Perhaps this bovine gentleman was, after all, their very best friend, for nowhere along the whole course did they attain such a burst of speed as then. Indeed, none of the five could remember a time in his life when he made such a spurt.

They reached and scaled a stone wall, however, in time to shake off the company of this inhospitable host. In the next field there were two or three skittish colts, which they scared into all manner of hysterical behavior as they sped across.

Down a country lane they turned for a short distance; and a farmer and his wife, returning home from a church sociable, on seeing these five white figures flit past in a minimum of clothing, thereafter always vowed that they had seen ghosts.

As the runners trailed past a farm-house with never a light to show upon its front, there was a ferocious hullabaloo, something between the angry snorting of a buffalo and the puffing of a railroad engine going up a steep grade. It was the wolfish welcome of three canine brigands, the bloodthirsty watch-dogs that surrounded and guarded this lonely and poverty-stricken little farm-house from the approach of any one evil- or well-intentioned.

Those dogs must have been very sorry they spoke; for when they came rushing forward cordially to take a few souvenir bites out of the Lakerim team, Tug and the others stopped short and turned toward them.

"Load!" cried Tug.

And every mother's son of the five picked up three or four large rocks from the road.

"Aim!" cried Tug.

And every father's son of the five drew back a strong and willing arm.

"Fire!" cried Tug.

And every grandfather's and grandmother's grandson of the five let fly with a will the rocks his hands had found upon the road.

Those dogs must have felt that they were caught out in the heaviest hail-storm of their whole experience. Their blustering mood disappeared in an instant, and they turned for home, yelping like frightened puppies; nor did they forget, like Bo-peep's sheep, to take their tails with them, neatly tucked between their legs.

Past as the cross-country dogs ran in one direction, the cross-country humans ran in the opposite.

Now that they were on a good pike road, some of them were disposed to sprint, particularly the fleet-footed Stage, who could far outrun Tug or any of the team.

But Tug thought that wisdom lay in keeping his team well in hand, and he did not approve of running on in advance any more than he approved of straggling. Thus the enthusiastic Stage, rejoicing in his airy heels, suddenly found himself deserted, Tug having seen fit to leave the road for a short cut across the fields; and Stage had to run back fifty yards or more and spend most of his surplus energy in catching up with the team.

It was a merry chase Tug led his weary crew: through one rough ravine where the hillside flowed out from under their feet and followed them down, and where they must climb the other side on slippery earth, grasping at a rock here and a root there; then through one little strip of forest that offered him an advantageous-short cut. Here again he silenced the protests of his men at the thick underbrush and the frequent brambles they encountered. Just at the edge of this little grove Tug put on an extra burst of speed, and was running like the wind. The others, following to the best of their ability, saw him about to pass between two harmless posts.

Suddenly they also saw him throw up his hands and fall over backward. When they reached him they saw that he had run into a barbed-wire fence in the dark.



XXIII

They were doubly dismayed now, because they not only had lost their leader, but were themselves lost in some part of the country where they knew neither the landmarks nor the points of the compass. They helped Tug cautiously to his feet, and, for lack of a better medicine, rubbed snow upon the ugly slashes in his breast and legs.

"This ends the race, as far as we are concerned," moaned Bloss.

But Tug had recovered enough from his dizziness to shake his head and mane lion-like, and cry:

"Not much! Come on, boys!"

And before the restraining hand of Sawed-Off could stop him, Tug had somehow wormed himself through the barbed-wire fence and was off across the open; and they were sore put to it to catch up with him again.

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.

Sawed-Off appeared upon the horizon as a temporary rescuer; and while he could not put the sixteen-pound bag of shot so far as he had in better days sent the sixteen-pound solid shot, still he threw it farther than any of the Trojans could, and brought the Kingston score up to within one of the events gone to Troy. Pretty added one more by a display of grace and skill in the fencing-match with foils, that surprised even his best friends from Lakerim, and won the unanimous vote of the three judges, themselves skilful fencers.

A wet blanket was thrown on the encouragement of the Kingstonians by their inferiority at weight-lifting. Sawed-Off was many pounds from the power of a certain powerful Trojan, who was a smaller man with bigger muscles.

Then all the members of the Dozen had a special parlay with Jumbo, imploring him to save the day and the honor of both Kingston and Lakerim by winning the wrestling-match.



XXV

When Jumbo glanced across the floor and saw the man that was to be his opponent striding toward the mat in the center of the floor, he wished that some one else had been placed as the keystone in the Kingston arch of success. For Jumbo knew well the man's record as a wrestler. But Jumbo himself, while small, was well put together; and though built, as he said, "close to the ground," he was built for business.

Since he had gone in for wrestling he had made it the specialty of all his athletic exercises. He had practised everything that had any bearing on the strengthening of particular muscles or general agility. He had practised cart-wheels, hand-springs, back and front flips. He had worked with his neck at the chest-weight machine. He would walk on his hands to strengthen his throat, and his collars had grown in a few weeks from thirteen and a half to fifteen, and he could no longer wear his old shirts without splitting them. He made the mats in the Kingston gymnasium almost his home.

His special studies were bridging and spinning. He spent hours on his back, rising to his two feet and his head and then rolling from one shoulder to the other and spinning to his front. When he had his bridge-building abilities fairly well started, he compelled his heavy chum Sawed-Off to act as a living meal-bag, and rolled around upon the top of his head and bridged, with Sawed-Off laying all his weight across his chest. When he went to bed he bridged there until the best of wrestlers, sleep, had downed him. When he woke in the morning, he fell out of bed to the floor, turning his head under him and rolling so as not to break his neck or any bones, and bridging rigidly upon his head and bare feet.

Jumbo knew that, whatever might be the ability of his rival, the Trojan Ware, at least he, Jumbo, could have his conscience easy with the thought that he had made the most profitable use of the short time he had spent on wrestling, and that he would put up as good a fight as was in him.

More than that no athlete can do.

Jumbo and Ware met upon the mattress with their close-shaven heads looking like bulldogs' jowls; and they shook hands—if one can imagine bulldogs shaking hands.

