At Start And Finish Part 12

He would turn his head, and call, "Bates! Bates!" in a frenzy of fear and disappointment. "Bates, where are you? My G.o.d, where are you? I'm sure I followed orders, and did not come too fast."

Then he would find Bates, and say contentedly, "There you are, old man, close up; I'll drop out now, I'm almost gone; push out and win."

Suddenly he would discover it was the outsider, and would cry out with fevered lips, and try to break away from us and run.

Then he would lie still, but in his mind was going over the agony of the finish again and again. He would turn to me and say excitedly, "You told me I need not finish. I can't run the 'half,' and you know it. It's dark, and they have run off with the tape. I finished long ago, and still you make me run."

Sometimes he would drop his hands and say despairingly, "I cannot do it, I cannot reach the worsted; O G.o.d, I cannot!"

Then he would discover Tom, who was almost as crazy as Teddy himself, and had been utterly useless from the time the hemorrhage set in. He would say to Tom, "Don't look at me like that, old man; I know I lost the race, but I did my best, my very best, and ran clear out. Look at my cheek, where I fell; you must see I was dead beat." He would try to argue with Tom, who had not a word to say, except of sorrow and self-reproach. He would look at Tom, and say, "Perhaps you're right, and I'll not complain, but why did you tell me to set pace, if you meant to make me finish?" Or he would say over and over again, "I was not strong enough; I did the best I could; I did the best I could."

Indeed, he did not cease talking all the time we were with him, until he was given opiates and taken to the hospital.

Here he spent many weary weeks, and was only pulled through after the most persistent care. But though he got on his feet again, he did not fully recover, and even a long trip to the Bermudas did not get his lungs in shape. He spent some months in Southern California, and settled finally among the Carolina hills, the nearest point to his old New England home, where he could expect to prolong his days.

I have seen many gallant winners, many whose courage and determination made them such; but when I tell the story that comes closest to my heart, I tell of one a notch above them all. I tell of Teddy Atherton, of his last "half" which he _lost_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Charge of the Heavy Brigade]

There were three of us in my office at the gymnasium. It was late afternoon of a February day. The hail was beating against my windows, and a punching-bag was drumming the "devil's tattoo" in the next room.

There were all sorts of sounds outside, from the clatter of pulley weights dropped on the floor to the steady tramp of the runner's feet on the track overhead, but in my room a Sabbath stillness reigned.

Fred Seever was perched on a chair in one corner ready dressed for departure, and N. P. Sawyer, familiarly known as "Shack," sat on the weighing scales clad only in trunks, jersey, and an air of melancholy.

It would not have been a comfortable seat for most anatomies, and the metal work must have felt chilly; but Shack had eccentric tastes, and never occupied a chair if he could find anything else to hold him.

I had just remarked in the quietest manner possible, "It is pretty well settled that Seever does not run this year." This was the cause of Shack's melancholy and Seever's silence.

"Well, if that's the verdict," said Seever, with considerable heat for one so quiet, "it's mighty hard lines, and a blooming hothouse plant it makes of me. I've been planning the whole year to get back at the Dutchman, and now at the last moment you say I don't start."

"Yes," spoke up Shack, "you should get a gla.s.s case for the dear boy, and put him in it, labelled 'Rare Specimen,' 'A Runner too Good to Run.'" He followed up this ingenious suggestion by untangling his long legs, rising slowly to his feet, and suddenly throwing a stray boxing-glove which he had picked up from the floor, hitting the "Rare Specimen" a blow in the short ribs that brought forth an involuntary grunt. "By the way, Professor," he continued, "do you think it quite safe for a little chap like me to toy with a sixteen-pound shot?

Mightn't I drop it on my precious toes some day?"

"I've told you my reasons plainly enough," I answered, looking up from my desk and laughing at big Shack in spite of myself. "You remember last year. Seever went into this same 'mile handicap,' running from scratch.

There were thirty-odd entries, and he was blocked, elbowed, and pocketed all the way through, getting a toss from Kitson in the last lap that sent him rolling into a corner with skin enough off his knees to make parchment for his diploma."

"I wasn't hurt, though," argued Seever, "only sore for a few days."

"'Twas luck that saved you then," I answered; "suppose you'd broken a leg, as you might easily have done on that hardwood floor, where would we have been at Mott Haven, with not a man jack of you good for four-thirty?"

"Give it up," said Shack. "Did you notice that the same field, too, let the Dutchman through like a greased pig? Hartman had half a dozen club mates in the lot, and as many more were quite willing to do all within the law to keep a college man out of it."

"Well," continued I, "Fred Seever is neither a wrestler nor a football player. These indoor games are all right, and for the average man there is no better place to learn quickness than in a mob of runners swinging round the raised corners of a slippery board track. But Fred has had experience enough, and is sure to appear on the cinder-path with the warm spring days in good condition if left entirely to himself. In the second place, he is too slender to take any chances."

"Yes," interrupted Shack, "those pipe-stem legs are marked 'breakable.'"

I concluded with, "The verdict is that, unless I have some good reason to change my mind, Seever's name will certainly be scratched."

At this there was a dead silence. Shack looked at Seever questioningly, then shook his head, and began to whistle "Ben Bolt" in a particularly dismal manner.

When I found they had nothing more to say, I resumed my examination of the list of entries to the first big "Indoor Athletic Games" of the season. I had just received it from the "official handicapper," and was considerably interested to find what my men had been given. They figured in every handicap, and in the "forty-yard novice" there were no less than fourteen of them, nearly all Freshmen, with two or three who would show a turn of speed. There were a few I did not intend should run, among them Seever, for the reasons I had already given.

