"Sorry," said Butler, "I couldn't land you where I promised, but this motor has played hob with me. She's been acting badly for a week."

A score of people came running up. "Hurt, hurt?" they cried.

"Hurt? no!" said Frank, "only disappointed. We were heading for Hendon. How far is it to Queen's Club grounds?"

"'Bout five miles," volunteered someone.

"Is there a taxicab place about here anywhere?" inquired Frank. "I've got to get to Queen's Club on the double quick." He looked at his watch. It showed three minutes of two. The games were about to begin!

"Butler, excuse me if I leave you," cried Frank.

"Go to it, boy," said Butler, "and the Lord bless you."

Heading in the direction of a taxicab stand, Frank started off on a sharp trot, but was doomed to disappointment as not a taxi was available at that moment, and the man in the little office wasn't hopeful that any would be back right away. "They may come any minute, and there may not be a blooming one for half an hour. If you'll take the 'bus on the next street, it will take you within half a mile of Queen's Club grounds."

Scarcely waiting to hear the last words, Frank darted for the street mentioned, and, after a wait of five minutes, boarded an electric 'bus bound for West Kensington. Fortunately, he found a seat-mate who was well acquainted with what was going on at Queen's Club that day.

"Going to see the games, I suppose," he said. From him Frank learned that a short cut could be made which would be of considerable help as a time-reducer. Fixing the direction in his mind, he sprang from the 'bus at the street indicated, and started on a run in the general direction of the Club.

As he ran, the last instructions of Trainer Black came to his mind: "Take it easy till the games, and keep off your feet." He could not suppress a grim smile as he pounded along, running flat-footed to keep as much spring as possible in his toes if he ever reached the track and if he was in time when he did reach there. Always he kept an eye out for a taxi, but fate was against him and he saw none excepting those with fares seated therein, and whirling along on their own business.

Losing his way, finding it again with the help of passers-by, and nearly but not quite despairing of there ever having been such a place in London as the Queen's Club, he was halted by a college yell, sharp and incisive, delivered comparatively near. Getting his bearings from the direction in which the yell came, he dashed through a short street and stood before the main gate of the Club.

"Is it over?" he panted to the officer at the gate. "The meet—is it over?"

"Who are you?" asked the officer, staring at the newcomer, whose eyes, fierce in their intensity, looked out from a face streaked with sweat and dirt.

"I'm one of the competitors," gasped Frank.

"Ho, ho!" laughed the officer, "you look it. Did you run all the way from New York?"

"I am one of the competitors," said Frank, emphasizing every word, "and through an accident got left at Brighton. Please let me go to the training quarters of the American team."

"Well, 'ere's a rum cove. Comes up 'ere and wants to get passed into the gymes for nothink."

For a few minutes it looked as if, after all his trouble to get to the Club grounds, he was to be held up outside while his chance was lost. Finally, however, he induced the officer to send a messenger to the American quarters, and in half a minute he was snatched through the gate by an assistant trainer and stood in the presence of Captain Harrington, who was just going out for his quarter.

The captain looked him over with cold, hard eyes. "You're a little late," he said. "We don't bring men across the Atlantic to have them late for the beginning of a track meet. You are no value to us. We will not need you."

Frank opened his mouth to speak, but Harrington interrupted sharply with "I don't want to hear excuses," and passed on to the start of his event. Frank did not have the heart even to look at the race which was slated to go to the Americans through the superior ability of the Yale captain. Trainer Black looked up when he entered the building, but said nothing. Frank felt as if he had been thrown into outer darkness. He ground his teeth in impotent rage and dropped into a chair, listening in a half-hearted way to the little volley of spontaneous cheering which drifted through the window.

"What's that?" cried Trainer Black, and dashed out the door. "Sounds like an English cheer!"

An English cheer it was, and it announced the victory of a Cambridge "dark horse" who had run the Yale quarter-mile champion off his feet in the stretch. A minute later Harrington staggered into the room, and threw himself face downward on a table.

