The School Four
Date: 2017-12-21T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Schools -- Juvenile fiction; Rowing -- Juvenile fiction; Football -- Juvenile fiction

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Title: The School Four

Author: Albertus T. Dudley

Illustrator: Charles Copeland

Release date: December 21, 2017 [eBook #56215]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Barry Abrahamsen and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCHOOL FOUR ***

THE SCHOOL FOUR

BOOKS BY ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY
Phillips Exeter Series
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth.

FOLLOWING THE BALL.

MAKING THE NINE.

IN THE LINE.

WITH MASK AND MITT.

THE GREAT YEAR.

THE YALE CUP.

A FULL-BACK AFLOAT.

THE PECKS IN CAMP.

THE HALF-MILER.

Stories of the Triangular League

Illustrated by Charles Copeland. 12mo. Cloth.

THE SCHOOL FOUR.

AT THE HOME-PLATE.

THE UNOFFICIAL PREFECT.

THE KING’S POWDER.

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON.

The Westcott man clutched the ball over his rival’s head.

STORIES OF THE TRIANGULAR LEAGUE

THE SCHOOL FOUR
BY
ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY
AUTHOR OF “PHILLIPS EXETER SERIES”
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES COPELAND

BOSTON

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

Copyright, 1909, by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.

Published, August, 1909.

All Rights Reserved.

The School Four.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

PREFACE

“The School Four” is a story of football and rowing, its scene laid in a private school in an Eastern city. As in the Phillips Exeter books, the aim has been to keep the athletics practical and technically correct, and at the same time to present such conceptions of life and conduct as may encourage the boy reader to face his own school problems with the right spirit. Later volumes will treat successively of the city high school and the country boarding-school.

To Mr. John Richardson, Jr., captain of the undefeated Harvard crew of 1908, the author owes a special debt for expert counsel, for the freedom of the Harvard coaching launch, and, above all else, for personal inspiration.

A. T. DUDLEY.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
John Smith, President
CHAPTER II
The Cup
CHAPTER III
Archibald Dunn
CHAPTER IV
Recruits for the Football Squad
CHAPTER V
At Adams’s
CHAPTER VI
The Story of Jason
CHAPTER VII
Sumner chooses a Successor
CHAPTER VIII
A Slighted Offer
CHAPTER IX
The Newbury Game
CHAPTER X
The Scouts bring News
CHAPTER XI
A Fruitless Interview
CHAPTER XII
President John’s Ideals
CHAPTER XIII
The Committee Decides
CHAPTER XIV
The Trowbridge Game
CHAPTER XV
Dunn’s Disappointments
CHAPTER XVI
Mike Advises
CHAPTER XVII
A Kindled Ambition
CHAPTER XVIII
The Shooting Match
CHAPTER XIX
A Loss to the Nine
CHAPTER XX
In the Pair-oar
CHAPTER XXI
The Second Crew
CHAPTER XXII
A Shift in the Boat
CHAPTER XXIII
The Weakened Heart
CHAPTER XXIV
The Trials
CHAPTER XXV
The Final Struggle
CHAPTER XXVI
Conclusion

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Westcott man clutched the ball over his rival’s head

“They ought to tie a string to it and give Fatty the end”

His feet going like the arms of a hay tedder

Swung him directly into Hardie’s arms

And watch the Varsity eight sweep magnificently by

“Go it, Bainbridge! Kill ’em, Bainbridge!”

THE SCHOOL FOUR

CHAPTER I

JOHN SMITH, PRESIDENT

The first suggestion of the Triangular League came from a certain aspiring and nimble-witted graduate of the Newbury Latin named John Smith, whose surname, occurring on every page of every daily paper, should safely conceal his identity from any over-curious reader of this story. Moreover, it may be asserted with truth that the particular John Smith who called the first meeting of representatives of the three schools is not to be found on any of the eighteen pages of Smiths in the last Boston directory. It is enough for our purpose to know that he looked over the material in the upper half of the Newbury Latin and found it to his liking—good for the present and promising for the future. He considered within himself, with what he imagined to be uncommon shrewdness, that it is better for a school to be at the head of a small league than to swell the troop at the conqueror’s heels in a larger one. His reason for selecting Westcott’s and the Trowbridge School as complements to the Newbury Latin in this laudably patriotic scheme was that while they contained decent fellows and were nominally fair rivals, they were probably beatable without killing exertion. This last item was not included in the argument for the organization which he presented to the first meeting. His speech here took loftier grounds, such as the charms of an alliance between naturally friendly schools, and the splendid athletic ideals for which the new league would stand.

Either John Smith’s idea or John Smith’s argument carried weight, for the league was formed, and the three schools pledged themselves to maintain it and abide by its rules. In recognition of his unselfish services in behalf of the cause, and at the suggestion of Mr. Snyder, an instructor at Trowbridge, who insisted that the direction of affairs should be in the hands of some mature person, Mr. John Smith was elected president. It was voted that a managing committee consisting of two representatives from each school, together with the president, ex officio, should be empowered to draw up rules, arrange schedules, select officials, and act as general board of control.

The first meeting of this permanent committee was held at Westcott’s, in Boston, just before the end of the school year. After the visitors had departed, Sumner and Talbot remained behind to discuss events from the Westcott point of view.

“It’s going to be great!” opined Sumner, with his usual outburst of enthusiasm for what he approved. “Everything was pleasant and straight, and nobody tried to get the advantage of anybody else.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” answered Joe Talbot, commonly called “Pete.” The origin of this nickname is involved in obscurity. Some boys derived it from a character in a play; some asserted that Joe’s family had given him the name in jest when he was a toddler. Steve Wilmot, the wag of the class, maintained that it was descriptive,—he was called Pete because he looked Pete,—and this explanation was on the whole popular, especially as Talbot stoutly protested against it.

“Why not?” demanded Sumner.

“I’ve no confidence in that Smith. He’s too oily and smug. He’s got some scheme he means to work.”

“Shucks!” retorted Jack. “Your brother Bob has prejudiced you against him with his talk about that old football squabble. If I were a junior in college, like Bob, I’d try to forget about school rows.”

“Those are the things you remember longest,” Pete answered wisely. “You can’t change the facts, can you? You can’t make a low trick any better by forgetting it. If it happened, it’s history, as much as Bunker Hill. It shows the kind of man Smith is.”

“Was!” corrected Jack. “That was a long time ago, and he’s probably changed as much as we have since we came into the sixth together. Just think what little fools we were then, how we thought the verb amo was too hard to learn, and cried when Mr. Lawton lectured us, and Mussy used to send us out of French every day for whispering in class.”

“We weren’t anything but kids then. Neither of us was over twelve.” Talbot spoke as if seventeen, which was their present age, represented the climax of maturity.

“I was just trying to make you see that people change. Smith has changed too.”

“Perhaps he has,” growled Talbot, “but I don’t believe it’s for the better. He’s got us into the league just because he thinks Newbury can beat us. You don’t suppose he’s doing it out of love for us, do you?”

“No doubt he thinks we are a good crowd for his school to tie up with,” answered Sumner, with ready complacency. “I really believe those fellows would rather beat us than any other school, but that’s because they are jealous of us. We are only a private school, more than half of us little kids in knickerbockers, but we have the inside track in Harvard, and we’re on the top socially. They don’t like that.”

“It’s the little kids and getting into college so early that spoils our athletics,” remarked Talbot. “Newbury is a public endowed school with lots of big fellows who don’t go to college, and Trowbridge is a boarding-school in the country where the fellows have nothing to do but play games all day. We aren’t anything but a school building in town and a playground in Brookline.”

“And Adams’s,” put in Sumner.

Adams’s was the house of the instructor who lived at the athletic field. It contained a schoolroom for such boys as were condemned to prepare the next day’s lessons before they left the field in the afternoon, and quarters for a limited number of boarding pupils.

“Adams’s!” exclaimed Pete. “What good is that? A half-dozen little kids who play on the fourth or third, and a few older fellows whose parents are abroad or can’t stand them at home. There wasn’t a fellow there last year who did anything for the school.”

“There was Pitkin,” Sumner remarked. “He’d have made the second crew if he hadn’t caught the measles.”

“He might,” responded Talbot, in a tone which implied that he probably wouldn’t. “But what’s Pitkin, anyway?”

“Ben Tracy is going there next year,” went on Sumner, “and that cousin Louis of his who lives in Worcester, and some one from New Jersey. There may be some other new fellows.”

“The usual orphan asylum!” commented Talbot, savagely. “It’s four to one that none of ’em will be good for anything. You always see things about one hundred per cent better than they really are.”

“That’s not half so bad as seeing them one hundred per cent worse than they are, as you do, you old growler!” retorted his friend, with a laugh.

“They can’t be a hundred per cent worse,” maintained Talbot. “That’s a logical impossibility. It would bring ’em below the zero point.”

And then, being boys, in spite of their advanced age and the seriousness of their interest and the fact that both, avowedly at least, were putting every available minute into their preparation for the next week’s battle with the Harvard preliminaries, they wrangled for a good quarter of an hour over the possibility—logical, actual, or theoretical—of things being a hundred per cent worse than they were without reaching the vanishing point. The reader will be spared this argument. If he is a boy, he can manufacture it for himself; if a grown-up, he has only to listen quietly to a knot of boys waiting in idleness for a bell to ring or a train to appear, and he will understand how it is done.

When the discussion had run its length, they recurred naturally to the first theme of conversation. It was Pete who reintroduced the topic of the new league.

“Whether Smith is straight or crooked,” he said, “he certainly expects his school to come out ahead. I’d give something to beat him at his little game.”

“Wouldn’t it be great!” Sumner’s exclamation was like an anticipatory smack of the lips; his eyes were fixed in a fervent but unseeing stare on the blank wall, his face beamed with delight at the mental foretaste of the joys of triumph. “We may do it, too!”

“And we may not!” answered Talbot, rising. “Let’s get after those French sentences.”

CHAPTER II

THE CUP

Whatever his faults, the president of the new league possessed unquestionably the virtue of activity. While the Westcott boys, scattered up and down the coast from Long Island Sound to Bar Harbor, were amusing themselves in their own idle but wholesome fashion,—camping, cruising, racing boats, playing tennis matches, and exchanging visits,—Mr. John Smith was devoting his surplus energy to the cause. One tangible result of his labors formed the basis of much curious questioning when Westcott’s gathered at the end of September for the year’s work. A prize was to be offered to stimulate interest in the contests of the league. Though many of the Westcott graduates had been laid under contribution and might be supposed to know definitely the purpose for which their money had been expended, it was soon discovered that no one possessed information extending beyond the statements in the newspapers. These began with encomiums on Mr. John Smith for his enthusiastic and efficient services and the success with which he had “rallied about him his hosts of friends”; they ended with congratulations to the new league on having a man of Mr. Smith’s caliber and influence at its head. In between was sandwiched the meagre news that a cup was to be competed for by the schools on terms to be announced later.

But Westcott’s had no notion of waiting until later. The boys stirred up the contributing graduates, and the graduates addressed to Mr. Smith certain pointed inquiries which suggested to the astute leader that it would be wise to announce the conditions immediately, even at the risk of losing some advantage for his own school. He appeared, therefore, at Westcott’s, one day during the second week of the term, bearing a big box of tinted cardboard, and made a speech to the assembled school in which he set forth the conditions of the gift and the high hopes of the givers. Then, with great impressiveness and in the midst of quivering expectancy, he removed the cover of the box, undid a bag of canton flannel and held forth the glittering thing to the general admiration.

“To remain from year to year in the possession of the school which shall last have won it, and to be held permanently when three times won.”

To this announcement the school gave bountiful applause. The older boys, though harassed by grave doubts of their ability to fulfil the conditions, understood the privilege offered them and were grateful; while the knee-trousered, flattering themselves with the assurance that the splendid, two-handled vase, like a reward for good behavior, must ultimately be theirs, smote their hands together long and violently. Whereupon Mr. John Smith, who showed himself to be a sharp-featured, somewhat over-dressed young man, with no semblance of that personal diffidence with which great men are often handicapped, smiled blandly, restored the treasure to its double envelope, shook hands with Mr. Westcott, gave the school another benevolent and congratulatory smirk, and departed—bearing his cup with him.

At the recess period for the first and second, four fellows took places round the small table in the corner of the lunch room; a fifth seized a chair and pushed in among them as if he belonged there. Others bought themselves handfuls of munchable food at the other end of the room and hurried to get a position at the railing which separated the hot-lunchers from those who patronized the counter. The confusion of half a dozen talking at once obscured the opening of the discussion.

“The crew’s in it. That’s good for us,” declared Rolfe, getting the first hearing in the babel. “We’ll trust you to win that for us, Pete.”

Talbot, the captain of the crew, would probably have disputed this loud assumption if he had been given an opportunity to speak; but others were readier of tongue.

“And the track’s out!” cried Seamans. He held a sandwich untasted within three inches of his lips and stared over the railing into Rolfe’s face with an expression of disgust.

“Bad for you, Sim,” called out Jack Sumner. “You’ll have to go in for baseball.—Some soup, please.”

“Newbury lost all her track men last year, that’s why the track’s out.” Talbot had found his tongue.

“That’s not the reason,” proclaimed Sumner. “Mr. Westcott doesn’t believe in track work for schoolboys. He thinks it’s too much of a strain for young fellows like us. Your brother Bob has the same idea. He told me just the other day that it usually spoiled fellows for college running.”

“Smithy would have put it in all the same, if Newbury had any show for it.”

“I don’t quite understand about those conditions,” came from the lips of a boy at the railing, who was poising a buttered bread stick before a broad, big-featured face crowned with shaggy hair.

“You never understand anything, Fluffy,” cut in Wilmot. “A fellow who asks ‘why’ about the laws of falling bodies—”

He hesitated, giving Fluffy a chance to ejaculate, “You don’t know yourself—”

“And don’t care!” retorted Wilmot. “I know they fall, and there’s a rule about it.”

“I don’t mean falling bodies, I mean about the cup!” Fluffy got this out in the face of a storm that threatened to sweep him the whole length of the railing. No one wanted to hear a debate between Fluffy Dobbs and Wilmot on the laws of falling bodies.

“It’s clear enough,” said Sumner. “There are three sports that count, football, baseball, and crew. Whoever wins two of them gets the cup for a year. The school that gets it three times has it to keep.”

“Do you understand that, Fluffy?” called Wilmot. “Because if you don’t, we’ll get you a map and a guide-book.”

“But supposing each of the three schools wins at one sport?” proposed Fluffy, undisturbed by Wilmot’s jeers, to which he was evidently well accustomed.

“No score!” returned Sumner, quickly.

“Are they going to have special crew races with Newbury and Trowbridge?” asked Tracy.

“No, we all row in the Interscholastic.”

“Then the first thing for us to do is to win at football,” said Trask. “It’s up to you fellows to start the thing right.”

“Easy enough for you to say when you don’t play,” said a tall, wiry, light-haired boy who up to this time had been listening in silence. “Give us the material, and we’ll do it. We can’t make bricks without straw.” Harrison was captain of the eleven.

“Oh, yes, you can, only it’s harder. A really good captain could make a team out of ’most anything. Any fool captain can win with a bunch of stars.” Wilmot’s significant grin disarmed this seemingly insulting remark of all its sting. Everybody respected Eliot Harrison, and Wilmot enjoyed a liberty of his own.

“The lot we had out yesterday was more like a flock of goats than a bunch of stars,” growled Pete.

“A goat ought to be mighty good in the centre of the line,” said Wilmot, reflectively. “He could butt a hole right through the other side, and that’s about all guard and centre have to do. Now if you could only get a few good butting goats into the line—”

“Or teach your own goats to butt,” suggested Tracy.

Wilmot slammed the table. “That’s the best idea yet! Get a goat as assistant coach, a good old side-hill, can-eating, whiskered billy that’s practiced butting from his youth up. He’d show the line how to open holes!”

The audience warmed noisily to Wilmot’s proposition.

“He’d look fine on the side-lines, wouldn’t he?” This sarcastic comment came from sober-faced little Stanley Hale of the sixth, whose class, by the necessities of the school schedule, shared the recess hour of the older boys. The influence of the kindergarten and the fairy tale was still effective in Stanley’s mind. Ideas still translated themselves for his intelligence into pictures, and the picture of the goat stood out vividly before him.

“He could be a mascot, Stan,” said Sumner, turning to smile at Stanley.

“He’d be a great help in the cheering,” went on Wilmot. “The sixth could give him lessons. He’d cheer bass to their soprano.”

By this time there was a general and hilarious interest in the development of Wilmot’s suggestion which rendered impossible all serious discussion of the morning’s announcement. Foolish jesting became epidemic, and wit soon ran into silliness. Two boys showed no disposition to share in the levity. Harrison smiled but rarely, and then feebly and against his will; Talbot’s scowl grew deeper and blacker as Wilmot’s fancy spread from the centre, where it had originated, out into the ranks of the clumsy-wits who seized upon it with rough hands, tossed it to and fro, squeezed it dry of whatever freshness and cleverness it might have contained, and dropped it in ennui for some new catchword ten minutes later.

The bystanders drifted forth for a walk, the sixth ran into the yard and played goat tag, the pursuer being the goat.

“I wish you wouldn’t say that kind of thing, Steve,” began Harrison, when the coast was clear. “It hurts the team to make sport of it or any one on it.”

Wilmot opened his eyes. “I didn’t make sport of it. I just offered a suggestion. You don’t have to take it, if you don’t want to.”

“We’ve got to have the respect and support of the school if we are going to do anything,” went on Harrison, trying to be sensible and keep his temper. “All that talk about goats makes the team ridiculous.”

“It puts everything to the bad right at the beginning of the season,” broke in Talbot, roughly. “If you want to spoil all our chances, just keep it up. You don’t care, of course, as long as you get your fun out of it, but the rest of us have a little school spirit left and a little self-respect!”

“Who introduced the subject, anyway?” demanded Wilmot, triumphantly. “It was you that did it, and it was you that called the team goats. I just built on your suggestion.”

“I won’t argue it,” answered Pete, savagely. “You’d twist my words against me. But just try the goat business with the crew, and see what you’ll get. Harry may put up with it if he wants to. I wouldn’t!”

“Now you’re getting peevish.” Wilmot rose from the table, still keeping his smile of indifference, but by no means content at heart. “I don’t like you when you’re peevish!”

The bell rang; the boys came flocking in and crowded up the stairway. Harrison took Tracy’s arm as they leisurely followed the stream.

“Isn’t that new fellow at Adams’s coming out?”

“Who? Hardie?”

“Yes. He sat opposite us at luncheon to-day with the kids and didn’t peep.”

“He hasn’t said much to any one yet. He’ll be out to-day if he gets his clothes.”

“Do you think he’ll be good for anything?” pursued the captain, anxiously. “We need about six more good men.”

Tracy gave his chin a side tip that might have expressed doubt, or merely reserve of judgment. “I don’t know. He isn’t very heavy, but if you’d seen him chucking trunks around this morning, you’d think him fairly strong.”

“Trunks?”

“Yes, we piled a few in front of his door last night.”

“It’s a good thing to be strong, but a lot depends on spirit,” began Harrison. What further he may have intended to say, we shall never know, for the sight of Mr. Spaulding standing at the head of the stairs put a sudden gag upon his lips.

CHAPTER III

ARCHIBALD DUNN

Roger Hardie knew absolutely no one at Westcott’s when he moved into his room at Adams’s that fall. His father was engaged in the Argentine trade; and the day after Roger was safely established in school the whole family sailed for Buenos Aires to spend the winter there. He took his fate stoically, trying hard to persuade himself that he should soon feel at home, but he could not avoid the sense of isolation and exclusion which comes naturally to one of a very few new boys among a great many very intimate old ones; and he lacked entirely the aptitude for quick friendships. Boys are seldom temperate in their opinions of their own merits. Eliminate the over-confident who run to freshness and the under-confident who lack courage to assert themselves, and there remain but a small percentage who wisely follow the middle course. The over-modest in the end is likely to outstrip the over-bold, whose rash spirit is easily broken by unexpected and humiliating defeats. The average boy, however, takes very little thought for ultimate results. He lives vividly in the present, is captivated by boldness and dash and ready wit, ranks caution with timidity, and suspects steadiness to be mere feebleness in disguise.

Roger was naturally reticent; he was likewise inclined to regard himself as neither attractive nor clever. The first impression which he produced on his mates at Adams’s was that of mediocrity. They took him at his own valuation and disregarded him. The consciousness that he wasn’t considered worth while increased his reticence, and at the same time stirred his obstinacy. He certainly didn’t care for the boys if they didn’t care for him. He would go one way, and let them go another.

Hardie’s pique was enhanced by the apparently different reception accorded to another new Adamsite, Archibald Dunn. As a matter of fact, the principle followed by the boys in the treatment of the two cases was identical: each was accepted at the outset at his face value. While Hardie made no claim to ability, importance, or friends among the great, Dunn’s method was to assume everything, to throw himself frankly on the credulity and friendliness of his new companions. Of course he played football; he had been end on the Westport High School at the beginning of last season, but a shoulder bruise got in the practice had thrown him out of the regular games. He liked baseball better; he and a friend of his, who made the Yale Freshmen, used to be the battery of a corking little nine they got up at their summer place. His favorite sport was automobiling; in his first half-hour in Tracy’s room he told five astonishing stories of marvellous escapes from death or the police. He sailed, too,—used to take charge of his uncle’s forty-footer in cruises. Dunn’s manners were undeniably easy. In twenty-four hours he knew all the small boys at Adams’s by their nicknames, and treated the older ones as if they were intimates of years’ standing.

The Tracys, Ben and Louis, might smile a little incredulously at the broadest of Dunn’s claims, but he amused them, and, provisionally at least, they accepted him. “He’s good sport, anyway,” said Ben, on the second day of school, while describing the Adams household to Sumner. “He can talk more than any person I ever saw, and he likes himself to beat the band, but he seems to be a good fellow to have round.”

“What about Hardie?”

“Oh, he’s a zero, a good little boy that never speaks unless he’s spoken to. He sat up in his room all last evening, grinding at algebra and Latin. Just think of being so fierce about the first day’s lessons!”

“All the new ones do that,” opined Sumner; “they’re scared.”

“Dunn didn’t. He loafed round Louis’s room, telling stories, the first two hours, and spent the rest of the evening looking for a trot to Xenophon. He says it’s a waste of time trying to get along without one.”

“Flunked to-day, didn’t he?”

“Don’t know. He’s not in any of my classes.”

By favor of chance, Dunn did not flunk. He was called up in Latin on grammar questions which he happened to know. Hardie did not escape so easily. His lot fell upon a difficult passage which in his preparation he had not fully understood. Confused by the new surroundings and agitated by a nervous eagerness to do well, he floundered along like a pig in the mud, getting nowhere and accomplishing nothing but the amusement of a cruelly grinning class.

To escape unscathed without having prepared a lesson was, of course, a piece of good fortune which a boy could not expect to experience often. Before the week was out, Dunn had been pretty well gauged by his teachers, and one of the most conscientious had already begun in the simple old-fashioned way—which Dunn reviled as antiquated—to detain him after school to make up neglected work. But what he lost in prestige by classroom deficiencies—boys never charge such failures up against a good comrade—he made ample amends for by marked success on the football field, where he was generally regarded as the most promising addition to the available material which the new season had brought.