Jumbo had two cardinal principles, but he could put neither of them into practice in the first maneuvers: the first was always to try to get out of one difficulty by dumping the opponent into another; the second was always to try for straight-arm leverages.

Ware being the larger of the two, Jumbo was content to play a waiting game and find out something of the methods of his burly opponent. He dodged here and there, avoiding the reaching lobster-claws of Ware by quick wriggles or by slapping his hands away as they thrust. Suddenly Ware made a quick rush, and, breaking through Jumbo's interference, seized him around the body to bend him backward. But while the man was straining his hardest, Jumbo brought his hands around and placed them together in front of the pit of his stomach, so that the harder Ware squeezed the harder he pressed Jumbo's fists into his abdomen.

Ware looked foolish at being foiled so neatly, and broke away, only to come at Jumbo again, and clasp him so close that there was no room for his fists to press against Ware's diaphragm. But now Jumbo suddenly clasped his left arm back of Ware's neck, and with his right hand bent the man's forehead back until he was glad enough to let go and spring away. Ware continued to run around Jumbo as a dog runs around a treed cat. But Jumbo always evaded his quick rushes till Ware, after many false moves, finally made a sudden and unforeseen dash, seized Jumbo's right hand with both of his, whirled in close, and, with his back against Jumbo's chest, carried the Lakerimmer's right arm straight and stiff across his shoulder. Bearing down with all his weight on this lever, and at the same time dropping to his knees, he shot Jumbo over his shoulders, heels over head.

"That Flying Mere was certainly a bird!" said Bobbles.

Ware went down with Jumbo, to land on his chest and break any bridge the boy might form. And the Flying Mere had been such a surprise, and the fall was so far and the floor so hard, that, while Jumbo instinctively tried to bridge, his effort collapsed. His two shoulders touched. The bout was over.

The first fall had been so quickly accomplished, and Jumbo had offered so feeble a resistance, that the Troy faction at once accepted the wrestling-match as theirs, and the Kingstonians gave up the evening as hopelessly lost.

Jumbo was especially covered with chagrin, since he had practised so long, and had builded so many hopes on this victory; worst of all, the whole success of the contest between the two academies depended on his victory.

When, then, after a rest, the referee called "Time!" Ware came stalking up jauntily and confidently; but Jumbo, instead of skulking, was up, and at, and on him like a wildcat. Ware had expected that the Lakerim youngster would pursue the same elusive tactics as before, and he was all amaze while Jumbo was seizing his left hand with his own left hand, and, darting round behind him, was bending Ware's arm backward and upward into the Hammerlock.

The pain of this twist sent Ware's body forward, so that Jumbo could reach up under his right armpit and, placing the palm of his right hand on the back of Ware's head, make use of that crowbar known as the right Half-Nelson. This pressure was gradually forcing Ware forward on the top of his head; but he knew the proper break for the Hammerlock, and simply threw himself face forward on the mat.

As he rose to his knees again Jumbo pounced on him like a hawk, and while Ware waited patiently the little Lakerimmer was reaching under Ware's armpit again for another Half-Nelson; but Ware simply dodged the grasping of Jumbo's right hand, or, bringing his right arm vigorously back and down, so checked Jumbo's arm that the boy could not reach his neck. Jumbo now tried, by leaning his left forearm and all his weight upon Ware's head, to bring it into reach; but Ware's neck was too strong, and when he stiffened it Jumbo could not force it down.

Ware waited in amused patience to learn just how much Jumbo knew about wrestling. Jumbo wandered around on his knees, feinting for another Half-Nelson, and making many false plays to throw Ware off his guard.

Suddenly, while Ware seemed to be all neck against a Half-Nelson, Jumbo dropped to his knees near Ware's right arm, and, shooting his left arm under Ware's body and his right arm across beneath Ware's chin, laid violent hold on the man's left arm near the shoulder with what is known as the Farther-Arm Hold. Jumbo's movement was so quick and unexpected that Ware could not parry it by throwing his left leg out and forward for a brake. He realized at once that he would have to go, and when Jumbo gave a quick yank he rolled over and bridged. But Jumbo followed him quickly over, and clasping Ware's left arm between his legs, he forced the right arm out straight also with both his hands so that Ware could not roll. Then he simply pressed with all his force upon Ware's chest. And waited.

Also weighted.

Ware squirmed and wriggled and grunted and writhed, but there was no escape for him, and while he stuck it out manfully, with Jumbo heavy upon him, he knew that he was a goner.

And finally, with a sickly groan, London Bridge came a-falling down.

The bout was Jumbo's, and he retired to his corner with a heart much lighter. The applause of the audience, the rip-roaring enthusiasm of the Kingston Academy yell, followed by the beloved club cry of Lakerim, rejoiced him mightily. He had put down a man far heavier than he; and he felt that possibly, perchance, maybe, there was a probability of a contingency in which he might be able to have a chance of downing him once more—perhaps.

It was a very cool and cautious young man that came forward to represent Kingston when the referee exclaimed:

"Shake hands for the third and last bout!"

Jumbo, as soon as he had released Ware's fingers, dropped to his hands and knees on the mat, squatting far back on his haunches, and manifested a cheerful willingness to go almost anywhere except on the back of his two shoulders.

It was Ware's turn to be aggressive now, for he had been laughed at not a little for being downed by so small an opponent. He spent some time and more strength in picking Jumbo up bodily from the mat and dropping him all over the place. Jumbo's practice at bridging stood him in excellent stead now, and he got out of many a tight corner by a quick, firm bridge or a sudden spin.

Ware time after time forced one of the boy's shoulders to the mat, and strove with all his vim to force the other shoulder down. And he generally succeeded; but the first always came up. Jumbo went willingly from one shoulder to the other, but never from one to both. He frequently showed a most obliging disposition, and did what Ware wanted him to, or, rather, he did just that and a little more—he always went too far; and Ware was becoming convinced that he never could get those two obstinate shoulder-blades to the mat at the same time.

