Cinder Path Tales

128 CINDER-PATH TALES where are you? I'm sureI followed orders, and did not come too fast." Then hewould find Bates, and say content­ edly, "There you are, oldman, close up; I'll drop outnow, I'm almost gone;push out and win." Suddenly he wouldiscover it was the out­ sider, and would cry out with fevered lips, and try tobreak away from us and run. Then he would lie still, but in his mind was going over the agony of the finish again and again. He would turn to me and say excitedly, "You told me I need not finish. I can't run the ' half,' and you know it. It's dark, andthey haverun offwith the tape. I finished long ago,and still you makeme run." Sometimes he would drop his hands and say despairingly, " I cannot do it, I cannot reach the worsted; O God, I cannot! " Then he would discover Tom, who was almost as crazy as Teddy himself, and had been utterly useless from the time the hemor­ rhage setin. He wouldsay to Tom, " Don't look at me like that, old man; I know I lost the race, but I did my best, my very best, and ranclear out. Look at my cheek, where I fell; you must see I was dead beat." He would try to argue with Tom, whohad not a word to say, except of sorrow and self- reproach. He would look at Tom, and say.