as the man came on, then, pretty gave a terrific backward slash that caught the tramps uninjured shin. it was a beauteous shot, and sent the fellow to his hunkers, actually boohooing with agony. and now, with another fine long sweep, this time upward, pretty sent a smashing blow at the third tramps upraised arm. the force of the stroke was alone strong enough to send the knife flying; but, by the addition of a bit of good luck, pretty caught the wretch on his crazy bone, and set him to such a caterwauling as cats sing of midnights on a back-yard fence. leaving the battered three graces to their different dances, pretty picked up the knife he had knocked from the hand of the third, and sauntered homeward, adjusting his somewhat ruffled collar and tie as he went, with magnificent self-possession. on his way he met the party of rescuers sent to him by enid, who had managed to reach town in rapid time. pretty calmly sent them back to pick up the three tramps he had left; and these gentlemen were stowed away in the lakerim jail, where they cracked rock and thought of their cracked bones till long after prettys christmas vacation was over. as for enid, i will leave you to guess whether or no she thought pretty the greatest hero of his age,or any age,and whether or no she gossiped his bravery all around lakerim long after the dozen were away again in kingston. xxii the night before the lakerim contingent went back to the kingston academy, another grand reception was given in their honor at the club-house; and the dozen made more speeches and assumed an air of greater magnificence than ever. but, nevertheless, they were just a trifle sorry that they had to leave their old happy hunting-ground. but there was some consolation in the thought that the life at the academy would not be one glittering revel of studies and classes. for the dozen believed, as it believed nothing else, that all play and no work makes jack a dull boy. the general average of the dozen in the matter of studies was satisfactory enough; for, while sleepy was always at the bottom of his classes, and probably the laziest and stupidest of all the students at kingston, history was certainly at the head of his classes, and probably the most brilliant of all the students at kingston. with these two at the opposite poles, the rest of the dozen worked more or less hard and faithfully, and kept a very decent pace. but the average attainment of the dozen in the field of athletics was far more than satisfactory. it was brilliant. for, while there was one man (history) who was not quite the all-round athlete of the universe, and was not good at anything more muscular than chess and golf, the eleven others had each his specialty and his numerous interests. they believed, athletically, in knowing everything about something, and something about everything. the winter went blustering along, piling up snows and melting them again, only to pile up more again. and the wind raved in very uncertain humors. but, snow or thaw, the dozen was never at a loss to know what to do. finally january was gone, and february, that sawed-off month, was dawdling along its way toward that great occasion which gives it its chief excuse for being on the calendarwashingtons birthday. from time immemorial it had been the custom at kingston to celebrate the natal anniversary of the father of his country with all sorts of disgraceful rioting and un-washingtonian cavorting. the lakerim twelve were not the ones to throw the weight of their influence against any traditions that might add dignity to the excitements of school-book life. 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 villageof 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 affairthe 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 others 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. 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