Of the part they took in raising the flag on the tower of the chapel, and in defending that flag, and in tearing down a dummy raised in their colors by the Crows in the public square of the village—­of this and many other delightfully improper pranks there is no room to tell here; and you must rest content with hearing of the important athletic affair—­the affair which more truly and fittingly celebrated the anniversary of the birth of this great man, who was himself one of the finest specimens of manhood and one of the best athletes our country has ever known.

The athletic association from a neighboring school, known as the Brownsville School for Boys, had sent the Kingstonians an offer to bring along a team of cross-country runners to scour the regions around Kingston in competition with any team Kingston would put forth.

The challenge was cordially accepted at once, and the Brownsville people sent over John Orton, the best of their cross-country runners, to look over a course two days in advance, and decide upon the path along which he should lead his team.  It was agreed that the course should be between six and eight miles long.  The runners should start from the Kingston gymnasium, and report successively at the Macomb farm-house, which was some distance out of Kingston, and was cut off by numerous ditches and gullies; then at the railway junction two miles out of Kingston; then at a certain little red school-house, and then at the finish in front of the campus.  It was agreed that the two teams should start in different directions and touch at these points in the reverse order.  Each captain was allowed to choose his own course, and take such short cuts as he would, the three points being especially chosen with a view to keeping the men off the road and giving them plenty of fence-jumping, ditch-taking, and obstacle-leaping of all sorts.

The race was to have been run off in the afternoon; but the train was late, and the Brownsvillers did not arrive until just before supper.  It was decided, after a solemn conference, that the race should be run in spite of the delay, and as soon as the supper had had a ghost of a chance to digest.  The rising of a full and resplendent moon was a promise that the runners should not be entirely in the dark.

Tug and the Brownsville chief, Orton, had made careful surveys of the course they were to run over.  It was as new to Tug as to the Brownsville man.  Each of the two had planned his own short cuts, and even if they had been running over the course in the same direction they would have separated almost immediately.  But when the signal-shot that sent them off in different directions rang out, they were standing back to back, and did not know anything of each other’s whereabouts until they met again, face to face, at the end of the course.

The teams consisted of five men each.  The only Lakerim men on the Kingston team were Tug, the chief, who had been a great runner of 440-yard races, and Sawed-Off, who had won the half-mile event on various field-days.  The other three were Stage, Bloss, and MacManus.  All of them were stocky runners and inured to hardship.