Spectators at this end of the line strain
their eyes and wish they had taken their post nearer the flagstaff.

The wave of cheers is coming back again. Now we can see. Katrinka is
ahead!

She passes the Van Holp pavilion. The next is Madame van Gleck's. That
leaning figure gazing from it is a magnet. Hilda shoots past Katrinka,
waving her hand to her mother as she passes. Two others are close now,
whizzing on like arrows. What is that flash of red and gray? Hurray,
it is Gretel! She, too, waves her hand, but toward no gay pavilion. The
crowd is cheering, but she hears only her father's voice. "Well done,
little Gretel!" Soon Katrinka, with a quick, merry laugh, shoots past
Hilda. The girl in yellow is gaining now. She passes them all, all
except Gretel. The judges lean forward without seeming to lift their
eyes from their watches. Cheer after cheer fills the air; the very
columns seem rocking. Gretel has passed them. She has won.

"Gretel Brinker, one mile!" shouts the crier.

The judges nod. They write something upon a tablet which each holds in
his hand.

While the girls are resting--some crowding eagerly around our frightened
little Gretel, some standing aside in high disdain--the boys form a
line.

Mynheer van Gleck drops the handkerchief this time. The buglers give a
vigorous blast! The boys have started!

Halfway already! Did ever you see the like?

Three hundred legs flashing by in an instant. But there are only twenty
boys. No matter, there were hundreds of legs, I am sure! Where are they
now? There is such a noise, one gets bewildered. What are the people
laughing at? Oh, at that fat boy in the rear. See him go! See him! He'll
be down in an instant; no, he won't. I wonder if he knows he is all
alone; the other boys are nearly at the boundary line. Yes, he knows it.
He stops! He wipes his hot face. He takes off his cap and looks about
him. Better to give up with a good grace. He has made a hundred friends
by that hearty, astonished laugh. Good Jacob Poot!

The fine fellow is already among the spectators, gazing as eagerly as
the rest.

A cloud of feathery ice flies from the heels of the skaters as they
"bring to" and turn at the flagstaffs.

Something black is coming now, one of the boys--it is all we know. He
has touched the vox humana stop of the crowd; it fairly roars. Now they
come nearer--we can see the red cap. There's Ben--there's Peter--there's
Hans!

Hans is ahead! Young Madame van Gend