CHAPTER XII.
A TRY-OUT ON THE TRACK.
Track athletics at Queen's had not been in a very flourishingcondition for some years prior to the opening of our story. Thepopular sports were baseball and football, and these took the pickof the fellows who had a desire to do some athletic work. PatsyDuffy, the trainer of all the teams, managed now and then to findsome pretty good men in the sprints and short distance runs, and hehad once sent a team of six down to the Interscholastic games at NewHaven, which picked up eleven points in second and third places, andthat, when you consider that the school had less than 200 boys todraw from, is not so bad as it might be.
But although Queen's was never in any great danger of winningthe Interscholastics, the school was nevertheless nearly alwaysrepresented by some one. Warwick was, in track athletics, as inevery other of the sports, the natural rival of Queen's, and forthe last two years had made away with the annual track contest by agood, wide margin of points. The trainer had gone over the incomingclass pretty thoroughly for material and had not found much of it,so he was pleased when Frank stepped up to him at the track the nextafternoon and said he would like to try for a place on the team.
"Where did you come from?" said Patsy.
"From the Milton High School, but I never did much there in the wayof athletics, excepting to play a little baseball and football."
"Can you run or jump?"
"Don't think so."
"Can you sprint or hurdle?"
"Afraid not."
"Jump?"
"Can't even jump, to my knowledge. But I'm willing to try any ofthem."
"Well, this doesn't sound promising, but some of the best I've hadknew nothing about it when they came here, and I've sent some of thebest men they ever had to Yale and Harvard and Princeton. Ever hearof Tinker Howe, the great Yale half-miler? Yes; well, he was one ofthe men I trained. Came out here one day and at first couldn't runa half mile in three minutes. But he came along fast. And there wasWinchester, the fellow who played tackle on Harvard last year, andwho was one of the best shot-putters that ever went to Cambridge. Hewas one of our fellows, trained right in this little piece of ground."
"I don't believe I'll ever be like those fellows, but I want to tryanything you think I'm fitted for."
"Well, suppose you run up to the gymnasium and get into some togs.Miggs, the rubber up there, will fit you out and if you like thework, and I like you, we'll fix you up with a regular suit. Hurry itup, and I'll have you jog around the track once or twice with Watkinshere," indicating a young fellow who was prancing up and down thestretch with long, springy strides.
Frank was quickly equipped at the gymnasium with a jersey and a pairof misfit running trousers which Miggs had dug out somewhere forhim. "I feel like a scarecrow," thought Frank, "but maybe after thisperformance to-day he will not consider my efforts worth much."
"Come on now," said Patsy, as Frank came trotting back to the track."Let's try a few starts. You will run only fifteen steps or so. Don'tsuppose you know anything about starting, Armstrong?"
"No, I guess I don't."
"All right. On your marks, get set, GO." Frank, accustomed to thestarting signal for swimming, went away like a shot and ran away fromthe half-miler, who was taking things more leisurely.
"I thought you said you didn't know anything about starting," saidPatsy, as he and Watkins came back to where the trainer stood.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you that I have done a little swimming racing,and we start about the same."
"So much the better. Some very good runners are spoiled because theycan't start fast enough. When the pistol goes off you'd think theywere going to take root. You don't seem to be bothered that way, butI'm afraid you haven't got stride enough for a long distance racer.Try it again."
The boys lined up and started at the word "Go," and again Frankstarted in excellent form; but this time Watkins was watching forhim, and got off his marks with more speed than before, although,even then, Frank led him a step.
Patsy was smiling as they came back to him. "Did you ever run ahundred yards, Armstrong? No? Well, I'm going to try you at that nowand see what you can do. You have the appearance of a sprinter, atleast as far as the first twenty yards go. Do you think you can holdit at the pace you set out?"
"Don't know, but I'll try."
By this time a half dozen other runners, in their airy, abbreviatedcostumes, who had been trotting around the track or taking littledashing spurts, had gathered around to see the new boy tried out, andthere was a good deal of interest manifest when Patsy said he wouldhave the new boy try a hundred yards dash.
Just at that moment the Codfish strolled up. "Hello, wifey," he saidas he saw Frank in running costume; "took my advice, didn't you? Youlook handsome, but are you any good?"
"We are just going to try to find out," said Patsy. "I'm going to runhim a hundred yards. Will you go up and start him? I want to takehis time. Here's a pistol. Collins, go along with Armstrong and pacehim down the full distance, and bring him as fast as he can come."Collins was the best sprinter of Queen's, as Frank afterward learned.
At the sound of the pistol, Collins was off with a great burst ofspeed, but Frank, in spite of his lack of training, followed himclosely for half the distance. Then the training of the practisedsprinter began to tell and Frank dropped behind, but not so farbehind but that Patsy's face wore a much pleased grin when hefinished. Collins, who was a Junior and slated for the captaincyif Gamma Tau didn't undertake to knock things out of gear withpolitics, came back and patted him on the shoulder. "It was well run,Freshman," he said.
