"_I_ know what happened at the try-out," asserted Chub, "and there's no guess about it, either. Clip is superstitious. Remember that rabbit's foot, mounted on a silver band, he always carries as a luck-bringer?"
Everybody in the school knew about Clip's rabbit's foot. He had carried it the year before when he had beaten Vance Latham, the Prescott champion, in the mile race.
"What about that?" asked Matt, wondering what the luck-bringer had to do with the affair at the track.
"You know how the grand stand is built, out at the park," pursued Chub. "Any one can get under it and look out onto the track between the board seats. If any one wanted to, he could climb the timbers, rest the barrel of a revolver on a board and make a good shot at any one on the track. That notion struck me before I left the park this afternoon, and I stole away to do a little investigating. I'm beginning to think Sherlock Holmes is a back number compared to me. Look here what little Reddy Hawkshaw found under the stand and close to the lower end!"
Chub jerked his right hand out of his pocket and flung an object at Matt. The latter caught it deftly. It was a silver-mounted rabbit's foot, attached to a piece of fine steel chain.
Matt drew in a quick breath and turned his startled eyes on Chub.
"_Now_ what have you got to say?" inquired Chub. "I'm the original, blown-in-the-bottle trouble-maker, but you can bet I haven't gone wrong on _this_!"
Looking down on Matt and Chub from one of the walls were four lines carefully printed on a big white card. It was Matt's work, the printing; and the four lines had been in his room at Uncle Jonas King's in the old house in the Berkshires.
"Let me win if I may when the game's afoot; Let me master my Fate when I choose her: Playing square with myself in the fight, my boy, If I fail let me be a good loser."
From Chub's triumphant face, Matt's eyes wandered to the lines on the card and dwelt there for a time.
"I guess you can't get around that rabbit's foot, Matt," said Chub, "and I guess Major Woolford can't, either. Clip has been settled on for the mile race with Prescott this year same as he was last, but you take it from me the major won't have anything to do with him when I show him that rabbit's foot and tell him where I found it. And maybe," finished Chub, "he'll scratch Dace Perry's entry, too, for it's a dead open-and-shut they were both in this. Perry, though, didn't figure on having your wheel jump across in front of his and cause a smash-up."