the platform he announced to a group of the girls standing near, "Don't say anything, but I have the winner right here for you." "Better wait," said Cameron, "I have entered this race only to save the secretary from collapse." At this the secretary bustled up. "All ready, eh? Cameron, I shall owe you something for this. La Belle objected strenuously against your entering at the last minute. It is against the rules, you know. But he has given in." The secretary did not explain that he had intimated to La Belle that there was no need for anxiety as far as the "chap from the old country" was concerned; he was there merely to fill up. But if La Belle's fears were allayed by the secretary's disparaging description of the latest competitor, they sprang full grown into life again when he saw Cameron "all set" for the start, and more especially when he heard his protest against the Frenchman's method in the "get away. "I want you to notice," said Cameron firmly, to Dr. Kane, who was acting as starter, "that this man gets away with the word 'Go' and not after it. It is an old trick, but long ago played out." Then the Frenchman fell into a rage. "Eet ees no treeck!" sputtered La Belle. "Eet ees too queeck for him." "All right!" said Dr. Kane. "You are to start after the word 'Go.' Remember! Sorry we have no pistol." Once more the competitors crouched over the scratch. "All set? Go!" Like the releasing of a whirlwind the four runners spring from the scratch, La Belle, whose specialty is his "get away," in front, Fullerton and Cameron in second place, and Cahill a close third. A blanket would cover them all. A tumult of cheers from the friends of the various runners follows them along their brief course. "Who is it? Who is it?" they cry breathlessly. "Cameron, I swear!" roars Mack, pushing his way through the crowd to the judges. "No! No! La Belle! La Belle!" cry the Frenchman's backers from the city. The judges are apparently in dispute. "It is Cameron!" roars Mack again in their ears, his eyes aflame and his face alight with a fierce and triumphant joy. "It is Cameron, I am telling you!" "Oh, get out, you big bluffer!" cries a thin-faced man, pressing close upon the judges. "It is La Belle, by a mile!" "By a mile, is it?" shouts Mack. "Then go and hunt your man!" and with a swift motion his big hand fell upon the thin face and swept it clear out of view, the man bearing it coming to his feet in a white fury some paces away. A second look at Mack, however, calmed his rage and from a distance he continued leaping and yelling, "La Belle! La Belle!" After a few moments' consultation the result was announced. "A tie for the first place between La Belle and Cameron! Time, eleven seconds! The tie will be run off in a few minutes." In a tumult of triumph, big Mack shoulders Cameron through the crowd and carries him off to the dressing tent, where he spends the next ten minutes rubbing his man's legs and chanting his glory. Once more the runners face the starter, La Belle gay, alert, confident; Cameron silent, pale, and grim. "All set? Go!" La Belle is away ere the word is spoken. The bell, however, brings him back, wrathful and less confident. Once more they stand crouching over the scratch. Once more the word releases them like shafts from the bow. A beautiful start, La Belle again in the lead, but Cameron hard at his heels and evidently with something to spare. Thus for fifty yards, sixty, yes sixty-five. "La Belle! La Belle! He wins! He wins!" yell his backers frantically, the thin-faced man dancing madly near the finishing tape. Twenty yards to go and still La Belle is in the lead. High above the shouting rises Mack's roar. "Now, Cameron! For the life of you!" It was as if his voice had touched a spring somewhere in Cameron. A great leap brings him even with La Belle. Another, another, and still another and he breasts the tape a winner by a yard, — time, ten and three-fifths seconds. TO THE PUPIL: 1. Manipulating, treating skillfully with the hands; competitor, rival, one who contends with another for the same thing; ominous, foreshowing disaster, threatening; calamity, deep distress, grievous disaster; disparaging, bringing discredit on, lowering, speaking of slightingly, belittling. 2. Put the proper word in each of the following blank spaces: The spectators made many remarks about the awkward way in which the winner of the 100-yard dash ran. There were many in the 60-yard of dash. "A black cloud came up in the west, rain." The city was almost destroyed by an earthfrom which it took many years to quake, a recover. By the tired muscles, the trainer got his man ready for the next race in good time. TO THE TEACHER: Exercise 1 may be oral or written. |