"Well, anyway, I wish you wouldn't," she said plaintively. She lifted her face and looked up at him.
"Really?" He was in earnest now.
"Yes."
"Then I won't—that is not after Saturday."
"Oh, I suppose you'll have to then," she said disconsolately. "You're entered."
"But suppose I break the Western Intercollegiate?" he suggested. "Wouldn't you like that—now, frankly, wouldn't you?"
She did not reply, so he went on.
"I'll tell you what. That race will settle it. If I'm beaten I'll never run again—never. I'll—I'll—give you my running shoes as a souvenir of my Mercurial days!"
She laughed and said:
"But if youwin—if youbreakthe record?"
"It shall be just the same—I'll never run again. Under those circumstances I should be afraid to—afraid I couldn't do it a second time. I'll keep my record all to myself that way, don't you see?"
"Oh Bunny!" she cried suddenly as she gave his arm a little squeeze; "I've been more than half teasing you. Run if you want to. Run all the time.But if you don't break the record I'll never speak to you again as long as I live!"
He stopped and looked down at her, into her eyes, and saw the laughter lurking there. That instant he thought nothing in the world would be so much to the purpose—nothing at least that hecould do—as to take her in his two big hands and shake her until her bronze hair fell about her shoulders. But he did no such thing.
She said, "Well?"
"You'll see," he answered and they walked on.
They sat on her porch for an hour and talked of other things. They did not hear the bells in the library tower as they rang out quarters, halves, three-quarters of the hour.
In her room, after he had gone, her eyes chanced to fall upon his picture fixed with many others on a tennis-net ingeniously draped between two windows, and she said to the picture:
"You're a great, tall, awkward, foolish old dear! There...."
But Bunny, in the solitude of his own alcove, lay awake half the night floundering in that tossing sea of doubt.
With the morning however, came resolve.
"What's the use," he muttered as he lathered his chin before the little square mirror tilted against the window at the height of his eyes.
He would run once more—only once. And then——
Could she have meant it, he wondered, when she told him she would cut him from her list of friends if he failed to break the record. He smiled at thesoaped reflection of his long, thin face in the little mirror.
Ten seconds was a tiny lapse of time but it was the record. A hundred yards in ten seconds. That was ten yards a second. That was.... Well, approximately, ten feet at a stride—no, eight. A rather wide stride, to be sure, buthislegs.... Now if he could stride nine feet what would that bring it? Two and two——
Bunny found himself of a sudden involved in so deep a morass of mathematics that he gave up in disgust—and cut himself.
He would make an effort—a mighty effort. Of this he was determined. It was to be his last, he mused, so it must needs be mighty. In any event if he should fail it would not mean so much; that is, so very much. Other men had failed, trying to accomplish that which heaven was determined they should not. And yet——
"If you don't break the record I'll never speak to you again as long as I live!"
The words were insistent. It was as though Wilma were there beside him, as he stood before the little dusty mirror, and sounding them over and over in his ears.
"By George!" he exclaimed aloud, "I'vegotto smash it; that's all, I'vegotto!"
As he stepped out upon the broad porch of the low roofed house, the light of determination was in his eyes and the firmness of a set resolve had squared his chin.
III
Thursday evening, after he had had his supper, Willie Trigger's mother dispatched him to the post-office, with a strict injunction to be home by eight o'clock. Primarily as a result of this injunction and secondarily as the result of an inherent love of night, Willie Trigger dawdled on the way. A down-town lad of his acquaintance prevailed upon him to assist in an attack upon a certain cherry-tree, the location of which, on Spring Street, he very well knew. He was not loth to join forces with the down-town youth and forth they fared together, to the end that it was after eight even before Willie turned into Huron Street on his long way home. Full of ox-heart cherries and contentment, he did not hasten. A whipping perhaps, in any event a scolding and a summary dismissal to his bed might await him, but what availed it?
"I d' care," he grumbled, bravely, and scuffed his feet.
As he approached the Cook House loud talk attracted his attention away from a confectioner'swindow where were displayed all the goodies dearest to the hearts of little boys. He quickened his pace.
Two men were quarreling with a hackman at the hotel door. The hackman proclaimed his right to a dollar fare; his patrons contested.
Willie Trigger, looking up from the walk, noted the appearance of the men. The one was short and squat and gross of features, with a great black mustache like a duster that he pulled persistently as he haggled with the angry hackman. His companion was taller, square of shoulder, with a long, thin face, and a straight, hard mouth above his square, clean-shaven chin. In expectation of a fight, Willie Trigger held his breath.
"There's a half-dollar," he heard the fat man say, "now take it or leave it." He flung the coin to the pavement, turned and entered the hotel behind his friend, while the hackman, grumbling still, stooped, recovered the coin and, clambering upon his ancient vehicle, drove away. Willie Trigger was disappointed; disappointed that there had been no open fight and disappointed that the hackman had found the half-dollar. His nimble eyes had followed it as it rolled half way beneath a trunk that stood on end beside the curb. When the hackman discovered the coin, Willie's heart sunk and he set out upon hisway. Presently he commenced to whistle shrilly and it was apparent that the incident had made no more impression upon his plastic mind than it had upon the minds of the men with whom the hackman had exchanged compliments.
As it was, they were shown to a room by a boy in buttons and the loafers in the office saw them together not again that night.
The short, squat creature with the huge mustache locked the door and flung off his coat.
"Well, we're here!" he exclaimed.
His friend made no reply.
"Jack," he went on, "if I don't make a killin' Saturday, my name's Mud—Mud with a big M! This town is jammed full of marks—soft, easy, mushy marks. A guy could come in here with three shells and a pea and clean it up in a day——"
"If the police would let him," his friend put in with a grin.
"Rats!" was the contemptuous retort. "I've been figgerin' it all out," he went on, sinking upon a chair and spreading his short legs to accommodate his capacious portliness. He savagely bit the tip from a black, fat cigar. "I've been figgerin' it all out and it's goin' to be easy. They're muckers; farm-hands; easiest sort o' pickin'!"
"Well, how you going to do it?"
Before the wavy mirror on the imitation mahogany dresser, his companion smoothed his hair with a pair of military brushes taken from his satchel.
The fat man chewed his cigar.
"I'm goin' to get next to-night," he said. "There's always more or less geezers hangin' round the hotel in a college town, and I'll do a little pumpin'. I'll find out just what this phenom's been doin' since he went into trainin'."
"He's the only one I'm fearin'," his friend put in. "If he can do the sprint under ten seconds flat he's got Morrison beat!"
