Part 35 (1/2)

”You're getting it!” cried Cameron enthusiastically, ”but you are trying too hard. Forget the distance this time and think only of the easy slow swing. Let your muscles go slack.” So he coached his pupil.

At length, after many attempts, Mack succeeded in delivering his hammer according to instructions.

”Man! you are right!” he exclaimed. ”That's the trick of it and it is as smooth as oil.”

”Keep it up, Mack,” said Cameron, ”and always easy.”

Over and over again he put the big man through the swing till he began to catch the notion of the rhythmic, harmonious cooperation of the various muscles in legs and shoulders and arms so necessary to the highest result.

”You've got the swing, Mack,” at length said Cameron. ”Now then, this time let yourself go. Don't try your best, but let yourself out. Easy, now, easy. Get it first in your mind.”

For a moment Mack stood pondering. He was ”getting it in his mind.”

Then, with a long swing, easy and slow, he gave the great hammer a mighty heave. With a shout the company crowded about.

”Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven!

Hooray! bully for you, Mack. You are the lad!”

”Get the line on it,” said Mack quietly. The measuring line showed one hundred and eleven and a half feet. The boys crowded round him, exclaiming, cheering, patting him on the back. Mack received the congratulations in silence, then, turning to Cameron, said very earnestly:

”Man! yon's as easy as eating b.u.t.ter. You have done me a good turn to-day.”

”Oh, that's nothing, Mack,” said Cameron, who was more pleased than any of them. ”You got the swing perfectly that time. You can put twenty feet to that throw. One hundred and eleven feet! Why, I can beat that myself.”

”Man alive! Do you tell me now!” said Mack in amazement, running his eyes over Cameron's lean muscular body.

”I have done it often when I was in shape.”

”Oh, rats!” said Perkins with a laugh. ”Where was that?”

Cameron flushed a deep red, then turned pale, but kept silent.

”I believe you, my boy,” said Mack with emphasis and facing sharply upon Perkins, ”and if ever I do a big throw I will owe it to you.”

”Oh, come off!” said Perkins, again laughing scornfully. ”There are others that know the swing besides Scotty here. What you have got you owe to no one but yourself, Mack.”

”If I beat the man McGee next week,” said Mack quietly, ”it will be from what I learned to-night, and I know what I am saying. Man! it's a lucky thing we found you. But that will do for just now. Come along to the barn. Hooray for the pipes and the la.s.sies! They are worth all the hammers in the world!” And, putting his arm through Cameron's, he led the way to the barn, followed by the others.

”If Scotty could only hoe turnips and tie wheat as well as he can play the pipes and throw the hammer,” said Perkins to the others as they followed in the rear, ”I guess he'd soon have us all leaning against the fence to dry.”

”He will, too, some day,” said Tim, whose indignation at Perkins overcame the shyness which usually kept him silent in the presence of older men.

”h.e.l.lo, Timmy! What are you chipping in for?” said Perkins, reaching for the boy's coat collar. ”He thinks this Scotty is the whole works, and he is great too--at showing people how to do things.”

”I hear he showed Tim how to hoe turnips,” said one of the boys slyly.

The laugh that followed showed that the story of Tim's triumph over the champion had gone abroad.

”Oh, rot!” said Perkins angrily. ”Tim's got a little too perky because I let him get ahead of me one night in a drill of turnips.”

”Yeh done yer best, didn't he, Webster?” cried Tim with indignation.