The hurrying weeks brought Sam once more face to face with his rival of Hillbury. Again one of thirty-odd numbers, he mingled with the confused throng of candidates near the starting line of the forty-yard hurdles in Mechanics’ Hall.

“Who’s that fellow with the blue stripes across his shirt?” asked a boy at his elbow, who wore the colors of a Boston school.

Sam gave his benighted neighbor a sharp glance of surprise. “That’s Kilham of Hillbury!”

“Any good?”

“Good enough to beat me!” returned Sam.

“I guess it lies between Sage of Worcester and Doane of Noble’s,” said the lad.

Sam smiled grimly. He knew that it lay between Kilham of Hillbury and—somebody else.

The first heat was run: Kilham led at the tape; Sage of Worcester fell out. In the second heat Number Eighteen was at the fore,—the programme showed Number Eighteen to be Archer of Seaton. The third went to Doane of Noble’s; the fourth to Jessop of Boston Latin; the fifth—but why detail the process of sifting? The final heat was called. In it stood Kilham, Archer, Doane, Whelan of the Boston High, and a nameless white shirt from a small school, who by luck and good natural ability had squeezed through the early heats.

Kilham gave Sam a nod of recognition. “We’ve been up against each other before.”

Sam smiled assent. “Twice.”

“And shall be again, probably. Don’t let those small school fellows beat us, anyway. If I can’t win, I hope you will.”

“The same to you,” answered Sam; but his voice was lost in the starter’s call.

On the “set” Doane tried to beat the starter, and was put back a foot. All hung well on the next trial, and the pistol shot sent them away. Doane flashed into the front rank at the outset, but he was clumsy on the second hurdle and lost his advantage. Kilham and Archer rose from the start together. Kilham reached the first hurdle a foot ahead, but Archer gained on the hurdle jump. It was the same on the second. At the third hurdle, four runners seemed to sweep the air abreast, but Doane and Whelan lost a fraction of a second in clearing, and fell a foot behind Kilham and Archer. On the final stretch the Hillbury man drove himself to the front. Sam strained at his sluggish muscles with every power of nerve and brain, but Kilham was the faster. Sam’s frantic efforts, though insufficient to carry him past Kilham, at least enabled him to hold a place ahead of his pursuers. He crossed the line second, adjudged to have the better of Whelan by a few inches.

“What do you honestly think, Collins?” demanded Sam, as the two talked over the day’s happenings on the train that evening. “Shall I ever be able to beat that fellow, or is he going to do me right along for the next four years?”

“I don’t know,” returned Collins, frankly. “Kilham’s a mighty good hurdler for a schoolboy, but he isn’t the best there ever was. I’ve seen him weaken a good bit on the last thirty yards of the one-twenty. You’re about even on starting, and he’s faster, but you’ve got the staying power. It’ll depend on how you learn to take the hurdles. You wouldn’t have the ghost of a show on the low ones, but on the high—well, I’ve seen a lot of good men beaten on the last twenty yards of the high hurdles.”

Such was the dubious form which Collins’s encouragement took. Collins believed thoroughly in the efficacy of work; he was also convinced that Archer was slowly “coming,” but he was not one to raise false hopes.

“Then you really think I can improve on the hurdle work?” pursued Sam.

“Of course. You jump too high, and that first stride when you come down is too long. You bring your outer foot around well, but it goes out too far. You ought to better that a good bit in the spring practice.”

Whatever Collins may have expected from the spring training, he had no reason to complain of Sam’s diligence. The average boy will work with great zeal for the first and last weeks of his preparation for an important contest. He usually starts with enthusiasm, allows his ardor to ebb under the tiresome monotony of the daily drudgery, and warms to his work again as the crisis approaches. And not infrequently does it happen that the loss by this middle period of neglect proves so serious that the candidate drops out discouraged before the test arrives. It was one of Collins’s strong points as a trainer that he tried to carry his charges all the way. He did not trust all reports or accept every excuse. He strove to know what his boys were doing, how they were spending their time, what they ate and drank, where they went. He made no apologies for searching closely into the lives which the boys were leading. Unless they lived properly, played honorably, worked faithfully, he would have none of them.