After much puttering, he reached the goal of his ambition, and got the deadly Full-Nelson on Jumbo's head, and forced it slowly and irresistibly down. Just as he was congratulating himself that he had his fish landed, Jumbo suddenly whirled his legs forward and assumed a sitting position. The whole problem was reversed. Ware rose wearily to his feet, and Jumbo returned to his hands and knees.

Once more Ware strove for the Nelson. He was jabbing Jumbo's head and trying to shove it down within reach of his right hand. Suddenly, with a surprising abruptness, Jumbo's head was not there,—he had jerked it quickly to one side,—and Ware's hand slipped down and almost touched the floor. But the watchful Jumbo had seized Ware's wrist with both hands, and returned to the big fellow the compliment of the Straight-Ann Leverage and the Flying Mere which had been so fatal to himself in the first bout. Ware's fall was not nearly so far as Jumbo's had been, and he managed to bridge and save himself.

Before Jumbo could settle on his chest, Ware was out of danger. But he went to his hands and knees in a defensive attitude that showed he was nearly worn out.

Jumbo did not see just what right Ware had to imitate his own position, and the two of them sprawled like frogs, eying each other jealously.

Jumbo soon saw that he was expected to take the aggressive or go to sleep; so, with a lazy sigh, he began snooping around for those nuggets of wrestling, the Nelsons. After foiling many efforts, the Trojan noted all at once that Jumbo's head was not above Ware's shoulders, but back of the right armpit. In a flash a thought of pity went through Ware's brain.

"Poor fool!" he almost groaned aloud; and reaching back, he gathered Jumbo's head into chancery.

A sigh went up from all Kingston, and Sawed-Off gasped:

"Poor Jumbo 's gone!"

But just as Ware, chuckling with glee, started to roll Jumbo over, the boy swung at right angles across Ware's back, and brought the Trojan's arm helplessly to the Hammerlock.

This was a new trick to Ware, one he had never heard of, but one that he understood and respected immediately. He yielded to it judiciously, and managed to spin on his head before Jumbo could land on his chest.

Ware had more respect now for Jumbo, and decided to keep him on the defensive, especially as a bystander announced that the time was almost up.

Ware rushed the contest, and, after many failures, managed to secure a perfect Full-Nelson. Jumbo's position was such that there was no way for him to squirm out. He resisted until it seemed that his neck would break. In vain. His head was slowly forced under.

And now his shoulders began to follow, and he was rolling over on his back.

One shoulder is down.

The referee is on all fours, his cheek almost to the ground. He is watching for the meeting of those two shoulders upon the mat.

The Kingstonians have given up, and the Trojans have their cheers all ready.

And now the despairing Jumbo feels that his last minute has come. But just for the fraction of a second he sees that the cautious Ware is slightly changing his hold.

With a sudden, a terrific effort, he throws all his soul into his muscles—closes his arms like a vise on Ware's arms. The Nelson is broken, or weakened into uselessness. He draws his head into his shoulders as a turtle's head is drawn into its shell, whirls like lightning on the top of his head to his other shoulder, and on over, carrying the horrified Ware with him, plouncing the Trojan flat on his back, and plumping down on top of him.

And the excited referee went over on his back also, and kicked his heels foolishly in the air as he cried:

"Down!"

Jumbo had won the match.

This brought the score of contests back to a tie, and the result of these Olympic games now rested entirely on the victors of the Tug of War.



XXVI

Curiously enough, the Trojans and the Kingstonians had each won a series of firsts, seconds, and thirds that totaled up the same. So the Tug of War, which had been intended only for an exhibition, became in a sense the deciding event of the whole contest.

The captain of the Kingston four was the large Sawed-Off, who was also the anchor of his team. He came out upon the floor, wearing around his waist a belt that was almost as graceful as a horse-collar, and quite as heavy, made, as it was, of padded leather. It was suspended from his shoulders like a life-belt, and carried a deep groove around the middle of it.

The Troy captain had a similar contrivance about him, and he looked somewhat contemptuously upon the Kingstonians, who had not the beefy, brawny look of his own big four.

The eight took their places on the long board, each man with his feet against a cleat. The rope was marked in its exact center with a white cord, and held there by a lever, which the umpire pressed down with his foot.

The Troy tuggers took a stout hold on the rope and faced the Kingstonians gloweringly. The Kingston men, however, faced to the rear and straddled the rope—all except Sawed-Off, who had wrapped it round his belt, and taken a hitch in it for security. He faced the Trojans, and hoped that science would defeat beef once more in the history of athletics.

When all were ready the umpire shouted "Go!" and at the same instant released the lever and the cable.

The Trojans threw all their muscle into one terrific jerk; but each of Sawed-Off's men, gripping the cable in front of him at arm's-length, fell forward, face down.

By the impact of their full weight, and by relying not merely upon their arms, but on the whole pull of back and legs, the Kingstonians gave the rope a yank that would have annoyed an oak-tree, and certainly left the Trojans no chance.

After this first assault the teams found themselves thus: The Kingstonians were stretched prone upon the board with their legs straight against the cleats; Sawed-Off was braced against his cleat and seated, facing Troy. The rival team was seated, but with knees bent; and their captain glared amazed at Sawed-Off, who was busily taking in over a foot of captured cable.

The Trojan captain, Winthrop by name, gave a signal grunt, to which his men responded with a fury, regaining about two of the lost inches. This lifted Sawed-Off slightly off the board, and in response to three or four bitter wrenches from Troy, he was forced to let them have six inches more cable, lest they cut him in two like a cake of soap.

But Kingston had learned, by painful experience, the signals of the Troy captain; and just as the Trojans were reaching confidently forward for a new hold, the alert Sawed-Off murmured a quick hint, and his men gave a sudden hunch that took the enemy unawares, and brought back home three inches of beautiful rope. The same watchfulness won another three; and there they held the white string, a foot to their side, when the time was up and the lever was clamped down.

After a short rest, the men resined their hands anew and prepared for the second pull. The Trojan captain had been wise enough to see the advantage of the Kingston forward fall, and he was not too modest to adopt it.

When the lever was supped the second time both teams fell face downward. But now Troy's greater bulk told to her advantage, and she carried the white cord six inches to her side.

The Kingstons lay with their knees bent.

