a bit more sand he would have won. The Other Man had already won his brilliant victory in the hundred when the Vandalia Miler was beaten. A lot of people were congratulating him and the trainer of one of the State universities had just promised him board and tuition if he would enter there that fall as the Miler staggered over the line. The Other Man said things to the trainer and told him that he guessed he'd mistaken his man. "Where we're going," and he smiled at the Vandalia Miler as he helped him to the dressing-room, "they don't have profes sionals on the team!" The Vandalia Miler didn't say anything-you can't say much just after you've run yourself out in a mile race-but just as soon as he could, he pulled on his clothes. He was special correspondent for the Vandalia Blade. They had made him feel very proud and important a couple of days before when they had asked him to "rush in a thousand words after the games, just as soon as he could jump on a wire." So he dragged himself over to the railroad station and jumped on the wire. It was not what you would call a creative mood. But he sent the story. By biting his lip and stopping every little while he told all about it, while little black spots chased each other up the paper, and the rest who had been beaten were coming to and the Other Man was making friends with the prep.-school stars and promising to look them up when he got down East. lamps he could see the girls slipping their light scarfs over their shoulders, and now and then far down a cross-street catch the glimmer of white through the trees. The sidewalk was narrow, with a picket-fence on one side and big elms on the other, and every little while he and his suit-case would have to flatten up against the fence while a couple passed him, with low words, perhaps, that he couldn't hear, and a ripple of laughter, white dresses-whiter in the dark When the story was off the wire he went back to the boarding-house and lay down on the tall feather-bed. He was still there when the Other Man came up to dress for the dance that was to be given for the visit--and a breath of perfume in the air after ing teams that night in the college gym. The Other Man began early because, with only a little wavy mirror and a smelly kerosene lamp, a wet hair-brush and a straight stand-up collar about as high as a cuff, it takes one quite a while to make one's self look like a Gibson man. The Other Man spatted down his hair in the light of the little lamp and whistled between his teeth; the Vandalia Miler lay on the feather-bed staring at the whitewashed ceiling and thinking. He couldn't ask the belle of the ball down to the football game next autumn; he couldn't promise to send back a college pin for a red satin pillow with a white initial on it and bet boxes of Huyler's on sure things with all the girls who wanted to lose and make tobacco-pouches for him. He couldn't put on any dog at all. It was back to the tall grass for him. 66 they had gone. The station was deserted and silent as the tomb. The only sign of life was the lamp shining through the window and the sleepy telegraph operator nodding over his key. The Vandalia Miler chucked his suit-case against the wall and began tramping up and down, counting the number of steps from one end of the platform to the other. After a long while, he went over to the little grocery across the street, bought a box of "sweet caps" and smoked them relentlessly, one after another, inhaling the last two or three, to convince himself that he was hardened to all things and didn't care. Really, though, things were getting more and more on his nerves, and he did care. Hours, it seemed, dragged away. He sat on the baggage-truck, trying not to listen. It was clear moonlight, still, and clear as a bell. The gym where they were Better hurry up and get ready," said dancing was only a few blocks away, behind the Other Man, puffing over his tie. "Don't think I'll go," said the Vandalia Miler. Hemumbled something about having a headache and feeling pretty dopy. "What's the sport, anyway," he added, "meeting a lot of girls you're never going to see again?" He was, you see, in a pretty bad way. The Other Man turned round and stared. Then he laughed. Such remarks were not worth a reply. "See you there!" he chirped presently. Then, with his trousers turned up an extra reef and his straw hat stuck on one side— all very rakish and kinky-he blew out and down the stairs, three steps at a time. The Vandalia Miler thought some more. After a while he got up, stretched, and rubbed his eyes. Then he jammed his running clothes into his suit-case-they weren't going to be much use to him any more-and started for the station. Every body in Pardeeville was going to the dance. On the front porches in the light of the hall the trees, and on the other side of the track was open prairie. There wasn't a sound there on the station platform except the clicking of the telegraph key, and he could hear the faint music of the violins and the toot-toot of the cornet coming over the trees. It was after midnight when the train thundered in. He was in his seat, with his hat pulled down over his eyes, when the rest came down the street on the run and the Other Man, panting and excited, bounced into the seat beside him. The Other Man had to tell about it, whether anyone listened or not-what she said and he said, and how she cut her dances right and left to sit 'em out with him and came down to within half a block of the station to see him off. And then there was a waltz that the Other Man wasn't ever going to forget "the finest waltz I ever hope to hear, and that's a fact." The Vandalia Miler stood it for a long time. Once he sat up suddenly and jammed on his hat. "For heaven's sake forget it!" he said. "Aren't you ever going to get over being a kid?" The Vandalia Miler, you see, had had to get over being a kid in twenty-four hours, and it didn't come so easy. "Whatever's wrong with you?" laughed the Other