Cinder Path Tales

8 CINDER-PATH TALES me no superfluous flesh, and it must be a bad track indeed which could pull me back to eleven. We talked and smoked until a little after ten, when I pleaded fatigue and went up­ stairs tobed. Hackingagreeing to call me at six o'clock thefollowing morning, as he said he had reasons for wishing the trial private. He showed me to a very comfortable room on the second floor,which seemed luxurious after my experiences of the last two weeks. Although I had left home without the formalities of farewell calls, and under the cover of the night, Ihad put in my luggage, small as it was, a pair of running shoes, trunks, andjersey. Why I did this I could not have told; certainly not in expectation of using themagain, forI thought therewas no sport in America, and that Ihad run my last race. I think now it must have been the uncon­ scious wish to keep one linkwith the good old days when I had carried the " dark blue " to the front, or thereabout, over brown cinder path andsoft green sod. I did not sleep very well for all my comfortable quarters, and when Hacking knocked at my door on the following morn­ ing I had been up an hour or more, and was clad in full running togs,having ripped