Now Sawed-Off tried a preconcerted trick signal. With ominous tone he cried:

"Now, boys—all together—heave!"

At the word "heave" the Trojans braced like oxen against the expected jerk; but none came, and they relaxed a little, feeling that they had been fooled. But Sawed-Off's men were slowly and silently counting five, and then, with a mighty heave, they yearned forward, and catching the Winthrop team unprepared, got back four inches. They tried it again, and made only about an inch. A third time Sawed-Off gave the signal, and the Trojans, recognizing it, waited a bit before bracing for the shock. But for the third time Sawed-Off had arranged that the pull should immediately follow the command. Again the Trojans were fooled, and the white went two inches into Kingston territory.

The Trojans now grew angry and panicky, and began to wrench and twist without regard for one another. The result of this was that Kingston gradually gained three inches more before Winthrop could coax his men back to reason and team-work.

The time was almost gone now, and he got his men into a series of well-concerted, steady, deadly efforts, that threatened to bring the whole Kingston four over with the snail-like white cord. But Sawed-Off pleaded with his men, and they buried their faces in the board and worked like mad. To the spectators they seemed hardly to move, but under their skins their muscles were crowding and shoving like a gang of slaves, and fairly squeezing streams of sweat out of them as if their gleaming hides were sponges.

And then, after what seemed a whole night of agony, the white cord budged no more, though the Trojans pulled themselves almost inside out; and suddenly the lever nipped the rope, and the contest was over. The Trojans were all faint, and the head of Winthrop fell forward limply. Even Sawed-Off was so dizzy that he had to be helped across the floor by his friends. But they were glad enough to pay him this aid.

All Kingston had learned to love the sturdy giant, and the Lakerimmers were prouder of him than ever, for it was through him that the fatal balance had been pulled down to Kingston's side, so that the team could take another victory home with them to the Academy.



XXVII

As the school year rolled on toward its finish in June, times became busier and busier for the students, especially for the Lakerimmers, who felt a great responsibility upon their shoulders, the responsibility of keeping the Lakerim Athletic Club pennant flying to the fore in all the different businesses of academic life—in the classroom, at the prize speaking, in the debating society, and, most of all, in the different athletic affairs.

It was no longer necessary, as it had been at home in Lakerim, for the same twelve men to play all the games known to humanity—to make a specialty of everything, so to speak. At Kingston, while they were still one body and soul, and kept up their union with constant powwows in one another's rooms, but most often in Tug's, they were divided variously among the athletic teams, where each one felt that his own honor was Lakerim's.

Their motto was the motto of the Three Musketeers: "All for one, and one for all."

The springtime athletics found the best of them choosing between the boat crew and the ball team. It was a hard choice for some of them who loved to be Jacks-at-all-trades, but a choice was necessary. The Kingston Academy possessed so many good fellows that not all of the Dozen found a place on the eight or the nine; still, there were enough of them successful to keep Lakerim material still strongly in evidence.

Of the men that tried for the crew, all were sifted out, gradually, except B.J., Quiz, and Punk. The training was a severe one, under a coach who had graduated some years before from Kingston, and had come back to bring his beloved Academy first across the line, as it had gone the year he had captained the crew.

As the training went on, the man who had been elected captain of the eight worked so faithfully—or overworked so faithfully—that he was trained up to the finest point some two or three weeks before the great regatta of academies. Every day after that he lost in form, in spite of himself, and the coach had finally to make him abdicate the throne; and Punk, who had worked in his usual slow and conservative fashion, seemed the fittest man to succeed him. So Punk became captain of the crew, and found himself at the old post of stroke-oar.

On the day of the great Henley of the Interscholastic League, when all the crews had got away in their best style, after two vexatious false starts, Punk slowly, and without any impatience, urged his crew past all the others, till Kingston led them all.

From this place he could study his rivals well, and after some shifting of positions, he saw the Troy Latin School eight coming cleanly out of the parade and making swiftly after him. Suddenly a great nervousness seized him, because he remembered the time, the year before, when the Lakerim crew rowed Troy, and when his oar had broken just before the finish, so that he had been compelled to jump out into the water, and had missed the joy of riding over the line with his winning Lakerimmers. He wondered now if this oar would also play him false.

But he had selected it with experienced care, and hard as he strained it, and pathetically as it groaned, it stood him in good stead, and carried him, and the seven who rowed with him, safely into the paradise of victory.



XXVIII

Of the Lakerimmers who tried for the baseball team, four men were elevated to the glory of positions on the regular nine.

Sleepy had somehow proved that left-field was safer when he was seeming to take a nap there than it was under the guard of any of the more restless players.

Tug was a second baseman, whose cool head made him a good man at that pivot of the field; he was an able assistant to the right-field, a ready back-stop to the short-stop, and a perfect spider for taking into his web all the wild throws that came slashing from the home plate to cut off those who dared to try to steal his base.

Sawed-Off was the nearest of all the Kingstonians to resembling a telegraph-pole, so he had no real competitors for first base. He declined to play, however, unless Jumbo were given the position of short-stop; and Jumbo soon proved that he had some other rights to the position besides a powerful pull.

Reddy and Heady had worked like beavers to be accepted as the battery, but the pitcher and catcher of the year before were so satisfactory that the Twins could get no nearer to their ambitions than the substitute-list, and there it seemed they were pretty sure to remain upon the shelf, in spite of all the practice they had kept up, even through the winter.

The Kingston ball-team had found its only rival to the championship of the Interscholastic League in the nine from the Charleston Preparatory School. The Kingstonians all plucked up hope, however, when they found themselves at the end of the season one game ahead of Charleston; or, at least, they called it one game ahead, for Charleston had played off its schedule, and Kingston had only one more nine to defeat, and that was the Brownsville School for Boys, the poorest team in the whole League, a pack of good-for-nothings with butter on their fingers and holes in their bats. So Kingston counted the pennant as good as won.

