Matt was torn from the selfsame grip by Major Woolford. "You're the boy!" said the major. "No time to lose, for the starter is calling the men for the race. Here's your wheel. No time to change your clothes, but you can peel off your coat. McReady, help with his shoes." Matt threw off his cap and coat. Chub had unlaced one shoe and Susie the other. Matt kicked out of them and into lighter foot-gear. Then, with time for hardly a word, he grabbed the racing-wheel that was waiting for him, and made his way to the track. "Matt King is entered to race for Phoenix in the one-heat one-mile bicycle contest," the starter was yelling through a megaphone. "As King is not here, and as, according to the rules, the race starts at four sharp, Phoenix substitutes her second choice, Dace----" "_King is here!_" It was the booming voice of Major Woolford, just crossing the track to take his place in the judges' stand. Simultaneously with the words, Matt, in his nondescript racing-attire, made his way along the track toward the tape. There followed a breathless pause. Although the word had gone around that King was coming, the Prescott rooters tried to treat it as a canard. They didn't want King. Dace Perry, as Matt walked toward him, reeled back from his machine. His face went white as death, and a hopeless look arose in his eyes. Without a word he caught his machine by the handle-bars and made for the paddock. His thunderstruck adherents, Spangler, Drake and the others, were waiting to offer what consolation they could give. Following the breathless pause, a veritable roar went up from the grand stand and all around the track. It was a Phoenix roar, of course, and it was Phoenix people who stood on their seats, threw up hats and shook canes and handkerchiefs. The high-school boys, clustered together, let loose with their triumphant yell. Colors were waved--Phoenix colors--and the flags of Prescott High were temporarily retired. "King, King, King-King-King!" chanted Phoenix High, in unison. "Oh, he ain't so much!" came a feeble wail through a megaphone. "Hold your shouting until after the race!" "Drown him!" whooped Phoenix. "Send him to the asylum! Back, back to the padded cell!" O'Day took Matt's sizing with a troubled eye, then clenched his teeth. He would do his best--but he had doubts. A half-confidence is worse than no confidence at all. "Buck up, O'Day!" implored the Prescott rooters. "You can do the trick! Don't let him throw a scare into you. _He's ridden twenty miles and he must be about all in!_" That last was the key-note. When O'Day heard it he brightened. Matt was in from a trying trip, just in, and he had to go the round on a pound of crackers and cheese! But Prescott didn't know him. The two racers took their places, hugged by a couple of men at the saddles. "All ready?" _Bang!_ Matt was hurled down the track. For the first time since he had left Clip and Penny his feet were busy, more than busy. CHAPTER XVI.