Man. "Never saw anybody so peevish in my life!" And he began to whistle the tune harder than ever. The train was a milk-train. It stopped at every cross-roads. It was stiflingly hot and smelly in the car, and the Other Man kept on humming, steadily as a pianola, and keeping time by snapping his fingers, but for all that, the Vandalia Miler finally dropped asleep. He dreamed that he was down East, after all, and winning the mile, down a track about like a sublimated skating-rink, with an audience of a billion or two people, rising to him from a sort of stadium made of pure white marble and gold. He was just being heaved up in the air by the frantic populace when he woke up. And the Other Man was shaking him by the arm and telling him that they were back in Vandalia. He didn't need anyone to tell him that. It was growing light as they stepped off the train-that dead-tothe-world time of night when the lamps are getting pale. He was just blinking his eyes open and seeing the old station and the lumber-yard and the Waldorf Café, and everything inside him seemed to be caving in, when the Other Man, still up in the air and keen as a mink, began to bray out his everlasting waltz. The Vandalia Miler jumped as though you had shot off a revolver just behind his ear. He whirled round and almost yelled: "For heaven's sake, man, shut up!" The Other Man looked at him and laughed. "I don't see what license you've got to be so all-fired grouchy," he said. "If you'd two whole days and nights now and the al plates St He put his hands in his pockets and squeezed his finger-nails into his palms.-Page 298. what was coming, he shot out with his fist. The Other Man's hands were down, helpless. He caught it fairly on the tip of the jaw and went down in a heap, and the Vandalia Miler stood over him, half waiting to swing again, half scared at what he had done. The others rushed in to pull them apart, but the Other Man just jumped up with a grim little laugh, as though it was all a sort of joke and the Vandalia Miler a kind of wild man with bad manners. Then he walked ahead with the rest. All in all, it was about the completest thing he could have done. It left the Vandalia Miler, you see, quite on the outside. And that was the end of Damon and Pythias-and all their plans and dreams. The next day the Other Man went down East to tutor for his entrance exams. The Vandalia Miler went to work in the hardware store, selling frying-pans and shingle nails. The Vandalia Miler left the store in charge of the repair-shop man and started home for supper. He had just sold an improved gasoline stove to a farmer's wife from Vienna Centre who had never burned anything but wood, and he was considerably excited. He swung up State Street, whistling. There was a bulletin in the Blade window with letters in blue ink splashed on it a foot high. This is what he read-what stopped his whistling short: TRIUMPH OF VANDALIA BOY Underneath was a dispatch with a New York date-line, telling how the Other Man had won the intercollegiate mile at Mott Haven that afternoon. He felt his face getting hot. He put his hands in his pockets and squeezed his finger-nails into his palms so that folks wouldn't see. There was a beautiful picture framed up in his mind-a picture built up of Sunday supplements, stories in magazines, and the imagination of a young man who had never seen Mott Haven, and who stood on a wooden sidewalk on the main street of a fresh-water town a thousand miles away. It was a sort of composite of Henley and a Thanksgiving game, and the Other Man stood in the foreground in the afternoon sunshine, panting easily and smiling politely at the applause. In the two years that the Other Man had been away he hadn't come back even for his vacations, and he was getting to be a we-used-to-know-him-when-he-wasyoung sort of a man. There had been many stories about him in the Blade. News was rather scarce out there, and they liked to hear about each other. And every time the Other Man did anything the town people felt somehow that Vandalia had done it and were glad. There was considerable local pride in Vandalia. They would do anything for anybody who did something for the town. But the Vandalia Miler hadn't learned this yet. He got away with out being obliged to talk to anybody, and hurried home. There, without knowing just why, he unearthed his old running clothes, and just as the sun was setting that evening the Vandalia Miler started jogging round the old dirt track at the fair grounds, training again for the mile. They didn't go in very heavily for sport in those days in Vandalia, and everybody soon knew what he was doing and wondered why. The high-school boys came over of late afternoons and watched him run. Then they got to pacing him, and finally they asked him to help them get up a team to lick Sugar River. Sugar River was a town about twenty miles north of Vandalia. The only difference between the two towns to an outsider was that the one had an operahouse and a six-story hotel, and the other had ten blocks of brick paving. A football game between Vandalia and Sugar River would have made the '94 Springfield game look like an international peace congress at a vegetarian breakfast. The Vandalia Miler helped them with the team. He didn't know, of course, that it was about the most important thing he'd ever done in his life and he was thinking too much of himself and the Other Man to be very much interested. But he did it as well as he knew how. Sugar River annihilated them. They lost every point. It didn't especially increase Vandalia's love for Sugar River. The Vandalia Miler was embarrassed, but he kept up his own running, not training enough to get tired of it, or stale, but just enough to keep him fit and getting better. Some days he took a lot of little sprints, some a jog of five miles or so, some a rest or a bit of tennis, but no smoking, and all the time plenty of sleep. Sometimes he'd try it at sun-up, before the rest of the town was |