ON THE CINDERS
On the following Monday, Allan set out after his three-o’clock
recitation for Erskine Field. He stopped at his room long enough to
leave his books and get his mail--the Sunday letter from home usually
put in its appearance on Monday afternoon--and then went on out Poplar
Street.
It was a fine, mild afternoon, with the sunlight sifting down through
the branches of the giant elms which line the way, and a suggestion of
Indian summer in the air. If he hadn’t been so busy with his letter he
could have found plenty to interest him on the walk to the field, but,
as it was, he was deeply concerned with the news from home.
There was talk, his mother wrote, of closing down the Gold Beetle mine
out in Colorado, from which distant enterprise the greater part of
her income had long been derived in the shape of dividends on a large
amount of stock; the gold-bearing ore had given out and the directors
were to consider the course to pursue at a meeting in December.
Meanwhile, his mother explained, the work had stopped, and so had
the dividends, and she didn’t like to consider what would happen if
this source of income was shut off for all time. Allan tried to feel
regretful over the matter, since his mother was clearly worried--more
worried than she was willing to show, had he but known it--but the Gold
Beetle was a long way off, it always had supplied them with money,
and the idea that it was now to cease doing so seemed something quite
preposterous. The Gold Beetle represented the family fortune, about all
that remained after his father’s affairs had been settled.
Allan found other news more to his liking: Dorothy was getting on
nicely at her new boarding-school and had survived the initial period
of tragic homesickness; one of Allan’s friends at Hillton, now a Yale
freshman, had called at the house a few days before; and Edith Cinnamon
had presented the household with a litter of three lovely kittens.
Edith Cinnamon was the cat, Allan’s particular pet, and the news of the
interesting event remained in his mind after the reprehensible conduct
of the Gold Beetle mine had departed from it. Mines stand merely for
money, but kittens are pets, and Allan loved pets. A wonderful idea
struck him: why not have his mother send him one of the kittens? He
resolved to confer with Mrs. Purdy on his return; surely she would have
no objections to his obtaining a room-mate to share the “parlor study”
with him!
When he had changed his clothes for a running costume in the locker
house and reached the track he found fully half a score of fellows
before him. There was Hooker jogging around the back-stretch; nearer
at hand was Harris practising starts; in a group at the finish of the
hurdles he saw Stearns, the track-team captain, Rindgely, several
fellows whose faces he knew but whose names were unknown to him, and
Billy Kernahan. He drew aside to let a file of runners by and then
approached the group. Rindgely nodded to him slightly, not with any
suggestion of unfriendliness, but rather in the manner of one who has
never been properly introduced. Billy accompanied his salutation with a
critical survey of the half-clothed figure confronting him.
“How are you feeling to-day?” he asked.
“Fine, thanks!” answered Allan.
“That’s the boy! We’ll try you at three-quarters of a mile after a
while. You’d better get warmed up, and then try half a dozen starts.”
While the trainer was speaking, Allan was aware of the fact that Walter
Stearns was observing him with evident interest. When Billy ceased,
Stearns said something to him in low tones, and the next moment Allan
found himself being introduced to the track-team captain. Stearns was
rather under than above medium height, with small features and alert
eyes of a steel-gray shade that contrasted oddly with his black hair.
Below his white trunks his legs were thin and muscular, and under the
faded purple sweater his chest proved itself broad and deep. He spoke
rapidly, as though his tongue had learned the secret of his legs and
was given to dashes rather than to sustained efforts.
“Glad to know you, Ware,” he said, as he shook hands. “Glad you’re
coming out to help us.”
“I don’t believe I’ll be much help,” answered Allan.
“Oh, yes; bound to. I saw you run in the handicaps. That was a mighty
pretty race you made. By the way, do you know Mr. Long? And this is
Mr. Monroe. And Mr. Mason. Keep in with Mason. He’s office-boy on the
Purple and writes criticisms of the track team.”
Allan shook hands with the three, while the group laughed at Stearns’s
fling at the managing editor of the college weekly. Long was a
startlingly tall fellow, with a crooked nose and twinkling, yellowish
eyes, and Monroe was short and thick-set, and looked ill-tempered.
Mason, Allan recognized as one of a half-dozen men whom he had seen
about college and as to whose identity he had been curious. Mason was
the sort of fellow that attracts attention: tall, broad-shouldered,
with shrewd, kindly eyes behind glasses and a firm mouth under a
straight and sensitive nose. He looked very much the gentleman, and
Allan was glad to make his acquaintance. He was in the dark as to what
position Mason really occupied on the Purple, and so the point of
Stearns’s joke was lost on him. But he smiled, nevertheless, having
learned that it is sometimes well to assume knowledge when one hasn’t
it.
“See you again,” said Stearns. The others nodded with various degrees
of friendliness and Allan took himself off. The track was in good
condition to-day and held the spikes firmly. Allan jogged up and down
the stretch a few times, trying his muscles, which on Saturday had felt
a bit stiff after the mile run, and lifting his knees high. Then he
started around the track. Half-way around he drew up behind Hooker.
“Hello!” said the latter. “Nice day, isn’t it?”
Allan agreed that it was, and the two went on together to the turn.
There Hooker turned up the straightaway.
“Going to try starts?” he asked. “Let’s go up to the end there.”
Allan couldn’t see the necessity for becoming proficient in the
crouching start until Hooker explained as they returned from a brief
dash, in which the younger lad had been left wofully far behind.
“Sometimes,” said Hooker, “you’ll want the pole at the start, and if
you’re placed two or three places away from it, you won’t get it from a
stand, you see. But if you use the crouch and get away quick, you have
a pretty good show of getting ahead of the men who have the inside of
you. Let’s try it again. You give the signal this time.”
