It was clear, two events before the high hurdles came, that Hillbury was to win the day. In four races Seaton had been beaten by feet and inches in desperate finishes. It may have been luck that the leaders in these four contests were Hillbury men; luck certainly had nothing to do with the fact that in each of the four the third prize went to a wearer of the blue. Kilham had taken the two-twenty hurdles; Hillbury with Kilham in the lead had swept every place in the broad jump. Mulcahy could crawl no higher than third in the pole vault. Collins took the issue philosophically, as a man might well do who had toiled early and late to work second-class material into a first-class product, and who, incidentally, had accomplished more than any three members of the faculty toward establishing throughout the school a standard of right living and honest striving.

But stoically as Collins took the issues of fate, his real feelings broke through the mask of calmness when the one-twenty hurdles were called, and Sam and Pearson, wearing Seaton colors, took the places assigned them and dug their starting holes. Defeat may have its consolations; and to Collins no consolation could be quite so satisfactory as a victory for his long-legged pupil, who had done his work month in and month out like a man of years and responsibilities, and had come up smiling after every knockdown, with determination unquenched. Miss Margaret, on the Seaton benches near the finish line, strained her eyes to see the starting, oblivious to the fact that her pulse was beating ten counts faster than it had any right to. Sam himself, having something definite to do, and something definite to think of, was less agitated than Miss Margaret, or even Collins. The something definite to think of was the uncommon solidity of the Hillbury hurdles. If he struck one, it would throw him—or at least so he feared. He must be sure to clear, even at the waste of a few inches; and unnecessary inches in the rise meant, he knew full well, a fraction of a second in total loss. On the full extent of this handicap he did not dwell. It was enough that he must keep well above the hurdles.

The start was even—at least for Kilham and Archer. They sprang for the first hurdle in step together, like well-matched horses. Sam’s leap was needlessly high; Kilham gained thereby a small advantage, which he increased to a yard as the third hurdle was passed. Then Sam, becoming less fearful of the rise, brought his jump down nearer the top of the hurdle and began to regain lost ground. On the fifth they were together again. After that Sam forged ahead, clearing every obstacle just in front of his rival. As he struck the ground after the tenth he realized that his hopes depended on his holding his advantage against a faster sprinter for a distance of less than fifteen yards. He had been running at full tension throughout the race; he could do no better now.

As the runners swept past the seats where sat Mrs. Sedgwick and Margaret, the girl uttered a trembling scream of joy which was drowned in the disorderly cries of the Seaton followers. Archer was ahead! The blue hurled shouts of encouragement at their struggling champion, who tore along after his rival. Seaton yelled congratulations and encouragement, and Hillbury encouragement and congratulations, for Kilham did close up on Archer. The Seatonians thought they had it, and then feared that they had lost it; while the Hillburyites feared loss, and later exulted in the thought that they had won. It all happened in the shortest possible time, and at first nobody knew the result, not even the judges. Collins, who stood on a line with the finish, said it was very close, but it looked like Archer; Bruce declared that it was Archer by six inches; the Hillburyites capered about, shouting that Kilham had it by a foot. One judge said Archer; the second Kilham; the other wasn’t sure. Kilham ran off to his rub-down straightway; Sam lingered, panting on Collins’s shoulder, to hear the decision. Of course it was not for him to judge the race, but he had felt the worsted thread tighten against his breast, and he knew that a beaten man never brushes the finish cord.

The judges conferred and reported to the announcer, who bellowed forth the news: a tie! Whereat all hands applauded, except the special friends of either contestant, who agreed in considering it “a steal,” but disagreed as to the party whose rights had been stolen. Sam’s first emotion was one of grievous disappointment. Kilham had beaten him often—but this time! After all, it might have been worse. The judges might have given the first place to Kilham, and adjudged him second. Judges are but mortal. The thought of the fate escaped comforted him in a measure for the disappointment. At any rate, he was not a loser. He had won the race as much as Kilham had.

An official appeared with the medals in his hand, pretty shining things, one gold, the other silver, bedded on heavy ribbons marked with the colors of the two schools.

“You’ll have to toss for these,” he said in a businesslike way. “Where’s the other fellow?”

The other fellow had disappeared. Richmond Noyes, the Hillbury baseball captain, pushed forward. “Kilham’s gone to get his rub-down,” he said. “I’ll toss for him.”

The official hesitated a moment as if uncertain as to the propriety of the substitution, but a colleague reassured him. “All right! You call, Archer!” he said, and his practised hand sent a coin spinning in the air.

“Tails!” cried Sam, who had drawn an induction from several experiences that tails were luckier for him than heads.

The official stooped and picked up the coin. “Heads it is!” he announced cheerfully.

Noyes clutched the gold medal and scurried away in quest of Kilham. Sam took his portion of the spoil, and dodging alike compliments and condolences, went his leisurely way toward the Seaton quarters. Could anything be more symbolic than that toss! When after two years of uphill work he was at last wholly ready to meet Kilham in a square, even race, those heavy, clumsy hurdles had to turn up and lose him three or four feet; of course! Kilham, actually beaten by some inches, was considered by the wall-eyed judges to have led; of course! With equal chance to draw the gold medal, he must needs get the silver; of course! Did ever any one have such luck!

“Archer! Oh, Archer! Hold on!”

Sam turned in the direction of the unfamiliar voice and beheld trotting toward him a bareheaded youth, whose chief article of attire was a bath robe. Behind the bath robe strode Noyes, his blue-ribboned hat tilted back on his head, wearing upon his face an expression of desperate disgust.

“Look here, Archer,” began Kilham, eagerly, while still a dozen feet away, “I don’t want this thing. It belongs to you.”

The “thing” in question was the gold medal, which Noyes had carried off in a burst of delight but a few minutes before. “Give me the other one and take this,” Kilham went on, holding out the first prize to the astonished Seatonian.

“Why?” asked Sam, blankly.

“Because I won’t take it, because it doesn’t belong to me, because Rich here had no business to butt in and get it. I didn’t want to toss for the thing.”

A look of eager joy flashed into Sam’s face, only to fade away again as the character of the offer which Kilham was making came home to him. It was generous of Kilham, who had lots of prizes, to refuse to deprive his rival of the only good one which he had ever won. It was a fine thing to do; but Sam could not profit by the pitying generosity of a kind-hearted rival.

“It didn’t make any difference who tossed for it,” said Sam. “We accepted Noyes as your representative. The judges gave the race a tie, and we tossed for prizes. That settled it.”

“It didn’t settle anything,” returned Kilham, warmly. “Noyes had no more authority to toss for me than that kid there. I didn’t win the race and I’m not going to take the prize. You won the race. I almost got you at the finish, but not quite. You touched that thread before I did. I’m sure of it.”

Sam stared and pondered. “The judges declared it a tie,” he said at length.

“Then it will have to be a tie so far as the official record goes. We can’t dispute the judges, but we can divide the prizes as they ought to be divided. I won the second prize. I’ll have that or none!”

“Then I’ll take the gold one,” decided Sam, in a subdued voice. When the exchange was effected, he held out his hand to his old rival, who seemed to him at that moment more unreachable than ever, and blurted out, “If there are many fellows like you in Hillbury, I wish I had gone there!”

So it happened that Sam Archer really did have a gold medal to show Miss Margaret when he met her again at the train, and with it a little tale to tell of schoolboy honesty and generosity.1

1 If this incident of the medal sounds like the invention of an unpractical moralist, the author pleads innocent to the charge. It is a fairly accurate account of an actual occurrence at a recent Exeter-Andover contest.