A few days later the news flashed about the school that Strong had “passed off” his conditions. Wolcott and Poole knew how he had done it; others who had noticed his steady improvement in recitations were not so much amazed. But after all, the feeling uppermost seemed to be that his chances for the Hillbury meet were not what they had once been. At the Hillbury school contests the week before, Howes had done the hundred in ten and two-fifths, while Joslin had won the two-twenty in phenomenally fast time. So of these two races, which in the earlier estimates of the year had been credited to Strong, Seaton could hardly expect to win more than one. The school was discouraged, and so was Strong; but in answer to all the chatter of question and doubt, Salter and the trainer smiled wisely and imitated Brer Rabbit in saying nothing. They had held the watch on their man too many times to fear a newspaper hero. The Seaton-Hillbury games that year were among the closest ever held by the rival schools. Strong won the hundred yards early in the contest, proving to the doubters that he really could run in ten and a fifth. Joslin of Hillbury won the quarter mile. And then, as the hurdles and distances were run and the field events yielded their slow results, the figures posted on the great announcement board showed as leader now Hillbury, now Seaton, with every patriotic lad guessing from event to event in a delightful thrill of hope and apprehension. When the two-twenty, the last race of the day, was reached, the score stood Hillbury 40½, Seaton 39½, the schools having tied for third place in one event. Hillbury was jubilant, for was not this Joslin’s own event? The first prize counted five points, the second and third together but three. If Joslin won, Hillbury was victorious; if Joslin lost—but he could not lose! There was his record made but a few days before; no one now in Seaton had come near it. The timid Seatonian hushed his cheering and prepared himself for defeat; the braver cheered the more loudly to keep up his spirits. “If we only had Dickinson again for just five minutes,” said Poole, as he sat with Lindsay and Planter on the top bench, “I could enjoy every second of this race. As it is, I wish it were over. I’m terribly afraid Strong hasn’t sand enough to keep ahead of that Joslin on a long stretch. It would be horrible to get so near and then lose.” He drew a long breath and passed his hand hurriedly over his eyes to dispel the blur into which the strain of intense watching had plunged the distant figures. “Oh, pluck up!” returned Planter, whose less impetuous temperament stood better the strain of waiting. “A fellow who could lift himself out of probation as Strong has done has sand enough.” Wolcott smiled at the idea of Strong’s lifting himself out of probation, but he made no comment, while Poole was too intent on the white-clad figures across the end of the track to heed anything else.