On Your Mark! A Story of College Life and Athletics

“I don’t know,” said Stearns, doubtfully. “Something will turn up, you see if it doesn’t.”

“Nonsense! How about you, Ware? Going to win the two miles?”

“I’m scared to think about it,” answered Allan, uneasily. “That Robinson crack can do better than I’ve succeeded in doing yet, and so I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with second place.”

“Oh, Ware’s all right,” said Stearns, encouragingly. “He’s going to present us with five points, and we’ll need ’em!”

This sounded more like the Stearns Allan was accustomed to.

“They tell me that chum of yours, Burley, is going to do great things with the shot, Ware,” said Mason, questioningly.

“I hope so,” Allan answered. “He can, all right; the only thing is whether he will get fussed and forget how; he’s funny that way.”

“Well, Billy thinks he’s a wonder, and says that by next year he’ll be able to give a foot to the best college man in the country. Well, there’s the bell. I hate to waste a day like this indoors, but – needs must when the faculty drives!”

The trio slipped off the fence and went their separate ways, but before they parted Stearns drew Allan aside.

“I say, Ware,” he said, “don’t say anything to any one about what – what you’ve heard. There’s no use in discouraging them, you know, and what I just said doesn’t amount to anything; I guess I’m feeling a bit nervous. You understand?”

But Allan, as he crossed the yard to College Hall, in the tower of which the bell was clanging its imperative summons, couldn’t help feeling apprehensive and worried. It was so unlike Stearns to admit even the possibility of defeat. On the steps Allan ran against Pete, big, smiling, and serenely satisfied with life.

“How’d you get on yesterday?” asked Allan, as they went in together.

“Oh, pretty middlin’,” said Pete, cheerfully. “I got within four inches of that cayuse of a Monroe.”

“But you’ll have to beat him if you expect to win over Robinson,” said Allan, anxiously.

“Oh, I’m not bothering about Robinson,” answered Pete. “If I can do up Monroe, that’s all I give a hang about!”

The next afternoon, Thursday, Stearns appeared at Allan’s room, looking excessively cheerful.

“Hello!” he said, as he sat down. “How are things?”

“All right,” answered the other, wondering at the track captain’s errand. “How about you?”

“Fine as silk,” he said. “Say, Ware, Robinson has sent a foolish letter, and asks the committee to look up your record. Of course,” he went on, carelessly and hurriedly, “it’s all poppycock, but they think they have a case, and so maybe you’d better walk over with me and see Nast about it; just explain things so he can write back to ’em, you know. Are you busy?”

Allan, bewildered and dismayed, looked across at Stearns with wide eyes and sinking heart. The track team captain’s forebodings of yesterday flashed into memory, and it was with a very weak voice that he asked finally:

“You mean that – that Robinson has protested me?”

Stearns laughed carelessly, but something in the other’s tone sent a qualm of uneasiness to his heart.

“Oh, there’s no question of a protest,” he answered, “because the time for protests has gone by. But, of course, they knew the committee would investigate the matter, and that if everything wasn’t all right they wouldn’t allow you to run. But, of course, as I say, it’s all nonsense. They say you were entered in the mile run at the St. Thomas Club Meet, in Brooklyn, during vacation, and came in third. And – and there’s a silly newspaper clipping with your name in it. But, as I told Nast, you can explain that all right, I guess. Fact is, you know,” he continued, with a little annoyed laugh, “you’ve got to; we can’t afford to lose you, Ware.”

Allan took his cap from the desk.

“Come on,” he said, quietly.

CHAPTER XXII

A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH

During the short walk across the yard little was said. Stearns now and then shot puzzled and anxious glances at Allan’s face, but the latter looked straight ahead of him, and Stearns learned nothing. In the office Professor Nast approached the subject at once. The Robinson authorities, he stated, had written, saying that Ware had won third prize in the mile event at an indoor meet of the St. Thomas Club, in Brooklyn, on the evening of December 26th, and in support of the contention enclosed a clipping from a newspaper. The clipping was handed to Allan, and he read, opposite a big blue pencil mark:

“Mile run – Won by E. C. Scheur, N. Y. C. C. A. (45 yds.); second, T. Webb, St. T. A. A. (45 yds.); third, A. Ware, E. A. A. (50 yds.). Time – 4m. 47s.”

Allan returned the clipping calmly.