Down the team went to Brownsville, then, just to see how big a score they could roll up. Back they came from Brownsville so dazed they almost rode past the Kingston station. For when they had reached the ballground, one of those curious moods that attacks a team as it attacks a single person seized them and took away the whole knack that had won them so many games. The Brownsvillers, on the other hand, seemed to have been inspired by something in the air. They simply could not muff the ball or strike out. They found and pounded the curves of the Kingston pitcher so badly that the substitute battery would have been put in had they not been left behind because it was not thought worth while to pay their fare down to Brownsville.

The upshot of the horrible afternoon was that Brownsville sent Kingston home with its feelings bruised black and blue, and its record done up in cotton. It was a good thing that Kingston had prepared no bonfire for the victory they had thought would be so easy, because if the defeated nine had been met with such a mockery they would surely have perished of mortification.

The loss of this game—think of it, the score was 14 to 2!—tied the Kingstonians with the Charlestonians, and another game was necessary to decide the contest for the pennant. That game was immediately arranged for commencement week on the Kingston grounds.

And now the Twins, who had resigned themselves to having never a chance on the nine, found themselves suddenly called upon to pitch and catch in the game of the year; for the drubbing the regular pitcher had received had destroyed the confidence of the team in his ability to pitch a second time successfully against the Charlestonians.

To make matters worse, the game was to come almost in the very midst of the final examinations of the year, and the Twins became so mixed up in their efforts to cram into their heads all the knowledge in the world, and to pull out of their fingers all of the curves known to science, that one day Reddy said to Heady:

"I half believe that when I get up for oral examination I'll be so rattled that, instead of answering the question, I'll try to throw the ink-bottle on an upshoot at the professor's head."

And Heady answered, even more glumly:

"I wouldn't mind that so much; what I'm afraid of is that when you really need to use that out-curve you'll throw only a few dates at the batter. I will signal for an out-curve, and you'll stand in the box and tie yourself in a bow-knot, and throw at me something about Columbus discovering America in 1776; or you'll reel off some problem about plastering the inside of a room, leaving room for four doors and six windows."

When the day of the game arrived, however, Reddy and Heady took their positions with the proud satisfaction of knowing that they had passed all their school-book examinations. Now they wondered what percentage they would make in their baseball examination.

Sleepy, however, went out to left-field not knowing where he stood. He knew so little about his books, indeed, that even after the examination was over he could tell none of the fellows what answers he had made to what questions, and so they could not tell him whether or no he had failed ignominiously or passed accidentally. This worry, however, sat very lightly on Sleepy's nerves.

The largest crowd of the year was gathered to witness the greatest game of the year, and Charleston and Kingston were tuned up to the highest pitch they could reach without breaking. The day was perfect, and in the preliminary practice the Kingstonians showed that they were determined to wipe out the disgrace of the Brownsville game, or at least to cover it up with the scalps of the Charlestonians.

At length the Charlestonians were called in by their captain, for they were first at bat. The Kingstonians dispread themselves over the field in their various positions. The umpire tossed to the nervous Reddy what seemed to be a snowball, whose whiteness he immediately covered with dust from the box. The Charlestonian batter came to the plate and tapped it smartly three or four times. The umpire sang out:

"Play-ball!"

Reddy cast a nervous look around the field, then went into a spasm in which he seemed to be trying to "skin the cat" on an invisible turning-pole. Out of the mix-up he suddenly straightened himself. The first baseman saw a dusty white cannon-ball shoot past him, and heard the umpire's dulcet voice growl:

"Strike!"

Which pleased the Kingston audience so mightily that they broke forth into cheers and applause that upset Reddy so completely that the next ball slipped from his hand and came toward the first baseman so gently that he could hardly have missed it had he tried.

The Kingstonian cheer disappeared in a groan as everybody heard that unmistakable whack that resounds whenever the bat and the ball meet face to face. But the very sureness of the hit was its ruination, for it went soaring like a carrier-pigeon straight home to the hands of Sleepy, who, without moving from his place, reached up and took it in.

The Kingston groan was now changed back again to a cheer, and the first batter of the first half of the first inning had scored the first "out."

The Charleston third baseman now came to the bat. Three times in succession Reddy failed to get the ball over the plate, and the man evidently had made up his mind that he was to get his base on balls, for at the fourth pitch he dropped his bat and started for first base, only to be called back by the umpire's voice declaring a strike. To his immense disgust, two other strikes followed it, and he went to the bench instead of to the base.

The third Charlestonian caught the first ball pitched by Reddy, and sent it bounding toward Jumbo, who ripped it off the ground and had it in the hands of his chum Sawed-Off before the Charlestonian was half-way to first base.

This retired the side, and the Kingstonians came in to bat amid a pleasant April shower of applause.

Sawed-Off was the first Kingston man to take a club to the Charlestonians. He waved his bat violently up and down, and stared fiercely at the Charleston pitcher. His ferocity disappeared, however, when he saw the ball coming at a frightful speed straight at him, and threatening to take a large scoop out of his stomach. He stretched up and back and away from it with a ridiculous wiggle, that was the more ridiculous when he saw the ball curve harmlessly over the plate and heard the umpire cry:

"Strike—one!"

He upbraided himself for his fear, and when the next ball was pitched, though he felt sure that it was going to strike him on the shoulder, he did not budge. But here he made mistake number two; for the ball did not curve as the pitcher had intended, but gave the batter a sharp nip just where it said it would. The only apology the pitcher made was the rueful look with which he watched Sawed-Off going down to first base.

The Kingston center-fielder was the next at the bat, and he sent a little Roman candle of a fly that fell cozily into the third baseman's hands.

Jumbo now came to the plate, and swinged at the ball so violently that one might have thought he was trying to lift Sawed-Off bodily from first base to second. But he managed only to send a slow coach of a liner, that raced him to first base and beat him there. Sawed-Off, however, had managed to make second before the Charleston first baseman could throw him out, and there he pined away, for the Kingston third baseman struck out, possibly in compliment to the Charleston third baseman, who had done the same thing.

This complimentary spirit seemed to fill the short-stop also, for he sent down to his rival Jumbo a considerately easy little fly, which stuck to Jumbo's palms as firmly as if there had been fly-paper on them.

