They had come out of the gymnasium in their bathrobes; and when the signal to start was given, the spectators in their warm overcoats felt chills scampering up and down their ribs as they noticed that all the men of both teams, when they had thrown off their bath-robes, stood clad only in running-shoes, short gymnasium-trunks, and jerseys.

But their heat was to come from within, and once they were started, cold was the least of their trials.

The two teams broke away from each other at the gymnasium, and bolted at a wide angle straight across the campus.  They all took the first fence in perfect form, as if they were thoroughbred hunters racing after a fox.

Quiz and one or two other of the bicycle enthusiasts attempted to follow one or the other of the two packs; but they avoided the road so completely that the bicyclists soon lost them from sight, and returned to watch the finish.

The method of awarding the victory was this:  the different runners were to be checked off as they passed the different stages of the course, and crossed off as they came across the finish-line.  Each man was thus given the number of his place in the finish, and the total of the numbers earned by each team decided the match, the team having the smaller number winning.  Thus the first man in added the number 1 to the total score of his side, while the last man in added 10 to his.

Tug had explained to his runners, before they started out, that team-work was what would count—­that he wished his men to keep together, and that they were to take their orders all from him.

After the first enthusiasm of a good brisk start to get steam and interest up, Tug slowed his pace down to such a gait as he thought could be comfortably maintained through the course.

The Brownsville leader, Orton, however, being a brilliant cross-country runner himself, set his men too fierce a pace, and soon had upon his hands a pack of breathless stragglers.

Tug vigorously silenced any attempt at conversation among his men, and advised them to save their breath for a time soon to come when they would need it badly.

His path led into a heavy woods, very gloomy under the dim moonlight; and he had many an occasion to yell with pain and surprise as a low branch stung him across the head.  But all he permitted himself to exclaim was a warning cry to the others: 

“Low bridge!”

The grove was so blind (save for the little clearing at Roden’s Knoll, which Tug and Sawed-Off recognized with a groan of pride) that the men’s shins were barked and their ankles turned at almost every other step, it seemed.  But Tug would not permit any of them the luxury of complaint.

In time they were out of the wood and into the open.  But here it seemed that their troubles only increased; for, where the main difficulty in the forest was to avoid obstacles, the chief trouble in the plain was to conquer them.  There were many barbed-wire fences to crawl through, the points clutching the bare skin and tearing it painfully at various spots.  The huge Sawed-Off suffered most from these barbs, but he only gasped: