"There is nothing," Speed pointed out with dignity, "in the articles to forbid talking. If I wished to, I could sing. Yes, or whistle, if I felt like it."
"_On your marks!"_ came the rasping voice of Willie as Wally murmured to Skinner:
"Remember, I trust you."
Skinner ground his teeth; the tendons in his calves stood out rigidly.
"Get set!"
Once more the silence of death wrapped the beholders, and Willie raised his arm. Speed cast one lingering farewell glance to the skies, and said, devoutly: "What a beautiful, beautiful day!"
Now the starter was shaking in an ague of fury.
"Listen, you!" he chattered, shrilly. "I"m goin" to shoot twice this time--once in the air, and the next time at the nearest foot-runner. Now, _get set_!" and the speaker pulled trigger, whereupon Speed leaped as if the bullet had been aimed at him.
Instantly a full-lunged roar went up that rolled away to the foot-hills, and the runners sped out of the pandemonium, their legs twinkling against the dust-colored prairie. Down to the turn they raced. Speed was leading. Fright had acted upon him as an electric charge; his terror lent him wings; he was obsessed by a propelling force outside of himself. Naturally strong, lithe, and active, he likewise possessed within him the white-hot flame of youth, and now, with a nameless fear to spurn him on, he ran as any healthy, frightened young animal would run. At the second turn Skinner had not pa.s.sed him, but the thud of his feet was close behind.
This unparalleled phenomenon surprised Lawrence Gla.s.s perhaps most of all. He had laid his plans to slip quietly out of the crowd under cover of the first confusion and lay his own course eastward; but when he beheld his protege actually in the lead, he remained rooted to his tracks. Was this a miracle? He turned to Covington, to find him dancing madly, his crutches waving over his head, in his eyes the stare of a maniac. His mouth was distended, and Gla.s.s reasoned that he must be shouting violently, but could not be sure. Suddenly Covington dashed to the turn whence the runners would be revealed as they covered the last half lap, for nothing was distinguishable through the fence, burdened by human forms, and Larry lumbered after him, ploughing his way through the crowd and colliding with the box upon which stood the Echo Phonograph, of New York and Paris. He hurled Mariedetta out of his path with brutal disregard, but even before he could reach his point of vantage the sprinters burst into the homestretch. Larry Gla.s.s saw it all at a glance--Speed was weakening, while Skinner was running easily. Nature had done her utmost; she could not work the impossible. As they tore past, Skinner was ahead.
The air above the corral became blackened with hats as if a flock of vultures had wheeled suddenly; the shriek of triumph that rose from the Centipede ranks warned the trainer that he had tarried too long. Heavily he set off across the prairie for New York.
The memory of that race awakened Speed from his slumbers many times in later years. When he found the brown shoulder of his rival drawing past he realized that for him the end of all things was at hand. And yet, be it said to his credit, he held doggedly to his task, and began to fight his waning strength with renewed determination. Down through the noisy crowd he pounded at the heels of his antagonist, then out upon the second lap. But now his fatigue increased rapidly, and as it increased, so did Skinner"s lead. At the second turn Wally was hopelessly outdistanced, and began to sob with fury, in antic.i.p.ation of the last, long, terrible stretch. Back toward the final turn they came, the college man desperately laboring, the cook striding on like a machine. Wally saw the rows of forms standing upon the fence, but of the shouting he heard nothing. Skinner was twenty yards ahead now, and flung a look back over his shoulder. As he turned into the last straightaway he looked back again and grinned triumphantly.
Then--J. Wallingford Speed gasped, and calling upon his uttermost atom of strength, quickened the strides of his leaden legs.
Skinner had fallen!
A shriek of exultation came from the Flying Heart followers; it died as the unfortunate man struggled to his feet, and was off again before his opponent had overtaken him. Down the alley of human forms the two came; then as their man drew ahead for an instant or two, such a bedlam broke forth from Gallagher"s crew that Lawrence Gla.s.s, well started on his overland trip, judged that the end had come.
But Skinner wavered. His ankle turned for a second time; he seemed about to fall once more. Then he righted himself, but he came on hobbling.
The last thirty yards contained the tortures of a lifetime to Wally Speed. His lungs were bursting, his head was rolling, every step required a separate and concentrated effort of will. He knew he was wobbling, and felt his knees ready to buckle beneath him, but he saw the blue, tight-stretched ribbon just ahead, and continued to lessen the gap between himself and Skinner until he felt he must reach out wildly and grasp at the other man"s clothing. Helen"s face stood out from the blur, and her lips cried to him. He plunged forward, his outflung arm tore the ribbon from its fastening, and he fell. But Skinner was behind him.
CHAPTER XVIII
The only thing in the world that the victorious Speed wanted was to lie down and stretch out and allow those glowing coals in his chest to cool off. But rough hands seized him, and he found himself astride of Stover"s shoulders and gyrating about the Echo Phonograph in the midst of a war-dance. He kicked violently with his spiked shoes, whereat the foreman bucked like a wild horse under the spur and dropped him, and he staggered out of the crowd, where a girl flew to him.
