The night before the Lakerim contingent went back to the Kingston Academy, another grand reception was given in their honor at the club-house; and the Dozen made more speeches and assumed an air of greater magnificence than ever.

But, nevertheless, they were just a trifle sorry that they had to leave their old happy hunting-ground.  But there was some consolation in the thought that the life at the Academy would not be one glittering revel of studies and classes.  For the Dozen believed, as it believed nothing else, that all play and no work makes Jack a dull boy.

The general average of the Dozen in the matter of studies was satisfactory enough; for, while Sleepy was always at the bottom of his classes, and probably the laziest and stupidest of all the students at Kingston, History was certainly at the head of his classes, and probably the most brilliant of all the students at Kingston.

With these two at the opposite poles, the rest of the Dozen worked more or less hard and faithfully, and kept a very decent pace.

But the average attainment of the Dozen in the field of athletics was far more than satisfactory.

It was brilliant.

For, while there was one man (History) who was not quite the all-round athlete of the universe, and was not good at anything more muscular than chess and golf, the eleven others had each his specialty and his numerous interests.

They believed, athletically, in knowing everything about something, and something about everything.

The winter went blustering along, piling up snows and melting them again, only to pile up more again.  And the wind raved in very uncertain humors.  But, snow or thaw, the Dozen was never at a loss to know what to do.

Finally January was gone, and February, that sawed-off month, was dawdling along its way toward that great occasion which gives it its chief excuse for being on the calendar Washington’s Birthday.

From time immemorial it had been the custom at Kingston to celebrate the natal anniversary of the Father of his Country with all sorts of disgraceful rioting and un-Washingtonian cavorting.  The Lakerim Twelve were not the ones to throw the weight of their influence against any traditions that might add dignity to the excitements of school-book life.

Of the part they took in raising the flag on the tower of the chapel, and in defending that flag, and in tearing down a dummy raised in their colors by the Crows in the public square of the village of this and many other delightfully improper pranks there is no room to tell here; and you must rest content with hearing of the important athletic affair the affair which more truly and fittingly celebrated the anniversary of the birth of this great man, who was himself one of the finest specimens of manhood and one of the best athletes our country has ever known.

The athletic association from a neighboring school, known as the Brownsville School for Boys, had sent the Kingstonians an offer to bring along a team of cross-country runners to scour the regions around Kingston in competition with any team Kingston would put forth.

The challenge was cordially accepted at once, and the Brownsville people sent over John Orton, the best of their cross-country runners, to look over a course two days in advance, and decide upon the path along which he should lead his team.  It was agreed that the course should be between six and eight miles long.  The runners should start from the Kingston gymnasium, and report successively at the Macomb farm-house, which was some distance out of Kingston, and was cut off by numerous ditches and gullies; then at the railway junction two miles out of Kingston; then at a certain little red school-house, and then at the finish in front of the campus.  It was agreed that the two teams should start in different directions and touch at these points in the reverse order.  Each captain was allowed to choose his own course, and take such short cuts as he would, the three points being especially chosen with a view to keeping the men off the road and giving them plenty of fence-jumping, ditch-taking, and obstacle-leaping of all sorts.

The race was to have been run off in the afternoon; but the train was late, and the Brownsvillers did not arrive until just before supper.  It was decided, after a solemn conference, that the race should be run in spite of the delay, and as soon as the supper had had a ghost of a chance to digest.  The rising of a full and resplendent moon was a promise that the runners should not be entirely in the dark.

Tug and the Brownsville chief, Orton, had made careful surveys of the course they were to run over.  It was as new to Tug as to the Brownsville man.  Each of the two had planned his own short cuts, and even if they had been running over the course in the same direction they would have separated almost immediately.  But when the signal-shot that sent them off in different directions rang out, they were standing back to back, and did not know anything of each other’s whereabouts until they met again, face to face, at the end of the course.

The teams consisted of five men each.  The only Lakerim men on the Kingston team were Tug, the chief, who had been a great runner of 440-yard races, and Sawed-Off, who had won the half-mile event on various field-days.  The other three were Stage, Bloss, and MacManus.  All of them were stocky runners and inured to hardship.

They had come out of the gymnasium in their bathrobes; and when the signal to start was given, the spectators in their warm overcoats felt chills scampering up and down their ribs as they noticed that all the men of both teams, when they had thrown off their bath-robes, stood clad only in running-shoes, short gymnasium-trunks, and jerseys.

But their heat was to come from within, and once they were started, cold was the least of their trials.

The two teams broke away from each other at the gymnasium, and bolted at a wide angle straight across the campus.  They all took the first fence in perfect form, as if they were thoroughbred hunters racing after a fox.

Quiz and one or two other of the bicycle enthusiasts attempted to follow one or the other of the two packs; but they avoided the road so completely that the bicyclists soon lost them from sight, and returned to watch the finish.

