he ran up the cord like a monkey on a stick, and touched the tambourine that hung twenty-five feet in the air before any of his rivals reached their goal, and in better form than any of them.

The third event was the Standing High Jump; and B.J. and the other Kingstonians were badly outclassed here. Their efforts to clear the bar compared with that of the Trojans as the soaring of an elephant compares with the flight of a butterfly.

Punk was the only Lakerimmer on the team that attempted to win glory on the flying-rings, but he and his brother Kingstonians suffered a like humiliation with the standing high-jumpers.

The clerk of the course and the referees were now seen to be running hither and yon in great excitement. A long delay and much putting of heads together ensued, to the great mystification of the audience. At length, just as a number of small boys in the gallery had begun to stamp their feet in military time and whistle their indignation, the official announcer officially announced that there had been a slight hitch in the proceedings.

"I have to explain," he yelled in his gentlest manner, "that two of the boxers have failed to turn up. Both have excellent excuses and doctors' certificates to account for their absence, but we have unfortunately to confess that the Kingston heavy-weight and the Troy feather-weight are incapacitated for the present. The feather-weight from Kingston, however, is a good enough sport to express a willingness to box, for points, with the heavy-weight from Troy. While this match will look a little unusual owing to the difference in size of the two opponents, it will be scientific enough, we have no doubt, to make it interesting as well as picturesque."

As usual, the audience, not knowing what else to say, applauded very cordially.

And now the heavy-weight from Troy, one Jaynes, appeared upon the scene with his second. There was no roped-off space, but only an imaginary "ring," which was, as usual, a square--of about twenty-four feet each way.

Jaynes was just barely qualified as a heavy-weight, being only a trifle over one hundred and fifty-eight pounds. But he overshadowed little Bobbles as the giants overshadowed Jack the Giant-killer.

Bobbles, while he was diminutive compared with Jaynes, was yet rather tall and wiry for his light weight, and had an unusually long reach for one of his size. He regretted now the great pains he had taken to train down to feather-weight weight. For when he had stepped on the scales in the gymnasium, the day before he had started for Troy, he found that he was three pounds over the necessary hundred and fifteen. So he had put on three sweaters, two pairs of trousers, and his football knickers, and run around the track for fully four miles, until he was in doubt as to whether he was a liquid or a solid body. Then he had fallen into a hot bath, and jumped from that into a cold shower, and had then been rubbed down by some of his faithful Lakerim friends with a pail of rock-salt to harden his muscles. At Troy, too, he had continued these tactics, and found, to his delight, when he weighed in, that he just tipped the scales at one hundred and fifteen. And now he was matched to fight with a heavy-weight, and every pound he had sweat off would have been an advantage to him! Yet, at any rate, it was not a fight to a finish, but only for points, and he counted upon his agility to save him from the rushes and the major tactics of the larger man.

In order to make the scoring of points more vivid and visible to the audience, it was decided, after some hesitation, that the gloves should be coated with shoe-blacking.

Bobbles realized that his salvation lay in quick attack and the seizure of every possible opportunity, as well as in his ability to escape the onslaughts of the heavy-weight. He did not purpose turning it into a sprinting-match, but he felt that he was justified in making as much use of the art of evasion as possible.

He began the series by what was almost sharp practice, but was justified by the rules.

The referee sang out:

"Gentlemen, shake hands."

Then the long and the short of it quickly clasped boxing-gloves in the middle of the ring.

"Time!" cried the referee.

Immediately on the break-away, before Jaynes had got his hands into position, Bobbles had landed on him with a fine left upper cut that put a black mark on Jaynes' jaw. Jaynes looked surprised, and the audience laughed. Bobbles also laughed, for he knew he would have few chances to place black spots on the upper works of the tall Jaynes, and that he must make his scores mainly upon the zone just above Jaynes' belt.

Jaynes was as much angered as surprised at receiving the first blow, and sailed in with a vengeance to pepper Bobbles; but he began to think that he was boxing with a grasshopper before long, for, wherever he struck, there Bobbles was not. In fact, most of his straight-arm blows were not only dodged by Bobbles with the smallest necessary effort, but were effectively countered.

Bobbles proved himself an adept at that best of boxing tactics, the ability to dodge. He rarely moved more than would take him sufficiently out of harm's way. A little bending of the head from one side to the other, a quick side-step or an adroit duck, saved him from being the bull's-eye of most of Jaynes' attacks.

There were to be three rounds of three minutes each, with one minute's intermission between rounds. The first round was over before either of the men was much more than well warmed up to the work, and before either had scored any impressive amount of points. Jaynes, however, realized that Bobbles had landed oftener than he, and that the sympathy of the audience was with the little fellow. When time was called for the next round, therefore, he decided to rush things; and he charged on Bobbles with such fury that side-stepping and back-stepping were of little avail, and there was nothing for Bobbles to do but go into the mix-up and try to give as much as he received.

Before they knew just how, they were clinched, and the referee was cutting them apart like a cheese-knife. And now the big man realized that on the swift interchange of blows Bobbles was quicker than he, and that he must keep him at a little distance. Relying, then, on his greater reach, he went at Bobbles in a most exasperating manner, holding one long arm out straight, and fanning Bobbles with the other. Bobbles ran into the outstretched fist with great enthusiasm at first, but after a moment's daze he dodged round and under that arm and devoted himself to playing a tattoo on Jaynes' solar plexus. Since his glove left a black mark wherever it struck, it was tattooing in two senses.

Both men welcomed the gong that announced a chance to breathe.

The grateful rubbing down, fanning, and sponging of the lightning-like seconds between the rounds restored both men somewhat to their enthusiasm, though the furious rate at which they had taken the two previous rounds left them bodily weak.

