For Bert it was a time of stern self denial. As he neither smoked or drank, it was no sacrifice to be forbidden these indulgences. But the carefully restricted diet, the cutting out of the many things his appetite craved and had been accustomed to, the hard and unending work required to perfect his wind and develop his muscles called on all his courage and determination to see the thing through.
“Gee,” said Tom one day, when after an especially severe practice they were walking toward their rooms, “I don’t see how you stand it, Bert. A slave in the cotton fields before the war had nothing on you in the matter of work.”
“Work certainly does seem to be my middle name, just now,” laughed Bert, “but the pay comes later on. I’ll forget all this slavery, as you call it, if I can only flash past the line a winner. And even if I don’t have that luck, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that I have done my best and gone down fighting.”
“You’ll end up fighting, sure enough,” said Tom emphatically, “but you won’t go down unless you sprain an ankle or break a leg. The only question with the boys here is not whether you will win – they’re dead sure of that – but whether you’ll hang up a new record.”
“There really isn’t any such thing as a record for the Marathon,” said Bert. “The conditions are so different in each race that no one can fairly be compared with another. If it were simply a matter of padding around on a flat track, you could get at the time easily. But the roads, the hills, the wind and the weather all come into the account, and they’re never just alike. The fastest time so far is two hours and thirty-six minutes.”
“The day you ran twenty-two miles, Reddy said that you were going at the rate of two hours and twenty-five minutes for the whole distance,” said Tom. “That’s some speed, all right.”
“Yes,” replied Bert, “and as far as feeling went, I could have kept it up to the end. Those last four miles though would have been the hardest and probably the slowest. But I never cared much about records anyhow. It’s men that I have to beat. Time is a thing you don’t see or hear and you can’t work up much enthusiasm over it. But when another fellow is showing you the way or pushing you hard, then’s the time you really wake up. The old never-give-up feeling comes over you and you tell yourself you’ll win or drop dead trying.”
Just at this moment Dick ran up, waving a telegram.
“Hello, old scout,” called out Bert, “what’s up? You look as though you’d got money from home.”
“Better even than that,” answered Dick. “I’ve just had a wire from Mr. Hollis that he’s on his way in the Red Scout and is going to drop in on us.”
“Good,” cried Bert, and “Bully,” echoed Tom. “When’s he going to get here?”
“Some time to-morrow if nothing happens. Say we won’t be glad to see him, eh, fellows?”
There was no need of the enthusiastic whoop that followed. Their former Camp Master had always held a warm place in their hearts. A gentleman of means and culture, he had been identified with their plans and experiences for several years past. Under his wise and genial leadership, they had passed some of the happiest hours of their lives in the summer camp of which he was the ruling spirit. His help and advice had always been so sound and kind that they had come to look upon him almost as an older brother. While never indulging in the “familiarity that breeds contempt,” and firm almost to sternness when that quality was needed, they felt that he was always looking for their best interests and making their cause his own. And now that they were in college he had still kept in touch with them through letters and occasional reunions of the old summer campers at his home.
A host of recollections came up before them as they talked of his coming. They saw him as he faced the scowling mob of gipsies who had stolen Dick’s watch and forced them to give up their plunder. They recalled the glorious outing that his thoughtfulness had planned for the orphaned youngsters of the county town. They heard again the crack of his pistol as he started that memorable race between the Red Scout and the Gray Ghost, and the delight in his face as the good old Scout with Bert at the wheel had shown the way to its rival over the finish line.
So that when they heard the familiar “honk-honk” of his car the next day and saw the Red Scout slipping swiftly up the drive under the elms, Mr. Hollis had a royal and uproarious welcome that “warmed the cockles of his heart.”
“Say, boys, remember that my hand is flesh and blood and not Bessemer steel,” he laughed, as they bore him off to their rooms.
After the first greetings were over, he came straight to the purpose of his visit.
“I ran out here to kidnap you fellows,” he explained. “None of you look weak and wasted” – and he smiled as he looked at their bronzed faces, glowing with health and vitality – “and I don’t have any idea that you’re killing yourself with over work. Still, a few days change is a good thing for all of us at times. I’m going up to my lodge in the Adirondacks to get it ready for my family who expect to stay there this summer. I shan’t be gone more than a week, and as your mid-term vacation starts to-morrow it won’t interfere with your studies. It’s a wild place there – no neighbors, no telephones, no anything that looks like civilization. The nearest town is fourteen miles away and I plan to leave the Red Scout there while we go the rest of the way on foot. We’ll have to rough it a little, but it’s a glorious bit of ‘God’s outdoors,’ and I’ll guarantee that you’ll eat like wolves and sleep like babies and come back kicking up your heels like thoroughbreds. Will you go?”
Would they go! Could anything keep them from going? But after the first wild shout of assent, Bert’s face fell.
“I don’t know just how Reddy will look at it,” he said slowly. “You know how strict he is about training. He may kick like the mischief at my going out of his sight just now. I’ll have to put it up to him.”
So put it up to him he did, and that autocrat promptly put his foot down hard.
“Not for a minute,” he snapped. “I wonder at your asking me.”
But as he saw Bert’s disappointment, he hesitated.
“Wait a bit,” he said, “till I think.” And he fell into a brown study.
At length he looked up. “I tell you straight, Wilson,” he said slowly, “if it were any other fellow on the track team, I wouldn’t do it. But you’ve never shirked or broken training and I’m going to let you go. You’re drawn pretty fine, just now and perhaps a few days up in the pine woods won’t hurt you any. I’ve been thinking of letting up on you a bit so that you wouldn’t go stale. Just at present you’re right on edge and fit to run for a man’s life. Go easy on the eats and do just enough training each day to keep in condition. I don’t mind if you take on five pounds or thereabouts, so that I’ll have that much to work off when you get back. And turn up here in a week from to-day as fit as a fiddle. If you don’t, may heaven forgive you for I won’t. Now go quick,” he ended up with a twinkle in his eye, “before I take it back.”
Bert needed no urging and rushed back to his rooms with the good news that made his friends jubilant.
“Hustle’s the word from now on,” cried Tom. “Let’s get our things together in a hurry.”
And they hustled to such good purpose that within an hour their traps and outing togs were thrown into the capacious tonneau of the Red Scout and they piled in ready for the start.
Bert’s fingers thrilled as he grasped the wheel and threw in the clutch. The noble car almost seemed to recognize its driver and flew along like a thing alive. The roofs and towers of the college buildings faded away behind them and their journey to the Adirondacks was begun.
The roads were fine and the weather superb, and they figured that if these conditions held out they would reach their destination the afternoon of the following