"Andyouthe trainer!" exclaimed the fat man with a deep laugh. "Say, if your man don't lay all over him—say, I won't do a thing——"
"Well, be careful, that's all," the other warned. "Don't try to do anything to-night. Plenty of time to-morrow. You can go out to the track and have a look at him; he'll be tryin' out."
"Won't you go?" the pudgy creature asked.
His friend turned from the stand where he was washing his hands.
"Say Punky!" he exclaimed, "do you take me for a blamed fool? Big business me goin' out there; wouldn't it? Do you suppose some of those wise guys wouldn't know me? I guess not! I'll stay right here under cover till Morrison shows upto-morrow afternoon. You can go out; and when you get back you can tell me how this Bunny strikes you—but if I were you I wouldn't distribute any coin until Saturday. Talk 'Morrison' and wag your head a bit and get 'em going; then cover their cash all you want to——"
"Aw——" the other began.
"That's right!" his friend warned; "I've been up against this game a little oftener 'n what you have and I know 'em; I haven't been doin' the strong arm act for two years at Western College for nothin'—if it wasn't that I'm goin' t' quit I wouldn't go into the game with you; as it is, ain't I got as big an interest in th' killin' as you have, I'd like to know? Don't we break even? It's a fair chance and if they's any show of coppin' out any of the loose change of these mamma's boys, I'm the child to do it—with your valuable and sporty assistance, Punky. D' you see?"
Apparently Punky did, for he muttered, "Aw right," and flecked the ash from his cigar. He puffed quickly twice and then said:
"Giddings, do you s'pose Morrison's next?"
"Naw," Giddings replied contemptuously. "I sent out a feeler—sorter touched him up on a 'sell-out' to see how he'd take it and he got red-headed. Said if it wasn't to be a fair race and the best manwin, he'd pull out. I gave him the 'ha-ha' and passed him a con. about just seein' how he felt becauseIwanted it square and then worked the 'honor-talk' strong. He calmed right down and got interested.He'sall right; you needn't worry abouthim. It's thisBunny; you've got to have a peek at him before Saturday, then let your judgment do the rest."
"Aw yes!" Punky exploded—"Aw yes—— Judgment be blowed! If this Bunny's square, O. K.; if he's square and slow, O. K.; if he's square and too fast for your 'wonder,' why——" He hesitated.
"What?" his friend inquired calmly.
"Oh well; you leave it to me," was the significant reply.
Giddings laughed.
"You can work the game," he said, "only don't let 'em think we're playin' together; some wise guy might have an idea and put the whole push next. You know what would happen then, don't you?" he inquired wisely.
His companion did not reply. He went over to the one window of the room and gazed down into the lighted street. Suddenly he turned back and said: "You go to bed; I'm goin' down to the office and get next." And he vanished.
The public room of the old hotel was filled with students. The events of Saturday formed the one topic of conversation. In the process of "getting next" Punky Williams, sporting man, (with a record not altogether immaculate) by maintaining an open ear and a closed mouth, learned that one name was on the common lips almost as frequently as that of "Bunny." It was "Morrison." Punky Williams was satisfied. He asked simple but significant questions now and again of various youths who lounged near him. He affected a passive, a rather paternal interest in the "meet," the sprinting event in which was conceded by all to be the most important. He learned enough to satisfy him that, so far as he was concerned, but two men would run—Bunny of the U. of M. and Morrison of Western College, trainer Giddings'protégé; the other entries were unworthy of consideration. He sought his companion in the little room up-stairs with a heart as light as thistle down and a face that glowed with pleasure.
The next morning he walked out to the fair grounds, seeking direction from time to time from the people whom he passed.
There were perhaps a hundred students in the paddock watching the exercises. Punky Williams wriggled his way among them; his little earsreceptive, his mouth close shut. Presently the crowd yelled and he craned over the enclosure rail. At the top of the course Bunny paused. With an air of passive interest, Punky Williams took out a stop watch, then fixed his eyes upon the figure up the course. He saw an arm thrust above his head and the sunlight glinted on the metal of the starter's pistol. He caught the time as the report rang out. And as Bunny high-stepped across the tape he shut his watch with a click and wriggled back to the rim of the crowd, observed in the moment's clamor by no one save a single small boy in a very grimy shirt-waist.
As the bells in the tower of the court-house opposite the hotel rang out the hour of noon, he burst in upon the loafing Giddings, who, at his friend's most obvious excitement exclaimed:
"What th' devil's th' matter; you look as though you'd seen a ghost?"
"Well! I have!" the breathless Punky puffed. "Giddings," he cried, "I've seenhim! I held the watch on him. It wasn't his real speed,—and he came over the tape grinning; but—he did it in 10 1-5!"
Giddings with an expression of complete disgust upon his smooth, thin face, sat down again.
"Punky, you give me a pain!" he exclaimed."A pain! Great Scott, man; don't you think there's any difference between 10 1-5 seconds and 9 4-5? Well, you'd better wake up.There's an hour, man; an hour!"
He opened his newspaper, deliberately; found the sporting page and commenced to read.
As for Punky Williams, he lighted another cigar and flinging himself upon the bed, blew copious clouds of light blue smoke to the cracked and grimy ceiling at which, the while, he stared fixedly, thoughtfully.
IV
On Saturday Willie Trigger swallowed his dinner in an incredibly short space of time, and slipped from the house unobserved, while his mother was in the kitchen haggling with a huckster over the Sunday vegetables. When the good woman re-entered the dining-room she cast one glance at Willie's half depleted plate, then rushed through the dark, cool hall and out upon the porch.
"Will-ee! Will-ee!" she called, stridently.
A rustling of the leaves as the breath of June wafted among them, was her answer. She went to the gate and gazed up and down the street. Then with a sigh she returned to the house and closed the door.
Perhaps Willie had not heard the maternal call. At the instant of its issue he was balanced on the top of the back fence across the street, hidden from the maternal eye by the intervening house. At the second call he plumped down upon a soft ash heap on the other side. If he did hear he gave no sign, but, after dusting his pantaloons with little flips and pats of his small brown hands, he ran with all the speed that he could muster, across the wide, uneven lot. Presently he became lost to sight among the gnarled and broken trees of a once prolific apple orchard, beyond. Issuing from the orchard on the farther side, he crossed another lot—first wriggling wormlike beneath a low wire fence—and came out into the dusty road that led to the old fair ground enclosure. To-day that road, as a wide, smooth street disfigured only by the tracks over which the flat-wheeled trolleys bump, marks the northern boundary of Ann Arbor's ultra exclusiveness. Behind hedges or half hidden amid the trees, nestle snug little houses that seem to cry out against all vulgar intrusion and hug themselves in the very joy of their most obvious respectability.