Here Dunn’s own lively tongue had prepared for him a favorable reception. While he did not actually declare himself a great player, his ready vocabulary of football terms, his anecdotes of games which he had seen or taken part in, the air of familiarity with styles of play which he showed—all marked him as a veteran. Besides this, he was an end, and the eleven lacked an end. With Harrison, the captain, at one extremity of the line and Dunn at the other, the two important wings of the fighting force would be well equipped. The idea pleased the school fancy and produced a strong prejudice in Dunn’s favor. The boys believed in him because they needed him, and it was more agreeable to believe than to doubt.

The first week’s work on the football field, as every one knows, is largely concerned with the individual elements of the game,—tackling, dropping on the ball, running down under punts, charging. Through these Dunn’s self-confidence and previous experience carried him with flying colors. He threw himself on the ball with admirable spirit; and the way in which he scampered down the field after punts, getting the direction of the kick by a single, quick, accurate glance over his shoulder, and fairly hugging the waiting receiver, was a joy to the beholder. In open work he was not quite so successful. He missed a few hard tackles, but he made some good ones, and the balance remained in his favor. Talbot was so malevolent as to remark that Dunn got the smaller fellows and let the big ones by, but Talbot was from aye a surly growler. The opinion which Dunn himself delivered in the dressing rooms after the first tackling practice found by far the wider acceptance.

“Nobody can tackle in the open in cold blood,” he averred. “A fellow might get his man every time in a game when he feels the excitement and forgets everything but the play, and yet miss every tackle when you put him out to show what he can do. There was a half-back we had in school who afterwards made the Dartmouth eleven; he couldn’t make one out of a dozen of those practice tackles. They’re dangerous, too. If I was a coach, I’d cut ’em out altogether.”

After the middle of the week there were short line-ups in which Dunn played left end. Behind him was all the superior weight and prestige of the first backs, and before him as opposing tackle only “Skinny” Fairbanks, who had barely made the third the year before. Dunn’s work here was of the lively, striking kind that sets partial spectators agog with delight. He shoved Fairbanks back for holes as if Fairbanks were a dummy. When the ball by way of variety was given to the second, he lay outside like a keen-eyed bird of prey and fell upon the fearful seconders with a sudden, calamitous swoop. Hardie stood on the side-lines the day before the first real game, and reproached himself for a feeling of envy. Apparently he and Dunn had started fair in school but a few days before, and now Dunn was leagues beyond him. He felt inclined to send word to the dilatory outfitter that he shouldn’t want any football clothes at all.

Then on the first Saturday came the game with the Suffolk school, which Newbury had just soundly beaten. It was a discouraging contest that took the fire out of the hearts of the players and set the school to jesting about the team. Westcott’s won in the last five minutes through a long run by Harrison, who got the ball on a fumble and carried it half the length of the field; but the record of six to nothing looked very small alongside of Newbury’s twenty-six to eight. The plan of the coach had been to push the attack generally through the left side of the line behind Eaton and Dunn; and when Suffolk had the ball to concentrate the secondary defence behind centre and right, leaving the strong wing to make its own resistance. The scheme did not work, and after much waste of time was abandoned. Holes did not develop where they were expected, and Suffolk pounded the left with great success. The fault was not easy to place. Dunn seemed so devoted to playing a safe outside that he rarely got into the path of the Suffolk runner; and the Suffolk right, it was generally conceded, had been greatly strengthened since the Newbury game. Two bad fumbles that lost Westcott the ball at critical moments were charged against Horr, the half-back.

“You could have saved us the ball both times if you’d only dropped quick enough!” Talbot remarked with undisguised frankness to Dunn, as the team walked moodily into the dressing rooms after the game.

“I couldn’t, really!” protested Dunn. “Once some one piled into me just as I was going to drop, and the other time I tried to pick it up because I had a clear field, and my foot slipped. It was the correct thing to do, wasn’t it, Harry?”

“I didn’t see,” answered the captain. “I thought you might have got Jefferson, though, on that crisscross.”

“The end blocked me off just as I was going to tackle. Eaton really ought to have taken him.”

“It’s your business not to be blocked off!” snapped Talbot.

“Shut up, Pete!” called the captain. “What’s the good of kicking now? None of us played well.”

“My playing was rotten, I know,” rejoined the pessimist, “but I don’t shirk the responsibility for it.”

“It takes time for a team to get shaken together,” said Dunn. “We’ll all do better when we’ve had more practice.”

Dunn’s remark showed a forgiving and conciliatory spirit that by all the rules of story-book morality should have extracted from a contrite Talbot an apology; but the surly half-back went his way unappeased.

CHAPTER IV

RECRUITS FOR THE FOOTBALL SQUAD

On the following Tuesday—the day of the imposing appearance before the school of President John Smith—Hardie, having at last secured his playing clothes, presented himself on the field. His arrival aroused no very flattering comment, partly because nothing in particular was expected from him, partly because of the company in which he came. Saturday’s disappointment had caused a flurry of energy on the part of the football leaders, and the school had been sifted anew for material. As a result Fat Bumpus was strained out, and little McDowell, who, though lithe and sinewy as an alley tomcat, and eager as a hound tugging at the leash, was manifestly below the standard of weight. He came via the third team, on which he had distinguished himself in the game with Wood’s third, played on the Saturday on which the first had failed so conspicuously at Suffolk. These three, Bumpus the fat, McDowell the small, and Hardie the unpretending, formed the last group of recruits available to reënforce the battle line of Westcott’s.

The side-line comments would have been sufficient to put all three to speedy flight, if the contemptuous words had reached their ears. Stover, the ball player, stood with Hargraves who didn’t like football and Reeves whose forte was dancing and “fussing,” and made very merry over the faults of their schoolmates, dwelling with unwearied if not brilliant wit on the appearance of the newcomers, and enjoying the audience of gaping small boys who surrounded them.

“They ought to tie a string to it and give Fatty the end,” said Stover, as Bumpus groped sprawling after the ball which Harrison had rolled toward him. “It’s cruelty to animals to make him root around like that.”

“The best way would be to put him sideways in the line on his hands and knees. No one could get past him then,” remarked Reeves.

“They’d have to call time to get him up again.”

“Did you see that?” broke in Hargraves. “Hardie got the ball at the first try!”

“It must have been an accident; he hasn’t sand enough in him to do it purposely.” This was Stover’s opinion.

A furious but futile charge on the part of Marshall, a clumsy but energetic hanger-on of the second, drew the fire of the trio. “That’s the spirit!” chuckled Hargraves. “Dig up the dirt with your face, my boy! Football is the game!”

“There goes Mac!” cried a shrill voice close at hand.

“McDowell the infant wonder,” commented Stover, as the boy dropped sharply and cleanly on the ball, falling along knee, thigh, and hip, in one continuous and perfectly easy motion.

“What’s the sense in wasting time on a kid like him?” muttered Reeves. “Firman of Newbury would carry half a dozen of him on his back.”

The coach evidently had his own views as to the usefulness of McDowell, for he made the boy repeat his performance several times to show the less skilful how the trick should be done. Meantime Talbot, who was catching punts, drew over near the criticising group, and the comments became less audible. As regards side-line ridicule, Talbot held forcible opinions which he had no hesitation in expressing nor reluctance to defend. The trio moved farther down the line, and their wit flowed anew.

“They ought to tie a string to it and give Fatty the end.”

All three of the newcomers got into the line-up of the second that afternoon. Bumpus thrashed about with more uproar than success at guard, while McDowell and Hardie were placed at right end and right tackle respectively. Harrison gave them a general exhortation to “play sharp now,” and Talbot urged Hardie in specific terms to “get right into Dunn.”

“You can manage him all right, if you stand right up to him,” he said. “Forget everything but the play!”

Hardie nodded gratefully. He felt no fear, nor was he by any means new to football, but he was conscious that the school did not expect much of him, and the personal interest of an important fellow like Talbot was, therefore, especially gratifying. In the big athletic school from which he had come to Boston, he had learned to think modestly of his prowess. While he had made his class eleven there, the school team lay beyond all reasonable hope. It was not easy for him to think of himself as ‘varsity material, even at Westcott’s!

Talbot kicked off, the ball sailing over Roger’s head down into McDowell’s territory. Lingering long enough to see the boy gather in the ball and tuck it safely under his arm, Hardie ran forward at three-fourths speed to take the first onset of the school linesmen and permit Mac to slip by. The first comer was Dunn, who caromed off Roger’s shoulder without so much as touching the runner. Eaton, the left tackle of the first, McDowell dodged by an abrupt stop and a dart outside; and beyond Eaton again, Hardie was at his side to take Channing, the right guard. The two disentangled themselves and followed after as McDowell zigzagged on, emerging from between Lowe’s hands and leaving Talbot on the ground behind him. Sumner, the quarter-back, at last drove him outside at the forty-yard line.

The coach carried the ball in and put it down for the scrimmage, first giving the little end a deserved compliment, and then scoring the first severely for careless tackling. The glory of the second faded quickly. The quarter fumbled and lost a yard. Bumpus let Eaton through on the waiting half; the third down was followed by a feeble punt which Sumner ran back twenty yards. Then came a quick reversal. The first had the men and the signals. The ball was pushed rapidly through the centre, through the right side, again through the centre and again through right. At a new signal Hardie caught a change of expression in Dunn’s face, and knew that his own turn had come.

“Look out, Mac!” he shouted, and leaped for his opening with the first movement of the ball. Dunn held him but an instant; with a side buffet of the open hand the new tackle slipped by, ruined the interference, and drove the convoy straight into Mac’s sure grip.

“This feels like it again,” Roger said to himself as he took his place once more. “They’re not up to a Hillbury class team after all.”

“Whose fault was that?” demanded the coach.

“Mine!” said Talbot, shortly.

Hardie looked in wonder over at the friendly half-back. It wasn’t Talbot’s fault, or at least not primarily. Dunn had failed to block his man, Talbot only to make his protection wholly effective—a difficult task at best. The essential weakness lay with Dunn.

“Tackle and end must take care of the opposing tackle,” said the coach. “Get down in front of him, Dunn, spread your elbows, dive into him with your shoulder, but hold him—you hear?”

“He started before the ball was snapped,” pleaded Dunn.

“Shut up! Play the game!” commanded Talbot. “I said it was my fault.”

They bucked the centre once more, by way of variety, and then made another trial of the left side. Horr went ahead to push out the end, and Talbot carried the ball. This time Dunn made frantic efforts to hold his man by use of body and arms without much regard for the rules of the game; but Hardie, keeping him at arm’s length, made a dash at the runner that staggered him, and the line half-back laid him low. At the third attempt Dunn and Eaton together contrived to box the second tackle, and the play went through, over the line half-back.

Mr. Adams, who feared overdoing at the beginning of the season, cut into the coach’s programme after the first had made two touch-downs, and put an end to the practice. Bumpus limped in like an exhausted dray-horse, sweating at every pore. Stover and Hargraves hailed him as he crossed the road to the dressing rooms.

“How’d you like it, Bump?” asked Stover. “You look warm.”

“You played a bully game,” said Hargraves.

“Did I?” Bumpus gave them a glance of suspicion. “It didn’t seem so.”

“It was great playing,” continued Stover. “Going to keep it up?”

“Of course he is!” interrupted Harrison, as he came up from behind. “Bump won’t go back on the school as long as it needs him.”

“That’s right!” said Bumpus, beaming with his whole red, swollen face. “I’m not stuck on the game, but if you really think I’m any help, I’ll come out till the end of things!”

“That’s the talk,” answered Harrison. “I wish you fellows showed as good a spirit.”

“We’ve been trying to encourage him,” claimed Hargraves. “What more do you want?” They went off, snickering, to Stover’s automobile.

Inside the dressing rooms, boys shouted and jested and laughed over their bathing and dressing. Talbot leaned a smooched arm and a grimy paw on the top of a locker, and smiled across at Hardie.

