The night before the Lakerim contingent went back to the Kingston
Academy, another grand reception was given in their honor at the
club-house; and the Dozen made more speeches and assumed an air of
greater magnificence than ever.
But, nevertheless, they were just a trifle sorry that they had to
leave their old happy hunting-ground. But there was some consolation
in the thought that the life at the Academy would not be one
glittering revel of studies and classes. For the Dozen believed, as
it believed nothing else, that all play and no work makes Jack a dull
boy.
The general average of the Dozen in the matter of studies was
satisfactory enough; for, while Sleepy was always at the bottom of his
classes, and probably the laziest and stupidest of all the students
at Kingston, History was certainly at the head of his classes, and
probably the most brilliant of all the students at Kingston.
With these two at the opposite poles, the rest of the Dozen worked
more or less hard and faithfully, and kept a very decent pace.
But the average attainment of the Dozen in the field of athletics was
far more than satisfactory.
It was brilliant.
For, while there was one man (History) who was not quite the all-round
athlete of the universe, and was not good at anything more muscular
than chess and golf, the eleven others had each his specialty and his
numerous interests.
They believed, athletically, in knowing everything about something,
and something about everything.
* * * * *
The winter went blustering along, piling up snows and melting them
again, only to pile up more again. And the wind raved in very
uncertain humors. But, snow or thaw, the Dozen was never at a loss to
know what to do.
Finally January was gone, and February, that sawed-off month, was
dawdling along its way toward that great occasion which gives it its
chief excuse for being on the calendar--Washington's Birthday.
From time immemorial it had been the custom at Kingston to celebrate
the natal anniversary of the Father of his Country with all sorts of
disgraceful rioting and un-Washingtonian cavorting. The Lakerim Twelve
were not the ones to throw the weight of their influence against any
traditions that might add dignity to the excitements of school-book
life.
Of the part they took in raising the flag on the tower of the chapel,
and in defending that flag, and in tearing down a dummy raised in
their colors by the Crows in the public square of the village--of this
and many other delightfully improper pranks there is no room to tell
here; and you must rest content with hearing of the important athletic
affair--the affair which more truly and fittingly celebrated the
anniversary of the birth of this great man, who was himself one of the
finest specimens of manhood and one of the best athletes our country
has ever known.
The athletic association from a neighboring school, known as the
Brownsville School for Boys, had sent the Kingstonians an offer to
bring along a team of cross-country runners to scour the regions
around Kingston in competition with any team Kingston would put forth.
The challenge was cordially accepted at once, and the Brownsville
people sent over John Orton, the best of their cross-country runners,
to look over a course two days in advance, and decide upon the path
along which he should lead his team. It was agreed that the course
should be between six and eight miles long. The runners should start
from the Kingston gymnasium, and report successively at the Macomb
farm-house, which was some distance out of Kingston, and was cut off
by numerous ditches and gullies; then at the railway junction two
miles out of Kingston; then at a certain little red school-house, and
then at the finish in front of the campus. It was agreed that the two
teams should start in different directions and touch at these points
in the reverse order. Each captain was allowed to choose his own
course, and take such short cuts as he would, the three points being
especially chosen with a view to keeping the men off the road
and giving them plenty of fence-jumping, ditch-taking, and
obstacle-leaping of all sorts.
The race was to have been run off in the afternoon; but the train was
late, and the Brownsvillers did not arrive until just before supper.
It was decided, after a solemn conference, that the race should be run
in spite of the delay, and as soon as the supper had had a ghost of
a chance to digest. The rising of a full and resplendent moon was a
promise that the runners should not be entirely in the dark.
Tug and the Brownsville chief, Orton, had made careful surveys of
the course they were to run over. It was as new to Tug as to the
Brownsville man. Each of the two had planned his own short cuts, and
even if they had been running over the course in the same direction
they would have separated almost immediately. But when the signal-shot
that sent them off in different directions rang out, they were
standing back to back, and did not know anything of each other's
whereabouts until they met again, face to face, at the end of the
course.
The teams consisted of five men each. The only Lakerim men on the
Kingston team were Tug, the chief, who had been a great runner of
440-yard races, and Sawed-Off, who had won the half-mile event on
various field-days. The other three were Stage, Bloss, and MacManus.
All of them were stocky runners and inured to hardship.
They had come out of the gymnasium in their bathrobes; and when the
signal to start was given, the spectators in their warm overcoats felt
chills scampering up and down their ribs as they noticed that all the
men of both teams, when they had thrown off their bath-robes, stood
clad only in running-shoes, short gymnasium-trunks, and jerseys.
But their heat was to come from within, and once they were started,
cold was the least of their trials.
The two teams broke away from each other at the gymnasium, and bolted
at a wide angle straight across the campus. They all took the first
fence in perfect form, as if they were thoroughbred hunters racing
after a fox.
Quiz and one or two other of the bicycle enthusiasts attempted to
follow one or the other of the two packs; but they avoided the road so
completely that the bicyclists soon lost them from sight, and returned
to watch the finish.
