The captain looked him over with cold, hard eyes. "You're a little late," he said. "We don't bring men across the Atlantic to have them late for the beginning of a track meet. You are no value to us. We will not need you." Frank opened his mouth to speak, but Harrington interrupted sharply with "I don't want to hear excuses," and passed on to the start of his event. Frank did not have the heart even to look at the race which was slated to go to the Americans through the superior ability of the Yale captain. Trainer Black looked up when he entered the building, but said nothing. Frank felt as if he had been thrown into outer darkness. He ground his teeth in impotent rage and dropped into a chair, listening in a half-hearted way to the little volley of spontaneous cheering which drifted through the window. "What's that?" cried Trainer Black, and dashed out the door. "Sounds like an English cheer!" An English cheer it was, and it announced the victory of a Cambridge "dark horse" who had run the Yale quarter-mile champion off his feet in the stretch. A minute later Harrington staggered into the room, and threw himself face downward on a table. "This loses us the meet," said a rubber in a whisper. "To think that Harrington should lose out, of all people. He loafed too much in the first part of the race and couldn't hold the sprint at the end. It was a foxy trick the Englishman worked, but a fair win enough." "Where's Armstrong, where's Armstrong?" came the excited call by Trainer Black. Frank stood up. "Here," he said simply. "Get into your clothes," Black shouted. "Why are you sitting there like a dummy? Here, some of you fellows help him. Patsy, rub his leg muscles a bit--Jack, help Patsy. Move lively!" Frank tore off his clothes, and in half a minute his leg muscles were being slapped and kneaded by the two rubbers as if their life depended on doing a quick and thorough job. "It's like this," said Black, coming over to the rubbing table. "Everything went about as scheduled until Harrington fell down in his quarter. That leaves us short an event we counted on." "Did we get the shot?" "No, confound it, that Rhodes scholar from Dakota beat our man out on the last try." "So the Englishmen have now two more than we calculated?" "Exactly, and there isn't a ghost of a chance of their losing the two-mile run unless their men choke." "And the broad-jump?" inquired Frank, weakly. "You've got to win that!" Black said it as if it was by no means an unusual request. "Win it?" gasped Frank. "What has Vare done?" "Took only three jumps the last of which was twenty-three feet, and hasn't jumped again. McGregor's been dragging his tries along, hoping that you would turn up, but he hasn't been able to do better than twenty-two six. Armstrong, if you can turn the trick on Vare it will give us the meet. You've got to do it!" he added vehemently.