“Well, I don’t know as I do,” said Jim doubtfully. “I don’t get mad when I’m licked, if that’s what you mean. Leastways, I don’t let on I’m mad. But it don’t make me feel any too good to get beat!”
“I suppose your trouble is that you’ve never been beaten often enough to get used to it, then,” answered Clem. “Getting mad doesn’t do any good, you crazy goof. You want to smile and make believe you like it.”
“What for?”
“Oh, for the love of Liberty,” wailed Clem, “take this fellow off me, Mart! He’s worse than a Philadelphia lawyer!”
Mart’s return with the skates provided a diversion. They were a size too small, but after a long and admiring appraisal of them Jim declared that they would do. “I never saw a pair just like these before,” he confided admiringly. “What they made of, Gray?”
“Aluminum, mostly. Light, aren’t they? Like them?”
“Gosh, yes, but I don’t know if I can do much with them. They don’t weigh more’n a third what mine do. I’m going to try them, just the same. I’m much obliged to you.”
“You’re welcome. Just see that you win a race with them. We’ll go down and root for you, Todd.”
“I might win the two-mile race,” replied Jim, “if I get so I can use these right. I’ll try ’em to-morrow.”
They didn’t see Jim again until the morning of the races. It was a corking day, that Saturday, with a wealth of winter sunshine flooding the world and only the mildest of northerly breezes blowing down the river. The weather and the list of events ought to have brought out a larger representation of the student body, but as a matter of fact by far the larger portion of those who had assembled at ten o’clock were contestants. Clem, yielding to the solicitations of the Committee, had entered for three races at the last moment, and it wasn’t until he had won the 220-yard senior event in hollow fashion from a field of more than a score of adversaries and been narrowly beaten in the quarter-mile race that he encountered Jim.
Jim had discarded his beloved gray sweater and was the cynosure of all eyes in a mackinaw coat of green and black plaid. The green was extremely green and the plaid was a very large one, and Jim presented an almost thrilling appearance. Under the mackinaw, his lean body was attired very simply in a white running shirt, and Clem addressed him sternly.
“Want to catch pneumonia and croak?” he demanded. “Don’t you know you can’t skate with that state’s prison offense on and that if you take it off you’ll freeze stiff? Where were you when they handed brains out, Todd?”
Jim grinned. “Hello,” he replied. “That was a nice licking you gave all those other fellows. And, say, if you’d got going quicker in that other race you’d have made it, easy.”
Clem was looking attentively at the mackinaw. Now he felt of it. “Say, that’s some coat, son. Where’d you get it?”
“Back home.”
“I’ll bet it’s warm. I never saw one made of as good stuff as that is. Any more like it where it came from?”
Jim chuckled. “I’m going to write pop to send down a couple dozen of them,” he said. “You’re about the tenth fellow that’s asked me that so far. I could sell a lot of ’em if I had ’em.”
“Joking aside, though, can I get one, Todd?”
“Sure. Pop sells them. I’ll give you the address if you want to send for one. I’ve given it to a lot of fellows already.”
“Oh, well, if the whole school’s going to come out in them I guess I’ll pass,” said Clem regretfully. “I suppose those are what the lumbermen wear, eh?”
Jim nodded. “Lots of folks wear them. They’re mighty good coats. Only six dollars, too. Better have one. Maybe pop’ll give me a commission.”
“Six dollars! I believe you’re trying to make a dollar rake-off on each one! Say, what are you down for, Todd?”
“Down for? Oh, the mile and two miles. You?”
“Just the half. I’ll get licked, too. See you later. But, honest, Todd, you oughtn’t to skate two miles in just that cotton shirt, you know.”
“Warm enough. It ain’t real cold to-day. Hope you win.”
But Clem didn’t, making rather a sorry showing in fact.
There was an obstacle race for the younger chaps next, an event that provided plenty of amusement for entrants and spectators alike, and then the contestants for the mile were called. This event was a popular one, it appeared, for sixteen youths of all ages and from all classes answered. A group of freshmen, about twenty in all, cheered lustily and unflaggingly for their favorite, a small, slim, capable appearing boy named Woodside. Jim towered over most of the lot, although his bare brown head didn’t top that of Newt Young, guard on the football team and a senior entrant. The seniors were represented by several others, but their hopes were pinned on Newt. The bunch sped away at the crack of a pistol and were soon well spread out.
Jim didn’t have much hope of capturing that race, and certainly no one who watched him could have censured him. Jim’s skating was far from graceful. He didn’t suggest the flight of a bird, for instance. Observing Jim, you were reminded chiefly of a windmill that had somehow got loose and was blowing down the ice, blowing fast, to be sure, but wasting a deal of motion. Jim’s arms did strange antics, seeming never to duplicate a single movement that was once made. And he appeared to have more than the usual number of joints in his long, thin body. He bent everywhere; at knees, waist, shoulders, neck, elbows and wrists; and some other places, too, unless sight deceived the onlookers. But at the quarter distance he was still among the first half-dozen, and when the turn was made those at the finish couldn’t determine for some moments whether he or young Woodside led.
It promised to be a close finish, in any case, for behind the two leaders sped Newt Young, showing lots of reserve, and, not yet out of the race, four others followed closely. But Jim began to fall back after the race was three-fourths over, and for a hundred yards Woodside loomed as the winner, while his enthusiastic classmates howled ecstatically. Then, however, Young edged past Jim and set off after the freshman and for the final fifty yards it was nip and tuck to the line. Young won by a bare three feet, with Woodside second and Jim a poor third.
“Well, feel mad, do you?” asked Clem as he and Mart sought Jim.
Jim scowled and then grinned sheepishly. “I could have won if I’d had my own skates,” he muttered. “These are all right, only I ain’t used to them. Bet you I could beat that big fellow if I had my own skates.”
“Newt Young?” asked Mart. “Well, Newt’s a pretty good lad, they say.”
“I could beat him,” reasserted Jim doggedly. “He gave me a jab in the nose, too.”
“What? Newt did?” Clem was incredulous. “I didn’t see it. Where was it?”
“Playing football, I mean,” answered Jim. “He was on the first squad when I was playing. He gave me a good one one day, and I don’t guess it was any accident, neither.”
“Ah,” murmured Clem sadly, “I fear yours is a vindictive nature, Todd. I am disappointed in you.”
Jim observed him doubtfully. Then he said “Huh!” Finally he grinned. “Well, he didn’t have any cause to hit me,” he added, “and I sort of wanted to beat him.”
“Maybe he’s down for the two miles,” suggested Mart cheerfully. “Do you know?”
Jim didn’t know, but Clem did. “He is,” declared the latter. “So go ahead and wreak vengeance, Todd. You have my blessing. And I guess they’re about ready for you, too.”
“Gosh, I wish I had my own skates,” muttered Jim wistfully.
“No alibis, Todd,” said Clem sternly. “Do your duty.”
CHAPTER