The method of awarding the victory was this:  the different runners were to be checked off as they passed the different stages of the course, and crossed off as they came across the finish-line.  Each man was thus given the number of his place in the finish, and the total of the numbers earned by each team decided the match, the team having the smaller number winning.  Thus the first man in added the number 1 to the total score of his side, while the last man in added 10 to his.

Tug had explained to his runners, before they started out, that team-work was what would count that he wished his men to keep together, and that they were to take their orders all from him.

After the first enthusiasm of a good brisk start to get steam and interest up, Tug slowed his pace down to such a gait as he thought could be comfortably maintained through the course.

The Brownsville leader, Orton, however, being a brilliant cross-country runner himself, set his men too fierce a pace, and soon had upon his hands a pack of breathless stragglers.

Tug vigorously silenced any attempt at conversation among his men, and advised them to save their breath for a time soon to come when they would need it badly.

His path led into a heavy woods, very gloomy under the dim moonlight; and he had many an occasion to yell with pain and surprise as a low branch stung him across the head.  But all he permitted himself to exclaim was a warning cry to the others: 

“Low bridge!”

The grove was so blind (save for the little clearing at Roden’s Knoll, which Tug and Sawed-Off recognized with a groan of pride) that the men’s shins were barked and their ankles turned at almost every other step, it seemed.  But Tug would not permit any of them the luxury of complaint.

In time they were out of the wood and into the open.  But here it seemed that their troubles only increased; for, where the main difficulty in the forest was to avoid obstacles, the chief trouble in the plain was to conquer them.  There were many barbed-wire fences to crawl through, the points clutching the bare skin and tearing it painfully at various spots.  The huge Sawed-Off suffered most from these barbs, but he only gasped: 

“I’m punctured.”

There were long, steep hills to scramble up and to jolt down.  There were little gullies to leap over, and brooks to cross on watery stepping-stones that frequently betrayed the feet into icy water.

After vaulting gaily over one rail fence, and scooting jauntily along across a wide pasture, the Kingstonians were surprised to hear the sound of other footsteps than theirs, and they turned and found a large and enthusiastic bull endeavoring to join their select circle.

Perhaps this bovine gentleman was, after all, their very best friend, for nowhere along the whole course did they attain such a burst of speed as then.  Indeed, none of the five could remember a time in his life when he made such a spurt.

They reached and scaled a stone wall, however, in time to shake off the company of this inhospitable host.  In the next field there were two or three skittish colts, which they scared into all manner of hysterical behavior as they sped across.

Down a country lane they turned for a short distance; and a farmer and his wife, returning home from a church sociable, on seeing these five white figures flit past in a minimum of clothing, thereafter always vowed that they had seen ghosts.

As the runners trailed past a farm-house with never a light to show upon its front, there was a ferocious hullabaloo, something between the angry snorting of a buffalo and the puffing of a railroad engine going up a steep grade.  It was the wolfish welcome of three canine brigands, the bloodthirsty watch-dogs that surrounded and guarded this lonely and poverty-stricken little farm-house from the approach of any one evil- or well-intentioned.

Those dogs must have been very sorry they spoke; for when they came rushing forward cordially to take a few souvenir bites out of the Lakerim team, Tug and the others stopped short and turned toward them.

“Load!” cried Tug.

And every mother’s son of the five picked up three or four large rocks from the road.

“Aim!” cried Tug.

And every father’s son of the five drew back a strong and willing arm.

“Fire!” cried Tug.

And every grandfather’s and grandmother’s grandson of the five let fly with a will the rocks his hands had found upon the road.

Those dogs must have felt that they were caught out in the heaviest hail-storm of their whole experience.  Their blustering mood disappeared in an instant, and they turned for home, yelping like frightened puppies; nor did they forget, like Bo-peep’s sheep, to take their tails with them, neatly tucked between their legs.

Past as the cross-country dogs ran in one direction, the cross-country humans ran in the opposite.

Now that they were on a good pike road, some of them were disposed to sprint, particularly the fleet-footed Stage, who could far outrun Tug or any of the team.

But Tug thought that wisdom lay in keeping his team well in hand, and he did not approve of running on in advance any more than he approved of straggling.  Thus the enthusiastic Stage, rejoicing in his airy heels, suddenly found himself deserted, Tug having seen fit to leave the road for a short cut across the fields; and Stage had to run back fifty yards or more and spend most of his surplus energy in catching up with the team.

It was a merry chase Tug led his weary crew:  through one rough ravine where the hillside flowed out from under their feet and followed them down, and where they must climb the other side on slippery earth, grasping at a rock here and a root there; then through one little strip of forest that offered him an advantageous-short cut.  Here again he silenced the protests of his men at the thick underbrush and the frequent brambles they encountered.  Just at the edge of this little grove Tug put on an extra burst of speed, and was running like the wind.  The others, following to the best of their ability, saw him about to pass between two harmless posts.

Suddenly they also saw him throw up his hands and fall over backward.  When they reached him they saw that he had run into a barbed-wire fence in the dark.