ateful intervention. It was my winning of the first that won me the
second. I had just equalled the two-mile record, in the first....

I ran that half, blindly, like a mad man. I was drunk with joy over my
popularity ... for when I had gone into the big dining room for lunch,
all the boys had shouted and cheered and roared, and pounded the dishes
with their knives.

* * * * *

"Now, Gregory, you've just got to take the mile away from Learoyd ...
he's a junior ... you've just _got_ to!... besides, if you don't ...
there's Flammer has lost the broad jump ... and we won't win the class
banner after all."

Learoyd was a smallish, golden-faced, downy-headed boy ... almost an
albino.... I had seen him run ... he ran low to the ground, in flashes,
like some sort of shore-bird.

* * * * *

In the class-tent, alone. Dunn had driven my class out, where they had
been massaging and kneading my legs ... which trembled and tottered
under me, from the excessive use they had already undergone.

I sat down and put my head between my knees, and groaned. Then I
straightened out my right leg and rubbed it, because a cramp was
knotting it.

"Hello, Gregory!"

The tent-flap opened. The athletic director poked his head in.

"Come on, Gregory, we're waiting for you."

"Wait a minute, Smythe ... I want to pray," I replied simply. Reverently
he withdrew ... impressed ... awed....

I flung myself on my face.

"Look here, God, I'll really believe in you, if you give me this last
race ... it will be a miracle, God, if you do this for me, and I will
believe in your Bible, despite my common sense ... despite history ...
despite Huxley and Voltaire," then, going as far as I could--"yes, and
despite Shelley ... dear God, dear Christ, please do what I have asked."

My hand struck on a bottle of witch hazel as I rose. Impulsively, I
drank off half the contents. It sent a warmth through me. I straightened
up, invigorated.

"Come on, Gregory ... what's the matter?" it was Dunn, protesting,
"we'll have to run off the mile without you, if you don't come."

"I'm ready ... I'm coming."

* * * * *

All that I had in my head, when the pistol cracked, was to _run!_ ...
all I felt about me was only a pair of mad legs.

I licked out, neither seeing nor caring ... almost feeling my way along
the rim of the track with my toes, as I ran--as if I had rac