Chapter IV

At the bottom of the course, with the long-heralded event slipping with the moments into history, and surrounded by their cheering fellow-collegians, the eyes of the contestants met again, nor did they waver, nor did a challenge leap between them. They smiled; their hands shot forth with one accord, met and clutched, and it was then that another cheer arose unlike those that had gone before--a cheer that was a cheer. As it ended, Jimmy Hulburt, in a moment of fine frenzy, for him, cried:

"I'm willing to bet ten dollars at two to one that Nibsey Morey can beat anybody runnin' that walks!"

Even that brave if paradoxical cry was cheered, and the sportive Jimmy looked about him valiantly. He felt a hand upon his arm in another instant and heard a voice above him. Lifting his eyes, he looked up into the stranger's face.

"What was your bet?" the soft voice inquired. Jimmy repeated it, none the less vigorously, at the same time pushing back to survey the uncouth figure of the man in the long coat, with a satchel dangling from his shoulder.

"I'll take it," the stranger said, simply.

Some one laughed, another called: "Shut up." As for Jimmy, he only stared at the absurd person before him, who had with such aggravating nonchalance picked up the glove that he had so bravely flung down.

"Are you a student here?" he asked.

"I entered to-day," was the reply, spoken in the same calm tones.

"Where you from?"

"Niles."

"So you want to take that bet?"

"I'm willing." He smiled most exasperatingly.

"When do you want to run?"

"Suit yourself."

"Say," Jimmy exclaimed, perhaps a shade angrily, "are you fooling? To hear you talk anybody'd think you wanted to run now."

"That would be all right. I will run now."

The laughter became general. The stranger only pulled at his cigar more quickly.

"Where are your togs?" Jimmy inquired scornfully.

"I've got them on." So saying he flung back his overcoat. He was ordinarily dressed.

The laughter broke out afresh.

Jimmy hesitated just one instant.

"Wait a moment, may be we can fix up a race," he cried, and pushing through the crowd he ran across the street to a confectionery store, where Nibs had gone with Billy for a soda. He burst in upon them out of breath. He told them of the wise fool over the way who needed a tuck taken in him.

"Will you run, Nibsey? Come on," he cried.

Nibs looked at Billy.

"Do it, do it," the latter urged.

"All right," Nibs agreed, and arm in arm with his backer he issued into the street, clutching his mackintosh about him.

The stranger had, meanwhile, walked back along the course followed by a great throng, anxious to witness what to them promised to be a _fiasco_ of immense proportions. Only three carriages had waited. The occupants perceiving the crowd at the lower end of the street had lingered for developments. In one of the carriages was Nibs Morey's sister Wilma. She called a youth to the wheel and questioned him concerning the throng which still surged in the street. The freshman explained gaily.

"And will Nibs run that great tall thing?" the girl inquired anxiously.

"Oh, don't you worry, Miss Morey," the little freshman replied consolingly. "He'll beat him so far he won't know he's running."

"But he's all tired out," she expostulated.

"Oh, no, he isn't. Only a little over a hundred yards."

A cry rang out just then, down the course, and Wilma, turning, caught a glimpse of her brother, surrounded by his supporters--and all the crowd supported him now--approaching the start.

She was moved to call him, to demand his instant withdrawal from this silly, useless race; but her voice--this she realized--would not have been heard above the shouting. She sank back upon the seat, her face flushed, her forehead furrowed with little lines, her fingers locking and unlocking.

Some one had stopped just behind the carriage. Afterward she was wont to say she had "felt" the presence; for, looking around and down, her eyes met those of the stranger. His were the first to drop before her unflinching, flashing gaze. Why he had stopped just there, the centre of a little group of the curious, he could never explain. It was only an instant, merely for the exchange of that glance perhaps, for he moved on again almost immediately, up the course, half running, stepping high, gracefully.

The double lines of spectators now were not so long nor so thick as they had been; nor did they manifest those signs of interest that had marked the earlier event.

At the start, the tall stranger removed neither his long overcoat nor his satchel. His cigar had gone out, but he still held it, cold, between his teeth.

Little Thurston, who was to fire the pistol a second time, exclaimed, amazedly: "Aren't you goin' to take off those things?"

"No, guess not," was the cool reply. "What's the use!"

Nibsey Morey, Billy Shaw and Jimmy exchanged glances; Billy smiled outright.

"Say," Jimmy snapped somewhat angrily. "Let's get a hustle on and end this--you willing?" He nodded toward the stranger.

"Quite."

"Then--ready!" cried the starter.

Again two figures, sadly matched, crouched at the start.

Another second and the pistol cracked.

Following the report, there was a little instant of dead silence in the street, then there broke forth pandemonium, for half way down the course, his coat tails flying, his satchel standing out behind, the cold cigar gripped tight between his teeth, the stranger led Nibs Morey by a rod. Twenty-five feet from the string, he turned, and running backward, beckoned with a crooked forefinger to the straining Mercury that he faced.

Not in all undergraduate history is there recorded an event which created more excitement on the campus after its occurrence than this.

Nibs Morey had defeated Billy Shaw; and a stranger who had sprung from the earth had defeated Nibs as no man before had ever been defeated.

They shook hands, honorably, after the event, but those who witnessed the incident forgot it immediately in the overwhelming curiosity regarding the newest risen champion among them.

"Who is he?" was the question on the lips of every youth and every maid--"Who is he?"

His name was Bunette, they said. His home? A tiny town on a west Michigan sand hill.

"What is he, then?" the voice of the campus cried. And it became known that he had entered the department of Medicine and Surgery.

And thus was a new god raised among men at whose shrine none worshiped with devotion more intense than Billy Shaw, and the erstwhile idol, Nibsey Morey, and to them and their brethren for all time he was given a name, and the name was "Bunny of '85."

THE CASE OF CATHERWOOD