When the home-stretch was reached in that first lap Allan set his legs to faster work, and as he crossed the line and completed the eighth of his distance, supporters of the Purple shook their heads. It wouldn’t do, they murmured; he would run himself out in the first mile and a half. Even Kernahan was a little worried, though nothing of the sort showed on his face. At the end of the second lap Allan had not abated his speed a jot. As he passed the groups around the finish and the tents, his eyes were set straight ahead, his long strides clung closely to the inner rim of the track and he was holding himself well erect. Into his cheeks the blood was creeping and dyeing them crimson, save for two disks that showed whiter and whiter as the contest wore on. Behind Allan ran an unknown Robinson man, then Hooker, then Tammen, then Burns. Conroy was dangerously far back, and, with others in his neighborhood, was showing that he didn’t approve of the pace. Of all distances, the two miles is the hardest to run. Speed as a factor in success is largely eliminated, and endurance is the supreme test. The race requires a large courage on the part of the runner, the courage to endure. It has been said, and truly, that it takes a fast man for the sprints and a brave man for the distances. At the completion of the fourth lap it is safe to say that five of the six runners were as completely and hopelessly beaten as though the race was finishing. Their legs dragged, their heads were falling back, and their lungs were aching. But it had been the fastest half of a two-mile race ever run on Erskine Field. Of those in the van of the long line of runners, which now stretched half-way around the oval, only three maintained their form at the beginning of the fifth lap; those were Allan, Burns, and Tammen. Save that the unknown Robinson man who had held second place at the beginning had dropped back to fifth position, the order was unchanged. Between Allan and his team-mate, Hooker, there was three yards of cinders; between Hooker and Tammen, five yards more. Back of Tammen, only a stride separating them, ran Burns, untroubled, and holding his own with great, long, easy strides. The turf was strangely green, for the low slanting beams of the sun bathed it in their golden glow. The stands were almost deserted, for the occupants were clustered all along the home-stretch, their eager gaze following the white-clad figures on the darkening track. If Allan’s form was still nearly what it had been at the beginning of the race, it must not be supposed that the mile had not told. Usually the two-miler finishes the half-distance in comparatively unwearied condition and faces his troubles from then on, but Allan had set a fast pace, and it had told on him, in spite of appearances. He felt as he usually did at the end of the mile and a half, and he wondered troubledly if he had not overdone it.