But McGregor was mistaken. Vare, the champion, after he had had more life rubbed into his muscles, shot down the runway and cleared twenty-three feet, one inch and a half. A little scattering cheer from the Englishmen, and Vare sat down on the jumpers' bench, his face showing the relief he felt. "I'm all right now," he said to an anxious, inquiring teammate, "but I felt jolly well frozen those first two jumps, though." "The meet," bawled the announcer, facing the grand stand, "now stands six events for America and six for England, with the broad-jump still to be decided. Vare, of Oxford, has the longest jump to his credit--twenty-three feet, one and a half inches, which he made in breaking the tie created by Armstrong, of Yale, with a jump of twenty-three feet, which is _his_ best at present." At this moment Captain Harrington came onto the track in street clothes. He walked up to Frank: "Armstrong," he said, "Jack told me all about your troubles getting here. I want to tell you you made a game fight to correct the original mistake. I know you were personally not at fault. Here's my hand on it!" Frank took the proffered hand. His captain had taken him back into the fold, and his heart swelled almost to the bursting point with sudden joy. If Frank needed anything to make him unbeatable that afternoon, the thing had come to pass. "I'll try to justify your faith in me," was all he said, but his eyes shone with a new light. Coming down the runway with a surpassing rush of speed, he hit the take-off perfectly on his next trial, and soared into the air. Spectators, who saw him, said afterward that he seemed to take a step at the highest point of his flight, but it was only the first appearance of the famous "scissors hitch" used by other great jumpers before him, and which he had simply happened on, in his endeavor to get great distance. He struck squarely on his feet in almost a sitting posture, but his impetus carried him forward so powerfully that he pitched head-first into the soft loam of the pit. He held every inch of his great jump, however. For it was a great jump. That could be seen by anyone, and the officials and trackmen gathered around while a careful measurement was taken. The serene Vare was sufficiently stirred himself to crowd close to the pit. "What is it, what is it?" snapped Harrington who could hardly await the rather deliberate speech of the man at the end of the steel tape, who was taking his time to make certain. "Twenty-three feet, four inches!" The cheer of the small group of men on the track itself was taken as a good omen by the Americans in the stand, and these latter at once delivered themselves of a full-grown yell, which echoed back from the brick dwellings which surround the field. "Twenty-three feet, four inches!" came the announcement, bawled to all sides of the field through the megaphone, and again the American yells broke out.