“You understand,” said the professor, gently, “that the mere fact of your having entered this meeting without permission would not of itself render you ineligible on Saturday. The trouble is that the meeting” – here he tapped the newspaper clipping with his pencil – “was not an amateur affair; the prizes were purses of money, and, being an ‘open’ meeting, there were, as you may see, a number of professionals participating. That – er – is the difficulty.”

“I know nothing about it,” said Allan, quietly.

Stearns sank back in his chair with a long sigh of relief. “I told you it was all nonsense!” he exclaimed. The professor himself looked well pleased.

“I did not run in that meeting,” continued Allan. “I have been in Brooklyn but once, and that was fully six years ago.”

“I am very glad to hear it,” said the professor, “very glad. Now, while I am not in duty bound to explain the matter to the Robinson authorities, yet it is better for various reasons to do so. And there is one thing – ” He paused and tapped the desk frowningly. “About this clipping?” he asked. Allan shook his head.

“I’m afraid I can’t explain that. Perhaps there’s another ‘A. Ware’ and perhaps ‘E. A. A.’ stands for something else besides Erskine Athletic Association.”

“Stands for lots of things, probably,” said Stearns, a bit impatiently.

“We might find that out,” mused the professor. “Where were you, Ware, that evening, the – ah – yes, the twenty-sixth of December?”

“I was in New York, visiting my aunt on Seventy-third Street. I was in the house all the evening, except for about half an hour, when I went out on an errand.”

“Well, you couldn’t have crossed the river to Brooklyn, run a mile race and returned home in half an hour,” said the professor, lightly. “Now, will you get your aunt to write me a letter, stating those facts and assuring me that you were not and could not have been in Brooklyn? It is not, you understand, that I doubt your word, Ware, but I have my duties in these affairs and I must perform them. Simply a letter, you understand, will suffice.”

“I will do my best,” Allan replied; “but – ”

“Eh?” shouted Stearns.

“But my aunt has left New York city and is traveling in the West, probably in California now. I shall have to find her address from my mother first, and by that time – ”

“Now, look here, sir,” interrupted Stearns. “Surely Ware’s word of honor is enough in a case of this sort? It’s only a – a coincidence of names, sir.”

“For my own satisfaction Mr. Ware’s word is sufficient,” replied the chairman, with dignity, “but the rules require evidence, and I must have it. I only ask Mr. Ware to supply me with a statement from some person who knows of his whereabouts on the evening in question. Perhaps there is some other person who will do as well?” But Allan shook his head.

“No, sir, I’m afraid not. My aunt lives alone except for the servants, and I saw no one I knew that evening. I will telegraph to my mother at once, and perhaps I will be able to get a letter from my aunt before Saturday. But it’s a pretty short time.”

“Produce your evidence any time before the two-mile race is called,” said the chairman, kindly, “and it will be all right. And, by the way, a telegram will answer as well as a letter, if your – er – aunt is in the West. I am anxious to help you in every way possible, and I regret that the duties of my office require me to be or – er – seem exacting. Another thing, Ware; the Athletic Association will incur all the expenses of telegraphing in this affair; and you need not – ah – spare money. Good morning.”

“Oh, it will be all right,” said Stearns, cheerfully, as they hurried together to the telegraph office. But Allan shook his head despondently.

“No, I’ve felt ever since yesterday that something would happen to ball things up. And now it’s happened. And I don’t believe I’ll hear from my aunt in time. However, I wouldn’t have got better than second place, anyway. But I did want to run,” he ended, dolorously.

“Nonsense! Cheer up! We’ll make the wires hum. We’ve got pretty near two whole days, and we can telegraph around the world fifty times in two days.”

The telegram asking for his aunt’s address was duly despatched to his mother in New Haven, and after that there was nothing left to do save wait her reply. Allan parted from Stearns and went dejectedly back to his room. There he found Pete engaged in a carouse with Two Spot. They wouldn’t let Pete practise with the shot to-day, or again before the meet, and he was feeling quite lost in consequence. Allan wanted some one to unfold his tale of woe to, and he was glad to find Pete awaiting him. Pete, as the story was told, grew very indignant, and offered to punch Professor Nast’s head. But Allan finally convinced him that the chairman of the Athletic Committee wasn’t at all to blame.

“It’s a beastly way to have things end, after you’ve been practising hard all spring,” he said, as he arose impatiently from his chair and strolled to the desk. A Latin book was lying on the blotter, with a slip of paper marking the page where Allan had been at work when Stearns appeared. Now he opened the book, crumpled the marker into a ball and tossed it disgustedly onto the floor. Then he drew up a chair and plainly hinted that he desired to study. Pete, however, refused to heed the hint.

