第70章

"Who is this Cameron?" enquired the M.P.P., leaning over the platform railing.

Quick came the answer from the bevy of girls thronging past the platform.

"Cameron? He's our man!" It was Mandy's voice, bold and strong.

"Your man?" said the M.P.P., laughing down into the coarse flushed face.

"Yes, OUR man!" cried Isa MacKenzie back at him. "And a winner, you may be sure."

"Ah, happy man!" exclaimed the M.P.P. "Who would not win with such backers? Why, I would win myself, Miss Isa, were you to back me so. But who is Cameron?" he continued to the Methodist minister at his side.

"He is Haley's hired man, I believe, and that first girl is Haley's daughter."

"Poor thing!" echoed Mrs. Freeman, a kindly smile on her motherly face. "But she has a good heart has poor Mandy."

"But why 'poor'?" enquired the M.P.P.

"Oh, well," answered Mrs. Freeman with hesitation, "you see she is so very plain--and--well, not like other girls. But she is a good worker and has a kind heart."

Once more the runners face the starter, La Belle gay, alert, confident; Cameron silent, pale, and grim.

"All set? Go!" La Belle is away ere the word is spoken. The bell, however, brings him back, wrathful and less confident.

Once more they stand crouching over the scratch. Once more the word releases them like shafts from the bow. A beautiful start, La Belle again in the lead, but Cameron hard at his heels and evidently with something to spare. Thus for fifty yards, sixty, yes, sixty-five.

"La Belle! La Belle! He wins! He wins!" yell his backers frantically, the thin-faced man dancing madly near the finishing tape. Twenty yards to go and still La Belle is in the lead. High above the shouting rises Mack's roar.

"Now, Cameron! For the life of you!"

It was as if his voice had touched a spring somewhere in Cameron's anatomy. A great leap brings him even with La Belle. Another, another, and still another, and he breasts the tape a winner by a yard, time ten and three fifths seconds. The Maplehill folk go mad, and madder than all Isa and her company of girl friends.

"I got--one--bad--start--me! He--pull--me back!" panted La Belle to his backers who were holding him up.

"Who pulled you back?" indignantly cried the thin-faced man, looking for blood.

"That sacre startair!"

"You ran a fine race, La Belle!" said Cameron, coming up.

"Non! Peste! I mak heem in ten and one feeft," replied the disgusted La Belle.

"I have made it in ten," said Cameron quietly.

"Aha!" exclaimed La Belle. "You are one black horse, eh? So! I race no more to-day!"

"Then no more do I!" said Cameron firmly. "Why, La Belle, you will beat me in the next race sure. I have no wind."

Under pressure La Belle changed his mind, and well for him he did; for in the two hundred and twenty yards and in the quarter mile Cameron's lack of condition told against him, so that in the one he ran second to La Belle and in the other third to La Belle and Fullerton.

The Maplehill folk were gloriously satisfied, and Fatty in an ecstasy of delight radiated good cheer everywhere. Throughout the various contests the interest continued to deepen, the secretary, with able generalship, reserving the hammer-throwing as the most thrilling event to the last place. For, more than anything in the world, men, and especially women, love strong men and love to see them in conflict. For that fatal love cruel wars have been waged, lands have been desolated, kingdoms have fallen. There was the promise of a very pretty fight indeed between the three entered for the hammer-throwing contest, two of them experienced in this warfare and bearing high honours, the third new to the game and unskilled, but loved for his modest courage and for the simple, gentle heart he carried in his great body. He could not win, of course, for McGee, the champion of the city police force, had many scalps at his girdle, and Duncan Ross, "Black Duncan," the pride of the Zorras, the unconquered hero of something less than a hundred fights--who could hope to win from him? But all the more for this the people loved big Mack and wished him well. So down the sloping sides of the encircling hills the crowds pressed thick, and on the platform the great men leaned over the rail, while they lifted their ladies to places of vantage upon the chairs beside them.

"Oh, I cannot see a bit!" cried Isa MacKenzie, vainly pressing upon the crowding men who, stolidly unaware of all but what was doing in front of them, effectually shut off her view.

"And you want to see?" said the M.P.P., looking down at her.

"Oh, so much!" she cried.

"Come up here, then!" and, giving her a hand, he lifted her, smiling and blushing, to a place on the platform whence she with absorbing interest followed the movements of big Mack, and incidentally of the others in as far as they might bear any relation to those of her hero.

And now they were drawing for place.

"Aha! Mack is going to throw first!" said the Reverend Alexander Munro. "That is a pity."

"It's a shame!" cried Isa, with flashing eyes. "Why don't they put one of those older--ah--?"

"Stagers?" suggested the M.P.P.

"Duffers," concluded Isa.

"The lot determines the place, Miss Isa," said Mr. Freeman, with a smile at her. "But the best man will win."

"Oh, I am not so sure of that!" cried the girl in a distressed voice. "Mack might get nervous."

"Nervous?" laughed the M.P.P. "That giant?"

"Yes, indeed, I have seen him that nervous--" said Isa, and stopped abruptly.

"Ah! That is quite possible," replied the M.P.P. with a quizzical smile.

"And there is young Cameron yonder. He is not going to throw, is he?" enquired Mr. Munro.

"He is coaching Mack," explained Isa, "and fine he is at it. Oh, there! He is going to throw! Oh, if he only gets the swing! Oh!

Oh! Oh! He has got it fine!"

A storm of cheers followed Mack's throw, then a deep silence while the judges took the measurement.

"One hundred and twenty-one feet!"

"One hundred and twenty-one!" echoed a hundred voices in amazement.