“You’ve played football before.”

“Only on a class team at Hillbury.”

“That’s more than most of us have done. You ought to make our team easily.”

“I’d like to,” said Hardie, wistfully.

“Ever play end?”

“That’s where I’ve always played.”

“See here!” Talbot raised his eyes level with his companion’s and gave him a square, direct look. “We need just the kind of fellow you are, but Harry doesn’t know it yet. You keep your mouth shut, play for all that’s in you, try to do what the coach tells you, and you’ll make the team before the first league game. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” Talbot turned toward the door. “Where’s that ’Lijah with the towels? He hasn’t given me a clean one for two days.”

A sober-faced negro with close-cut side whiskers appeared round the corner.

“Aren’t you going to give me a clean towel, Lije?”

“Not ontil you pay me,” returned Elijah. “I ain’t trustin’ nobody this year.”

“You old Shylock!” grumbled Talbot. “I’ve only got five cents, and I want that for car-fare.”

“I’ll lend you a quarter,” proposed Hardie, eagerly.

“Thanks. He’s more generous than you are, ’Lijah. He’ll lend me a quarter, and you won’t trust me for a towel.”

“He’s new here,” answered Elijah, solemnly, as he handed over the clean towel and pocketed the quarter. “If he’d lost as much by you fellows as I have, he wouldn’t lend you a cent.”

“That pays for a week, now, Lije,” urged Talbot. “Don’t forget!”

“I never forgets. It’s you that forgets;” and the janitor went forth to seek other business opportunities.

“A good fellow Lije is, but he’s too avaricious,” commented Talbot, hurrying for the shower.

CHAPTER V

AT ADAMS’S

Half an hour later, Roger Hardie was giving the last tug to his necktie before a square of looking-glass that still adhered to the end of the locker tier near the window, and Talbot, swinging a couple of books by a strap, lounged near. Eaton was getting into his clothes a few feet distant, bravely chanting away on a ragtime song in the face of derisive comments from Wilmot, the manager, who sat on the bench nursing a couple of footballs. Farther down, Dunn’s tongue was running wild before an audience of worthies of uncertain intent, whose grins might denote either innocent amusement or guile. Harrison was minding his own business in his usual quiet fashion.

“That’s the second time my socks have disappeared!” sputtered Dunn. “This is the worst gang of thieves I ever got into. You couldn’t keep a thing here if you had a steel vault and a watchman.”

“You’ve probably got ’em on,” suggested Wilmot.

As Dunn had very little on, and was notably bare as to feet, this suggestion could not have been serious. He glanced down, none the less, and earned thereby a unanimous jeer.

“I don’t see how you could lose them,” observed Sumner. “They’re the most conspicuous things in school. I recognized you by ’em this morning a block away, before I could see your face.”

“Oh, you did!” was the best Dunn could do in rejoinder.

“I never saw anything like them but once,” Wilmot observed thoughtfully. “A clown had ’em on in the circus. They seemed all right there.”

“They cost two dollars, anyway!” ejaculated Dunn, who was turning over football trousers on the floor and kicking shoes into corners.

“Tyrian purple always did come high,” Wilmot said softly. “Aren’t you ready yet, Jim? This excitement is getting on my nerves. I feel as if there was an officer here with a search warrant. Perhaps Lije took ’em, Dunn. He might use ’em for a necktie.”

“If I could find the fellow who swiped ’em, I’d use him for a necktie!” exploded Dunn. “It’s a low-down trick to hide a man’s clothes. No one but a kid would do it. You fellows belong with the rubes who tie knots in shirts at the village swimming-hole!”

This violent arraignment awoke new chuckles of merriment. Dunn was becoming interesting.

“That’s a good suggestion,” said Wilmot. “Harrison might try that next time.”

“Shut up, Baldie, and get dressed!” admonished Ben Tracy, in a low tone. “You’re playing right into their hands. You don’t need the socks to get to your room.”

At this advice, the wisdom of which he recognized, Dunn smothered his indignation and went on with his dressing in silence. The crowd, perceiving that the fun was over, began to scatter. Eaton put on his coat and turned to Wilmot. “All ready, Steve! Come on, Pete!”

“I’m going up to Hardie’s room for a while,” said Talbot, who had been talking in the corner with Roger.

Wilmot slid over toward the door. “There are your socks on the bench, Dunn!” called Eaton.

“I must have been sitting on them all the time,” Wilmot explained contritely from the doorway. “I felt something hot under me. Hope I didn’t hurt them.”

“They seem all right, just as bright and sporty as ever. Want ’em, Dunn?” Eaton held out the lost socks toward their owner; but Dunn, having definitely adopted a policy of indifference, turned his back on his tormentors and continued the conversation with Tracy as if he had lost all interest in the object of dispute—in the end taking possession of his property without let or hindrance.

Talbot, having explained the point in physics which was the nominal object of his call on Hardie, sat by the window and talked about school affairs.

“The trouble with our athletics is that we are in a big city,” he said, “with lots of interesting things to take up our time outside of school. Then we’re mostly too young to be very serious about anything. In the big schools like Hillbury the fellows are older; and in the boarding-schools they haven’t any outside attractions nor any liberty, and there’s really nothing else to do but play something.”

“You always have men on the college teams,” remarked Roger.

“Oh, they do well in college, but they’re more mature then. Here there’s always a whole lot of fooling going on such as you saw this afternoon. You can’t change a fellow like Wilmot. He’s an awfully nice chap, but he’s never serious, and he spoils the atmosphere for the hard, determined kind of work that makes good teams.”

“Harrison seems serious enough,” said Hardie. “I should think he’d make a mighty good captain.”

“That’s right! He’s about the best fellow we’ve got. That’s the reason I had hopes of the football, but it looks now as if it was going in the same old way. If we could only win in football, we could go to work with more courage on the crew.”

“The crew is always good, isn’t it?”

“We seem to do better with rowing than anything else. There’s no fooling there, I can tell you. From the time you lift out the boat until you put her away on the supports there isn’t a minute wasted.”

“I should think it would be monotonous, just pulling an oar with the same motion all the time. Of course the race is exciting, but the training must be terribly tiresome.”

“That shows you’ve never tried it,” answered Talbot, laughing. “The race is hard and disagreeable because you try to pull yourself completely out, but the practice is fun all the time. We have good coaching, and every day we try to get into the swing a little better, and overcome some one of our faults. Then the movement of the boat is fine. You can’t imagine what a pleasure it is to feel it going under you right—to know that there is no check between strokes, that everybody is getting away quick and sharp, and pulling just as he ought to.”

“I don’t understand,” returned Roger, “but I’d like to try it.”

“You must come out. You have the right build for rowing.”

Talbot glanced out at the window and waved his hand at Tracy, who was crossing the yard to the dormitory. “We’re a long way from that yet,” he went on. “We might possibly beat Newbury and Trowbridge in rowing, but we can’t get the cup without football.”

“There’s baseball,” suggested Roger.

“No hope there. What can you expect with a fellow like Stover running things? We never were a baseball school, anyway. It’s the fellows who play on the corner lots that make the baseball players. Our fellows do too much sailing and rowing and playing golf in the summer to have time for baseball practice.”

He rose to leave. “Just go in hard on the football, and don’t give up if you don’t get all the credit you deserve. They have a way here of starting with a team made up on paper and keeping to it through the season; but it’s a bad custom which I want to see broken. I give Dunn about three weeks to talk himself off the field. Then if you don’t get in, it’ll be your own fault.”

The door closed behind the first really sympathetic visitor Roger Hardie had yet received. He had been in school long enough to know that the captain of the crew on the whole outranked any other captain, and that Talbot, in spite of his marked tendency to see the dark spots in the future, and to be over-frank in his criticism, was yet one of the steady-flowing springs of school energy, respected perforce even by those who did not like him. To have Talbot as a friend was to be sure of a stout defender, if not of a persuasive advocate.

Thrilled with gratitude for the attention shown him, his ambition kindling into flame from the spark of hope which Talbot had struck, Roger resolved to show himself worthy of his patron’s favor; he would make something of himself in the school life for the honor of the boy who had befriended him, if such a result lay within the reach of hard work, or patience, or devotion. That making something of himself in the school life meant to him mainly achieving a success in the school athletics, was but natural. We who are older may rightly insist that there are other ways of serving one’s school than by scoring touch-downs or pulling on a winning crew; but a boy cannot be expected to see life through the spectacles of the aged. He must grow through his own ideals, not those of his parents. If his opinion as to the importance of athletics is a fallacy, it is at least a far more wholesome one to hold than many cherished by adults.

Roger held his head higher than usual as he went downstairs to dinner, and in his plain but not unintelligent face the look of stolidity had given place to a brighter expression.

“I was glad to see you playing to-day,” said Mr. Adams, pleasantly. “It seemed to me that you were starting in very well.”

“Thank you,” returned Roger, quietly.

“Didn’t you say you hadn’t played before?” asked Ben Tracy.

Hardie shook his head. “I didn’t mean to. I’ve never played on a school team. At Hillbury I played end on my class team in some of the games.”

“That’s not bad,” said Louis, with respect. “They have great class teams at those schools.”

“It isn’t like playing on a school team, though,” offered Dunn. “You don’t have any great responsibility.”

“The class feeling is pretty strong sometimes,” replied Roger, “and the games are always hard.”

“I liked the way you got into the play,” said Mr. Adams. “The house ought to give a good account of itself on the playground this year.”

“I couldn’t do anything at all to-day,” observed Dunn. “I have to feel just right to do myself credit. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

Redfield exchanged a glance of intelligence with Louis Tracy. They knew what had disturbed Dunn’s slumbers,—the memory of a late lunch in Number Six.

“You must be careful about food and bed hours if you want to be in good condition,” observed Mr. Adams, apparently oblivious to the exchange of messages. “It takes some self-control to keep in training with a pocket full of money.”

“I’d like to have a chance to try it once,” sighed Redfield, to whose mind the suggestion of a pocket full of money conveyed the idea of a continuously replenished supply. Much of his allowance never reached his pocket at all; it was spent in paying back bills.

CHAPTER VI

THE STORY OF JASON

Hardie’s appearance on the football field unquestionably raised him from the condition of nonentity into which he had fallen, but it did not materially help him to get into the charmed circle of the initiate who occupied the social centre of the school on a kind of ancestral tenure. He felt himself an outsider, even more after Talbot had shown him favor than before, for friendliness on the part of one served only to emphasize the lack of interest of others. It was not that he was objectionable or disliked; his schoolmates were merely content without him, seeing nothing in the newcomer that commended him especially to their notice. His mother’s name was not on their mothers’ calling lists; he possessed no cousins or near friends who knew their cousins or friends; he lacked the ready tongue which creates on short acquaintance a reputation for wit. He had no special resources to enhance his attractiveness—no fast auto waiting for him at the corner, no shooting lodge in the marsh to which his friends might be invited. He was just plain, undistinguished, unvalued Hardie, a new boy who lived at Adams’s and played tackle on the second.

Dunn still floated with the tide. Judgment regarding him was still in a measure suspended, but aside from Talbot, who was silent about him, and Wilmot, who jollied him, the trend of opinion was in his favor. As a prospective member of the first eleven, he possessed prestige, and as a good-natured loafer whose excuses and garrulity were entertaining, he appealed to the indiscriminate humor of the mob. But with one of the smaller, though not altogether impotent, members of the school, he early fell into conflict.