The Charleston catcher now found Reddy for a clean base-hit between left and center field. He tried to stretch it into a two-base hit, and the Kingston center fielded the ball in so slowly that he succeeded in his grasping attempt.

The Charlestonian second baseman made a sacrifice hit that advanced the catcher to third. And now the pitcher came to the bat, eager to bring home the wretch at whom he had hurled his swiftest curves. His anxiety led him into making two foolish jabs at curves that were out of his reach, and finally he caught one just on the tip of his bat, and it went neatly into Tug's hand, leaving the catcher to perish on third base.

Sleepy now came to the bat for Kingston, and, without making any undue exertion, deftly placed a fly between the short-stop and the left-fielder, and reached first base on a canter. He made no rash attempts to steal second, but waited to be assisted there. The Kingston right-fielder, however, struck out and made way for Reddy.

Reddy, though a pitcher, was, like most pitchers, unable to solve the mystery of a rival's curves for more than a little grounder, that lost him first base, and forced Sleepy to a most uncomfortable exertion to keep from being headed off at second.

Tug now came to the bat; but, unfortunately, while the hit he knocked was a sturdy one, it went toward third base, and Sleepy did not dare venture off second, though he made a feint at third which engaged the baseman's attention until Tug reached first.

Heady now came to the bat, and some of the Charlestonians insisted that he had batted before; but they were soon convinced of their error when the Twins were placed side by side.

Heady puzzled them even more, however, by scratching off just such another measly bunt as his brother had failed with, and when he was put out at first Sleepy and Tug realized that their running had been in vain. Sleepy thought of the terrific inconvenience the struggle for the three bases had caused him, and was almost sorry that he had not struck out in the first place.

The Charleston right-fielder opened the third inning with a graceful fly just this side the right-fielder's reach, in that field where base-hits seem to grow most plentifully. The Kingston center-fielder was presented with a base on balls, which forced the right-fielder to second base. Now Reddy recovered sufficiently to strike out the next Charleston batter, though the one after him sent into right field a long, low fly, which the Kingston right-fielder caught on the first bound, and hurled furiously to third base to head off the Charleston runner. The throw was wild, and a sickening sensation went through the hearts of all as they saw it hurtle past the third baseman.

The Charleston runner rejoiced, and giving the bag a mere touch with his foot, started gaily for home. A warning cry from his coach, however, checked him in full speed, and he whirled about to see that Sleepy, foreseeing the throw from right-field as soon as the ball left the bat, had sauntered over behind the third baseman, had stopped the wild throw, and now stood waiting for the base-runner to declare his intention before he threw the ball. The Charlestonian made a quick dash to get back to third; but Sleepy had the ball in the third baseman's hands before him.

Now the third baseman saw that the second Kingston runner had also been wavering uncertainly between second and third, ready to reach third if Sleepy threw for home, and to return to second if he threw to third. The third baseman started toward the runner, making many pretenses of throwing the ball, and keeping the poor base-runner on such a razor-edge of uncertainty that he actually allowed himself to be touched out with barely a wriggle. This double play retired the side. It was credited to the third baseman; but the real glory belonged to Sleepy, and the crowd gave him the applause.

Once more Sawed-Off towered at the bat. He was willing to take another bruise if he could be assured of getting to first base; but the pitcher was so wary of striking him this time that he gave him his base on balls, and Sawed-Off lifted his hat to him in gratitude for this second gift.

The center-fielder knocked a fly into the hands of the first baseman, who stood on the bag. Sawed-Off barely escaped falling victim to a double play by beating the fly to first.

Again Jumbo labored mightily to advance Sawed-Off, and did indeed get him to second on a well-situated base-hit. The next Kingstonian, however, the third baseman, knocked to the second baseman a bee-liner that was so straight and hot that the second baseman could neither have dodged nor missed it had he tried; so he just held on to it, and set his foot on the bag, and caught Sawed-Off before he could get back to the base.

The fourth inning was opened by a Charlestonian, who sent a singing fly right over Sawed-Off's head. He seemed to double his length like a jack-knife. When he shut up again, however, the ball was not in his hand, but down in the right-field. It was a master stroke, but, worth only one base to Charleston.

The second man at the bat fell prey to Reddy's bewildering curves, and Reddy heard again that sweetest sound a pitcher can hear, the umpire's voice crying:

"Striker—out!"

The Charlestonian who had lined out the beautiful base-hit proved himself the possessor of a pair of heels as good as his pair of eyes, and just as Reddy had declared by his motions such a readiness to pitch the ball that he could not have changed his mind without being declared guilty of a balk—just at that instant the Charlestonian dashed madly for second base. Heady snatched off his mask and threw the ball to second with all the speed and correctness he was master of; but the throw went just so far to the right that Tug, leaning far out, could not recover himself in time to touch the runner.



These two now began to play a game of hide-and-seek about second base, much to Reddy's discomfort. There is nothing so annoying to a pitcher as the presence of a courageous and speedy base-runner on the second base; for the pitcher has always the threefold terror that in whirling suddenly he may be found guilty of balking, or in facing about quickly he may make a wild throw; and yet if he does not keep a sharp eye in the back of his head, the base-runner can play off far enough to stand a good chance of stealing third safely.

Reddy engaged in this three-cornered duel so ardently that before he knew it he had given the man at the bat a base on balls. This added to his confusion, and seeing at the bat the Charleston catcher who had in the second inning knocked out a perfect base-hit and made two bases on it, Reddy left the wily fox at second base to his own devices, and paid no heed to Tug's efforts to beat the man back to second. Suddenly the fellow made a dart for third; though Heady's throw was straight and swift, the fellow dived for the base, and slid into safety under the ball. In the shadow of this dash the other Charleston base-runner took second base without protest.

The Charleston catcher was evidently determined to bring in at least one run, or die trying. He smashed at every ball that Reddy pitched. He only succeeded, however, in making a number of fouls. But Reddy shuddered for the score when he realized how well the Charleston catcher was studying his best curves. Suddenly the man struck up a sky-scraping foul. Everybody yelled at once: "Over your head!"