Along this road, thick with dust; now obscured in a cloud of his own raising, now distinct against the background of the high board fence, Willie Trigger trudged. Arriving at the long ticketwindow he was dismayed to find that the hatch was shut. Bunny had told him there would be a ticket for him at the window—a ticket for him expressly, in an envelope bearing his name, else he would not have deserted his dinner to be the first on hand. Save for a solitary woman whom he saw among the trees in the wood across the way, the region about appeared deserted. It was not yet one o'clock, but Willie Trigger did not realize this. Stoically he sat down at the edge of the long low platform below the ticket-office window and resigned himself to waiting.
After ten minutes a dog bounded from the wood into the road. Motionless, he regarded the lad curiously. As long as he remained in sight Willie amused himself by throwing stones at him.
After half an hour a carriage drew up close to the fence and stopped. He slouched over to the narrow pedestrians' gate at one side of the office. Two young men, carrying a large, black tin box between them, alighted from the vehicle, paid the driver and entered the enclosure, fastening the gate behind them. When they had disappeared Willie pulled at the gate but suddenly desisted in his attempt to force an entrance as the heavy hatch of the ticket-office fell with a bang and the same two young men were revealed at the weather beaten counter.He watched them as they unlocked the box, on the shiny top of which the bright sun gleamed, and saw one of them take out several big bunches of blue tickets. Willie approached the window, then, hesitatingly. His chin barely touched the edge of the shelf so he stood on his toes.
"Say—my ticket here?" he asked, boldly.
The young man who was arranging the bundles on the shelf looked down.
"What doyouwant?" he inquired, tersely.
"I want my ticket."
"Got a quarter?"
Willie Trigger's toes gave way beneath him, but he bobbed up again almost instantly.
"He said there'd be one here—in a envelope."
"What?" snapped the young man, "whosaid there would—what youtalkingabout anyway?"
Willie endeavored to explain. He was laughed at for his pains.
"Run along now," the officious young man commanded. "There ain't any ticket for you here. Run along—or—or—I'll call a policeman."
The mouth, then the nose, then the eyes, then the little gray cap of Willie Trigger descended below the window ledge and he commenced to sniffle. A large, jagged stone lay on the grass not ten feet away, and as his eyes fell upon it his snifflingceased. He picked up the stone. He poised it in the air an instant, then with all the strength at his command he flung it diagonally across the fence. He heard the clatter as it struck the thin boards at the end of the ticket office. He did not linger to observe any further effect of his assault, for when the officious young man who had denied to him the existence of his ticket, crawled upon the ledge and gazed off down the road, there was no little boy in sight.
Chagrined though he was, Willie did not for an instant accuse his hero of any lack of faithlessness. Indeed, as is the wont of small boyhood, he accepted the rebuff unquestioningly. He made no effort at analysis. It was merely a whimsical cavort of that unreliable Fate that not infrequently plays tricks on those who walk in knickerbockers. So Willie, nothing loth, reasoned simply that as a ticket had never been necessary before, he was quite prepared to gain an entrance to the grounds without one, now. Indeed, even as the young man in the office climbed upon the ledge and gazed off down the road, Willie was examining the fence for loose boards, along the familiar stretch behind the ancient grand stand. Many times and oft, when ball games were in progress, had he, with the assistance of Jimmy Thurston, clambered over that tall boardfence frequently to the complete demolishment of his shirt waist, which had a nasty habit of catching on the barbs of the wire that an ingenious care-taker had strung along the top, but, in any event, successfully, to the more important issue of an entrance to the field. To-day, however, he was alone, and getting over the fence was quite a different matter. Since Thursday he had not caught a glimpse of Jimmy, but now he was wishing that the fat, familiar figure of the lad would appear around the corner of the fence. There was not a loose board along the whole stretch, so far as he could discover. Not infrequently he had, with half a dozen sturdy jerks, succeeded in ripping off a plank sufficiently wide to permit of squeezing through; but two days before the same far seeing care-taker who, with so much ingenuity, profanity and trouble, had strung the barbed wire at the top, had gone over the entire stockade and nailed securely every board that seemed to him to be deficient in tightness. It is saddening to tell it; for it rather weakens the character of Willie Trigger, but at the end of his second futile patrol along the fence, he flung himself down at the roots of an ancient apple-tree and cried. Were all the Fates of boyhood set against him this day in June?
"Dum it—gosh dum it," he mumbled, gazingthrough his tears at the forbidding fence, the top of which looked so low yet was so high—too high even when he poised on tiptoe and jumped, clutching. As he stared, his eyes opened wide, the tears were magically whisked away, and he grinned.
"Gosh!" he exclaimed aloud, and got upon his feet.
A branch of the very tree beneath which he had so disconsolately flung himself, pointed out the way he sought. A single limb—not a thick, sturdy limb, but rather a weak, unstable sort of limb—hung directly above the fence at a most favorable point, immediately behind the grand stand.
Willie Trigger climbed the tree. Cautiously he crept out upon the branch, more than half hidden by the foliage. The branch bent beneath his weight, slight though it was, and once he nearly slipped. His heart leaped into his mouth, or if not his heart, at least something, but he swallowed it back and moved along another inch. He wriggled obliquely until he balanced on his stomach like a bag of meal over a pole. Little by little he slipped down, the branch giving more and more with every movement of his agile body. He clung by the crook of his elbows and wriggled his toes. They touched nothing. For a space he danced upon the air. Another slip of scarce an inch, and thereensued a ripping and tear, followed by a sharp crack.
Thug!
Willie Trigger struck the soft earth in a sitting posture. The sudden contact resulted in a private pyrotechnic display of momentary brilliance. Willie gasped twice like a fish. Blinking away the stars and whirling Catherine wheels that glittered before his eyes, he looked about him. "Gosh!" he muttered below his breath, and rolling over rubbed the point of contact vigorously. Beside him lay the branch, but—goody! He had struck inside the fence! Moreover, and what was quite as much to the purpose, he had not been observed.