“Mike” McKay was a red-headed, freckle-faced, wing-eared urchin, filled to the brim with activity and energy, who dominated the fifth class. He lived at Adams’s, and held the proud position of captain and half-back on the fourth eleven. Mike was no lover of lessons, but they constituted a part of his day, and with his natural habit of putting into everything that he undertook all the vim he possessed, he labored on them devotedly until they were accomplished. Behind Mike in the schoolroom sat Archibald Dunn. Dunn lacked the zeal of his little neighbor; he could endure about ten minutes of mental effort at a stretch, after which his brain demanded rest. In these intervals of rest he often refreshed himself by slouching down in his seat and bracing his toes against the chair in front of him, achieving, in the meantime, some distraction by a languid survey of the room. Mike, intent on the French sentences which he was laboriously manufacturing, word upon word, like a conscientious bricklayer, would feel the tip of Dunn’s toe thrust into his exposed haunch, and violently reacting, would make a scrawl or drop a blot to disfigure the work of his hands.

Expostulations served only to convert what had at first been accidental into a deliberate and repeated annoyance. Dunn had discovered a diversion for the idle moments of brain recuperation.

Stung one day by this persecution, Mike turned fiercely and attacked the exposed ankle of the offender with his pen. A teacher, sharp-eyed but not far-sighted, caught the boy in the act and gave him long minutes after school. This result appeared to Dunn exquisitely amusing; he could hardly wait for the lunch hour to bring him the opportunity of telling the story.

“You’d better let Mike alone,” said Ben Tracy. “He’s a miniature fire-eater when he’s mad.”

Dunn sniffed contemptuously. “What do I care for him? I could lick a couple of such little fresh kids with one hand.”

“He seems to me a rather nice little chap,” Redfield remarked.

“That shows he isn’t,” answered Dunn. “You never get things right.”

Silenced by this blunt personality, which Dunn would classify under the head of wit, Redfield abandoned the conversation and devoted himself to his luncheon. Bumpus came rolling in just in season to hear Redfield’s remark and Dunn’s rejoinder.

“Who’s the nice little chap?” he asked, as he removed one chair and took possession of the territory belonging to two.

“You!” sang out Wilmot, giving Bumpus a slap as he tripped past to another table.

Bumpus beamed with joy, not at the jest, which indeed was worn as smooth as a pebble in a pot-hole, but at Wilmot’s cordial manner, and at the intimacy suggested by the playful tap on the shoulder. Word had gone out from Captain Harrison that Bumpus was to be encouraged.

“Captain Mike McKay,” explained Tracy. “Dunn’s got him stung!”

“You don’t suppose I’m going to have him jabbing pens into my legs, do you?” protested Dunn, disappointed to be thrown upon his defence when he had expected to be amusing.

Of course no one did suppose any such thing, and the conversation zigzagged gayly off to distant fields. Meantime Mike was temporarily allaying his indignation by a brisk and noisy game of indoor baseball in the playroom. Later on he paid his penance with stoicism, working out half his home arithmetic problems during the period of his detention.

On the next day Mike endured two or three toe thrusts with Christian forbearance. By squeezing himself against his desk he could put a neutral zone between his own person and the convenient range of the prods. By this pretence of retreat he tempted the enemy into an incautious advance. To reach his prey in spite of bars, Dunn slid farther down in his own seat, and bent his foot around the chair back, so as to come within striking distance.

Instantly the boy recognized his opportunity. Seizing the foot with both his nimble hands, he twisted off the shoe and passed it across the aisle to a faithful clansman, who handed on the emblem of victory to another, who as speedily got rid of it in his turn. By the time Dunn recovered himself sufficiently to demand its restoration, the whereabouts of the shoe was actually unknown to the first plunderer. It ultimately found its way, wrapped in a page of a returned exercise, to the waste-basket.

The call to recitation broke in upon Dunn’s efforts, greatly handicapped by the presence of a teacher at the other end of the room, to make clear to Pirate Mike the fate in store for him if the shoe were not immediately returned to its owner. The fifth Latin rose with cheerful readiness and crowded to the door. Dunn fell in behind them, though he had no recitation at that time, hoping in the confusion to get his hand on his enemy. Once out of sight of the room teacher, he pressed on hotly, scattering the fifth like a flock of sheep, and with an imprecation on his lips reached for his quarry,—only to be met by the stern face of Mr. Westcott as he emerged from his room at the foot of the stairs.

Dunn was questioned in the office in a most unpleasant secret session, while the fifth in their Latin room were forced to trace the route between Mike’s desk and the waste-basket. When the different stations on this underground railroad were located, and the shoe was produced by the boy who had consigned it to its last resting-place, the guilty received the regular penalty for small misdemeanors, and the Latin lesson took its usual course.

Dunn’s session was longer. He emerged with a very red face, and sat with a book open before him, staring angrily and unprofitably at its pages for many minutes. He was very late for football practice for several days after, on an excuse that was evidently valid. This, however, might have been but a passing experience, forgotten in a fortnight, had not a heartless sally from Wilmot perpetuated the memory of the unpleasantness and given Mike a telling advantage over his bigger foe.

As was to be expected, Dunn had no history lesson that morning. He never did compass more than half a lesson, but to-day he was as ignorant on the subject of Greek Oracles and Greek Colonization as the Esquimau in his hut of ice on the edge of No Man’s Land.

More than this, he showed himself distrait, and totally impervious to the cleverly pointed shafts with which Mr. Downs sought to pierce a way to thick-crusted brains. The patient instructor, ignorant, of course, of the disturbance of the morning, and faithful to duty even under discouraging circumstances, detained Dunn after the class was dismissed for recess to admonish him of the evil consequences of idleness and inattention. As a result, Dunn arrived at the lunch room late, facing with an uneasy and unnatural grin a full collection of unsympathetic teases.

“Jason!” cried Wilmot, loudly. “Beware of the man with one shoe!”

About one first class boy in five understood the reference, and this one was immediately besought by his four ignorant companions to explain the joke, for joke they were sure it must be. Johnny Cable, the book-learned but otherwise incapable, was in excessive demand for the next few minutes to clear up the mystery. These few minutes Dunn employed in strengthening his defence of indifference and preparing himself for the coming questions as to what Mr. Westcott had said to him, and what he was going to do to Mike. He answered the questions in very ambiguous terms, but his threats against the chief agent in his misfortunes were no less awful because of their vagueness, while the grins of a dozen fifth class boys at the long table opposite kept his wrath at the boiling-point. Ben Tracy at last succeeded in diverting the general interest to Redfield, who had made a new record that morning in the smashing of glass tubes in the laboratory.

But the fifth were not to be diverted. They had no need of Cable’s learning to explain Wilmot’s comparison. Having fought their way, line by line, through sundry tales of Greek heroes presented in simple Latin, they knew the stories from end to end. “Jason Dunn!” they whispered ecstatically to one another along the table. The names fitted as if made to go together. No combination could be better!

“We’ll call him Jason after this,” proposed Dickie Sumner, Jack’s younger brother. “Nobody can help saying it after he’s heard it once.”

This suggestion was put into practice as soon as the youngsters left the table. They gathered at the door and sang out in chorus three times before they scattered: “Jason Dunn! Jason Dunn! What has Jason done?”

“Fresh little mutts!” exclaimed Tracy, in disgust. “That’s the result of being tied up with a kindergarten. Let’s go out and wring their necks!”

“Don’t notice ’em,” said Wilmot. “They’ll forget it to-morrow if you let ’em alone.”

But the title stuck. Before a week was out, the name, Archie Dunn, or Baldie Dunn, ceased to be heard on a boy’s lips. It had become Jason Dunn.

CHAPTER VII

SUMNER CHOOSES A SUCCESSOR

The first skirmish in the feud that was bound to arise came on the following day at Adams’s, when a group of fifth and sixth lads, thinking themselves safe in the shadow of the dormitory, sang out the new nickname derisively across the field to Dunn. Dunn, who was still in a state of irritation, and by no means ready, as yet, to accept the inevitable nickname, made a dash for the group, which broke into screaming flight round the corner of the locker house. The first lad whom Jason met as he rounded the corner in full pursuit, was Mike, engaged in tossing a football against the side of the building. Without stopping to raise the question whether Mike had been one of the offenders, Dunn proceeded to the agreeable task of teaching the urchin a lesson. The boy resisted with hands, feet, voice, and teeth. The older fellows, hurrying forth at the shrill cries for help, found Mike lying on his back, like the arms of a hay tedder, squirming to keep his antagonist at bay and squawking like a hen in distress.

His feet going like the arms of a hay tedder.

The majority of the newcomers lined up in good positions, to enjoy the amusement which chance had thrown in their way; but Talbot, who had seen the beginning of the incident from a distance, pushed through the line, jerked the boy to his feet, and commanded him to stop his noise.

“He knocked me down when I wasn’t doing a thing!” screamed Mike, weeping more from rage than because of any hurt which he had received. “Let me get a stone, and I’ll kill him!”

“You won’t do anything of the sort,” said Talbot, firmly. He turned to Dunn. “What’s the row, anyway? What’s the use of pitching into a little fellow like him?”

“I’m not going to have him calling me names,” said Dunn, defiantly. “He thinks because he’s small he can be as fresh as he wants to, without getting hurt.”

“I didn’t call him names,” sobbed Mike. “I wasn’t doing a thing.”

“It wasn’t him,” offered Dickie Sumner, who had been tempted back by all-compelling curiosity. “He wasn’t with us at all.”

Talbot turned and seized the rash youngster by the arm. “So it was you, was it? Now, look here! We aren’t going to have any calling names or any other freshness from you young kids round this place. If we catch you at it, we’ll duck you under the cold-water faucet and forbid you the grounds. Understand?”

Dickie understood. “All right,” he answered faintly, and tried to pull away; but Talbot still held him in a tight grip.

“What do you say, Jack?” he added, turning to Dick’s older brother, who shared with him the responsibility for order on the grounds.

“That’s right!” replied Jack Sumner, sacrificing his fraternal obligation in the cause of justice with surprising equanimity. “He’s a good one to begin on.”

Talbot released the youngster, who speedily escaped from the circle of danger to join his confederates over by the tennis courts, where they discussed for a time in subdued voices the probability that Pete meant business. They were soon diverted by tag.

“All the same, Dunn is a fool to notice them,” murmured Talbot in Hardie’s ear as they returned to the locker room to finish their dressing.

“I don’t believe he can shake off the nickname, now,” said Roger.

“No, it’s branded in. He isn’t showing much of the good-nature they talk about, is he?”

In fact, Dunn’s good-nature didn’t extend far below the skin. It was a mannerism assumed to win him the popularity which he craved. He was vain, lazy, and characterless. In the football field his fine physique, together with the professional air with which he bore himself, for some time blinded the eyes of critics to his shortcomings. Yards, the coach, felt sure that something could be made of a man of Dunn’s vigor and apparent knowledge of the game. Yet a strong player opposite him, or the grinding strain of an uphill contest, invariably produced slackened effort and excuses.

“It’s come to be the weakest place in the team,” said the coach, a few days before the Groton game. “If we could brace up the left end and quarter-back, we should have some hope of giving Newbury a tussle.”

“Is Sumner so bad as all that?” asked Harrison, disturbed. “I thought he was running the play very well.”

“He runs the play well enough, but look at the errors! He fumbles, muffs punts, misses tackles. A quarter-back has no right to do anything of the kind.”

“No one plays perfectly,” Harrison hastened to offer in defence of his friend. “Besides, he’s the only man we’ve got for the place.”

“Hardie is coming on well,” observed the coach. “He’s going to push Ben Tracy pretty hard for tackle. We might give him a trial at quarter.”

“I don’t think he’d do at all,” answered Harrison, quickly. “He’d be entirely new to the position, and we shall need him as a substitute tackle before the season is over.”

The coach considered for a time in silence. Yards was a loyal Westcott graduate, whose devotion to his school was strong enough to make him sacrifice his afternoons at the Law School for the sake of helping the Westcott team. He knew the game well and could teach it, but he lacked confidence in his own judgment of the comparative merits of individuals, and he was morbidly anxious to avoid the foolish jealousies which he remembered as a source of weakness to the school in his own day. It was clear that Harrison’s heart was set on keeping Sumner in his place. To insist on a change which would be at best an experiment with an unknown quantity, and which might give rise to factions, seemed at present unwise.