And Heady, ripping away his mask again, whirled round and round, trying to find the little globule in the dazzling sky. He gimleted all over the space back of the plate before he finally made out the ball coming to earth many feet in front of him. He made a desperate lunge for it and caught it. And Reddy's groan of relief could be heard clear from the pitcher's box.

The Charleston catcher, in a great huff, threw his bat to the ground with such violence that it broke, and he gave way to the second baseman, who had made a sacrifice hit in the second inning—which advanced the catcher one base. The man realized, however, that a sacrifice in this inning, with two men already out, would not be so advantageous as before. He made an heroic attempt, resulting in a clean drive that hummed past Reddy like a Mauser bullet, and chose a path exactly between Jumbo and Tug. It was evident that no Kingston man could stop it in time to throw either to first base or home ahead of a Charleston man; but since Kingston could not put the side out before a run was scored, the Charlestonians cheerfully consented to put themselves out; that is, the base-runner on second, making a furious dash for third, ran ker-plunk into the ball, which recorded itself on his funny-bone.

When he fell to the ground yelping with torment, I am afraid that the Kingstonians showed little of the Good Samaritan spirit, for the ball-nine and the Kingston sympathizers in the crowd indulged in a jubilation such as a Roman throng gave vent to when a favorite gladiator had floored some new savage.

The Kingston men came in from the field arm in arm, but it was not long before they were once more sauntering out into the field, for not one of them reached first base.

A game without runs is not usually half so interesting to the crowd as one in which there is free batting and a generous sprinkling of runs. The average spectator is not sport enough to feel sorry for the pitcher when a home run has been knocked over the fence, or to feel sorry for a fielder who lets a ball through his fingers and sends the base-runners on their way rejoicing. To your thorough sport, though, a scientific, well-balanced game is the most interesting. He likes to see runs earned, if scored at all, and has sympathy but no interest for a pitcher who permits himself to be knocked out of the box.

A more nicely balanced game than this between Kingston and Charleston could hardly be imagined, and there was something in the air or in the game that made the young teams play like veterans. Each worked together like a clock of nine cog-wheels.

Though the next four innings were altogether different from one another in batting and fielding, they were exactly alike in that they were all totaled at the bottom of the column, with a large blank goose-egg.

At the opening of the ninth inning even the uncultured members of the crowd—those unscientific ingoramuses that had voted the game a dull one because no one had made the circuit of the bases—even these sat up and breathed fast, and wondered what was going to happen. They had not drawn many breaths before the Kingston catcher rapped on the plate and threw back his bat to knock the stuffing out of any ball that Reddy might hurl at him; and, indeed, his intentions were nearly realized, for the very first throw that Reddy made hit the bull's-eye on the Charleston bat, and then leaped away with a thwack.

Reddy leaped for it first, but it went far from his fingers.

Next after him Tug went up into the air and fell back beautifully.

And after him—just as if they had been jumping-jacks—the center-fielder bounded high and clutched at the ball, but past his finger-tips, too, it went, and he turned ignominiously after it. If he was running the Charlestonian was flying. He shot across first base, and on, just grazing second base—unseen by Tug, who had turned his back and was yelling vainly to the center-fielder to throw him the ball he had not yet caught up with. On the Charlestonian sped in a blind hurry. He very much resembled a young man decidedly anxious to get home as soon as possible. He flew past third base and on down like an antelope to the plate. This he spurned with his toe as he ran on, unable to check his furious impetus, until he fell in the arms of the other Charleston players on the bench.

And then the Charleston faction in the crowd raised crawled in at the back door and been ousted unceremoniously!

The Kingstonians had certainly played a beautiful game, but the Charlestonians had played one quite as good. All that the Kingston-lovers could do when they saw their nine come to the bat for the ninth time was to look uncomfortable, mop their brows, and remark:

"Whew!"

The Kingstonian center-fielder was the first to the bat, and he struck out.

Then Jumbo appeared, and played a waiting game he was very fond of: while pretending to be willing to hit anything that was pitched, he almost always let the ball go by him; and since he was so short and stocky,—"built so close to the ground," as he expressed it,—the pitcher usually threw too high, and Jumbo got his base on balls a dozen times where he earned it with a base-hit or lost it on a strike-out.

And now he reached first base in his old pet way, and made ardent preparations to steal second; but his enterprise was short-lived, for the Kingston third baseman knocked an easy grounder to the short-stop, who picked it from the ground and tossed it into the second baseman's hands almost with one motion; and the second baseman, just touching the base with his toe to put Jumbo out on a forced run, made a clean throw to first that put out the batsman also, and with him the side.

The scientists marked down upon the calendars of their memory the fact that they had seen two preparatory school teams play a nine-inning game without scoring a run. The others in the crowd only felt sick with hope deferred, and wondered if that home plate were going to be as difficult to reach as the north pole.

The Charleston third baseman came to the bat first for his side in the tenth inning, and he struck out. The left-fielder followed him, and by knocking a little bunt that buzzed like a top just in front of the plate, managed to agonize his way to first base before Reddy and Heady could field the ball, both of them having jumped for it and reached it at the same time. But this man, making a rash and foolish effort to steal second, was given the eighteenth-century punishment of death for theft, Heady having made a perfect throw from the plate.

The Charleston short-stop reached second on a fly muffed by the Kingston right-fielder—the first error made by this excellent player.

And now once more the redoubtable Charleston catcher appeared at the bat. Once more he showed his understanding of Reddy's science. This time he was evidently determined to wipe out the mistake he had made of too great haste on his previous home runs. After warming up with two strikes, and letting three balls pass, he found the ball where he wanted it, and drove out into left-field a magnificent fly.

Pretty saw it coming, and turning, ran to the best of his ability for the uttermost edge of his field, hoping only to delay the course of the ball. At length it overtook him, and even as he ran he sprang into the air and clutched upward for it, and struck it as if he would bat it back to the home plate.

It did not stick to his fingers, but none of the scorers counted it as an error on the clean square beside his name under the letter E. He had not achieved the impossible of catching it, but he had done the next best thing: he had knocked it to the ground and run it down in two or three steps, and turned, and drawing backward till the ball almost touched the ground behind him, had strained every muscle with a furious lunge, and sent the ball flying for home in a desperate race with the Charleston short-stop, who had passed third base and was sprinting for dear life homeward.