“It’s a mighty foolish business,” he said, thoughtfully.

Allan grunted.

Two Spot had discovered the little ball of paper and was making believe that it was a mouse. She rolled it from under the couch with playful pawings and frantic rushes, and finally tossing it in the air, so that it fell at Pete’s feet, she stopped, blinked at it and suddenly fell to washing her feet, as though too dignified to do aught else. Pete stooped absent-mindedly and picked up the bit of paper, unfolding it slowly and smoothing it across one huge knee.

“Seems to me,” he said presently, “you chaps have forgotten one thing.”

“What’s that?” Allan asked, ungraciously.

“To wire the St. Thomas Club people and ask them if you ran in their old meeting.”

“Well, that’s so,” said Allan, hopefully. “But, then, there was probably some one there named ‘A. Ware,’ and they’d just answer ‘yes.’”

“Ask ’em if Allan Ware, of Erskine, ran in the meeting, and, if he didn’t, who the dickens the ‘A. Ware’ was who did run. Tell you’ve got to know in a hurry, and that it’s blamed important.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Allan, “that’s a good idea. Funny we didn’t think of it, wasn’t it?”

For answer Pete grunted, as though he didn’t think it at all funny.

“Hello, who’s ‘Horace L. Pearson, N. Y. A. C.’?” asked Pete, holding up the scrap of paper rescued from Two Spot, and which now proved to be torn from the program of the Boston indoor meeting.

“I don’t know; why?” asked Allan.

“I used to know a fellow of that name out in Colorado. He was sort of studying mining. What does ‘N. Y. A. C.’ mean?”

“New York Athletic Club. It’s probably the same fellow. I remember him now. He was the chap that thought Rindgely was me.”

“Eh?” asked Pete. “How was that?”

So Allan told him, and Pete grew very thoughtful as the short narrative progressed. When Allan had finished he asked:

“I suppose these fellows that do stunts at the Boston meet go to pretty near all of them, don’t they?”

“Oh, I don’t know; a good many, I guess. Why?”

“Just wondering,” answered Pete. “Come on and send that telegram. If you address it to the president or treasurer or something, it will do, won’t it?”

“I’ll send it to the chairman of the Athletic Committee,” said Allan, seizing his hat. “I’m glad you thought of it, Pete. You’re some good in the world, after all, aren’t you?”

“Sure. See you this evening. I want to see Tommy. Where do you suppose I’ll find him?”

“Oh, come on down to the telegraph office.”

“Can’t; I want Tommy.”

“Well, try the Purple office; maybe he’s there. Don’t forget to come around to-night. I may get an answer from my mother by that time.”

Pete was successful. To be sure, Tommy wasn’t in the office of the Purple, but Pete hadn’t supposed he would be; Tommy wasn’t so easily caught. But by tracing him from one place to another, Pete at last came up with him in the library, where he was eagerly securing data for an article on rowing which he was preparing for a Boston Sunday paper.

“You see,” he explained, hurriedly, “I don’t know very much about rowing, but it wouldn’t do to say so, and so I come here and consult these gentlemen.” He indicated the half-dozen volumes by which he was surrounded. “If I only wrote what I knew, you see, I’d never make any money.”

“Well, that’s the first time I ever heard you acknowledge you didn’t know it all, from throwing to tying,” said Pete.

“Oh, a fellow has to keep up a front,” said Tommy, shrewdly, with a grin.

Pete slipped into the next chair, and for the next quarter of an hour they whispered fast and furiously. When Pete got up, he said:

“This isn’t for publication in your old paper, Tommy, you know. And don’t say anything about it to any one, will you?”

And Tommy pledged himself to secrecy, adding:

“And I think you’ve got it, Pete. Are you going to see him to-night?”

“As soon as I can find him in his room,” Pete replied.

“Then I’ll come around to Allan’s to-night and hear what’s happened.”

“Maybe I won’t tell Allan,” answered Pete. “Anyhow, not unless I have to. I’ll see what the coyote has to say for himself.”

“Rindgely? Oh, he’ll have plenty to say, all right. He’ll talk himself blue in the face if you let him.”

“Maybe I won’t let him,” answered Pete, grimly.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE FRESHMAN GAME

“Your aunt was in Los Angeles California Monday expected stay week address Mission House. Is anything wrong? Mother.”

