THE TRY-OUT.

"There he is, Jack!" exclaimed Major Woolford, leaning across the railing of the judges' stand and pointing; "that's the youngster I was telling you about. By gad, he's the speediest thing that ever happened when it comes to a bike. Give him a sizing, Jack, and then take off your hat to Young America at its best. You see, I know what he can do, and I'm the one who told Carter to bring him to the track for a try-out. Walks like he was on springs and handles himself without a particle of lost motion—every move decisive and straight to the mark. Oh, I don't know! As long as the Old Star-Spangled-Long-May-it-Wave can give us lads like that I reckon the country's safe."

The major slipped his stop-watch into one pocket of his vest and pulled a cigar-case out of another. As he passed the case to his friend, Governor Gaynor, he noticed an amused smile on the governor's face. The major was president, and the governor an honorary member, of the Phoenix Athletic Club.

"ProtÉgÉ of yours, major?" inquired the governor, striking a match.

"Not much, Jack," answered the major. "I don't believe in protÉgÉs, favorites, or any other brand of humbug that leads to the door marked 'pull.' Give me a young fellow that stands on his own feet—the kind that does his own climbing, Jack, without wasting valuable time looking around for some one to give him a boost. That's the sort of a chap Matt King is. Just keep your eye on him."

Below the judges' stand, in front of which ran the tape, a crowd of forty or fifty persons had assembled. Fully half the crowd was made up of members of the club, young, middle-aged, and a few with gray in their hair—all devotees of clean, wholesome American sport. The other half of the crowd consisted mostly of high-school boys who were furnishing the majority of candidates for the try-out.

Matt, to whom the major had called the governor's attention, had leaped lightly over the fence that guarded the farther side of the track. Lined up just back of the fence were Susie McReady, Chub and Welcome Perkins. They had come to see the try-out, hoping against hope that something would happen to make Matt change his mind and become a candidate in the bike event. Leaning against the top rail of the fence, Matt stood watching the busy officers of the club and listening to the incessant clamor of the high-school boys.

The athletic clubs of both Phoenix and Prescott were for the encouragement of amateurs. Professionals were barred. The clubs could pick up material for their rival contests wherever they chose so long as they did not enlist any one who had ever competed for a money prize.

There was an odd expression on Matt King's open, handsome face as he looked and listened—a touch of wistfulness, it might be, softening the almost steelly resolution of his gray eyes.

"What do you know about him, major?" asked the governor, staring across the track through the cigar-smoke and feeling an instinctive admiration for the trim, boyish figure in cap, sweater and knickerbockers.

"Our acquaintance lasted less than an hour, and was mighty informal," chuckled the major. "I was returning from the Indian School in my motor-car, about a week ago, when along comes that boy on his wheel. He tried to go by, and—well, when I'm out for a spin in that six-thousand-dollar car I'm not letting anything on hoofs or wheels throw sand in my face. I tells the driver to speed her up, and by and by we have the boy's legs working like piston-rods. He was still abreast of us when some confounded thing or other slips a cog under the bonnet; then we begin to sputter and buckjump, and finally stop dead. The boy gives us the laugh and goes on.

"Mike, my driver, gets out to locate the injury. But it's too many for Mike. He was just telling me he'd have to go to the nearest farmhouse and telephone the garage, when the boy on the wheel comes trundling back. He asks me as nice as you please if there's anything the matter, and if he can't help us out. I was just about to tell him that he had another guess coming if he thought he could make good where Mike had fallen down, when he slips out of his saddle, makes a couple of passes at the machinery, closes the bonnet and begins to crank up. Mike got back in his seat and laughed like he thought it was a good joke; then he pretty near threw a fit when the machine jogged off as well as ever. The boy gave us the laugh again, this time from the rear. And that's how he happened to make a hit with me. I've heard that he knows more about motors than——"

"All ready, boys!" came the voice of the starter.

Dace Perry and two other boys had their wheels at the tape, but Matt King continued to lean against the fence and made no move to come forward.

"Hurry up, King!" shouted the starter. "What's the matter with you?"

"I haven't a wheel any more, Mr. Carter," answered Matt, "and I'm not a candidate. That's what I came out here to tell you."

"Not a candidate?" boomed the major, from up in the stand. "Don't you know the prize that goes to the winner in this event when we meet Prescott is as good as two hundred and fifty dollars? It's not a money prize, for we don't intend to make professionals out of you boys, but——"

"He's lost his nerve, that's what's the matter with him."

