  Ten minutes before the race was to start, the hill, so bare and unpeopled when the boys climbed it after supper, was alive with a gay throng. Some carried horns which they blew loudly, the harsh notes ringing out and adding to the clamor of tongues. At the starting place a big crowd was gathered, but the densest throng was assembled about the finishing point. Excitement was at a high pitch. The silver cup, for which the race was to be run, had been on exhibition all day in the window of the town jeweler, and had excited great admiration. “Oh, I do hope our Wolf boys keep it,” said a pretty girl from Aquebogue, as she passed, on the arm of her escort. Men and women from other towns were as eager for their champions to win. Every face shone with anticipation of the coming struggle. At the finish line several photographers, sent to the place by New York papers and periodicals, had their flashlight apparatuses ready to take pictures of the finish. Others stood at the starting point, holding aloft their powder-filled metal troughs and clicking the triggers which would ignite the flashes, impatiently. About a hundred yards back from the starting line an anxious group was gathered. Rob, Merritt and the others had just made a final inspection and discovered the mischief that had been done to their sleigh. It seemed hopeless to remedy the damage, for it was manifestly impossible to fit new runners, and only in that way could they hope to be in a condition to compete. “I wonder who was mean enough to do such a thing,” wondered Rob. “The marks of a file are as plain as day,” exclaimed Merritt, angrily. “I’ll bet Jack Curtiss or some of his crowd put up this job,” grated out Tubby, angrily, gazing toward the bully and his companions, who were dragging their shining, glittering sled to the starting mark through an admiring crowd. “Here you, Sim,” exclaimed Rob, in what was for him a sharp, angry tone, “did anyone come around the sled while we were gone?” “No one I could see, not even a flea,” rejoined Sim. “Oh, bother your rhymes. Answer my question. Did you see anyone here, or did you leave the sled while we were gone?” “I can’t tell a fib; leave it I did,” was the rejoinder. “Oh, you did, eh, and after promising to watch it, too,” said Merritt angrily. “What do you mean by it?” He shook his fist menacingly under Sim’s pug nose. “Don’t scare him or you won’t get a word out of him,” warned Rob, coming forward from the sled. “Who was with it while you left it, Sim?” he asked. “Until I came back I left it with Jack,” responded the shamefaced Sim. “Hum, just as I thought, fellows,” said Rob, turning to his companions; “this was a put-up job. Anyone with Jack?” he demanded sharply. “His chum Bill Bender, with him did defend her,” was the rejoinder. “Defend her. Did her all the damage they could, I guess you mean,” sputtered Tubby. “Hark, fellows! There goes the starting bugle. It’s all off,” he concluded with a groan. “Not, yet, we’ve got three minutes,” replied Rob, bravely, although he felt his spirits sink to the lowest ebb. “Hullo, you fellows, what’s the matter? Looks as if you’d dropped a dollar and picked up a dime,” came a cheery voice behind them. They turned and saw a tall, sun-burned young fellow regarding them quizzically. “Some rascals have roughened our runners with a file and we can’t compete,” was Rob’s reply. “Tough luck,” sympathized the other; “we can’t either. I’m captain of the East Willetson team, you know. Two of our men missed their train and can’t get here, so we are out of the race.” “Then you’re not going to use your sled?” questioned Rob, eagerly. “No. Hard luck, ain’t it? It’s a new one, too—a dandy. I think it would beat any of these I see here. However, it can’t be helped.” He was moving off, when Rob seized him. The lad began to speak hurriedly, his words tumbling out one after another. “Say, old man, I don’t know your name, but mine is Rob Blake. We had a good chance to win this race if it hadn’t been for that bit of foul play. I wonder if we couldn’t——” “Borrow our sled?” shot out the other, guessing the boy’s request before he had uttered it. “Sure you can, if the judges won’t object.” “I’ll ask them,” panted Rob, slipping off in the crowd. In a minute he was back. “They say they don’t care,” he panted; “where is it?” “Right back here. Hurry up; there goes the line-up call.” The clear, sharp notes of a bugle rang out, and men and boys began to hurry from all directions. Suddenly there came a disturbance in the crowd. Voices shouted: “Make way there! Give them room!” Through the crowd came shoving the Eagle boys, carrying the borrowed sled. In their green and black sweaters, green knitted sleighing caps and khaki trousers they were recognized as