At the plate stood Heady, beckoning the carrier-pigeon home with frantic hope, Sawed-Off and Reddy both rushing to get behind him and back him up, so that at least not more than one run should be scored.

With a gasp of resolve the Charleston runner, seeing by Heady's eyes that the ball was just at hand, flung himself to the ground, hoping to lay at least a finger-tip on the plate; but there was a quick thwack as the ball struck Heady's gloves, there was a stinging blow at the Charlestonian's right shoulder-blade, and the shrill cry of the umpire:

"Out!"

Once more the spectators shifted in their seats and knit their brows, and observed:

"Whew!"

And now Sleepy opened the second half of the tenth inning. He had a little splutter of applause for his magnificent throw when he came to the plate; but he either was dreaming of base-hits and did not hear it, or was too lazy to lift his cap, for he made no sign of recognition. He made a sign of recognition of the Charleston's pitcher's first upshoot, however, for he sent it spinning leisurely down into right-field—so leisurely that even he beat it to first base. The Kingston right-fielder now atoned for his previous error by a ringing hit that took Sleepy on a comfortable jog to second base and placed himself safely on first.

Then Reddy came to the bat. He was saved the chagrin of striking out to his deadly rival, but the hit he knocked was only a little fly that the pitcher caught. The two base-runners, however, had not had great expectations of Reddy's batting prowess, so they did not stray far from their bases, and were not caught napping.

Now Tug came to the bat; and while he was gathering his strength for a death-dealing blow at the ball, the two base-runners made ready to take advantage of anything he should hit. The right-fielder played off too far, and, to Tug's despair, was caught by a quick throw from the pitcher to the first baseman.

Tug's heart turned sick within him, for there were two men out, and the only man on base was Sleepy, who could never be counted on to make a two-base run on a one-base hit.

As Tug stood bewailing his fate, the ball shot past him, and the umpire cried:

"Strike—one!"

Tug shook himself together with a jolt, and struck furiously at the next ball.

"Strike—two!" sang the umpire.

And now the umpire had upon his lips the fatal words:

"Strike—three!"

For as he looked down the line traced in the air by the ball, he saw that Tug had misjudged it. But for once science meant suicide; for though Tug struck wildly, the ball condescendingly curved down and fell full and fair upon the bat, and danced off again over the first baseman's head and toward the feet of the right-fielder. This worthy player ran swiftly for it and bent forward, but he could not reach it. It struck him a smarting whack on the instep, and bounded off outside the foul-line; and while he limped painfully after it, there was time even for the sleepy Sleepy to reach the plate and score a run.

And then the right-fielder, half blinded with pain, threw the ball at nobody in particular, and it went into the crowd back of third base, and Tug came in unopposed.

And since the game was now Kingston's, no one waited to see whether Heady would have knocked a home run or struck out. He was not given a chance to bat.



CONCLUSION

There was great rejoicing in Kingston that night, much croaking of tin horns, and much building of bonfires. The athletic year had been remarkably successful, and every one realized the vital part played in that success by the men from Lakerim—the Dozen, who had made some enemies, as all active people must, and had made many more friends, as all active people may.

The rejoicing of the Lakerimmers themselves had a faint tang of regret, for while they were all to go back to the same town together for their vacation, yet they knew that this would be the last year of school life they could ever spend together. Next year History, Punk, Sawed-Off, and Jumbo were to go to college. The others had at least one more year of preparatory work.

And they thought, too, that this first separation into two parts was only the beginning of many separations that should finally scatter them perhaps over the four quarters of the globe.

There was Bobbles, for instance, who had an uncle that was a great sugar magnate in the Hawaiian Islands, and had offered him a position there whenever he was ready for it.

B.J. had been promised an appointment to Annapolis, for he would be a sailor and an officer of Uncle Sam's navy.

And Tug had been offered a chance to try for West Point, and there were no dangers for him in either the rigid mental or the physical examinations.

Pretty, who had shown a wonderful gift for modeling in clay, was going some day to Paris to study sculpture.

And Quiz looked forward to being a lawyer.

The Twins would go into business, since their father's busy sawmill property would descend to both of them, and, as they thought it out, could not very well be divided. Plainly they must make the best of life together. It promised to be a lively existence, but a pleasant one withal.

History hoped to be a great writer some day, and Punk would be a professor of something staid and quiet, Latin most probably.

Sawed-Off and Jumbo had not made up their minds as to just what the future was to hold for them, but they agreed, that it must be something in partnership.

Sleepy had never a fancy of what coming years should bring him to do; he preferred to postpone the unpleasant task of making up his mind, and only took the trouble to hope that the future would give him something that offered plenty of time for sleeping and eating.

Late into the night the Twelve sat around a waving bonfire, their eyes twinkling at the memory of old victories and defeats, of struggles that were pleasant, whatever their outcome, just because they were struggles.

At length Sleepy got himself to his feet with much difficulty.

"Going to bed?" Jumbo sang out.

"Nope," drawled Sleepy, and disappeared into the darkness.

They all smiled at the thought of him, whom none of them respected and all of them loved.

In a space of time quite short for him, Sleepy returned with an arm-load of books—the text-books that had given him so much trouble, and would have given him more had they had the chance offered them.

"Fire's getting low," was all he said, and he dumped the school-books, every one, into the blaze.

The other Lakerimmers knew that they had passed every examination, either brilliantly or, at the worst, well enough to scrape through. Sleepy did not even know whether he had failed or not; but the next morning he found out that he should sadly need next year those books that were charred ashes in a corner of the campus, and should have to replace them out of his spending-money.

That night, however, he was blissful with ignorance, and having made a pyre of his bookish tormentors, he fell in with the jollity of the others.

When it grew very late silence gradually fell on the gossipy Twelve. The beauty of the night and the union of souls seemed to be speech enough.

Finally the fire fell asleep, and with one mind they all rose and, standing in a circle about glimmering ashes, clasped hands in eternal friendship, and said:

"Good night!"

THE HOME PLATE

THE END