“We’ll give McDowell a chance on the end, anyway,” he said, “and let Dunn rest.”

To this proposition Harrison assented eagerly, and went hot foot to warn Sumner that he must bestir himself if he wanted to keep his post.

“Am I as bad as that?” asked Sumner, in consternation.

“You’re not bad, but you’ve got to be better.”

In place of replying, Sumner swung his sweater to the other shoulder and gazed, a sober, startled expression in his eyes, across the field. Harrison stole a side glance at his friend’s face and took his arm affectionately. “It’s all right, Jack; don’t worry,” he said. “Just play your best game, and I’ll stand back of you.”

“You’re wrong there, Harry,” Jack said quietly. “You’ve no right to stand back of me. My playing has been rotten lately, and I know it. I’m fumbling punts and missing tackles all the time. If you’ve got some one else who can do better, I won’t have you keep me on just out of friendship.”

“You’re talking rot,” returned Harrison, impatiently. “Stubby Weldon is no use, as you know perfectly well. There’s no one else.”

Sumner breathed easier. “I’ll do better if I can,” he said.

So McDowell went to Groton to play left end, and Dunn was told to stay at home and rest. He neither stayed at home nor rested. Stover took him to the game with Hargraves and Reeves in his flyer. He amused himself watching the play incognito, and got back before the return train delivered the weary, disheartened team at the station in Boston.

Westcott’s fared ill at Groton. Sumner’s game was worse than ever. McDowell strove like a hero against men a whole head taller and many pounds heavier, tackling fiercely and surely whenever he got within striking distance of the ball; but his opponents brushed his interference aside, charged through him in the line and blocked him off from the play almost at will. The score was eighteen to nothing at the end of the first half.

“I can’t do it!” groaned McDowell, as the players tried to hearten each other during the intermission. “I’m not big enough. Put Hardie in.”

As Dunn was out, there was nothing else to do. Hardie went in at left end, and fat Bumpus, who had lost in weight but gained in muscle and wind by his patriotic exertions on the field, relieved Kimball at guard. The team sallied forth once more, crestfallen but determined.

Groton got the ball on Talbot’s kick-off, and tried the old trick of circling Westcott’s left end, but Hardie could not be disposed of, and the play came to grief. They bucked the centre, only to find big Bumpus sprawling effectually in the path. A forward pass found its way into Horr’s hands. Then Sumner gave the ball to Talbot, who discovered a hole where McDowell had failed to make one. Encouraged, he repeated the play and made the first down. A lucky forward pass which, to his great delight, fell into Hardie’s hands, saved Westcott’s at the next third down, and carried the ball to the centre of the field. Twenty yards farther they pressed, and then Talbot was forced to kick. Groton started on a return journey, which proved to be slow and frequently interrupted. A fumble by Westcott’s before the goal posts gave the home eleven the only score which they made during the second half.

Roger Hardie felt very happy as he took his seat in the barge with his mates to drive to the station, for he knew, without regard to the compliments paid him by his polite opponents, that his chance had come and he had not missed it.

The leaders, however, were in no exultant mood. Twenty-three to nothing is a big score for a coach and captain to swallow, especially when it is clear that two-thirds of it is due to avoidable errors. On the train Mr. Adams, who had accompanied the team, sat with Yards, Harrison, and Talbot in a double seat, and tried to point out signs of hope for the future in the day’s disaster.

“I should like to suggest two changes,” he said at length, “which may help the team. One I think you will accept. The other I have my doubts about.”

The trio looked at him expectantly. “Hardie should play regularly at left end,” went on the teacher. “His work to-day was almost equal to Harrison’s.”

“Better, sir!” said Harrison, quickly. “We accept that suggestion on the spot, don’t we, Yards?”

Yards nodded. “We ought to have had him there before. What’s the other suggestion,—Bumpus?”

“No. Bumpus can take care of himself. I want to propose that you try McDowell at quarter. He’s out of place in the line, but he’s a good tackler, catches punts well, and has a good head.”

Talbot looked at Yards, and Yards looked at Harrison, who pressed his lips together and looked at no one. There was an interval of silence.

“I don’t see why he should be any better than Sumner!” said the captain, defiantly.

“I don’t see how he could be any worse!” ejaculated Talbot.

“I don’t urge it,” said Mr. Adams, kindly. “I merely suggest it for consideration.”

“He couldn’t run the game as Jack does,” said Harrison.

“He could save touch-downs as Jack doesn’t,” asserted Talbot. “I think as much of Jack as you do, but my thinking a lot of him can’t make him play well.”

“He has been on the team all the season. It is hard to put him off now.”

“No one stays on the crew because he’s been on all the season—I’ll tell you that in advance!” blurted Pete, savagely. “I’ll fire myself if there are four better men.”

Harrison smiled faintly. “It’s easy to say that now. Wait till spring.”

“Sh! Here he comes,” exclaimed Yards, speaking for the first time. “We’ll think it over during the night.”

Sumner came oscillating down the aisle from the seat which he had occupied, dismally brooding alone, during half the journey. He stopped at the end of the double seat and addressed Harrison, but his gaze, as he spoke, wandered uneasily away over the captain’s head; while his flushed cheek and hurried tones betrayed the strain under which he had been laboring.

“I’ve been thinking the thing all over,” he began, “and I see perfectly plainly what’s the right thing to do. I’ve gone to the bad in my play. I know it as well as anybody. I want you to put little Mac into my place at quarter and give him a good, fair show to prove what he can do. He’s no good in the line because he’s so light, but he tackles like a little fiend in the open, and he can catch anything that can be kicked. I could tell him all he doesn’t know about signals and plays in twenty minutes. I believe the change would give the team a new start.”

“By Jove, you’re the stuff, Jack!” cried Talbot, as he clutched his friend’s hand and gave it a wring. “If we win anything this year, that’s the spirit that’ll bring it. There’s something in a name, after all.”

“Give McDowell the place and wrest it back from him,” suggested Mr. Adams, who felt the tension of the scene.

“I shan’t wrest it back, if he has a fair show, sir,” answered Sumner, with a melancholy laugh.

“We’ll try him, then,” concluded Harrison; “shan’t we, Yards?”

Yards acquiesced with a vast sense of relief. He had already determined on this very change, though how he was to bring it about had greatly perplexed him. Sumner’s magnanimity relieved him of all anxiety.

CHAPTER VIII

A SLIGHTED OFFER

Only a week remained before the first league game—that with Newbury. Having already had experience in the position, and being a lad who used his eyes and ears more than his lips, Hardie needed very little coaching to fit well into the game at left end. Though he lacked Harrison’s sureness in play, as well as the instinctive readiness in translating signals into action which is to be expected of one who has practiced long in a single position, he was better than Harrison in making holes and quite as fast in getting down the field. Each showed a fine keenness of scent after the ball in the enemy’s hands; each was master of the art which belongs especially to a good end, of appearing where he is most useful, and not somewhere else. Deprived of the support of the first team and handicapped by the weakness of the second, Dunn made an inconspicuous figure in the practice. When on the first, he had at times, under favorable conditions, shown effective dash and vigor; degraded to the second, he became sulky and listless. Little remained of the aggressiveness of the early days but a chronic ugliness which manifested itself in fault-finding and in the practice of certain mean tricks which he had learned at a former school.

Sumner’s conduct stood out in strong contrast. Having undertaken to furnish the school a quarter-back better than himself, he pushed his sacrifice to its full limit. He drilled Mac in signals, schooled him in receiving and passing—a part of the play in which Sumner himself excelled—and put him in possession, as far as was possible, of such facts respecting likely plays and dangers to be avoided as his own experience had furnished. Harrison immediately made him captain of the second eleven, and in this capacity he went energetically to work to build up a team which should give the first the best possible practice. By this course, it is safe to say, he gained more respect among the boys whose opinion was worth having than if he had kept his place and won a game. When kid-brother Dick, who, imp-like, found amusement in his elder’s misfortune, referred slightingly to Jack as having been “fired,” Mike McKay threatened to lick him on the spot.

“You’re a big fool, Dick Sumner, or you’d know that it’s a lot harder thing to get off a team of your own accord when you’re on it, than to get put on when you’re off. I’d be proud of him if he was my brother. Besides, he’ll get back.”

“The team’s playing a lot better since he’s off; everybody says so,” answered Dick, bound to maintain his position, yet secretly pleased at this authoritative recognition of his brother’s merits.

“It isn’t because he’s off, it’s because Jason Dunn’s off. He never was any good. I knew it all the time. He’s afraid of any fellow his size.”

Dick had nothing to say in favor of Jason Dunn, so he took another tack.

“Newbury’ll beat ’em anyway, so what difference does it make?”

“It may make a lot of difference,” answered the oracle of the fifth. “Newbury may beat us, and they may not. If big Bumpus doesn’t bust, we’re going to have a solid line, and the ends are great! It’ll be a corking game all right, whichever wins. And you don’t want to go around saying we’re going to be licked!”

“I don’t say it to anybody but you,” Dick interposed hastily.

“You don’t want to say it to any one,” continued Mike, with a severity quite judicial. “Just try to make everybody think we’re going to win. You know how Phillips had us all scared when the fourth played Suffolk, with his talk about how big and strong they were, and how we couldn’t possibly down ’em, and all that, till we lost our nerve and almost let ’em beat us?”

Dick remembered.

“It’s the same with the big team; they’ve got to be encouraged. Harrison deserves it, too, for firing Jason.”

This principle Mike had an opportunity to put into practice the next morning when he passed a knot of older boys gathered at the corner of the school building, where they waited for the nine o’clock bell to ring and meantime swapped news and jokes and covertly watched the girls who by twos and threes and fours passed on the other side of the street on the way to Miss Wheeler’s school. Eaton reached out and seized the boy by the shoulder. “Ticket for the game?” he demanded.

“Got one,” said Mike, coolly, shaking himself free.

“What do you say, Mike,” asked Wilmot; “are we going to beat Newbury?”

“Sure thing, only they’ve got to get those forward passes down better.”

“Do you hear that?” called Wilmot, as the boy trotted away. “Mike says we’re going to win. That settles it. No use to practice any more. It’s all up with Newbury.”

“He’s trying to make us win; that’s more than can be said of you,” spoke Talbot, disapprovingly.

“What’s the matter with me?” protested Wilmot. “Don’t I spend half my time tagging round after you fellows as manager?”

“A bum manager!” grumbled Horr. “Where are those W sweaters?”

“Mike is doing his little best to build up a school sentiment behind us,” continued Talbot, “and you—well, you’re laughing at us most of the time. Mike knows what he’s talking about, too, when it comes to football.”

Wilmot assumed an indignant manner. “That’s a base libel. I’m trying to keep you from being over-confident.”

The bell rang and the group began to move. “I’d like to see a few signs of over-confidence,” said Harrison. “Everything seems to me to be going the other way.”

For the mid-week practice Yards brought out a team of Westcott graduates from college, who could furnish to the reorganized school eleven something sturdy on which to try their plays. Mac ran his game with few errors and handled punts like a veteran; the ends got three out of four forward passes; Bumpus wrestled valiantly against a big sophomore in the line, puffing and blowing and perspiring, but fully holding his own. The result was in the main encouraging.

Dunn stood on the side-lines, dressed for play and ready to be called in if necessary. While he waited and observed the game, jesting aloud with Stover to show the bystanders how little his spirits were affected by his retirement from the team, Dunn noticed a stoutly built, showily dressed man, with a square face darkened by a heavy, close-shaven beard, who, while following the play, seemed at the same time to be interested in the conversation around him. Presently the stranger, having apparently made inquiries concerning Dunn from some of the smaller boys, called him aside and talked with him a few minutes out of earshot of the spectators. At the close of the conversation he put a slip of paper into Dunn’s hand and disappeared.