These games are a perfect G.o.dsend to a trainer, coming as they do at a time when it is very hard to keep the men up to their work. The gymnasium is indispensable in a country where from December to April the cinder-path is either hard with frost or white with snow. But when a man has done his fifteen minutes at the pulley weights for the hundredth consecutive afternoon, he finds the excitement of "One, two, three, four, five, six," begins to pall on him, and by the last of February even "practising starts" loses its charms. It is then the circuit of a billiard-table becomes the favorite track work, and the digestion of a good dinner the princ.i.p.al muscular exercise.

I had checked off about half the names, finding few surprises, when the quiet of my room was broken by the entrance of a dozen fellows who had just learned of the arrival of the list. Did you ever hear the work of that very conscientious gentleman the "official handicapper" discussed by a crowd of contestants? Of half a dozen men perhaps one is pleased and says so, two or three have no fault to find but do nevertheless grumble out of principle, and the remainder "kick like veteran mules,"

and blackguard in shameful fashion the man whose only sin has been to overrate their abilities.

"What's this?" cried Ferris, a high jumper, looking over my shoulder. "I get only four inches, and Bob here gets six. That's highway robbery, and I don't care who knows it. He did five-eight to my five-seven only yesterday."

"Here's little Larry with five yards in the 'forty,'" spoke up Shack, who had monopolized the view from my right side, his broad shoulders shutting off all the rest; "the infant won't do a thing to them, will he?"

"What do you get yourself?" inquired Turner, who was bigger than Shack, but not quite quick enough to get a place of vantage.

"That's what I ought to be looking for," answered Shack, "but I always think of others first. They'll put something of that kind on my tombstone. Where's the 'shot'?" He ran his big finger down the page, remarking meanwhile, "I gave Jones [the handicapper] a good cigar only last week, and told him that I had not been myself the whole winter."

Shack said this with a deep sigh, as if he well knew he was threatened with an early decline. "I expect to find nothing less than the same old eight feet for yours truly." His finger suddenly stopped, as he said this, and then straightening himself with an energy that sent two or three men flying backward, he exclaimed: "Great Jupiter! Look at that!

Only look at that! And 'twas a good cigar too. He gives me just four feet, the least of any of you, and Turner here, who tied me this afternoon, gets the eight instead." At this there was a big laugh at Shack, whose woes were a joke to all.

Down the list they went until all were informed, and then they gradually sifted out, leaving Seever and Shack still with me. I could not understand why they stayed, for they knew well enough that further argument would be useless; but I paid no attention to them, going on with my checking.

The "mile handicap" was almost the last event. I crossed out Seever's name, which figured alone at "scratch," saw that Hartman had his twenty-five yards, the same as last year, marked off Root at fifty and Murphy at seventy yards, and then suddenly discovered, just below, the names of G. Turner and N. P. Sawyer with the same allowances. To say I was surprised would but faintly express my feeling, as Turner was a shot and hammer man who had played football, weighed nearly one hundred and ninety pounds, and had never to my knowledge run a yard on a track in his life. N. P. Sawyer was the seldom used patronymic of Shack, who had resumed his seat on the scales in the corner, and was evidently by his air of expectancy waiting for an explosion. I had sent in neither name, and was utterly at sea regarding the whole affair.

"Well, Sawyer," said I, turning rather abruptly toward him, "what does this mean?"

"Simply this," replied Shack, very frankly, as if he had expected the question and had his answer ready,--"simply this, that I thought we would pay the devil in his own coin, and give Hartman and his fellow-pirates of the 'Rowing Club' a taste of their medicine; let the Dutchman carom against Turner and myself a few times, permit Kitson to enjoy the experience of a tumble like that he gave Fred last year, and carry the latter bit of 'rare porcelain' through the mob without getting chipped."

"A very pretty plan," I remarked sarcastically, "but why was I not consulted in the matter?"

"Simply because we were doubtful of your consent, and wished to get as far along as possible before we had our little talk with you."

"Of course," remarked Seever, "we knew you would have the final word to say, but we thought you would prefer not to have the plan yours, and to be able to say that you did not even send in the entries."

"That was certainly very thoughtful of you."

"Yes," interposed Shack, "there is a remote chance of a little 'shindy'

when the 'Heavy Brigade' gets well started."

"If you and Turner are mixed up in it, I should think the chances considerably more than even," I remarked; "but why in the world did two ice-wagons like you and Turner go into it? You can neither of you run a mile in ten minutes."

"Ten minutes," cried Shack. "We'll let you hold a watch over us and see.

You said just now that Seever was neither a wrestler nor a football player. Well, this is, you admit, something of a football game, and we have a football aggregation for it. Root is in it too. He played 'left half,' Turner 'right,' and I 'full back' on the team all last fall. Root has been doing the mile for a couple of years, and is a fair performer.

Turner is a mighty fast man for his weight, and can go the distance. As for myself, although my well-known modesty shrinks at the a.s.sertion, I am a 'crack-a-Jack' at any distance from one hundred yards to ten miles.

I am indeed. With a seventy-yard handicap Seever has no show with me. I thought we three could do the trick nicely with a little of the interference we worked up together and found mighty useful on the 'gridiron.'"

"That's your plan, is it?" I asked. "Well, 'tis as crazy as its maker, which is saying a great deal."

At this there was silence again, Seever twirling his thumbs, and Shack running his fingers through his mop of hair in a hopeless fashion.