Sidling along the rear wall of the grand stand, he reached the corner and thrust out his head. The big gate was open—the gate through which he had hoped to pass big with pride, a man among his fellows. A steady current of humanity in summer garb was streaming through. There were carriages by the score, the horses driven by young men, many of whom Willie, from his peculiar point of vantage, recognized. On the seats beside them were girls—"their girls," he speculated mentally with an unvoiced sneer. But mostly the crowd was on foot, scrambling, pushing, jostling. Every individual in the throng seemed bent upon being the first to reach the grand stand and it was a fine sightto the small boy, peering around the corner, to see them run. Two men detached themselves from the crowd and seemed to him to be making directly for where he stood. Willie Trigger wasted no time in idle speculation as to their purpose. Turning heel he ran. He plunged around the upper end of the stand. The door there was open. He disappeared into the long room directly beneath the seats. He was familiar with the floor plan. He knew that the partition on his left was false and that the various little doors on the right opened into tiny dressing rooms. He knew that the one door on the left offered access, if unfastened, to the cramped and crowded space beneath the lower tiers of seats,—a dark hole used these many years as a catch-all for thedébrisof the grounds, old cans, broken bottles, worn out shoes, and ancient hoop-skirts. He tried the door; it opened and he pulled it shut after him, just as the door at the end was flung back and the two men entered.
"Where's his room?" he heard asked, in an undertone; then the heavy footfalls on the loose boards of the floor.
His eyes became adjusted to the darkness and through the many chinks of the partition he perceived the men. He recognized them as those who had haggled with the hackman at the Cook Housetwo days before. He held his breath, and, as there really was nothing else for him to do, became an eavesdropper.
"Punky, we got t' separate," Giddings said. "They'll be next if you don't; it'll be all right for you to drop in here while they're dressin' but don't be wise. And for heaven's sake, don't get gay; it's a long chance you're takin' and you'll take it I know, with five hundred dollars in the balance."
"Don't you worry," Punky replied significantly. "I'm takin' no chances; that's why I got the dope. You couldn't buy this Bunny for a million; and you say Morrison's as bad. You just leave it to me. I'll be hangin' around, you bet. When you're dishin' up the soft stuff, you just call me and say, 'Here, take this in there.' I'll take it—in she goes—and if it don't mean Morrison'll win this here Intercollegiate, I'm a lobster, good and plenty. They'd never git next in the world."
"Well, for heaven's sake don't put in too much," Giddings muttered.
"Leave it to me,"—was the terse reply and then they went into one of the dressing-rooms and their voices came only in muffled tone to Willie in his hiding-place.
He was not quite certain of the meaning of what he had heard. He was only certain of the name—"Bunny." Who these men were he did not dream. Besides, it was none of his affairs. There was one thing however that hedidknow, and that definitely; he could not hope to see the sports from where he crouched. Noiselessly he opened the door. It did not creak. He tiptoed down the long room. As he neared the end, the door there was opened suddenly from without and a score of men pressed in. Willie Trigger whistled as loud as he could and walked on. The whistle, born of boyhood's genius, saved him. Ordinarily the presence of a small boy in the dressing-room would perhaps have occasioned surprise, but on this particular occasion the small boy whistled so shrilly and walked so independently with his hands deep in the pockets of his knickerbockers that no one spoke to him; no one seemed even to notice him. He strode out of the building bravely, crept under the fence at the side of the track and strolled into the paddock, scuffing the grass and still whistling.
V
Wilma Morey, exquisitely dainty in a wealth of fluffy muslin flounces and little bows of ribbon as pink as her pretty cheeks, found a particularly excellent seat in the first tier, close to the rail. From where she sat she could sweep with her dancingeyes the entire course, the crowded paddock, and the stretch of open on beyond. The wire was immediately below her and directly opposite was the judges' stand. Perceiving these manifold advantages of her position, she settled herself comfortably and patted, with most apparent content, her wealth of flounces. She was very glad that no acquaintance had slipped into the seat next hers, now occupied by a little fat man in checks. She wished to enjoy the events of the day in her own way and as privately as she might surrounded for the greater part by people with whom she had at least a nodding acquaintance.
She studied her program diligently, noted the order of events from the old fashioned "throwing of the baseball" to the "standing broad jump" in neither of which she was interested. She did not know a man among the broad jumpers and but one name in the list of baseball throwers was familiar—Schmidt, a little German, with a blonde head and blue eyes whom she had met at a sophomore dance in the beginning of the year. So, when the sleeveless-shirted contestants ran up the track and the clean white ball was taken from its red box and tossed among them she reverted to her program nor lifted her eyes again until the loud-voiced person in the judges' stand opposite bellowed through abright tin megaphone that the event had been won by "Schmidt, distance ——" She did not catch the distance.
"Next event!" she heard roar from the mouth of the megaphone, "the first of three heats in the hundred yards. Entries: Bunette, Michigan; Morrison, Western College; Lacy, Ohio Wesleyan; Cady, Northwestern"—and so on down the list that she followed on her program with her nimble eyes. The megaphone man was still bellowing when the atmosphere was rent by a series of yells from the paddock that would have put a horde of Comanche braves to the copper-tinted blush. The cheering was taken up by the grand stand, and canes were waved, and hats were flung into the air and lungs were split. All this because a dozen gaunt creatures in flapping "shorts" were prancing up the track in the wake of their jogging trainers. The crowd behind bore down upon the girl and she only saved herself from falling headlong over the rail by encircling a stout roof support with one arm and clinging tight.
Up the course the line formed.
"That's Morrison; he's got the post," she heard a full-lunged youngster cry.
"There's Bunny on the end!" another shouted.
"Bunny! Bunny! Bunny!" yelled the crowd andWilma Morey's face flushed crimson. Her eyes lighted and her lips quivered with the excitement of the moment. Behind her the pressure of the crowd had given away somewhat and she leaned over the rail, eagerly, her fingers curled in the palms of her hands, every muscle tense. She saw an arm suddenly lifted above the runners' heads and caught the glint of the sunlight on the barrel of the pistol.
The report sounded a long way off, or as though her ears were muffled. Down the course they came, all heads low save Bunny's; he had a way of tilting his back, and breathing hard through his nose. In an instant, as she watched, they passed the further end of the grand stand and in another the foremost had crossed the line. Pandemonium broke loose. The crowd in the paddock tore down the fence and rushed into the track surrounding these modern Mercuries. Wrapped in the robes their coaches had held out to them they were led away and the megaphone man in the judges' stand was compelled to clang the deep-throated bell quite three minutes before he was able to convince the throng that he had something very particular to say.
"First heat," he shouted. "Morrison, ten and one fifth; Bunette, ten and two-fifths; Cady, ten and a half." The stand, the crowd in the track,even the ancient circus rings in the distance swam before Wilma Morey's eyes. She lifted her handkerchief to her burning cheek. It was cruel. He had lost; lost after all his patience, all his hope, all his effort. Conscious as she was that the first heat did not meanall, she yet realized that it might mean much. If she might only catch his eye, she thought, and let him know that she among all the others believed in him. What was she thinking, she asked herself, suddenly. Then she smiled. In the buzz of conversation all about, and amid the cries from the track below she caught varying words that seemed to her, in her state of supreme suspense, to offer a modicum of hope. Still—still—— She confessed to herself her disappointment. She wished that she had not come out at all.
