But his victory was not an altogether easy one, nor was it an assured one until the very finish. Four lads besides himself—each a winner in at least one previous contest of the afternoon—were pitted against each other for the final affair of the day, a mile walk.
The four were all taller than Kit, with longer legs and capable of greater stride. But he was known among the boys as a stayer. Moreover he possessed the faculty of keeping his wits about him notwithstanding much weariness of the flesh. Frequent practice had made him familiar with every foot of the track. He knew at what turns it declined and where it ascended, and just where over-tired feet would be apt to trip and fall.
The five boys had circled the half-mile course once, and as they passed the judge's stand each one was holding his own. Kit, Neil Morgan, and little Wilson were ahead and abreast, the other two slightly behind. In this order they continued for the next three hundred yards. Then Morgan pushed ahead, lengthening his stride and quickening his pace until he opened an awkward gap between himself and the others. Kit felt keenly the disadvantage of his short legs, but no effort he might make could disarrange geometrical certainties. The base of a triangle could not be made to measure more than the united length of its two other sides. He kept pluckily on, however, side by side with Wilson, neither gaining nor losing until they both reached a point on the track directly across from the grand stand, where for a distance of fifty feet a thicket of willows shut off their small figures from the judge's eyes. When they emerged from behind this screen, Wilson was seen not only in advance of Kit, but leading Morgan also by several feet.
Knowing his opportunity, he had taken advantage of it, and as soon as they were well within the shade of the trees he had broken