"What did he do it in?" said Gleason, coming up to Patsy when Frank,who was not in the best of condition for sprinting, was recoveringhis wind. Patsy held up the watch. Eleven and two-fifth seconds, itsaid.
"By Jove, that's good time for a kid, and his first trial, and not incondition, isn't it?"
"It's first rate," said Patsy. "He will be a good one or I miss myguess. He has a good build for a sprinter."
Meantime Frank was taking a turn around the back stretch, and whenhe came back, Patsy said: "Armstrong, that's enough for to-day."Frank was turning away when Patsy continued, "Don't go yet, I want tohave you try a jump for me. We need a jumper badly, and you may bethe fellow we are looking for. You said you never jumped?"
"No, only in fun, and the jumps were never measured."
"Well, come over here and try one or two, and we will see if you haveany spring in your legs. Most natural sprinters have."
"You see," said Patsy as they reached the broad jump runway, "you getup your speed here and then strike this take-off board with whicheverfoot comes most convenient for you to jump from; lift yourself intothe air and strike in that soft sawdust pit. The jump is measuredfrom the face of the take-off to the point where you break the groundnearest to the take-off block. Do you get me?"
Frank nodded and walked down the runway, measuring carefully with hiseye the distance he had to go.
"All ready," shouted Patsy; "come on!"
Frank took a run, gathering momentum as he came. He saw ahead of himthe trainer and Codfish Gleason and a dozen boys watching his effort,and in spite of his best attempts he could not concentrate his mindon that take-off block. It seemed to lie somewhere in a fog, and hesimply kept on running with the result that he dashed across it intothe sawdust, which is put there to break the fall of the jumpers,tried to stop, and went headlong. He picked himself up, covered withsawdust, and much chagrined at his failure.
"I want to try that over again," he said. "I couldn't seem to seewhere that block was, and I missed it."
Patsy grinned. "The best of them do that sometimes. It's one of thehardest things in jumping. As you come up to the block, you want toconcentrate your mind on that place. Arrange your steps so you willcome to it on the foot you can best jump from, and come down on theblock as hard as you can, bouncing off it, so to speak, and going asfar up in the air as you can. The momentum you have gained in yourrun will carry you alon
g. That's the idea of the broad jump. Anddon't get nervous." Patsy communicated this information to Frank ashe walked along with him to the head of the runway.
"The take-off, the take-off, the take-off," was drumming throughFrank's mind as he came rushing down for it. So determined was henot to overrun the block that he under-did it this time, and he"took-off" about 14 inches before he reached the block. But even inspite of this handicap, the measuring tape showed a jump of 15 feet 6inches.
"O, but," said Frank, "you are not measuring from where I jumped."
"That's not the way we do it. We measure, as I told you, from theface of the block, so that as you jumped you really handicappedyourself 14 inches. It would have been a very good jump, indeed, ifthat 14 inches hadn't been wasted. The best jumpers contrive theirrun so as to hit the center of the block squarely with the ball ofthe jumping foot, the toe even projecting over the block. Try itonce more, and try not to over or under-run the block, but to hit itsquarely."
"I never knew there was so much to jumping," said Frank, as he walkedback for his third trial. "But this time I'm going to get it if ittakes a leg."
Fixing the block firmly in his mind as he had been told, and alsothe idea of carrying as high as possible into the air, Frank camerushing down the runway. This time he struck the take-off like aveteran, rose in the air and was carried along by his speed. Ashe was coming down he threw his feet out in front of him so as toget as much distance as possible, but when he struck he had moredistance than he could hold and fell backwards. His heels had brokenthe ground at 16 feet 9-1/2 inches, but in his efforts to keep fromfalling he had put his hand behind him, and from the block to thebreak made by his hand it was only a little over 15 feet.
Frank thought it hard lines not to get all he had actually jumped,but saw at once that the rule was right--that the first break in theground from the face of the take-off was the only right thing to goby, although his actual jump had been in this case two feet farther.
"That's all for to-day," said Patsy, "you've had enough for the firstday."
But Frank pleaded for one more try to see if he could not get itright--the very last--and Patsy relented.
And this time Frank did get it right. He came carefully up to theblock, got a good raise and carry, and held his footing when hestruck the ground. The tape measure, held by the Codfish and Patsy,showed 16 feet 3 2-5 inches, a remarkable jump, indeed, for anunpractised schoolboy.
"To-morrow at 2 o'clock I want to see you here, and we'll do alittle more work. Your showing to-day is all right. Maybe I can makesomething out of you," said Patsy, and when Frank had trotted off inthe direction of the gymnasium he said to Gleason: "There's the rightsort of a chap. Doesn't know much about it, but willing to try, andcrazy to make good at whatever he tries. I'll make something out ofhim, see if I don't. The fall trials come off a week from to-day, butI'll bet in spite of the short time he has had to work, he'll makesome of the older ones hustle to keep ahead of him. I don't know yetabout his sprinting, but he certainly can jump like a deer."