"This loses us the meet," said a rubber in a whisper. "To think that Harrington should lose out, of all people. He loafed too much in the first part of the race and couldn't hold the sprint at the end. It was a foxy trick the Englishman worked, but a fair win enough."

"Where's Armstrong, where's Armstrong?" came the excited call by Trainer Black.

Frank stood up. "Here," he said simply.

"Get into your clothes," Black shouted. "Why are you sitting there like a dummy? Here, some of you fellows help him. Patsy, rub his leg muscles a bit—Jack, help Patsy. Move lively!"

Frank tore off his clothes, and in half a minute his leg muscles were being slapped and kneaded by the two rubbers as if their life depended on doing a quick and thorough job.

"It's like this," said Black, coming over to the rubbing table. "Everything went about as scheduled until Harrington fell down in his quarter. That leaves us short an event we counted on."

"Did we get the shot?"

"No, confound it, that Rhodes scholar from Dakota beat our man out on the last try."

"So the Englishmen have now two more than we calculated?"

"Exactly, and there isn't a ghost of a chance of their losing the two-mile run unless their men choke."

"And the broad-jump?" inquired Frank, weakly.

"You've got to win that!" Black said it as if it was by no means an unusual request.

"Win it?" gasped Frank. "What has Vare done?"

"Took only three jumps the last of which was twenty-three feet, and hasn't jumped again. McGregor's been dragging his tries along, hoping that you would turn up, but he hasn't been able to do better than twenty-two six. Armstrong, if you can turn the trick on Vare it will give us the meet. You've got to do it!" he added vehemently.

Frank rolled from the rubbing table, slipped into his scanty track suit, and, with the Yale manager, trotted quickly to the field. "I suppose you are in good shape," suggested the manager hopefully. "Were you resting and keeping off your feet?"

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Frank could hardly restrain a grin. "Keeping off my feet!" he thought. "If they knew what I've been through to get here! Guess I'm all right," he said aloud.

McGregor greeted Frank enthusiastically. "Where in the name of Billy Patterson have you been?" and then, without waiting for an answer: "This Vare is a grasshopper. He has this event cinched, you and I are only ornaments, not real jumpers at all, and the Johnny Bulls have decided they've licked the Yankees for once in their lives—look! they're beginning to go!" Then to Frank: "For pity's sake, let out a link and make a good showing. I'm tied to the ground with a bag of lead in each heel."

Frank did not need any urging. The complacent attitude of the Englishmen, who were beginning to file out in groups of three or four, their faces showing the satisfaction of sure victory, added to his determination. He had made a desperate struggle to be where he was now, and he was not going to let it end there.

Measuring off the runway with more than ordinary care, Vare set his marks, and, after two or three practice runs, loped down the runway and made his first leap.

"Twenty-two feet, four inches," sang out the measurer.

Vare had walked to the jumping pit. A flicker of a smile crossed his face, he nodded cheerfully to his Cambridge jumping mate, and picking up his jersey swung it across his shoulder, and, without another look at the Americans, turned his face to the track house.

"His Lordship Vare de Vare has published to the world that it's all over, Frank," said McGregor. "I'd give a good right leg if I could beat him, he's so mighty superior. But I've only got one more jump, and it's not in me. If you don't want to see my poor busted heart cluttering up this field, go after him."

"It's now or never," said Frank to himself as he walked slowly down the runway. "What was it Princewell said—think high when you hit the take-off—think high—— I'll think a mile high if it will help!"

In spite of the difficulties he had undergone in getting to the Club, he was keyed to such a state of nervous excitement that he felt as if he were walking on air. The hard incidents of the morning were forgotten, the thrilling ride in the air machine, the abrupt landing, the killing run through torrid streets, the frigid reception of his captain. Now, with his opportunity at hand he became cool and calculating. He had a splendid reserve of strength to call upon, and he would call it to the last ounce.