The words were so uncalled for, and the taunt in the voice so vicious, that every eye turned at once on the speaker. The captain of the cross-country team, arms folded and hostile gaze leveled at Matt, stood leaning against his machine.

"Quitter!" scoffed a voice in the crowd.

"Dry up, Perry!" called the starter. "You too, Spangler. Neither of you has any call to butt in."

Matt left the fence and advanced slowly across the track toward Perry.

"I've lost my nerve, have I, Dace Perry?" Matt inquired, with a half-laugh.

"What else do you call it?" demanded Perry, keeping his black eyes warily on the other's face.

As Matt stood staring at Perry his expression changed to one of the utmost good humor. Finally, with a broad smile, he turned to the starter.

"It looks as though Perry was going to be lonesome, Mr. Carter," said he, "if I don't ride with him. Can you dig up a wheel for me?"

Half a dozen in the high-school crowd set up a yell. "Take mine, Matt; take mine!"

"I know something about yours, Splinters," went on Matt, facing one of the lads, "and if you'll oblige me I'll spin it around the track."

"You bet!" chirruped Splinters, bounding away.

"I didn't come here for a try-out, Mr. Carter," said Matt, "but I don't want Perry or any one else to think that I'm a quitter or that my nerve is giving out. Can I ride in this race even if I shouldn't be able to meet the fellow from Prescott when the big event is pulled off?"

"What's the use of jockeying around like that?" grumbled Dace Perry. "What's the use of a try-out if the fellow that makes good don't hold down his end at the big meet?"

Carter was in a quandary, and cast an upward look toward Major Woolford.

"What do you say to that, major?" he asked.

"If we select you to represent the Phoenix Athletic Club in the bicycle-race, Matt," inquired the major, "why can't we count on you to be on hand and see the thing through?"

A touch of red ran into Matt's face.

"I may not be in Phoenix when the Prescott fellows come down, major," he replied.

"I'll take chances on that," growled the major. "Try him out, Carter."

Splinters, at that moment, came up with his machine. "I was going into this myself, Matt," said he, with a significant look at Perry, "but changed my mind. My racing-clothes are over in the dressing-room. They wouldn't be overly wide for you, but they'd be plenty long."

"Much obliged, Splinters," returned Matt, rolling the bicycle to the tape, "but I'll race as I stand."

A moment more and the four boys were shoved away at the crack of the starter's pistol. The major, watch in hand, followed the flight around the track with eager eyes.

"See him go, Jack!" he cried. "Why, that boy is off like a scared coyote making for home and mother. Dace Perry hasn't a ghost of a show."

The track measured a mile, and was a perfect oval. There were no trees to intercept the vision, and every part of the course could be seen by the major and the governor.

At the quarter Matt was the length of his wheel ahead of Perry, and Perry was the same distance ahead of the foremost racer behind him. At the half the distance, so far as Matt and Perry were concerned, remained the same, but the other two racers were hopelessly in the rear.

"Look at Perry work!" rumbled the major. "He's got his back up like a Kilkenny cat on the fence, and I can almost hear him puff clear over here. But that King boy has him beaten to a frazzle. Look at the form of him, will you? Great! Man alive, it's just simply superb!"

"There doesn't seem to be any love lost between King and Perry," observed the governor, following the major as he pushed excitedly around the stand in order to keep the racers at all times under his eyes.

"The trouble with Perry," said the major, "is that he's got the disposition of an Apache Indian. He wants to be the whole thing in the high school, and Matt King, during the short time he's been in town, has been boxing the compass all around him. Just look at the difference between the two, Jack. They're at the three-quarters post and are still the same distance apart. King intends to beat Perry, but he's considerate enough to hang back and win out by no more than a nose. If positions were changed so that Perry was in the lead instead of King, I'll bet good money that——"

Just at that moment, when the two leading racers were making their final spurt along the home-stretch, and when every nerve was as tense as a back-stay and every spectator had dropped into silence preparatory to hailing the victor with all his lung power, a spiteful crack cut the air from some point below the grand stand.

Simultaneously with the incisive note, Matt's bicycle was seen to swerve suddenly across Perry's path. Perry's wheel rushed into Matt's with a rattling crash and both riders were flung to the ground with terrific force.

"Great guns!" gasped the major, aghast. "I wonder if they're killed?"

"We'd better go and find out," returned the governor grimly.

Hurrying down the stairs, the major and the governor joined the excited crowd that was flocking toward the scene of the mishap.