Some time later, as Harrison trotted from the field across toward the locker house, he passed Stover and Dunn going in the same direction.

“What do you think of Bumpus now?” he called over his shoulder as he went by.

“You can make a football player out of ’most any fat old thing,” returned Stover. “It’s different in baseball. I say, stop a minute, Harry!”

Harrison turned round. “What is it?”

“We want to see you as soon as you get dressed about something important, very important! We’ll give you fifteen minutes.”

Before the allotted time was up, the captain emerged from the locker house, pulling on his coat as he came. Dunn followed him. Stover drew them both into a corner. “Do you know Jake Callahan?” he asked.

“The Newbury coach? I know who he is.”

“He isn’t coach any longer, they’ve fired him,” said Stover. “He was here this afternoon for a little while watching the game. He picked Jason out of the crowd and made him a proposition. Go ahead, Jason!”

“He’s terribly sore on Newbury because they haven’t treated him right,” explained Dunn, eagerly. “He says he can let us have the diagrams of all their best plays and the signals for ’em. He doesn’t mean to sell ’em, he’s just going to give ’em to us; but all the same if they help us, and we want to make him up a purse of a few dollars on the quiet, he’ll take it. He left his address with me.”

Harrison looked from one face to the other, but said nothing.

“You see, if you had the signals,” continued Dunn, “and knew what the play was going to be, you could stop ’em wherever you wanted to. Of course you wouldn’t want to do it too often, or you’d give yourselves away. It might be better to let only four or five good fellows in on the thing, and then there wouldn’t be so much danger of getting caught at it.”

“We could raise ten or twenty dollars for Callahan among a few fellows who’d keep their mouths shut,” said Stover. “I’ll attend to that. Yards needn’t know a thing about it.”

“Do you think it’s quite—honorable?” asked Harrison, hesitatingly. He needed no lessons from either Stover or Dunn to appreciate the advantages to be derived from knowing an opponent’s signals.

Stover grinned. “Honorable? Sure! Why not? Ain’t it their business to have signals we can’t discover? Wouldn’t you play for the right side if some one came and told you the Newbury right tackle was weak? Don’t we always try to find out what kind of a ball a batter can’t hit?”

“The cases aren’t similar,” returned Harrison.

“There’s no use in arguing about it,” said Stover. “It’s nothing to me. We give you a chance to get the game. You can take it or leave it. I thought you wanted to win.”

Wanted to win! Was there anything Harrison at that moment wanted more? He looked up and caught sight of Talbot and Hardie sauntering past the corner on their way to Hardie’s room. “Here’s Pete,” said the captain; “let’s see what he says.” And before the emissaries of the disgruntled coach could interpose an objection, he had called the pair over and was bidding Dunn repeat Callahan’s offer.

Dunn obeyed with alacrity, happy in the conviction that by the service which he was now rendering, he was taking a long step forward to the recovery of his lost popularity. As he spoke, growing more and more eager in the unfolding of the advantages to be gained and the best method of using the new information, Hardie dropped his gaze to the ground, where he kicked away impatiently at a stubby tuft of grass, while Talbot held his eyes fixed on the narrator’s face, his cheeks darkening and swelling with rising emotion. Slowly Dunn became aware that the impression which he was making was not the one intended. His eloquence wavered; his speech dwindled to an abrupt and confused end.

“Well, what do you think of it, Pete?” asked Harrison, quietly, swinging round upon his friend.

“I think it would be a dirty, mean trick!” Talbot burst out in wrathful staccato. “A hundred victories couldn’t wipe out the disgrace of it!”

“That’s just my opinion,” declared Harrison. “As you have the man’s address, Dunn, you’d better write him what we think of his offer.”

Harrison turned back into the locker house; Talbot and Hardie went off toward the dormitory. Stover watched the retreating figures for a few seconds in silence, then emitted a loud, mocking laugh.

“Have it your own way, you angels, you nice boys, and get slaughtered,” exclaimed Dunn, in deep disgust. “I’m through with the thing.”

He crumpled the envelope on which was written Callahan’s address and threw it on the ground. Several minutes later, when the coast was clear, a strange boy who had been watching from the outer fence, strolled across the yard, picked up the twisted scrap of paper, and thrust it into his pocket.

CHAPTER IX

THE NEWBURY GAME

Stover, whisking home in his automobile, turned the incident over in his mind, and decided that he would say nothing about it,—if the others didn’t,—at least until after the game. The fellows in the influential set at Westcott’s were terribly sensitive about points of honor, and it was hardly worth while to risk position by running counter to the general sentiment in a matter which really didn’t concern him at all. After they’d lost the game, they might think more highly of his advice.

Stover himself was firmly imbued with the notion that winning is the sole test, and reason for existence, of an athletic team. If a team couldn’t win, in his opinion it might as well disband; there was no sense in keeping it up. These views he held directly from his father, by example and precept. Stover, Senior, prided himself on “getting there” in business. Those who didn’t get there, who got only halfway there, or refused to sacrifice certain principles in order to get there, were in his eyes flabby failures. Protests represented but the inevitable wails of the defeated, criticism the expression of envy; the man who won could afford to laugh at both. Stover, Junior, accepting fully the idea that defeat was inherently disgraceful, applied it to his own life in his own way. He was ashamed to be on a losing team. Low marks in examinations put him sadly out of humor, for they classed him with the despised unsuccessful. For the same reason, notwithstanding a bold air of indifference, it irked him sorely that he was not popular.

Dunn likewise came to recognize that he had made a misstep. He said to Harrison next morning, “I guess you fellows were right about that Callahan matter; it wouldn’t have done much good, anyway.” Harrison, glad to perceive that Dunn understood the falseness of his position, answered pleasantly, and let the incident slip from his mind. He found enough material for anxiety in the problem of Talbot’s strained knee, the perfecting of Mac in the use of signals, and the elaboration of a new scheme for a forward pass from a fake kick.

Callahan’s offer cropped up again on Friday night, as Wilmot and Harrison sat in Pete’s bedroom, drawing out a long good night. The pair had brought in a rubber to work on the injured knee, distrusting Pete’s fiercely repeated assertion, “It’s all right and doesn’t need any rubbing.” Determined to see that their trouble was not taken in vain, they stayed on during the process, in the face of rudely inhospitable suggestions from Talbot that they go home and let him alone. They lingered still after the masseur had departed.

“Anything new about Jason’s friend, the coach?” asked Wilmot, making a try with his cap at the top of a brass candlestick which stood on the mantel. The cap fell short, and Talbot put his foot on it. Wilmot flung himself back in his chair.

“What coach?”

“The one that blew in at Adams’s the other day and offered to sell state secrets. Harrigan or Cullinan or Hooligan—I don’t remember his name.”

The look of disgust on Harrison’s face showed that he understood. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of him since.”

“I wonder if Jason wrote him,” mused Wilmot. “You ought to have given me the job, Harry. I’d have done it in slick style.”

Harrison shook his head. “It would be taking too much notice of him. Jason came up next day and acknowledged that it was all wrong. I don’t think he did anything more about it.”

“Jason doesn’t know right from wrong, anyway,” observed Wilmot.

“You could say that of some others I know,” interposed Talbot, with a significant emphasis. Wilmot, however, showed no curiosity to learn who these others might be.

“Why can’t you get the other fellows’ signals right in the game?” he proposed, suddenly alert. “Four-eleven-forty-four!—right half-back outside left tackle. Two-eleven-twenty-three-six-million-and-six!—right half-back crawls between centre’s legs. Deduction: right half-back is eleven. Keep this up through the game, and you’ll have the whole system. You win by mental superiority—solve cryptograms on the run. Sherlock Holmes applied to football!”

Talbot smiled with complacent contempt. “That shows how much you know about football. You’re in the class with the person who wrote a football story that I read once in a weekly paper. The two elevens played the game, and after it was over and the one team had beaten the other, it was discovered that some one on the winning team had broken training before the game. The winners, therefore, forfeited the game to the losers.”

“No, seriously,” insisted Wilmot, “why couldn’t it be done?”

“Because it takes all your attention to play your game,” said Pete. “You can’t be puzzling out conundrums when you’re watching with all your soul to see the ball move. I suppose you’d have us call time to rub a leg, and sit down with a pencil and figure the thing out.”

“No, not that, but I should think a few of the old hands like you and Harry and Jimmy Eaton, and quick wits like McDowell—”

“McDowell stands ’way back on the defence, you idiot!” interrupted Pete. “He can’t even hear the other team’s signals!”

“Like somebody else, then,” continued Wilmot, unabashed by the compliment. “I should think a few fellows might each get a hint, and then all together would have enough to amount to something. What do you say, Harry?”

“It’s possible, but not worth while,” answered Harrison. “You’d lose in trying to do it more than you could gain by anything you could find out. The best way is to play a hard, safe game and be ready for whatever happens along. Come on, I want to go to bed!”

The school turned out in force for the game. Though hidden within lay the expectation of defeat, the older boys were assured that the team had a chance, and gathered gladly, the gambler’s hope in their hearts. To the younger ones the spectacle was in itself all-attractive, to say nothing of the joy of sharing the new responsibility of supporting a team which belonged to them. If some, in ignorance of their privilege, needed persuasion, there was Mike McKay to furnish it, through the potent influence of himself and his crowd. Two urchins of the sixth, who had guilelessly announced their intention of seeing the Harvard-Dartmouth game instead, were threatened by Mike with excommunication; he would cut them off, from that time on, from all help on lessons from their classmates, unless they performed their duty. They were ready in their places. Papas and mammas were there, everybody’s sister and her girl friends; and swarms of recent graduates from across the Charles, vigorous aids to school cheer-leaders and stayers-up of faint hearts. An extended line of autos was stalled along the fence. Nor were the Newburyites behind in the demonstration. It was confidence (a stronger force than hope) that swelled their numbers and gave vigor to their voices.

But the proudest, most important, most conspicuous figure was that of President John Smith. Increased in height by a brown derby, swelled in girth by a fat fur coat,—he had meant that the day should be cool,—with an alderman and two newspaper reporters in his train and the officials of the game his employees, he paced to and fro within the side-lines and enjoyed his greatness and the greatness of the day. Only a badge was lacking to complete happiness. In the reporters he had two friends on whose helpful services he could count. Alderman Skillen was a political power in President John’s district, with a son on the Newbury team. If only young Skillen would distinguish himself; if only Westcott’s would put up a stiff but not victorious game; if only the reporters could give the right turn to their laudatory phrases, and the alderman be properly impressed with the power and the influence and the potential value of the mainspring of it all,—the day might well mark the beginning of a strong upward twist in the life curve of John Smith. The suspicion whispered into his ear that morning by the Newbury captain that the renegade coach might have betrayed the game to Westcott’s had not so much as ruffled the surface of his optimism.

The game began. Hexam, the Newbury half-back, drove the ball on the kick-off down into the hands of Mac,[1] who clutched it tight, and with his jerky, darting see-saw, threaded his way up the field behind Talbot and Hardie and Eaton and any one else he could use as a cover, for thirty good yards. He went down buried deep, like a greased pig finally swamped by numbers. Then when the small Westcottites were chirping over the prospect of a quick advance to the goal line, Talbot, without trying a single rush, punted long and low, sending the ball out of bounds on the twenty-yard line.

1. The Westcott line-up: Hardie, Eaton, Bumpus, Ford, Channing, B. Tracy, Harrison; quarter-back, McDowell; half-backs, Horr and Talbot; full-back, Bradford.

The Newburyites now had their chance, with the length of the field before them, and hammered away with moderate success, now on this side, now on that, till Eaton broke through on a slow-starting end-play and nabbed the runner yards behind the line. Forced to kick or try a forward pass, Newbury chose the second alternative and lost the ball. Again Pete punted, to the disappointment of the eager Westcott spectators, and again Newbury started near her goal line on the slow pound-pound down the field.