Down the runway came Armstrong like a flash, first slowly, then with a great burst of speed. His eye was fixed on the take-off block, but his mind was on that four-foot hurdle supposed to be six feet out there in the pit. He struck the block perfectly and, with hands thrown high in the air and feet drawn up to clear the imaginary hurdle, he sailed up and forward, struck at last in the pit and held his full distance.

With a shout McGregor, recognizing a good jump, sprang from the bench and ran forward to the jumping pit from which Frank was just stepping, brushing away the loam that clung to his ankles.

"Twenty-three feet, even," the announcer bawled.

Coming so unexpectedly, the announcement for a moment fell on deaf ears. Then, as the full significance became apparent, the Americans in the stand set up a piercing and spontaneous yell which startled and turned back the crowd already moving in larger and larger numbers in the direction of the gate.

"Y-e-a-a-a—Armstrong!" yelled McGregor in a frenzy of delight, and fell upon that individual like a long lost brother, beat him upon the back and capered about like a man bereft of his senses. "It means that old Claude Vare de Vare, Lord of Creation and Elsewhere, has got to come back and do it over again! We have a chance! Oh, Armstrong, it means we have a chance!"

Interest in the stand immediately became intense. People who were leaving returned to their seats.

"A ripping jump!" commented an Englishman as he reseated himself, "but Vare will take his measure." Vare had been sent for, and was even now walking calmly across the track with an attitude which said plainly: "What's all this fuss about anyway? We'll settle this now once and for all."

A ripple of applause and hand-clapping ran through the stands as Vare turned to face the pit at the far end of the runway, and glanced down the narrow way now hedged with faces. He was a champion of champions, and would show them how a champion jumped. But not that time, for his best effort fell under twenty-three feet.

Surprised at his poor jump, he lost his composure and, against the advice of his friends, took a second jump without rest, and that, too, fell below his jump of twenty-three feet.

The news that Armstrong had equaled Vare's best jump spread to the locker rooms of the two teams, and excitement ran high. What had seemed like an event lost for a certainty to the Americans, had in a moment been turned into a possibility.

McGregor had taken his last jump without changing the situation in any way. Thereafter he devoted himself to encouraging Armstrong, whose magnificent leap had raised the hopes of the whole American contingent. "You have him now, Frank," McGregor whispered as, with arm over Frank's shoulder, the two walked down the runway. "He let himself get cold, and I'll bet he can't reach twenty-three feet again."

But McGregor was mistaken. Vare, the champion, after he had had more life rubbed into his muscles, shot down the runway and cleared twenty-three feet, one inch and a half. A little scattering cheer from the Englishmen, and Vare sat down on the jumpers' bench, his face showing the relief he felt. "I'm all right now," he said to an anxious, inquiring teammate, "but I felt jolly well frozen those first two jumps, though."

"The meet," bawled the announcer, facing the grand stand, "now stands six events for America and six for England, with the broad-jump still to be decided. Vare, of Oxford, has the longest jump to his credit—twenty-three feet, one and a half inches, which he made in breaking the tie created by Armstrong, of Yale, with a jump of twenty-three feet, which is his best at present."

At this moment Captain Harrington came onto the track in street clothes. He walked up to Frank: "Armstrong," he said, "Jack told me all about your troubles getting here. I want to tell you you made a game fight to correct the original mistake. I know you were personally not at fault. Here's my hand on it!"

Frank took the proffered hand. His captain had taken him back into the fold, and his heart swelled almost to the bursting point with sudden joy. If Frank needed anything to make him unbeatable that afternoon, the thing had come to pass. "I'll try to justify your faith in me," was all he said, but his eyes shone with a new light.