If Collins had possessed a magic wand by the touch of which slow muscles could be endowed with marvellous speed, he certainly would have given Archer the benefit of the first application of it. Sam took the privations of training, as well as the regular drill, as parts of his normal day. While he longed to win, and still dreamed of the happy moment when he should show his back to Kilham on the hurdle path, he could laugh good-naturedly at his ambitions, and speak frankly of the likelihood of failure. He did not worry and did not lose courage. He played tennis, enjoyed his friends, did his school work as well as he could, got good hours of rest, shunned the things that weaken,—and grew hard of muscle and sound of wind, living his life with happiness and zest.

Toward the end of May he was sent with a batch of Seatonians to take part in the inter-scholastics in Cambridge. In the final of the one-twenty hurdles, he fell in once more with Kilham and Doane of Noble’s.

“Hello, Archer!” called Kilham, cheerily. “We meet again. It’s your turn to-day.”

“I wish it was,” said Sam.

But luck turned against him. The starter held them a long time on the set, and Sam fell over before the trigger was pulled. He was put back a yard. On the next attempt he erred through overcaution, and lost another yard on the start. Always slow in getting into his stride, he saw his two rivals dash well ahead of him for the first two hurdles. As Sam was topping the third, Kilham and Doane were close to the fourth. Hopeless though the race seemed, he pressed on, taking his jumps in his best form, driving himself in the inter-hurdles paces, as if each were the finish of the race. And lo! he gained! With every hurdle he drew up on the leading pair. At the eighth he was at Doane’s heels. The tenth he crossed abreast of the second man and beat him out through greater strength in the final dash for the line,—but Kilham as usual was first, this time by only two feet.

For a time Sam was disheartened. When he compared the two feet advantage which Kilham had over him at the finish with the two yards lost at the start, and realized that he had plenty of reserve force on the last stretch while Kilham was running weak, he felt that fate was indeed against him. But Collins soon got hold of him and altered the hue of his thoughts. He had never before been put back in a race; it wouldn’t happen again; he had run a yard farther than the victor and finished but two feet behind him. He would have another chance at the Hillbury meet; let him but keep up his courage and work hard, and he would win out yet!

Yes, keep up your courage and work! That had been Collins’s song these two years. But what availed courage and work against fate and a better man?

“He’ll probably beat me,” thought Sam, as the day of the Hillbury meet approached; “he’ll probably beat me, for he always has beaten me, but I’ll run him harder than I’ve ever done before!”

On the day before the meet, Sam dropped in at the Sedgwicks’ to offer two tickets to the games, which his father had written that he could not use. Margaret clapped her hands with delight at the prospect. “We must go, mother, and see Sam win. It’s our last chance. Do go!”

“It’s my last chance, all right,” said Sam, “but don’t go expecting me to win. I always lose.”

“You’ll have to win, if we go. And we are going, aren’t we, mother?”

“We’ll see,” answered the cautious mother. “Sam had better stay to dinner and talk it over with your father.”

“Invite me next week, and I’ll come with joy,” answered Sam, ruefully. “You have too many good things to eat for a fellow in training.”

Mrs. Sedgwick and Margaret were on the Seaton special that carried the school to Hillbury. Sam sat in the seat opposite them, and for the time enjoyed complete relief from anxious thoughts of the contest. They parted at the station, when Sam went forward to join the other members of the team in the barge that was awaiting them.

“You must show me your gold medal when we go back,” said the girl, gayly, as she bade him good luck. “You know we’ve come on purpose to help you win it.” Sam lifted his cap and ran smilingly away to quiet the barge-load of impatients who were clamoring for Archer to quit his “fussing” and get aboard. Miss Margaret’s blind confidence had driven Sam’s fatalism to cover. Could it be his day after all?