After ten minutes of it, Allan picked up his sweater and followed
Hooker down the track to report to Kernahan. The football men had
taken possession of the gridiron by this time, Long and others were
practising at the high jump, and altogether the field looked very busy.
“You and Ware try three laps,” said the trainer to Hooker. “Watch your
form, now, and never mind about your time. I’ll attend to that for you.
Take turn about at the pacing; you take the first lap, Hooker. Want to
get into this, Larry?”
Rindgely nodded and peeled off his sweater. The others had to trot
about for a minute or two while Rindgely stretched his muscles. Then
the three got on to the mark, Billy gave the word, and they started
off at an easy pace, Hooker in the lead, Allan next, and Rindgely in
the rear. All three hugged the rim of the track and settled down into
their pace. On the back-stretch they had to slow down once to avoid a
group of football substitutes who were crossing the cinders, and once
Rindgely was forced to leap over a ball that came bouncing out onto the
track, and was much incensed about it. Hooker’s pace was wonderfully
steady, but Allan thought it rather slow. At the mark Billy told them
to “hit it up a bit now,” and Hooker slowed down, letting Allan into
the lead.
Allan increased the pace considerably. This time there were no
interruptions, and they neared the end of the second lap fresh and
untired. Kernahan glanced up from his watch as they sped by.
“All right!” he shouted. “Get up there, Larry, and hold that pace.”
Rindgely took the lead. As they commenced the turn Allan’s gaze,
wandering a second from the front, lighted upon a tall, wide-shouldered
and somewhat uncouth figure at the edge of the track. Strange to say,
the figure nodded its head at him and waved a hand, and as Allan went
by there came a stentorian cry of encouragement that might have been
heard half across the field:
“Chase ’em down, Freshman! Give ’em fits!”
Allan bit his lips angrily as he sped on. What business had that big
chump yelling at him like that when he didn’t even know him? Pretty
fresh, that’s what it was! Allan hadn’t made the acquaintances of so
many fellows but that he could remember them, and he was quite sure
that he had never met the big chap who had yelled. But at the same
time there had been something familiar about the fellow’s voice--too
familiar, thought Allan with a grudging smile--and he wondered who he
might be and why he had singled him out for his unwelcome attentions.
Then the incident passed for the time out of his mind, for the last
turn was almost at hand and Rindgely was increasing the pace.
Allan began to feel it at the turn, and when they swung into the
home-stretch and the pace, instead of settling down to a steady finish,
grew faster and faster, he came to the unwelcome conclusion that he
was not in the same class with the other two. Rindgely, in spite of
all Allan could do, lengthened the space between them. Hooker, seeing
that Allan was out of it, passed him fifty yards from the mark and
strove to overhaul the leader. But Rindgely was never headed, and
finished several yards in front of Hooker and at least thirty ahead of
Allan. When they turned and jogged back to the trainer, the latter was
slipping his watch into his pocket.
“What’s the good of doing that, Larry?” he asked, disgustedly. “That
wasn’t a race.”
“Oh, I just wanted to liven it up a bit,” answered Rindgely, grinning.
“What time did I make, Billy?”
“I didn’t take you,” answered the trainer, shortly. “That’s enough for
to-day.”
Allan turned away with the others, but Billy called him back.
“What was the matter?” he asked. “Pace too hot for you?”
“I suppose so; I couldn’t stand that spurt.”
“Well, that was some of Larry’s nonsense; he’d no business cutting up
tricks.” He was silent a moment, looking across to where the second
eleven was trying vainly to keep the varsity from pushing over her
goal-line. Then, “Ever try the two miles?” he asked. Allan shook his
head.
“I don’t believe I’d be any good at it,” he answered. “Not that I’m
any good at the mile, either,” he added, somewhat discouraged at the
outcome of the trial.
“What’s the best you ever did at the mile?”
“About four minutes forty-five seconds.”
“You did it inside of forty, Friday.”
“I did?” Allan looked his surprise. “Oh, but I ran a hundred and twenty
yards short.”
“I allowed for that,” answered Billy, quietly. “Now, look here,
Ware; you’ve got it in you all right, but you don’t make the most of
yourself. You let your feet drag back badly, and you’ve been trying
after too long a stride. You make that shorter by six inches and you’ll
cut off another second after a while. And to-morrow I’ll show you what
I mean about the stride. There’s plenty of time before the dual meet
in the spring, and by then we’ll have you doing things right. The only
thing is,” he added, thoughtfully, “whether you wouldn’t do better at
the two miles. What do you think?”
“I really don’t know,” answered Allan, doubtfully, “but I’d like to try
it.”
“Well, there’s lots of time. The indoor meet in Boston comes along in
February; we’ll have you in shape for that, and you can go in for the
mile and the two miles. Meanwhile, you’d better come out with the other
men while the decent weather lasts.”
“Do you think I can make the team?” Allan asked, hopefully.
“Easy; but they don’t take new men on till after the trials in the
spring.”
“Oh!” said Allan, a trifle disappointed.
“Don’t let that bother you,” advised the trainer. “You’re as good as
on it now. You make the most of the fall training, Ware, and keep fit
during the winter. I’d go in for hockey or something. Ever play hockey?”
“Yes, but I can’t skate well enough.”
“Well, get plenty of outdoor exercise of some sort this winter; don’t
let the weather keep you indoors.”
“All right, I’ll remember.” Allan’s gaze wandered toward the locker
building. Half-way across the field a big figure was ambling toward the
gate, hands in pockets. Allan turned quickly to the trainer. “Do you
know who that fellow is?” Kernahan’s gaze followed his. After a moment:
“That’s a freshman named Burley. Know him?”
“No; I just wondered who he was,” Allan replied.
“And I don’t want to know him,” he muttered, irritably, as he trotted
off to the locker house.
But Fate seldom consults our inclinations.