Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/343

Rh silent. Partridge spun and the weight went hurtling through the air. But the result failed to equal his best throw.

"Now comes Fudge," whispered Lanny. "Gee, but I wish he might beat that Springdale chap. If we could get second place out of this we'd have the meet!"

"Would we?" asked Perry, startled. "I thought"

"Eight points would give us fifty-four and a half," said Lanny, "and that would be enough, wouldn't it? Funny Falkland is out of it. I thought he was almost as good as Harry."

Perry, dodging behind the heads and shoulders in front of him, saw Fudge throwing off his dressing-gown and step, a rotund but powerful-looking youth, into the ring. Applause greeted him. Fudge glanced around and was seen to wink gravely at someone in the throng. Then he placed the ball of the hammer at the back of the ring, closed his fingers about the handle and raised his shoulders. Silence fell once more and anxious faces watched as the hammer came off the ground and began to swing, slowly at first and then faster and faster above the whitewashed circle. Fudge's feet sped around, shifting like a dancer's, until he was well toward the front of the ring. Then his