Below the judges' stand, in front of which ran the tape, a crowd of forty or fifty persons had assembled. Fully half the crowd was made up of members of the club, young, middle-aged, and a few with gray in their hair--all devotees of clean, wholesome American sport. The other half of the crowd consisted mostly of high-school boys who were furnishing the majority of candidates for the try-out. Matt, to whom the major had called the governor's attention, had leaped lightly over the fence that guarded the farther side of the track. Lined up just back of the fence were Susie McReady, Chub and Welcome Perkins. They had come to see the try-out, hoping against hope that something would happen to make Matt change his mind and become a candidate in the bike event. Leaning against the top rail of the fence, Matt stood watching the busy officers of the club and listening to the incessant clamor of the high-school boys. "'Rah! 'rah! 'rah! Do or die! Phoenix! Phoenix! Phoenix High!" The athletic clubs of both Phoenix and Prescott were for the encouragement of amateurs. Professionals were barred. The clubs could pick up material for their rival contests wherever they chose so long as they did not enlist any one who had ever competed for a money prize. There was an odd expression on Matt King's open, handsome face as he looked and listened--a touch of wistfulness, it might be, softening the almost steelly resolution of his gray eyes. "What do you know about him, major?" asked the governor, staring across the track through the cigar-smoke and feeling an instinctive admiration for the trim, boyish figure in cap, sweater and knickerbockers. "Our acquaintance lasted less than an hour, and was mighty informal," chuckled the major. "I was returning from the Indian School in my motor-car, about a week ago, when along comes that boy on his wheel. He tried to go by, and--well, when I'm out for a spin in that six-thousand-dollar car I'm not letting anything on hoofs or wheels throw sand in my face. I tells the driver to speed her up, and by and by we have the boy's legs working like piston-rods. He was still abreast of us when some confounded thing or other slips a cog under the bonnet; then we begin to sputter and buckjump, and finally stop dead. The boy gives us the laugh and goes on.