Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/211

Rh ing to recover his equilibrium at the earliest possible moment and, in that effort, making his second step a kind of leap in the air and wrenching his head and shoulders backward with an awkward and often painful motion. The result had been that for at least a half-dozen strides he had been "running up and down." Having once grasped the "why and wherefor," Perry found that the crouching start was the simplest thing in the world! Not that he mastered it that afternoon or for many succeeding afternoons, but each time it came easier and eventually he found that he could reach his stride within three or four steps of the mark and at twenty yards be running at top speed.

That afternoon's work-out ended with a "hustle" over the two-twenty, and when, slowing up from that, Perry turned to seek Skeet and report, he caught a glimpse of Fudge, far down the field, hopping ludicrously on one foot with a shot poised in upstretched hand. Perry smiled sympathetically as the shot sped away for a scant thirty feet. Fudge, he feared, was not making a howling success of his athletic endeavors. There was a rumor of an impending cut in the squad and Perry wondered whether he and Fudge would survive it. He almost dared to think that he would, for, excepting Lanny and Kirke and, possibly, Soper, his work