Coming down the runway with a surpassing rush of speed, he hit the take-off perfectly on his next trial, and soared into the air. Spectators, who saw him, said afterward that he seemed to take a step at the highest point of his flight, but it was only the first appearance of the famous "scissors hitch" used by other great jumpers before him, and which he had simply happened on, in his endeavor to get great distance. He struck squarely on his feet in almost a sitting posture, but his impetus carried him forward so powerfully that he pitched head-first into the soft loam of the pit. He held every inch of his great jump, however.

For it was a great jump. That could be seen by anyone, and the officials and trackmen gathered around while a careful measurement was taken. The serene Vare was sufficiently stirred himself to crowd close to the pit.

"What is it, what is it?" snapped Harrington who could hardly await the rather deliberate speech of the man at the end of the steel tape, who was taking his time to make certain.

"Twenty-three feet, four inches!"

The cheer of the small group of men on the track itself was taken as a good omen by the Americans in the stand, and these latter at once delivered themselves of a full-grown yell, which echoed back from the brick dwellings which surround the field.

"Twenty-three feet, four inches!" came the announcement, bawled to all sides of the field through the megaphone, and again the American yells broke out.

In the storm of cheering which Frank's great jump had elicited, Vare was seen to rise to his feet and walk slowly to the start of the runway. Two of his teammates went with him, and at each of his important marks he stopped and scrutinized them carefully as if he was not sure in his own mind that they were just right. Twice he tried the full runway from the start to the take-off block, making new marks for his guidance.

And now, being quite ready, he made his first of the three tries allotted to him. On the first he cleared twenty-three feet, two inches, and on the second bettered this mark by half an inch.

"Only an inch and a half behind you, Armstrong," said McGregor, in a nervous staccato, "but I'll eat my shoes, spikes and all, if he can equal that one of yours."

"If he does," said Frank, "it's all over, I'm afraid. How I came to get that far out is more than I can understand. It's a dream, don't wake me!"

Silence settled over the crowd as Vare faced the pit for his last trial. His face was drawn and white. Now he moves forward, crouching a little, with chin out and jaws tightly clenched. The loping run develops at half distance into a sweeping rush, the Englishman hits the take-off squarely, and leaps with every ounce of energy in his body—up, up, out, out, he goes, while the spectators at the track side hold their breaths. Now he has reached the full height of his jump, and is coming down. Will his drive carry him far enough to win? He is down in the pit, topped over by the impetus of his rush, but the jump is clean, and the measurers are at work.

Carefully the tape is placed, carefully it is read, and then——

"Twenty-three feet, three and one-quarter inches," comes the announcement.

The Americans go mad now indeed, for the meet is won, since the Oxford champion has failed to equal Armstrong's magnificent jump by three-quarters of an inch, not much, it is true, but enough to make the difference between victory and defeat.

Just as the jubilation was at its height, a dusty, grimy youth, in what were once white flannels, rushed through the gate, and threw himself on Frank as the latter was being escorted like a young prince of the blood to the club house.

"I knew you would do it, you old lobster," cried the newcomer, who was none other than Codfish Gleason. "Sorry I couldn't get in at the death, but I was arrested three times for moving too fast for these Johnnies, and paid a five-pound fine every time. I couldn't have gone much further for my money was running short."

To say that Frank Armstrong was the hero of the occasion is to tell only a part of the truth. The youngest man on either team had achieved the greatest glory, and his teammates were not slow in acknowledging the fact. At the dinner that night in London, given to members of the four teams, Frank was called on to make a speech, and it was the shortest on record: "I did the best I could," after which he sat down covered with confusion, amid loud applause.

The next day came the sight-seeing in London and some of the nearby towns, and then a generous and thankful management stood the expense of a trip for the American winners to Amsterdam, to Cologne, to Lausanne, where the song-birds of the party serenaded the girls' school there, and then to Paris, with many side trips. But, in spite of the beauties and wonders of the strange countries, Frank said afterward that the best sight of all was the shores of Long Island viewed from the deck of the homing Cunarder.