At the bottom of the course, with the long-heralded event slipping with
the moments into history, and surrounded by their cheering
fellow-collegians, the eyes of the contestants met again, nor did they
waver, nor did a challenge leap between them. They smiled; their hands
shot forth with one accord, met and clutched, and it was then that
another cheer arose unlike those that had gone before--a cheer that was
a cheer. As it ended, Jimmy Hulburt, in a moment of fine frenzy, for
him, cried:
"I'm willing to bet ten dollars at two to one that Nibsey Morey can beat
anybody runnin' that walks!"
Even that brave if paradoxical cry was cheered, and the sportive Jimmy
looked about him valiantly. He felt a hand upon his arm in another
instant and heard a voice above him. Lifting his eyes, he looked up into
the stranger's face.
"What was your bet?" the soft voice inquired. Jimmy repeated it, none
the less vigorously, at the same time pushing back to survey the uncouth
figure of the man in the long coat, with a satchel dangling from his
shoulder.
"I'll take it," the stranger said, simply.
Some one laughed, another called: "Shut up." As for Jimmy, he only
stared at the absurd person before him, who had with such aggravating
nonchalance picked up the glove that he had so bravely flung down.
"Are you a student here?" he asked.
"I entered to-day," was the reply, spoken in the same calm tones.
"Where you from?"
"Niles."
"So you want to take that bet?"
"I'm willing." He smiled most exasperatingly.
"When do you want to run?"
"Suit yourself."
"Say," Jimmy exclaimed, perhaps a shade angrily, "are you fooling? To
hear you talk anybody'd think you wanted to run now."
"That would be all right. I will run now."
The laughter became general. The stranger only pulled at his cigar more
quickly.
"Where are your togs?" Jimmy inquired scornfully.
"I've got them on." So saying he flung back his overcoat. He was
ordinarily dressed.
The laughter broke out afresh.
Jimmy hesitated just one instant.
"Wait a moment, may be we can fix up a race," he cried, and pushing
through the crowd he ran across the street to a confectionery store,
where Nibs had gone with Billy for a soda. He burst in upon them out of
breath. He told them of the wise fool over the way who needed a tuck
taken in him.
"Will you run, Nibsey? Come on," he cried.
Nibs looked at Billy.
"Do it, do it," the latter urged.
"All right," Nibs agreed, and arm in arm with his backer he issued into
the street, clutching his mackintosh about him.
The stranger had, meanwhile, walked back along the course followed by a
great throng, anxious to witness what to them promised to be a _fiasco_
of immense proportions. Only three carriages had waited. The occupants
perceiving the crowd at the lower end of the street had lingered for
developments. In one of the carriages was Nibs Morey's sister Wilma. She
called a youth to the wheel and questioned him concerning the throng
which still surged in the street. The freshman explained gaily.
"And will Nibs run that great tall thing?" the girl inquired anxiously.
"Oh, don't you worry, Miss Morey," the little freshman replied
consolingly. "He'll beat him so far he won't know he's running."
"But he's all tired out," she expostulated.
"Oh, no, he isn't. Only a little over a hundred yards."
A cry rang out just then, down the course, and Wilma, turning, caught a
glimpse of her brother, surrounded by his supporters--and all the crowd
supported him now--approaching the start.
She was moved to call him, to demand his instant withdrawal from this
silly, useless race; but her voice--this she realized--would not have
been heard above the shouting. She sank back upon the seat, her face
flushed, her forehead furrowed with little lines, her fingers locking
and unlocking.
Some one had stopped just behind the carriage. Afterward she was wont to
say she had "felt" the presence; for, looking around and down, her eyes
met those of the stranger. His were the first to drop before her
unflinching, flashing gaze. Why he had stopped just there, the centre of
a little group of the curious, he could never explain. It was only an
instant, merely for the exchange of that glance perhaps, for he moved on
again almost immediately, up the course, half running, stepping high,
gracefully.
The double lines of spectators now were not so long nor so thick as they
had been; nor did they manifest those signs of interest that had marked
the earlier event.
At the start, the tall stranger removed neither his long overcoat nor
his satchel. His cigar had gone out, but he still held it, cold, between
his teeth.
Little Thurston, who was to fire the pistol a second time, exclaimed,
amazedly: "Aren't you goin' to take off those things?"
"No, guess not," was the cool reply. "What's the use!"
Nibsey Morey, Billy Shaw and Jimmy exchanged glances; Billy smiled
outright.
"Say," Jimmy snapped somewhat angrily. "Let's get a hustle on and end
this--you willing?" He nodded toward the stranger.
"Quite."
"Then--ready!" cried the starter.
Again two figures, sadly matched, crouched at the start.
Another second and the pistol cracked.
Following the report, there was a little instant of dead silence in the
street, then there broke forth pandemonium, for half way down the
course, his coat tails flying, his satchel standing out behind, the cold
cigar gripped tight between his teeth, the stranger led Nibs Morey by a
rod. Twenty-five feet from the string, he turned, and running backward,
beckoned with a crooked forefinger to the straining Mercury that he
faced.
Not in all undergraduate history is there recorded an event which
created more excitement on the campus after its occurrence than this.
Nibs Morey had defeated Billy Shaw; and a stranger who had sprung from
the earth had defeated Nibs as no man before had ever been defeated.
They shook hands, honorably, after the event, but those who witnessed
the incident forgot it immediately in the overwhelming curiosity
regarding the newest risen champion among them.
"Who is he?" was the question on the lips of every youth and every
maid--"Who is he?"
His name was Bunette, they said. His home? A tiny town on a west
Michigan sand hill.
"What is he, then?" the voice of the campus cried. And it became known
that he had entered the department of Medicine and Surgery.
And thus was a new god raised among men at whose shrine none worshiped
with devotion more intense than Billy Shaw, and the erstwhile idol,
Nibsey Morey, and to them and their brethren for all time he was given a
name, and the name was "Bunny of '85."