Down the runway came Armstrong like a flash, first slowly, then with a great burst of speed. His eye was fixed on the take-off block, but his mind was on that four-foot hurdle supposed to be six feet out there in the pit. He struck the block perfectly and, with hands thrown high in the air and feet drawn up to clear the imaginary hurdle, he sailed up and forward, struck at last in the pit and held his full distance. With a shout McGregor, recognizing a good jump, sprang from the bench and ran forward to the jumping pit from which Frank was just stepping, brushing away the loam that clung to his ankles. "Twenty-three feet, even," the announcer bawled. Coming so unexpectedly, the announcement for a moment fell on deaf ears. Then, as the full significance became apparent, the Americans in the stand set up a piercing and spontaneous yell which startled and turned back the crowd already moving in larger and larger numbers in the direction of the gate. "Y-e-a-a-a--Armstrong!" yelled McGregor in a frenzy of delight, and fell upon that individual like a long lost brother, beat him upon the back and capered about like a man bereft of his senses. "It means that old Claude Vare de Vare, Lord of Creation and Elsewhere, has got to come back and do it over again! We have a chance! Oh, Armstrong, it means we have a chance!" Interest in the stand immediately became intense. People who were leaving returned to their seats. "A ripping jump!" commented an Englishman as he reseated himself, "but Vare will take his measure." Vare had been sent for, and was even now walking calmly across the track with an attitude which said plainly: "What's all this fuss about anyway? We'll settle this now once and for all." A ripple of applause and hand-clapping ran through the stands as Vare turned to face the pit at the far end of the runway, and glanced down the narrow way now hedged with faces. He was a champion of champions, and would show them how a champion jumped. But not that time, for his best effort fell under twenty-three feet. Surprised at his poor jump, he lost his composure and, against the advice of his friends, took a second jump without rest, and that, too, fell below his jump of twenty-three feet. The news that Armstrong had equaled Vare's best jump spread to the locker rooms of the two teams, and excitement ran high. What had seemed like an event lost for a certainty to the Americans, had in a moment been turned into a possibility. McGregor had taken his last jump without changing the situation in any way. Thereafter he devoted himself to encouraging Armstrong, whose magnificent leap had raised the hopes of the whole American contingent. "You have him now, Frank," McGregor whispered as, with arm over Frank's shoulder, the two walked down the runway. "He let himself get cold, and I'll bet he can't reach twenty-three feet again."