The next event was "throwing the hammer"; and then the hurdles would be run. Should she stay? she asked herself. Involuntarily she moved toward the end of the stand where the stairs were.
"What in thunder's the matter; you going?" she heard a voice ask, then felt a strong hand on her arm. She turned and looked up into the face of her brother.
She clutched his wrist. "Oh, Nibsey," she cried, "he was beaten; wasn't he?"
He stared at her quizzically. Then he laughedand led her over to the rail. He glanced back at the crowd that pressed upon them from behind. Bending toward her he whispered: "He's just playing 'em. Great Scott! you didn't thinkthatwas his speed, did you? Morrison was doing his best; Bunny was walking; that's all, just walking. You wait; you'll see the fastest hundred yards that was ever run on this old track. You hold your horses. Why, Morrison's trainer knows it's all off. The others—the 'also-rans'—are just waiting for the end. Morrison's trainer's running around down below like a chicken with its head off. You wait if you want to see a record smashed." And he pressed her arm reassuringly, and vanished.
At the bottom of the stairs he collided with a small boy in a soiled and torn shirt waist.
"Cancha see where yer goin'?" the small boy piped after him, then mounted the stairs whistling. He pushed his way through the crowd to the rail, and wriggled to a post. Despite the yells of "Down in front," that were flung at him from the lower tiers, he clung to his position resolutely.
"There's Bunny!" he cried as the runners pranced up the track a second time. Wilma heard the lad's shrill pipe and glancing down caught his eye and smiled. He grinned. He sidled nearer to her and pressed close to the rail.
Willie Trigger decided then and there that he had never before seen such a pretty girl. She was ever so much prettier, he calculated, than the new hired girl in the house next door,—at home. He had fallen desperately in love withherat first sight. Then Wilma spoke to him and his boy heart bounded.
"Do you know him, little man?" she asked, softly.
He wished she had not called him "little man" particularly with so many about, but her voice was so gentle and her eyes were so beautiful that he forgave her in his heart straightway and answered, looking down, "Uh huh; he lives 'cross th' street from our house."
Her eyes took on a greater brilliance then and a smile played about the corners of her pretty mouth.
"So you are Willie Trigger, are you?" she asked so low that he alone might hear. "Oh, I know all aboutyou; he told me."
Willie Trigger never knew what joy it was to live until that instant. To think thatHe, the great Bunny, had toldHerall aboutHim! It rendered him for the moment speechless. Yet he gave no sign of the swelling of his heart unless a sudden kick at the post to which he clung, and a low, foolish laugh might be taken as a sign. He felt her hand uponhis shoulder as the line of entries formed and was superlatively happy.
The pistol cracked. Again the runners came on, swift, straight as arrows. There had been an instant's hush at the start, but now it was forgotten in the uproar. Could it be possible, Wilma wondered, as she leaned far over the rail, hearing above all other sounds the shrill, piercing screech of Willie Trigger, that the great lank figure there at the fore of all the rest, his long legs high lifting, his head thrown back, was the same Bunny who not half an hour before had lagged the second in the race? And yet, as the creature crossed the wire below her and the air became filled with waving canes and hats and handkerchiefs, she knew that such it must have been. Her fingers tightened on the arm of the screaming lad and she drew him close beside her.
"Was that Bunny?" she asked eagerly. "They came so fast I couldn't see. Tell me, was it?"
He looked up at her, joyful that she had called upon him in her distress, but what he said was only: "Sure; who'd yehthinkit was?"
She squeezed his arm and he grinned. Something of her great delight was his to know that instant, though he was only a little boy in a soiled and torn shirt waist and she a beautiful girl gay in ribbonsand fluffy muslin flounces that made her look for all the world like the fairy in a certain Christmas pantomime, that was one of his fondest memories.
"And now let's see when the last will be," she said, glancing down at her program.
"They's two 'vents 'fore they run," he explained, for he had learned the order by heart long since. "They's th' pole vault and th' drop kick. Then they'll run th' last time."
She looked at him and smiled and he smiled back quite familiarly.
"I guess I'll go down now," he said suddenly, and before she could restrain him, for she had found much amusement in his straightforward boyish admiration for one whom she, as well, admired, he had wriggled away and out of sight.
She leaned over the rail and saw him on the grass below making swiftly along the front of the stand.
For a space he hovered about the edge of the crowd at the door of the dressing-rooms. His chance of entering at last was offered and gliding between divers pairs of legs he sneaked into the long, low room. All was confusion here. Half-clad men ran this way and that, calling for drinks, bath-robes and towels, and among them bustled officiously the man with the big mustache whom he had seen and heard while hidden in the dark hole on the otherside of the thin partition. He glimpsed, as well, the other man; his trousers turned up, his coat and waistcoat off, his sleeves rolled to his shoulders. He was busy squeezing lemons into a pail. Presently he poured the contents of another pail into the first, then dumped a bag of sugar into the mixture which he stirred vigorously.
"Here, Morrison; don't drink that rotten water; drink this," he shouted and filled a glass from the pail. Morrison, a curly-headed man with knots of muscle on his legs that looked like coils of rope, gulped greedily.
"Here, gimme some of that; this man in here's thirsty," the familiar black mustached man called out. He took up the glass and moved toward the half-open door of one of the little dressing-rooms. Willie Trigger was by some instinctive force, seemingly, moved to sudden action. He was about to slip past the black mustached man and enter the little room when he was perceived. A kick was aimed at him and he was adjured to "make himself scarce or git his block knocked off." Thoroughly frightened, he slouched away and ran into the open where people were too interested in other things to knock the blocks off little boys and where it didn't smell so stuffy and unpleasant.
He sped across the track where the uprights hadbeen erected for the pole vaulting, and later he became one of the group that formed a crescent behind the football kickers. He watched, with admiration unconcealed, the unerring pedal movements of the heavily shod young men who sent the ball so beautifully skyward.
Meanwhile, Wilma awaited impatiently at the grand stand rail the last heat in the sprint event. She saw the drop-kickers leave the paddock and heard indistinctly the record that was called across from the tower-like judges' stand; but these things were not to her liking. Her eyes upon the track below, she saw a young man in sweater and knee breeches vault the fence beside the stretch and rush across. He shouted a word to the megaphone man who at once lifted the glistening instrument to his lips and shouted:
"Is there a doctor on the grand stand? He's wanted down below. A man has been taken suddenly sick."