contestants. “Hooray!” shouted the crowd, quick to scent a sensational happening. “What’s all the trouble back there?” asked Jack, in a low voice, of Bill Bender, as they prepared to board their sled. “Don’t know. Seems to be a lot of excitement. Great Hookey, it’s those kids!” “What?” “Yes. Look for yourself. They’ve got another sled.” “The dickens they have! I’ll protest.” “Better not talk too much. Somebody might know something and squeal, like they did at the aeroplane model race.” “Looks as if they’d overreached us,” grumbled Freeman Hunt, who, like Lem Lonsdale, was in the secret of Jack Curtiss’ mean trick. The race was to be run off in heats, on account of the number of contestants. As Jack and his chums were in the first heat, there was no time for more to be said. “Ready!” cried the starter. Then, as the boys nodded, his pistol cracked, and off darted the gliders, flashing down the hill like so many streaks of brilliant color. Under the bright rays of the suspended electric lights they made a pretty sight, and so the crowd thought, for it cheered them to the echo. Three heats were run off, and for the finals there lined up the three winners of the preliminary contests. These were the yellow and black Aquebogue Wolves, the holders of the cup, Jack Curtiss’ crew, and the Eagle men on their borrowed sled. Jack had started to make a feeble protest against the loaned sled being entered, but the judges had frowned him down. Afraid that they might have some inkling of who had filed the runners of the “Eagle,” he dared not say more. The East Willetsons’ sled proved to be all that its owners had claimed for it. It had captured its heat with ease, shooting across the line a good two feet in front of the nearest competitor. The boys’ hearts beat high with hope and excitement. It seemed that there was a chance of their capturing the coveted cup, after all. “Now then, boys, clap on all sail and come windjamming inter port ahead of the rest of them snow cruisers, or I won’t never speak to you again,” came the voice of Captain Jeb Hudgins from the crowd behind the starting line. “He’s bet his gray Tomcat’s next litter of kittens on you,” came the voice of a joker. “I’ll litter you if I get my hooks on yer, yer deck-swabbing lubber,” bellowed the captain angrily. “Ready all!” warned the starter. The boys gripped the sides of their sled. Rob, who was to steer, tautened a turn of the ropes about his hands. “Bang!” Amid a roar from the crowd packed on both sides of the illuminated hill, the three sleds were off. Down the narrow lane, edged with human faces, they flew, Aquebogue, Eagles, and Jack Curtiss’ unnamed crew, neck and neck, so to speak. A great uproar greeted them, but of this the boys were oblivious. Each steersman bent his every effort to getting the most out of his speeding sled. “Jack Curtiss leads!” came a shout, as that worthy’s sled slightly gained on the other two at a spot where the grade was not quite so steep as the remainder of the way. “How-oooo!” came deep-throatedly from the Wolves’ supporters. “Come on you!” hissed the Aquebogue steersman, swaying his body back and forth. But try as he would, he could not shake off the Eagles. On they flew; the finish line, with its close-packed rows of white faces, stared straight in front of them now. Jack Curtiss was in the lead by a very slight margin; then came the Eagles, with the Wolves right on their rear runners. But, in an unlucky moment, Bill Bender glanced back and saw how close Rob and his chums were upon them. With a sly move, he thrust out his foot, intending to sway the Eagles’ sled off its course. Instead, however, the unexpected drag caused his own sled to swerve. Amid a cry from the crowd, it swung round before Jack Curtiss could stop it, and went plunging up a bank through the crowd, narrowly avoiding injuring several people. In the meantime, the Eagles’ borrowed sled, with Aquebogue a close second, flashed across the roaring, yelling, horn-blowing finish line, amid a perfect bombardment of “Boom! Boom! Boom!” from the flashlight artists. “They threw us over. They did it!” “It’s their fault!” Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, followed by their two cronies, came rushing up as a congratulatory crowd pressed about the cup winners. Jack shook his fist angrily in Rob’s face. “You stole the race!” he bellowed furiously. “We had it won.” “Won by a mile!” declared Freeman Hunt. “By a file, you mean,” shot out Rob, looking straight into the other’s eyes. Jack Curtiss’ gaze wavered and fell. “Come on, fellows. Let’s leave the babies to have their candy,” he sneered, as, amid the hoots and laughter of the crowd, he and his cronies slouched off. |
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