"Oh, Wally," she cried, "I knew you could!" He sank to the ground, and she knelt beside him.
Skinner was propped against the corral fence opposite, his face distorted with suffering, and Gallagher was rubbing his ankle.
""Taint broke, I reckon," said Gallagher, rising. "I wish to h.e.l.l it was!" He stared disgustedly at his fallen champion, and added: "We don"t want y"all for a cook no more, Skinner. You never was no good nohow." He turned to Helen and handed her a double handful of bank-notes, as Berkeley Fres...o...b..ried his hands in his pockets and walked away. "Here"s your coin, miss. If ever you get another hunch, let me know. An" here"s yours, Mr. Speed; it"s a weddin"-present from the Centipede." He fetched a deep sigh.
"Thank the Lord we"ll git somethin" fit to eat from now on!"
Speed staggered to Skinner, who was still nursing his injury, and held out his hand, whereat the cook winked his left eye gravely.
"The best man won," said Skinner, "and say--there"s a parson at Albuquerque." Then he groaned loudly, and fell to ma.s.saging his foot.
There came a fluttering by his side, and Miss Blake"s voice said to him, with sweetness and with pity: "I"m so sorry you lost your position, Mr. Skinner. You"re a splendid runner!"
"Never mind the job, miss, I"ve got something to remember it by."
He pointed to a sash which lay beside him. "The loser gets the ribbon, miss," he explained gallantly.
Off to the right there came a new outcry, and far across the level prairie a strange sight was revealed to the beholders. A fat man in white flannels was doubling and dodging ahead of two hors.e.m.e.n, and even from a considerable distance it could plainly be seen that he was behaving with remarkable agility for one so heavy. Repeatedly his pursuers headed him off, but he rushed past them, seemingly possessed by the blind sense of direction that guides the homing pigeon or the salmon in its springtime run. He was headed toward the east.
"Why, it"s Larry!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Speed. "And Cloudy and Carara."
"Wally, your man has lost his reason!" Chapin called.
At that instant the watchers saw the Mexican thunder down upon Gla.s.s, his lariat swinging about his head. Lazily the rope uncoiled and settled over the fleeing figure, then, amid a cloud of dust, Carara"s horse set itself upon its haunches and the white-clad figure came to the end of its flight. There was a violent struggle, as if the cowboy had hooked a leaping tuna, cactus plants and sage-brush were uprooted, then the pony began to back away, always keeping the lariat taut. But Gla.s.s was no easy captive, as his threshing arms and legs betrayed, and even when he was dragged back to the scene of the race, panting, grimy, dishevelled, the rope still about his waist, he seemed obsessed by that wild insanity for flight. He was drenched with perspiration, his collar was dangling, one end of a suspender trailed behind him.
At sight of Speed he uttered a cry, then plunged through the crowd like a bull, but the lariat loop slipped to his neck and tightened like a hangman"s noose.
"Larry," cried his employer, sharply, "have you lost your head?"
"Ain"t they g-g-got you yet?" queried the trainer in a strangling voice.
"You idiot, I won!"
"What!"
"I won--easy."
"You _won!_" Larry"s eyes were starting from his head.
"He sure did," said Stover. "Didn"t you think he could?"
Gla.s.s apprehended that look of suspicion. "Certainly!" said he.
"Didn"t I say so, all along? Now take that clothesline off of me; I"ve got to run some more."
That evening J. Wallingford Speed and Helen Blake sat together in the hammock, and much of the time her hand was in his. The breath of the hills wandered to them idly, fragrant with the odors of the open fields, the heavens were bright with dancing stars, the night itself was made for romance. From the bunk-house across the court-yard floated the voice of the beloved Echo Phonograph, now sad, now gay; now shrilling the peaceful air with Mme. Melba"s _Holy City_, now waking the echoes with the rasping reflections of _Silas on Fifth Avenue._ To the spellbound audience gathered close beside it, it was divine; but deep as was their satisfaction, it could not compare with that of the tired young son of Eli. Ineffable peace and contentment were his; the whole wide world was full of melody.
"And now that I"ve told you what a miserable fraud I am, you won"t stop loving me?" he questioned.
Helen nestled closer and shook her head. There was no need for words.
Jack Chapin came out upon the porch with the chaperon. "Well, Fresno caught his train," he told them.
"And we had such a glorious drive coming back! The night is splendid!"
"Yes, so nice and moonlight!" Wally agreed pleasantly, whereat Jack Chapin laughed.
"It"s as black as pitch."
"Why, so it is!" Then as a fresh song burst forth from the very heart of the machine, he murmured affectionately: "By Jove! there goes _The Baggage Coach Ahead_ once more! That makes ten times."
"It"s a beautiful thing, isn"t it?" Miss Blake sighed dreamily.