The method of awarding the victory was this: the different runners
were to be checked off as they passed the different stages of the
course, and crossed off as they came across the finish-line. Each man
was thus given the number of his place in the finish, and the total of
the numbers earned by each team decided the match, the team having the
smaller number winning. Thus the first man in added the number 1 to
the total score of his side, while the last man in added 10 to his.
Tug had explained to his runners, before they started out, that
team-work was what would count--that he wished his men to keep
together, and that they were to take their orders all from him.
After the first enthusiasm of a good brisk start to get steam and
interest up, Tug slowed his pace down to such a gait as he thought
could be comfortably maintained through the course.
The Brownsville leader, Orton, however, being a brilliant
cross-country runner himself, set his men too fierce a pace, and soon
had upon his hands a pack of breathless stragglers.
Tug vigorously silenced any attempt at conversation among his men, and
advised them to save their breath for a time soon to come when they
would need it badly.
His path led into a heavy woods, very gloomy under the dim moonlight;
and he had many an occasion to yell with pain and surprise as a low
branch stung him across the head. But all he permitted himself to
exclaim was a warning cry to the others:
"Low bridge!"
The grove was so blind (save for the little clearing at Roden's Knoll,
which Tug and Sawed-Off recognized with a groan of pride) that the
men's shins were barked and their ankles turned at almost every other
step, it seemed. But Tug would not permit any of them the luxury of
complaint.
In time they were out of the wood and into the open. But here it
seemed that their troubles only increased; for, where the main
difficulty in the forest was to avoid obstacles, the chief trouble in
the plain was to conquer them. There were many barbed-wire fences
to crawl through, the points clutching the bare skin and tearing it
painfully at various spots. The huge Sawed-Off suffered most from
these barbs, but he only gasped:
"I'm punctured."
There were long, steep hills to scramble up and to jolt down. There
were little gullies to leap over, and brooks to cross on watery
stepping-stones that frequently betrayed the feet into icy water.
After vaulting gaily over one rail fence, and scooting jauntily along
across a wide pasture, the Kingstonians were surprised to hear the
sound of other footsteps than theirs, and they turned and found a
large and enthusiastic bull endeavoring to join their select circle.
Perhaps this bovine gentleman was, after all, their very best friend,
for nowhere along the whole course did they attain such a burst of
speed as then. Indeed, none of the five could remember a time in his
life when he made such a spurt.
They reached and scaled a stone wall, however, in time to shake off
the company of this inhospitable host. In the next field there were
two or three skittish colts, which they scared into all manner of
hysterical behavior as they sped across.
Down a country lane they turned for a short distance; and a farmer and
his wife, returning home from a church sociable, on seeing these five
white figures flit past in a minimum of clothing, thereafter always
vowed that they had seen ghosts.
As the runners trailed past a farm-house with never a light to show
upon its front, there was a ferocious hullabaloo, something between
the angry snorting of a buffalo and the puffing of a railroad engine
going up a steep grade. It was the wolfish welcome of three canine
brigands, the bloodthirsty watch-dogs that surrounded and guarded this
lonely and poverty-stricken little farm-house from the approach of any
one evil- or well-intentioned.
Those dogs must have been very sorry they spoke; for when they came
rushing forward cordially to take a few souvenir bites out of the
Lakerim team, Tug and the others stopped short and turned toward them.
"Load!" cried Tug.
And every mother's son of the five picked up three or four large rocks
from the road.
"Aim!" cried Tug.
And every father's son of the five drew back a strong and willing arm.
"Fire!" cried Tug.
And every grandfather's and grandmother's grandson of the five let fly
with a will the rocks his hands had found upon the road.
Those dogs must have felt that they were caught out in the heaviest
hail-storm of their whole experience. Their blustering mood
disappeared in an instant, and they turned for home, yelping like
frightened puppies; nor did they forget, like Bo-peep's sheep, to take
their tails with them, neatly tucked between their legs.
Past as the cross-country dogs ran in one direction, the cross-country
humans ran in the opposite.
Now that they were on a good pike road, some of them were disposed to
sprint, particularly the fleet-footed Stage, who could far outrun Tug
or any of the team.
But Tug thought that wisdom lay in keeping his team well in hand, and
he did not approve of running on in advance any more than he approved
of straggling. Thus the enthusiastic Stage, rejoicing in his airy
heels, suddenly found himself deserted, Tug having seen fit to leave
the road for a short cut across the fields; and Stage had to run back
fifty yards or more and spend most of his surplus energy in catching
up with the team.
It was a merry chase Tug led his weary crew: through one rough ravine
where the hillside flowed out from under their feet and followed them
down, and where they must climb the other side on slippery earth,
grasping at a rock here and a root there; then through one little
strip of forest that offered him an advantageous-short cut. Here again
he silenced the protests of his men at the thick underbrush and the
frequent brambles they encountered. Just at the edge of this little
grove Tug put on an extra burst of speed, and was running like the
wind. The others, following to the best of their ability, saw him
about to pass between two harmless posts.
Suddenly they also saw him throw up his hands and fall over backward.
When they reached him they saw that he had run into a barbed-wire
fence in the dark.