nist all untried and unknown,
for anyone could see that Mack has not yet thrown his best, he may be
called upon to surrender within the next few minutes the proud position
he has held so long in the athletic world. But there is not a sign
of excitement in his face. With great care, and with almost painful
deliberation, he balances the hammer for a moment or two, then
once--twice--and, with a tremendous quickening of speed,--thrice--he
swings, and his throw is made. A great throw it is, anyone can see, and
one that beats the winner. In hushed and strained silence the people
await the result.

"One hundred and twenty-one feet nine."

Then rises the roar that has been held pent up during the last few
nerve-racking minutes.

"It iss a good enough throw," said Black Duncan with a quiet smile, "but
there iss more in me yet. Now, lad, do your best and there will be no
hard feeling with thiss man whateffer happens."

Black Duncan's accent and idioms reveal the intense excitement that lies
behind his quiet face.

Mack takes the hammer.

"I will not beat it, you may be sure," he says. "But I will just take a
fling at it anyway."

"Now, Mack," says Cameron, "for the sake of all you love forget the
distance and show them the Braemar swing. Easy and slow."

But Mack waves him aside and stands pondering. He is "getting the idea."

"Man, do you see him?" whispers his brother Danny, who stands near to
Cameron. "I believe he has got it."

Cameron nods his head. Mack wears an impressive air of confidence and
strength.

"It will be a great throw," says Cameron to Danny.

"Easy and slow" Mack poises the great hammer in his hand, swinging it
gently backward and forward as if it had been a boy's toy, the great
muscles in arms and back rippling up and down in firm full waves under
his white skin, for he is now stripped to the waist for this throw.

Suddenly, as if at command, the muscles seem to spring to their places,
tense, alert. "Easy." Yes, truly, but by no means "slow." "Easy," the
great hammer swings about his head in whirling circles, swift and ever
swifter. Once--and twice--the great muscles in back and arms and back
and legs knotted in bunches--thrice!

"Ah-h-h!" A long, wailing, horrible sound, half moan, half cry, breaks
from the people. Mack has missed his direction, and the great hammer,
weighted with the potentialities of death, is describing a parabola high
over the heads of the crowding, shrieking, scatterin