This message Allan found awaiting him when he hurried home from dinner that evening. So far so good, he reflected. But Monday was three days gone, and if his aunt had changed her mind and gone on! – well, he didn’t like to consider that contingency. Seating himself at his desk, he composed two messages, one to his aunt and one to the manager of the Mission House. In the latter he requested that his message to Miss Mary G. Merrill be forwarded to her, in case she had left the hotel. In the other message he finally expressed, at the expense of thirty-four words, what he wanted his aunt to do. Then he hurried again to the telegraph office and begged the emotionless operator to get both messages off at once. The operator nodded silently.

“You haven’t received any other message for me, have you?” asked Allan. The operator as silently shook his head. Allan wandered back to his room. Studying was a task this evening, and he was glad when Tommy demanded admittance. A few minutes later Pete, too, arrived, looking very satisfied with life. Allan did not notice the exchange of glances between the last comer and Tommy, and if he had he would not have understood them, nor would he have connected them with the matter uppermost in his thoughts. Tommy raised his eyebrows inquiringly and Pete nodded with a smile and mysteriously tapped the breast of his coat.

Allan was full of his quandary and found much relief in telling everything to Tommy and exhibiting the telegrams received and copies of those sent. Pete, strange to say, and somewhat to Allan’s disappointment, did not display the amount of interest in the subject which Allan thought he should have; and even Tommy seemed soon to tire of the matter. Allan fell into silence, reflecting pessimistically on the readiness of your friends to abandon your troubles. Pete and Tommy left early – Tommy had been on the point of leaving ever since his arrival – and with their parting injunctions to “cheer up” and “don’t let it bother you” in his ears, Allan went sorrowfully to bed.

The next day was Friday, and it dawned cloudy and chill. May has its moods, even in Centerport, but it was unfortunate that it should have displayed the fact to-day, for the gloominess of the weather increased Allan’s despondency until Two Spot, blinking inquiringly from the Morris chair, saw that the world was awry and decided to go to sleep until things were righted again. And the answer to his St. Thomas Club message, which came just before noon, did not tend to lighten Allan’s spirits.

“Ware of Erskine,” it ran, “won third in mile run December twenty-sixth.”

Allan, as he tossed the sheet of buff paper angrily aside, wondered whether, after all, he had not taken part in the meeting while temporarily unbalanced; he had heard of such things, he thought. Or perhaps he had fallen asleep and – but no, his imagination couldn’t conceive of any one running a mile race and negotiating inclined corners without waking up! It was a strange and maddening mystery, and the more he puzzled over it the stranger it seemed and the more exasperated he became.

Stearns called after lunch and listened to an account of the developments with perfunctory interest. He had given up hope of having Allan enter the meet, and had decided that it didn’t much matter. For it was evident that Allan was worried and nervous, and the chances that he would give a good account of himself, if he ran, were slim. Stearns was sympathetic, but Allan could see that he, like Pete and Tommy, wasn’t inclined to let the matter trouble him overmuch.

After the track captain had left, Allan fell into still deeper despondency and mooned about his room – which was the last thing he should have done – until four o’clock, when a half-hour of jogging on the track took him out. No reply from Aunt Mary had reached him by dinner time, and although he stayed awake until eleven, in violation of training orders, listening eagerly for the opening of the gate which should announce the advent of the messenger, he was at last forced to go to sleep without the message. You may be certain his sleep did him little good. He dreamed all night, or so it seemed, and morning found him tired and haggard. His first look was toward the door-sill, but no buff envelope rewarded it.

“That settles it,” he muttered, bitterly; “I’m not going to hope any longer.”

Having reached this decision, he threw back his shoulders and walked to breakfast whistling a tune. To be sure, the tune wasn’t always tuneful, and sometimes it died out entirely, but it was a brave effort. Breakfast at the training table was an uncomfortable meal for him. The others were in the best of spirits, and there was present a half-suppressed excitement that showed itself on the countenances and in the bearing of the fellows.

None there save Stearns and Pete knew of Allan’s trouble, and they gave no sign. Pete even seemed to Allan to be indecently happy, and his attempts at conversation met with scant encouragement. Half-way through the meal Rindgely’s absence was discovered, and Kernahan was despatched to hunt him up. He had not returned when Allan left the house. Every one was cautioned to spend the forenoon out-of-doors and report promptly at eleven-thirty for lunch.

The town soon took on a gala appearance. The sidewalks were thronged by ten o’clock, and none seemed to have anything to do save discuss the outcome of the afternoon’s performances. Erskine banners hung from the shop windows and fluttered over front doors. Pete wanted Allan to go out to the field with him and see the Erskine-Robinson freshman game, but Allan had no heart for it, and refused to leave his room. He had no recitations, for the professors had very generally given cuts. He wrote a letter to his mother – a very dismal production it was, too – and then sat at the window with Two Spot in his lap and watched the crowds pass on their way to the game.