Jaynes' second told him, during the pause, that Bobbles had decidedly the best of it thus far on form, and Jaynes' temper was aroused. Bobbles, having been told by his second that he had the better of it, had grown a trifle rash and impudent, and dared to take the aggressive. He went straight into Jaynes' zone of fire, and managed to plant several good hooks and upper cuts.

While Bobbles was playing in the upper regions for Jaynes, Jaynes made a reach for Bobbles' body, several times; but Bobbles was not there. When Jaynes made a careless lead, Bobbles countered and dodged with remarkable skill.

All these things, while they increased Bobbles' score and standing with the judges, increased Jaynes' temper; and finally he gave a vicious right swing, which Bobbles avoided unintentionally by slipping and falling. So he found himself on the floor, with Jaynes standing over him in expectant anticipation of landing him another ebonizing blow. He heard, also, the referee beginning to count slowly the seconds. His first impulse was to rise to his feet and assail Jaynes with all his might; then he realized that he had nine seconds for refreshment, and there he waited on one hand and one knee, while the seconds were slowly intoned, until the referee sang out:

"Nine!"

Then he made a sidelong scramble to his feet, and succeeded in dodging the blow with which Jaynes welcomed him back.

Jaynes charged now after Bobbles like a Spanish bull; but the wiry Lakerimmer dodged him, and smote back at him while he dodged; while Jaynes, losing his head completely, wasted his strength in futile rushes and wild blows that bruised nothing except the atmosphere. Before the end of the round both men were decidedly tired, because the pace had been very rapid. The blows they dealt at each other were now hardly more than velvety shoves, and the air seemed to be the chief obstacle in their way. When by some chance they clinched, they leaned lovingly upon each other till the referee had to pry them apart. There was a little revival of interest just before the gong sounded to end the third and last round; for Bobbles, having regained some of his wind, began to pommel Jaynes with surprising rapidity and accuracy. The end of the bout found them in a happy-go-lucky mix-up, each striking blindly.

The judges now met to discuss the verdict they were to render; and, there being some dispute as to the number of blows landed by each, the two men were brought forward for inspection. Bobbles' face and neck were as black as a piccaninny's, but there were few dark spots upon his chest. Jaynes, however, was like a leopard, for the blacking on Bobbles' gloves had mottled him all up and down and around.

As Jumbo remarked to Sawed-Off: "Bobbles certainly had designs on that big fellow!"

The judges had been agreed that on the points of defense, guarding, ducking, getting away, and counter-hitting, Bobbles, considering his size, was plainly the more brainy and speedy of the two. They were also inclined to grant him the greater number of points on his form in general, and especially on account of the disparity in size and reach; and when they counted the tattoo-marks on each, they found that here also Bobbles had made the highest score, and they did not hesitate to award him the prize.

The next event was the High Kick, which was won by a Kingston hitch-and-kicker, who was a rank outsider from the Dozen. Quiz managed to be third and add one point to the Academy's score.

Then came an exhibition of Indian-club swinging. Jumbo had formerly been the great Indian-club swinger of the Dozen, but he had recently gone in so enthusiastically for wrestling that he had given up his other interest. Sleepy had taken up this discarded amusement with as much enthusiasm as was possible to him. There was something about it that appealed to Sleepy. It was different from weight-lifting and dumb bell exercising in that when you once got the clubs started they seemed to do all the work themselves. But Sleepy was too lazy to learn many of the new wrinkles, and the Troy club-swingers set him some tasks that he could not repeat. In form, too, he was not their equal; and this event went to the Kingston opponents.

A novelty was introduced here in place of the usual parallel-bar exhibition. From the horizontal bar a light gate was hung, and the various contestants gave exhibitions of Vaulting. The gate prevented the use of the kippie swing. There was no method of twisting and writhing up to the bar; it had to be clean vaulting; and Kingston gradually raised the mark till the Troy men could not go over it. At its last notch only one man made it, and that was a Kingston athlete--but unfortunately not a Lakerimmer, as Punk remained behind with the others, and divided second place with a rival.

A Sack Race was introduced to furnish a little diversion for the audience, which, in view of the length of the program, was beginning to believe that, after all, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. The Kingstonians had put their hope in this event upon the Twins. None but the Dozen could tell them apart, but the Kingstonians felt confident that one of the red-headed brotherhood would win out. And so it looked to the audience when the long row of men were tied up like dummies in sacks that reached to their necks; for, after the first muddle at the start, two small brick-top figures went bouncing along in the lead, like hot-water bags with red stoppers in them. The Kingstonians, not knowing which of the Twins was in the lead, if indeed either of them actually led, yelled violently:

"The Twins! The Twins!"

It was Reddy that had got the first start and cleared the multitude, but Heady, by a careful system of jumping, was soon alongside his brother. He made a kind-hearted effort to cut Reddy off, with the result that they wabbled together and fell in a heap. They did not mind the fact that two or three other sack-runners were falling all over them; nor did they care what became of the race: the desire of each was to tear off that sack and get at the wretched brother that had caused the fall. Not being able to work their hands loose, they rolled toward each other, and began violently to bunt heads. Finding that this banner of battle hurt the giver of the blow as much as it did the receiver of it, they rolled apart again, and began to kick at each other in a most ludicrous and undignified manner. The Lakerimmers were finally compelled to rush in on the track and separate the loving brothers. Strange to say, the Twins got no consolation for the loss of the race from the fact that the audience had laughed till the tears ran down its face.

When the Running High Jump went to Troy on account of the inability of B.J. to reach even his own record, the Kingstonians began to feel anxious of results. Troy had won six events, and they had won only four. The points, too, had fallen in such a way that there was a bad discrepancy.