The pink fled from her cheeks. Then she smiled. She realized the absurdity of the little spasm of fear that had seized her. She glanced down at her card again.
The runners were jogging up the stretch. She counted them. There was one missing. Another look of fright came into her eyes. She felt someone tugging at her dress. She turned impatiently and gazed down into the now pale face of Willie Trigger.
"It's Bunny!" he muttered almost incoherently, "oh, it's Bunny! A man gave him something to make him sick."
She seized him by the shoulder and held her face close to his.
"What did you say—gavehim something!" she exclaimed.
"Yes; come quick," and she felt that the child was drawing her through the thick of the crowd at the rail, to the stairs at the further end. Afterward she could not tell how it was managed or what she did. But she followed the lad around the stand, at the back, to the dressing-room door and then, of a sudden, as though due to the shock induced by the picture she there beheld, her senses returned to her with a rush. The crescent at the door parted and she saw Bunny, his face pale and drawn, stagger forward and lean heavily against the jamb. A man whom she did not recognize clung to one of his arms and beseeched him to lie down.
"No," he mumbled thickly. "Run—run, I tell you—lemme go!" He jerked his arm from the other's clutch.
He passed the back of one hand heavily acrosshis staring eyes and broke away. At the fence he staggered again and fell against it. Wilma came up to him, there.
"Bunny, they've drugged you, you're sick! The little boy told me!"
He turned to her his drawn face. For a tiny instant a look of intelligence came back into his eyes.
"You!" he muttered. "Drug!" And with a plaintive little cry he sank to his knees. Some one brushed by her and seized him. Things, for the second time that afternoon, swam before her eyes and she moved away unsteadily. When next she looked she saw him alone, running up the track and swerving from side to side like a drunken man.
The crowd seemed to understand that a tragedy was being acted there upon the course. There was no cheering. It was as though the throng held its breath—waiting. Wilma steadied herself at the fence. She saw the gaunt figure crouch in the line of the runners. She saw the pistol raised and heard the sharp report. The tension under which the crowd had momentarily lived, was relieved by that and a cry was raised that rang in her ears for hours. She saw the line coming; advancing toward her, swiftly, surely, but more clearly than she saw the others, she saw the tall figure of Bunny at the end. His face, uplifted, was like a demon'sface. His lips were tight drawn and showed his teeth and—his eyes were shut!On he came in advance of all the rest, plunging, swerving. Five more strides! She closed her eyes, and when she opened them it was to see him throw up his arms and fall headlong across the line.
He lay there motionless. The other runners passed him, and the crowd broke into the track and she saw no more.
In the judges' stand the megaphone man waited.
How she got there, whether she was carried, walked naturally, or flew, she could never tell, but of a sudden, as it seemed, Wilma discovered that she was in the grand stand again, clinging to a post at the top of the stairs, while beside her hovered Willie Trigger. She heard the bellow of the megaphone man:
"Last heat, one hundred yards! Winning time nine and four-fifths seconds, breaking the Intercollegiate record! Winner——" The crowd knew the winner and did not wait.
Her fingers relaxed in the palms of her hands. A tremor passed over her. She looked down, breathing hard.
"Oh, you darling!" she cried, and Willie Trigger, who had not really understood at all, hung his head in mute embarrassment.
VI
That night, on a low stone horse-block in front of his mother's house sat Willie Trigger gazing at a lighted window in the second story of the house opposite, across the drawn shade of which figures passed and passed again. In that room he knew his hero lay sick. He wondered how sick; perhaps, he speculated, as sick as he once had been after eating many green apples. He would watch and wait. Some one surely would come out of the house before his bedtime. He had followed the hack from the grounds, had seen the long, slim body carried into the house. No one paid the least attention to him so he crossed the street and seated himself on the horse-block. It was not for him to witness the little drama that was being played behind the window shade....
Before he opened his eyes Bunny heard, like high running surf, a low and rythmic rumble. It was very soothing.
"What's the matter?" he exclaimed, suddenly, staring at Nibsey Morey who stood, like a wooden Indian, at the foot of the bed.
Then he felt something very cool against his forehead and closed his eyes again. It was no matter, he thought.
Nibsey withdrew with a nod.
"He seems to be going to sleep," Wilma said.
He heard the voice and opened his eyes again with a start.
"You here!" he muttered.
And he knew it was she by the touch of her hand upon his cheek.
She told him then what had happened. He smiled feebly, patiently, as though he realized she was only trying to comfort him.
She slipped down upon her knees beside the bed.
"Don't you understand," she whispered, and her voice sounded far away to him, "you ran so fast the others were away behind, and you broke the record, and—oh—oh—Bunny."
She hid her face on the pillow beside his.
Then it all became clear to him, her love, and the depth and meaning of it. He forgave her for what he was pleased to call, in his mind, the white lie of her comfort.
"Dearest," he murmured, dreamily, "it's all right; it's all right." He stroked her hair, feebly. Then, after a moment, he muttered, quite to himself: "What happened, anyway; why was it they wouldn't let me run?"
THE DAY OF THE GAME
Who he was and what, we knew not; he came among us as a stranger and we took him in.
Who he was and what, we knew not; he came among us as a stranger and we took him in.
I
For an instant a hush that was more than that enveloped the grand stand, the crowded veranda of the Athletic Club, and the bleachers opposite. And then, as though by silent signal, the immense throng got upon its feet, and with ragged cheers, broke through or leaped the boundary ropes, and bore down the field, a tidal wave of shrieking youth that police could not control.
The girls on the veranda, inspired by the ecstasy of their companions, cried shrilly and wildly waved their handkerchiefs and the little flags they carried. Many were left standing there to cheer alone, while their escorts joined the surging mob that swept upon the dirty-gray, padded and masked Olympians at the further goal.
No one seemed to pay the least attention to the Cornell giants as laggingly they came up the field close to the ropes, and slipped silently into thedressing-room, disconsolate in their defeat, their chins upon their breasts, their eyes upon the ground.
And, as the girls left on the veranda to care for themselves, watched, they saw eleven stuffed figures lifted in the air to ready shoulders which bent beneath their weight and thus the strange procession of triumph and of noise came up the field.
Above the heads of the moving mass of young humanity canes were waved stiffly. Hats, torn and broken, were flung about the field. In the riot of joy each man sought to shout louder, wave higher and leap further than his brother, so great was the delight the triumph of the team occasioned among them all. The little boys clinging in the trees and clustered on the electric towers outside the fence, cheered with the mob in the field and were glad likewise. The men in blue, waiting beside their cars in the street, just beyond the gate, grinned at one another intelligently, as roar after roar ascended to the turquois sky that domed the gridiron.
