"Ready," answered Rory.

Barney nodded.

"Git then!" he cried, flinging his hat hard on the ground. Like hounds
after a hare in full sight, like racers springing from the tape,
they leaped at the timbers, every man to his place, yelling like men
possessed. At once the admiring female friends broke into rival camps,
wildly enthusiastic, fiercely partisan.

"Well done, Rory! He's up first!" cried a girl whose brilliant
complexion and still more brilliant locks proclaimed her relationship to
the captain of the north side.

"Huh! Barney'll soon catch him, you'll see," cried Margaret. "Oh,
Barney, hurry! hurry!"

"Indeed, he will need to hurry," cried Rory's sister, mercilessly
exultant. "He's up! He's up!"

Sure enough, Rory, riding the first half of his plate over the bent, had
just "broken it down," and in half a minute, seized by the men detailed
for this duty, it was in its place upon the posts. Like cats, three men
with mauls were upon it driving the pins home just as the second half
was making its appearance over the bent, to be seized and placed and
pinned as its mate had been.

"He's won! He's won!" shrieked Rory's admiring faction.