"But if you _win_--if you _break_ the record?"

"It shall be just the same--I'll never run again. Under those circ.u.mstances I should be afraid to--afraid I couldn't do it a second time. I'll keep my record all to myself that way, don't you see?"

"Oh Bunny!" she cried suddenly as she gave his arm a little squeeze; "I've been more than half teasing you. Run if you want to. Run all the time. _But if you don't break the record I'll never speak to you again as long as I live!_"

He stopped and looked down at her, into her eyes, and saw the laughter lurking there. That instant he thought nothing in the world would be so much to the purpose--nothing at least that he could do--as to take her in his two big hands and shake her until her bronze hair fell about her shoulders. But he did no such thing.

She said, "Well?"

"You'll see," he answered and they walked on.

They sat on her porch for an hour and talked of other things. They did not hear the bells in the library tower as they rang out quarters, halves, three-quarters of the hour.

In her room, after he had gone, her eyes chanced to fall upon his picture fixed with many others on a tennis-net ingeniously draped between two windows, and she said to the picture:

"You're a great, tall, awkward, foolish old dear! There...."

But Bunny, in the solitude of his own alcove, lay awake half the night floundering in that tossing sea of doubt.

With the morning however, came resolve.

"What's the use," he muttered as he lathered his chin before the little square mirror tilted against the window at the height of his eyes.

He would run once more--only once. And then----

Could she have meant it, he wondered, when she told him she would cut him from her list of friends if he failed to break the record. He smiled at the soaped reflection of his long, thin face in the little mirror.

Ten seconds was a tiny lapse of time but it was the record. A hundred yards in ten seconds. That was ten yards a second. That was.... Well, approximately, ten feet at a stride--no, eight. A rather wide stride, to be sure, but _his_ legs.... Now if he could stride nine feet what would that bring it? Two and two----

Bunny found himself of a sudden involved in so deep a mora.s.s of mathematics that he gave up in disgust--and cut himself.

He would make an effort--a mighty effort. Of this he was determined. It was to be his last, he mused, so it must needs be mighty. In any event if he should fail it would not mean so much; that is, so very much.

Other men had failed, trying to accomplish that which heaven was determined they should not. And yet----

"If you don't break the record I'll never speak to you again as long as I live!"

The words were insistent. It was as though Wilma were there beside him, as he stood before the little dusty mirror, and sounding them over and over in his ears.

"By George!" he exclaimed aloud, "I've _got_ to smash it; that's all, I've _got_ to!"

As he stepped out upon the broad porch of the low roofed house, the light of determination was in his eyes and the firmness of a set resolve had squared his chin.

III

Thursday evening, after he had had his supper, Willie Trigger's mother dispatched him to the post-office, with a strict injunction to be home by eight o'clock. Primarily as a result of this injunction and secondarily as the result of an inherent love of night, Willie Trigger dawdled on the way. A down-town lad of his acquaintance prevailed upon him to a.s.sist in an attack upon a certain cherry-tree, the location of which, on Spring Street, he very well knew. He was not loth to join forces with the down-town youth and forth they fared together, to the end that it was after eight even before Willie turned into Huron Street on his long way home. Full of ox-heart cherries and contentment, he did not hasten. A whipping perhaps, in any event a scolding and a summary dismissal to his bed might await him, but what availed it?

"I d' care," he grumbled, bravely, and scuffed his feet.

As he approached the Cook House loud talk attracted his attention away from a confectioner's window where were displayed all the goodies dearest to the hearts of little boys. He quickened his pace.

Two men were quarreling with a hackman at the hotel door. The hackman proclaimed his right to a dollar fare; his patrons contested.

Willie Trigger, looking up from the walk, noted the appearance of the men. The one was short and squat and gross of features, with a great black mustache like a duster that he pulled persistently as he haggled with the angry hackman. His companion was taller, square of shoulder, with a long, thin face, and a straight, hard mouth above his square, clean-shaven chin. In expectation of a fight, Willie Trigger held his breath.

"There's a half-dollar," he heard the fat man say, "now take it or leave it." He flung the coin to the pavement, turned and entered the hotel behind his friend, while the hackman, grumbling still, stooped, recovered the coin and, clambering upon his ancient vehicle, drove away.

Willie Trigger was disappointed; disappointed that there had been no open fight and disappointed that the hackman had found the half-dollar.

His nimble eyes had followed it as it rolled half way beneath a trunk that stood on end beside the curb. When the hackman discovered the coin, Willie's heart sunk and he set out upon his way. Presently he commenced to whistle shrilly and it was apparent that the incident had made no more impression upon his plastic mind than it had upon the minds of the men with whom the hackman had exchanged compliments.

As it was, they were shown to a room by a boy in b.u.t.tons and the loafers in the office saw them together not again that night.

The short, squat creature with the huge mustache locked the door and flung off his coat.

"Well, we're here!" he exclaimed.

His friend made no reply.

"Jack," he went on, "if I don't make a killin' Sat.u.r.day, my name's Mud--Mud with a big M! This town is jammed full of marks--soft, easy, mushy marks. A guy could come in here with three sh.e.l.ls and a pea and clean it up in a day----"

"If the police would let him," his friend put in with a grin.

"Rats!" was the contemptuous retort. "I've been figgerin' it all out,"

he went on, sinking upon a chair and spreading his short legs to accommodate his capacious portliness. He savagely bit the tip from a black, fat cigar. "I've been figgerin' it all out and it's goin' to be easy. They're muckers; farm-hands; easiest sort o' pickin'!"

"Well, how you going to do it?"

Before the wavy mirror on the imitation mahogany dresser, his companion smoothed his hair with a pair of military brushes taken from his satchel.

The fat man chewed his cigar.

"I'm goin' to get next to-night," he said. "There's always more or less geezers hangin' round the hotel in a college town, and I'll do a little pumpin'. I'll find out just what this phenom's been doin' since he went into trainin'."

"He's the only one I'm fearin'," his friend put in. "If he can do the sprint under ten seconds flat he's got Morrison beat!"

"And _you_ the trainer!" exclaimed the fat man with a deep laugh. "Say, if your man don't lay all over him--say, I won't do a thing----"

"Well, be careful, that's all," the other warned. "Don't try to do anything to-night. Plenty of time to-morrow. You can go out to the track and have a look at him; he'll be tryin' out."

"Won't you go?" the pudgy creature asked.

His friend turned from the stand where he was washing his hands.

"Say Punky!" he exclaimed, "do you take me for a blamed fool? Big business me goin' out there; wouldn't it? Do you suppose some of those wise guys wouldn't know me? I guess not! I'll stay right here under cover till Morrison shows up to-morrow afternoon. You can go out; and when you get back you can tell me how this Bunny strikes you--but if I were you I wouldn't distribute any coin until Sat.u.r.day. Talk 'Morrison'

and wag your head a bit and get 'em going; then cover their cash all you want to----"

"Aw----" the other began.

"That's right!" his friend warned; "I've been up against this game a little oftener 'n what you have and I know 'em; I haven't been doin' the strong arm act for two years at Western College for nothin'--if it wasn't that I'm goin' t' quit I wouldn't go into the game with you; as it is, ain't I got as big an interest in th' killin' as you have, I'd like to know? Don't we break even? It's a fair chance and if they's any show of coppin' out any of the loose change of these mamma's boys, I'm the child to do it--with your valuable and sporty a.s.sistance, Punky. D'

you see?"