On came the throng, running, bending, stumbling, while the cheers of the flushed girls on the club house veranda rose shrilly above the deeper-throated masculine yells. The victors, dirty beyond measure, plastered with the brown, clinging mudin which they had so valiantly wallowed for a good two hours—a splendid contest for the honor of the colors on their stockings—rode their fellows' shoulders uncomfortably, as the cavalcade, shapeless, soulless, inchoate but voiceful, seethed and surged across the field. One of them, to save himself from falling, clutched wildly at the long hair of the bareheaded youth beneath him; another planted a heavy heel unwittingly in a second bearer's mouth, and the youth wrenched free and ran up the field sopping his bloody lips, but turning each tenth step to wave his reddened handkerchief and yell.
It was such a scene as might have been witnessed by Grecian maidens in the Stadium of old, when other young giants—the distant ancestors of these borne now in triumph—were themselves carried, as loftily, as triumphantly, down the course.
The shouting continued so vigorously that it shook the windows of the narrow, low-ceiled, suffocating room where other youths—the vanquished—were peeling the garments of the battle, and silently rubbing their smooth, pink bodies with wide, coarse towels.
The eyes of every girl above were turned down the field and all were alight; each soft cheek glowed with ruddy color, every nerve was tense.
Among these now subdued spectators was onewho had not cheered, but whose excitement had been none the less great, as testified to by the eagerness with which she leaned over the veranda rail, her cheeks white from the pressure of her slim fingers against them.
Now, apparently oblivious to her immediate surroundings, her attitude unchanged, she watched every swerve of the throng as little by little, and unsteadily, it approached. As the human maelstrom swept on and the stuffed shapes outlined so ridiculously against the sky became distinguishable, one from another, the girl smiled and leaned further over the rail. Another instant and she saw but one figure among the many—Adams'. He sat higher than the others; was more conspicuous among them. Again and again, that afternoon, she had seen him seize the ball and, plunging, forge down the field, clasping it closely to his breast. Once she had seen him flung heavily to the ground by a low tackle and had held her breath when a little ring formed where he lay. She took in her faint breath quiveringly when the ring broke and she saw him get upon his feet unsteadily. Then the lines formed again—two slanting walls of fine young brawn. But none of these things that she had seen had set alight her eyes as they were lighted now.
With a yell of almost demoniacal joy, the mob surged beneath the veranda, the warriors crouching on their unsteady pedestals to avoid the timbers overhead. As he was borne beneath, and out of her delighted sight, Adams cast one glance up at the girl leaning eagerly across the rail. Her eyes had been awaiting his and the light that flared in both their eyes as they met told her that he had fought for her; told him that she had known he'd win.
She rose, then, folded her little flag and thrust it into the pocket of her coat. With the others she descended to the club room below and waited for him there.
She withdrew to one side and watched with curious interest the great crowd in the street, fretting impatiently for a nearer glimpse of the victors.
The four horses had been taken from a high tally-ho and a score of youths were running ropes from the front axle of the vehicle away down the street. The girl perceived it was the intention of the crowd to drag the tally-ho to the city in the good old way of joyous, eager crowds. And as she watched she saw a man in the blue overalls of a laborer, his face and hands smoke-blackened, break through the throng on the walk and approach the club house. She saw a policeman step in frontof him and bar the way. The laborer and the officer seemed to argue. The former, his face toward her, she saw gesticulate angrily and stamp his foot, and then she saw a look of dumb pain in his blackened face as the officer, without more ado, seized him by the shoulders, roughly, and turning him about, pushed him into the crowd which parted to make way for his broad, squat figure.
The girl felt a hand upon her arm. She turned quickly and looked up into Adams' face.
The little light of fright fled from her eyes and a mist gathered in its place as she murmured eagerly: "Oh, John, John, how glorious it was!"
He smiled down at her gladly.
"And see," she said, "look—they are going to drag the team down town in the tally-ho."
Through the window he saw the throng. His face at the pane was recognized and a cheer rose that prompted the girl to draw back, blushing. From where she stood at one side she could see a broken line of the crowd.
"Oh, look, John!" she cried, "there's that dirty old man again. He's been drinking—the police drove him away before."
He turned in the direction of her gaze, then drew away instantly from the window.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
His face was pale and his mouth was set in a straight line.
"Nothing," he replied quickly. "Come——" and started toward the door opening upon the now deserted field.
She followed him unquestioningly.
On the porch she said:
"Aren't you going on the tally-ho with the team?"
"No," he replied, "I don't like being made a fool of. There's a gate over there on Cass Avenue. We'll go out that way and they won't see us."
"But, John——"
"I don't want to ride down town in state," he complained, testily. "I'd rather be with you. I shall have to be with them until train time. Now, I'd rather be withyou." And he looked down at her and smiled.
By a devious route they finally reached the Campus Martius and at the little door of a big Woodward Avenue hotel he left her, for she had told him there would be friends awaiting her there with whom she would take dinner later.
"At the train, dear?" she said, as he opened the door for her.
"Yes. Good-bye till then."
She followed his great figure with her eyes andsaw it disappear in the crowd below. Then she turned and passed down the narrow corridor from the "ladies' entrance."
II
It had been a glorious day.
The first touch of winter was in the air, clear, crisp, and set the blood a-tingling.
"Ideal football weather," the sporting writer of theJournalhad called it in the early afternoon edition where, with the wisdom of his species, he had sought to forecast the game's result.
In honor of the occasion a gracious citizenry had swathed Jefferson and Woodward Avenues in bandages of maize and blue, and all day long the small boy had been as active as though it were the fourth of July rather than the fifth of November.
And now in the evening, the older portion of the citizenry withdrew, and the theatres, the lobbies of the prominent hotels, the clubs, and all the places of public meeting, were turned over, unconditionally, to youth.
A kindly disposed commissioner of police had instructed his men to be lenient.
"Boys will be boys," he said to the captain on night duty at the Central Station, as he left the office.
"But what about thegirls?" inquired the captain with a twinkle in his own eyes that was almost youthful.
"Well—they will be, too—sometimes," the commissioner replied.
In the lobby of the Russell House, where the team was installed, the mayor of Detroit—who himself had been an undergraduate once and remembered it—addressed the throng below him, from the first broad landing of the wide marble stairway.
His rounded periods were cheered to the echo; and when he drily observed that all the policemen had been taken off duty the roof fairly lifted and guests came pouring into the corridors, their faces clearly indicating their alarm.