The college band, followed by a mob of singing, cheering freshmen, went by in a cloud of dust, and presently a barge containing the home nine passed, and Allan had a glimpse of Hal’s gray-clad shoulders. The Robinson youngsters had already gone out. The steady stream of townfolk and students became broken; groups of three and four passed at intervals; now and then a couple of students, laughing and chatting, or a solitary mortal hurried by the house. Then, quite suddenly, as it seemed, all traffic ceased, and Poplar Street resumed its wonted quiet.

Half an hour later Allan’s eyes, roaming from the magazine which he was striving to read, sighted a faded blue coat across the little park, and his heart leaped into his throat. A messenger boy, whistling a blithe tune, toiled slowly along, as though his shoulders bore the weight of a great sorrow. Once, when almost at the corner, he stopped, leaned against the fence and seemed on the point of going to sleep. Then he roused himself and came on. Allan restrained an impulse to dart out into the road and waited on the porch, with his heart beating like a trip-hammer. The boy reached the corner, glanced with mild interest at Allan – and went on up Main Street.

After the first moment of blank and sickening dismay, Allan went to the end of the porch and looked after him. Perhaps, after all, he was mistaken, and would discover the fact and turn back. But eventually the lad sauntered across the street and disappeared around the corner of McLean. Allan went back to his chair, his heart like lead and a lump in his throat that wouldn’t be swallowed.

Out at Erskine Field great things were happening. The purple-lettered youngsters were more than holding their own against the far-heralded team of Robinson. It was the sixth inning, and the score stood 9 to 5 in Erskine’s favor. Hal had played a magnificent game at second and already had a double-play to his credit, and had, besides, succeeded beyond all of his team-mates at hitting the redoubtable brown-stockinged pitcher. Side by side on the warm turf back of third-base, Tommy and Pete were sitting cross-legged, having passed the ropes by virtue of Tommy’s ever-present note-book, with its staring inscription, “Erskine Purple,” on the cover. The last man of the Erskine side went out, the teams changed places, the seventh inning began with Robinson’s tail-enders coming to the plate, and Pete resumed his narrative, which had been interrupted by Hal’s hard drive to left-field.

“He didn’t have any idea what I had come for,” Pete said, “and was going to be very nice and polite; he can be when he likes, you know. But I wasn’t there to pass compliments or swap stories, so I got right down out of the saddle and talked business. ‘Rindgely, I know that you ran in the St. Thomas Club meet in Brooklyn the night after Christmas, under the name of A. Ware, and won fifteen dollars,’ I said, ‘and you’ve got to come out in the open and say so.’ Of course, it was a rank bluff; I was pretty certain about it after I’d talked with you, but I didn’t know absolutely, and couldn’t prove anything. If he had kept his nerve and told me to go to thunder, it would have been all off on the spot, and I’d had to crawl off with my tail between my legs. But it took him so sudden that he just gasped and got pale around the gills. Then I knew I had him roped. So I just waded in and gave it to him hot and heavy. Told him he was a horse-thief and an all-round galoot; that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and a lot more. When I got through he was a pretty sick steer. I had him hog-tied and branded. Then he began to play fair. – Ginger! look at that hit! Good work! That’s two out, ain’t it? Only one? Well, it ought to be two.”

“And then what?” asked Tommy, making strange marks in the score-book on his knee.

“Well, I got kind of sorry for the poor old jack-rabbit. He told me all about it, and swore up and down he hadn’t meant any harm; that he wanted to try what he could do against some good men at the mile, and hadn’t cared a hang about the money. ‘But what did you use Ware’s name for?’ says I. ‘Wasn’t your own bad enough?’ ‘Because,’ says he, ‘I didn’t want my folks to know about it; they live there in Brooklyn, and might have seen my name in the paper next day. I didn’t think about making myself ineligible,’ says he, ‘and I didn’t think I was doing Ware any harm.’ Well, that may be a lie, but he was sure in the dumps, and so I agreed to make things easy for him. ‘You write it all out in black and white and sign your name to it,’ says I, ‘and if I can I’ll keep dark about it. If Allan gets a message from his aunt, all right; if he doesn’t, I show your document to Nast. I’ll wait till the two-mile is called.’ Bully for you, Hal! That’s three, ain’t it? Sure! Hit it out, Seven!”