"You know," the mayor observed, his eyes twinkling,—"we've what they call a slow town here. Well, it rests with you boys, for this night at least, to make it fast. Moreover, it's an old town, averyold town, and wherever you find an absence of paint you have my permission and the permission of the commissioner of police to redecorate. I suppose red would be the proper tint. I have had a fondness for the color ever since I was one of you—an undergrad. at old Ann Arbor——"
In the pandemonium that ensued the mayor judiciously withdrew. The crowd "rushed" the lobby,and staid old men, in town over the day, sought places of greater security on landings, behind pillars, and in corners whence might be had a view of the proceedings without, necessarily, participation.
One by one various members of the team appeared at the head of the stairway and at each appearance a welcome of ringing cheers was sounded. The director of athletics, a little man with a wiry mustache and a square chin addressed the crowd from the top step after prolonged cries of "Speech! Speech!"
The trainer, a huge man with a face like a fist, a Cockney accent, and the shoulders of an ox, shouted a few phrases above the din. Each time he uttered the word, "Michigan," which he insisted upon pronouncing "Mitch-ti-gan," he was cheered wildly.
When Adams appeared on the upper landing and hesitated there the commotion became deafening.
A section of the throng swept up to him, seized him and carried him further down where he was made to blurt a few incoherent sentences in which one caught, above the noise, a constant repetition of the words—"fellows"—"great"—"wiped 'em up"—"knew it"—"right stuff"—and others from the campus jargon, generally as unintelligible as Ute gutterals.
Then he, too, descended and became an atom of the matter below as eager to cry "Speech!" to the others when they should appear, as the mob about him now had been to demand a word from him.
It all combined to constitute a riot of triumph, a veritable debauch in the sensation of triumph—a triumph well won, and fairly; honestly accepted, and as honestly celebrated by nearly three thousand as irresponsible young spirits as ever took possession of a town.
Into the streets they poured. The police gritted their teeth and restrained themselves with an effort, the strength of which their tormentors did not dream.
Passers-by were good-naturedly jostled off the pavement by phalanxes of obstreperous lads, who swept all before them as arm in arm, eight and ten abreast, they advanced upon the city.
Money had been wagered and money had been won and there was money to spend and be spent; and they spent it. They took possession of the restaurants. In the theatres they shouted the choruses of all the songs they knew, and between acts they whistled, stamped and applauded, in that deadly unison and rhythm that has been known to bring buildings tumbling about the heads of less vehement folk.
And why all this stampede of ecstasy?
Because two minutes before the umpire's call of time, John Adams, a tall, broad, blonde giant, whom few of his worshippers really knew, had found an elliptical pig-skin and, rushing like an engine of destruction down a well turfed field, had touched it to the ground behind a pair of slim, straight poles.
III
The theatre was packed. The throng extended into the lobby where the ticket scalpers in the faces of the police hawked their coupons each of which called for "an orchestra chair on the aisle three rows back." The leader of one group leaned against a convex bulletin board bearing the lithograph of a gaily garbed soubrette in red, and waving his cane shouted the first line of a familiar college song. Each man of the group lent his voice to the clamor and there was at once precipitated a riot of discord in which the original air was lost in a brazen yell. There was much rushing; a congestion at the window of the box office at which hands were thrust between the fingers of which dangled government notes of various denominations. Beyond the window, his bust framed in the narrow rim of metal the treasurer of the theatre sat on his high stool dealing out the tickets with thesang-froidand easeof a judge upon the bench. Men left their change there on the ledge. The treasurer always shouted at them once—perhaps it was the voice of his conscience merely—then with a sweep of his curved palm magically transferred the money to the till. A solid V of eager youth with its apex at the narrow door of green, pushed and jostled and shouted.
"Look out there behind, you're squeezing a lady!" some one cried.
"Don't she like it?" called an ungallant if witty youth away at the back of the crowd. There was a little feminine shriek, then a peal of laughter in which the throng joined. The police in the lobby were completely at a loss. No man was to be arrested, their commissioner had instructed them. But they gripped their clubs nervously; longing to leap into that seething maelstrom of manhood uncontrolled and wield them to the best purpose. A policeman is born with a hatred for loud-voiced youth—particularly if the youth wear good clothes of trim and fashionable cut. So the policemen there in the lobby, disarmed by the strict injunction of their chief, were as helpless as babes, and like babes they drew down their mouths and gripped tighter that which was within their clutch. Now and again, however, one, bolder than his fellows,and moved perhaps by a spirit of chivalry would shout gruffly:—
"Remember there are ladies in this crowd, you fellows."
"Sure," some one in the throng would yell.
Finally the manager appeared and stationing a man at each of the two other doors flung them back and relieved the pressure at the one. This stroke of genius resulted in a quick emptying of the brilliant lobby and an equally sudden congestion at the tops of the aisles where the ushers in their dark green uniforms were conducting the audience to the seats below amid the confusion resulting from exchanged coupons, balcony tickets presented on the lower floor and the presence in the crowd of "general admissions" who demanded their rights to a seat anywhere in the house. The manager, a tall young man with a black mustache and black eyes darted here, there, through the crowd, thrusting aside the men whose money he had taken, and seeking by every means at his command to wrest order out of chaos.
It was after eight o'clock before the score of ushers were by circumstance permitted to emerge from under the burden of their responsibilities and creep away down-stairs to the smoking room where, flinging themselves on the long low lounges in sheerfatigue, they berated the patrons of the house roundly and condemned each and every one to the hottest depths of a boiling hot perdition.
Ten minutes later the manager himself conducted the men of the victorious eleven to their adjoining boxes, on the right. The great audience had had its collective eye upon those boxes and at the appearance of the men a great shout went up from pit and gallery that sent the cold shivers up and down the spines of the already nervous actors behind the gold and scarlet curtain.
"There's the Count," some one shouted.
"Where? Yes!"
And the short heavy person with the baby face who had been thus honored by selection from among his fellows arose in the box and bowed. The throng cheered again and after that each man in turn was called for and each man rose and bowed.
During the clamor attendant upon this official welcome of the victors, a dozen men, quite as tall, quite as broad and quite as serene of countenance, were ushered into the corresponding boxes across the house. Their appearance was not noticed, for the entire audience had turned in its seats to observe the men of Michigan, proud in the triumph that had come to them. But, finally, after each man hadbeen given his salvo of applause some one noted the men on the other side.
"There's Cornell," was cried.
And the audience, to its everlasting credit, and after the fashion of youth's wild way, repeated for their good cheer the welcome they had given the fellows of the maize and blue. The vanquished had hardly expected the ovation they received. A football man is not a modest creature as a general rule, but in this instance it must in justice be recorded that several of the brawny giants in the left hand box withdrew behind the curtains.