A half-dozen short gains had been made, when, on a second down, Talbot pulled Roger aside. “Seven in third place means outside Eaton,” he panted. “Watch out!”

“Six, four, seven, twenty-two, forty-four!” sang out the Newbury quarter. Hardie crept in a double pace; Talbot, line half-back, advanced a step; and Eaton nerved himself for a spring. The ball moved; Eaton, moving with it, evaded his opponent and smashed into the interference behind the line. The bearer of the ball, seeing Talbot in the gap in front and Hardie swinging in upon him from outside, tossed the ball to a mate behind who let it slip through his hands. Roger threw himself at it as it fell. When the heap was split open, there lay the Westcott end at the bottom, curled round the ball like a rat around an egg.

Now, within striking distance of the Newbury goal line, Westcott’s abandoned the kicking game and took to aggressive, fast play. Sequence B carried them forward fifteen yards, a fortunate try at right end gave them five yards more, Eaton and Hardie twice opened a clean lane for Bradford through the sputtering Skillen. Even Bumpus succeeded in getting some kind of a lift from underneath on big Firman, and assisted to establish a first down. The unexpectedly fast and furious attack confused the Newbury resistance. Within the ten-yard line Mac gave himself a chance, and scurrying to the right the proper measure, squirmed over the last eight yards under Harrison’s protection and dived home past clutching hands and struggling bodies. Westcott’s had scored a certain five!

In the intermission Harrison contributed an outside-right-tackle signal which he had learned from the repetitious Newbury quarter, and Bumpus the number which usually preceded onslaughts on centre.

“Don’t try to find out anything more!” commanded Yards. “Put your whole soul into the play. You’ve got the game if you can only hold them.”

Back they trotted, with smirched faces and tired limbs, but eager and determined. Their schoolmates on the cheering benches howled joyfully at them as they passed, but a certain gentleman wearing a brown derby and fur overcoat, and accompanied by a short, rotund man, easily recognizable by his diamond shirt-stud, thick mustache, and fat, red-veined face, gave them but ungracious looks. These looks presaged words equally ungracious to be uttered after the game, but the players passed on, unaware that the eye of President John Smith rested on them in disapproval.

I wish I might relate all the feats of heroes performed during the second half of this game which seemed to Mike McKay the most wholly satisfying contest he had ever witnessed. The chapter, however, has already run its length, and more football is coming. The ball made many futile journeys to and fro. Thrice the Newbury captain forced his quarter to alter the signals because Westcott’s change showed that the coming move was understood. Twice a Newbury man got an on-side kick behind the Westcott secondary defence, only to go down in McDowell’s grasp. Once Mac risked a long forward pass in the middle of the field on a first down, and Harrison, getting it near the side-line, made a forty-yard run to a touch-down. Once Skillen hit Hardie a swinging blow with his fist as the Westcott end would interfere between him and the ball; and escaped the eye of the umpire. Once more he tried the same pretty trick and retired from the field in consequence. Time slipped away, and with it Newbury’s chance and Newbury’s courage. At the last blast of the referee’s whistle the score stood eleven to nothing in favor of Harrison’s team.

CHAPTER X

THE SCOUTS BRING NEWS

The delighted Westcott lads poured after their team to the dressing rooms in a turbulent stream. The forward ones thronged the limited space within, interfering with the progress of the players toward cleanness and respectability, and wearying them with fierce clutches of the hand and much repetition of exclamations and idle questions. Dunn served his companions a good turn—unintentionally, to be sure—by standing near the door and delivering to a densely packed circle a disquisition on the game, which included not merely the true explanation of the weakness of the Newbury team and the faults of their playing, but a candid setting forth of the errors on the Westcott side. According to Dunn, the score might have been doubled if Westcott’s hadn’t thrown the ball away so much by punting, and had gone systematically to work at the outset to use up Thorne, the Newbury tackle who did half the defensive work of his team.

“Didn’t McDowell put up a great game,—and Hardie?” exclaimed some inconsiderate enthusiast in the circle.

“Yes, they both did pretty well on the whole,” answered Dunn. “It was a cinch for Hardie. He had nothing against him.”

Mike and Dickie Sumner came edging by.

“If Jason had only been there, you’d have seen something doing,” said Mike, in a low tone to his companion. They both laughed aloud. Dunn turned at the sound and caught a glimpse of the roguish faces, and felt, though he could not hear, the insult of their words.

“Get out of here, you kids!” he called angrily. “You’ve no business here at all.”

“We’re going, Jason, as fast as we can,” returned Dick, feeling safe in the crowd. “You played a corking game, Jason!” added Mike.

The two went their way to the quarters of the other team to see how the Newburyites were taking it, leaving Dunn to wax violent over the necessity of having these “little fresh mutts” hanging round all the time, and the foolish encouragement they received from older fellows who ought to know better. Some of these fellows who ought to know better were at the other end of the room preparing for the shower. Jack Sumner held Talbot’s foot in his lap—the knee was stiffening again—and worked at the knot in a shoe-lace, exclaiming with delight over the playing of the team and dwelling with especial enthusiasm on McDowell’s performance.

“It was just perfect,” he said, relaxing his efforts on the knot to look into the faces of his hearers. “Those tackles in the second half when Thorne got the on-side kicks and came down on him, just saved touch-downs. He’s the greatest find of the year!”

“Oh, cut it!” exploded Talbot, punning without intent. He meant that Jack should drop that talk about McDowell. It was honest, without doubt, and generous, but it hurt Pete none the less, for he understood well Sumner’s disappointment.

“I haven’t any knife,” said Sumner. “Here, Steve, give us a knife!”

And Wilmot, interrupting his discourse on how he had saved the game by suggesting that they learn the signals during play, dug down into his trousers pocket and produced a battered thing with a single broken blade, which he kept on purpose to lend.

“Be sure you give it back to me,” he said. “It’s the only lender I’ve got.”

Meantime in the Newbury quarters, outside of which stood Mike and Dickie with wide-open eyes and most receptive ears, were to be heard laments and reproaches and an indignant clamor of foul play. Westcott’s knew the Newbury signals, there was no doubt about it.

“Why, that Hardie would move right up on the signal for outside-tackle play, and go right back again when it was called off. He knew the signal all right.” Skillen’s assurance had personal interest behind it. He wanted it understood that he had been laboring under a handicap.

“And on the centre plays in the second half,” said Firman, “Ford came right up into the line, and Talbot got in behind him. Of course I couldn’t make a hole.”

“That miserable Callahan gave them away,” declared Newbold, the captain. “You wouldn’t suppose Westcott’s would play such a dirty trick, would you?”

“These high flyers are always the worst grafters,” said Skillen. “They’ll cheat fast enough when they have to.”

“But we changed some of the signals,” remarked Thorne, “and that outside-tackle signal that they knew was one of the new ones.”

“That was only one,” said Newbold. “They knew at least half a dozen. Callahan sold us, that’s the fact. We’ve got proof. Fritz Schaefer saw him at the Westcott grounds last Wednesday, talking with one of their men. It’s a steal. We’ll protest the game.”

“I don’t believe they did it,” said Thorne. “I know one or two of their fellows, and they aren’t that kind. Williams (the quarter-back) always gives the same numbers, anyway. No one who kept his ears open could help hearing some of them.”

“That’s right, stand up for ’em!” said Hexam, bitterly. “Go back on your own school and try to get the Westcott fellows’ favor! They may let you into one of their societies when you get to college.”

“I don’t feel as if I’d gone back on my own school much to-day,” returned Thorne, quietly. “It’s bad enough to be beaten without playing the baby.”

“It’s a steal!” Newbold reiterated. “They got our signals and won unfairly. Smith says so.”

Smith was saying so at that very moment, in strongly rhetorical language, to an eager crowd outside the quarters, including in its front rank a stout man with a diamond pin, and—on the outskirts—Mike McKay and Dickie Sumner. The high-minded president was sorely pained—not at the defeat of his school—oh, no! Nor by the anti-climax of his first gala day—certainly not! Nor by his loss of prestige with Alderman Skillen. He was pained, but only impersonally and officially, as the offended guardian of the moral majesty of the league.

“They was too smart for you, that’s about the size of it,” Mr. Skillen was saying. “If the’ isn’t any rule against buying up a coach, why, they’ve got you pinched.”

“No rule is needed,” answered President John, pompously. “The league stands for the highest ideals in sport. It won’t countenance low tricks or dishonorable methods of winning or anything at all in the games that isn’t absolutely fair and right.”

“It wasn’t fair and right to kick Jerry off the field, that’s a sure thing,” declared the alderman. “The other fellow got into him first with his shoulder. I saw him do it time and again.” An irrepressible titter ran round the circle at this ingenuous view of football etiquette.

“We have to leave that to the officials,” President John hastened to say. “I think they roasted us several times, but we can’t help that. The other matter is one for the league itself to handle. It’s one of the most disgraceful performances in the annals of football!”

The bystanders listened greedily. Mr. Skillen gave a sharp nod of approval. “That’s the way to put it—make it good and strong and stick to it. Your friends can give us a nice little story about it in the papers to-morrow. But what’ll come of it all, that’s what I want to know? Will there be anything doin’?”

“We shall protest the game before the committee and demand that it be played again or declared forfeited.”

“Forfeit!” decided Mr. Skillen, promptly. “Forfeit’s the thing. It wouldn’t help any to play it again. They’ve got too many trumps.”

“Forfeited, then,” agreed Mr. Smith. “I’ll see Newbold about it at once.”

President John disappeared through the door leading to the Newbury quarters, whither the curious young Westcott lads had not the audacity to follow. They hung about, however, hoping that he might reappear, and talked over the startling news in indignant whispers. They didn’t understand it all, but it was clear that their admired heroes were charged with buying signals from a Newbury coach and winning the game through the knowledge thus acquired.

“It’s all rot,” decided Mike. “Somebody’s been kidding ’em. They’d believe any old lie, if they thought they could make anything by it.”

“Why, my brother Jack would no more do such a thing than he would pick pockets!” said Dickie. “He’s awfully particular about those things, and Pete is just the same.”

“They’re all the same, except Jason,”—there was nothing evil Mike wouldn’t believe about Jason,—“and Jason doesn’t count any more.”

The president came forth, mopping his face with his handkerchief and setting his hat firmly on his head. From the window of the dressing room he had seen Mr. Westcott, lingering with three of his old boys near the entrance to the grounds. Toward this group he set a straight course, while the two lads fell in unnoticed behind him.

“Mr. Westcott!” called the high official, sharply, as he drew near. The college boys lifted their hats and went their way. Mr. Westcott turned with a pleasant look on his face, and in his heart a kindly feeling for all the world, including this man Smith. The afternoon had brought him a full measure of happiness; first the splendid playing of his team, then a shower of hearty greetings from old boys—and tokens of regard from former pupils, be it understood, are the sweetest morsels an honest schoolmaster can roll beneath his tongue.

“Mr. Westcott!” came in a loud, contentious voice from beneath the brown derby. “We shall protest that game,—I mean the captain of the Newbury team has protested it.”

Mr. Westcott’s smile vanished in a flash, and an expression of bewilderment overspread his face. “Protested!” he repeated. “I do not understand. On what ground, pray?”

“Your team, it appears, bought or at least got the signals which Newbury was to use from a discharged coach, and so were able to anticipate and block the Newbury plays.”

“It appears from what?” asked the schoolmaster, coldly.

President John hesitated. “Well, from the game itself and—from other facts.”

“Mr. Smith,” said Mr. Westcott, speaking with head thrown back, in tones resonant with indignation, “you probably do not realize the insulting character of the charge which you are bringing. If I understand you to mean that the Westcott management plotted to win the game with stolen signals, I assure you the charge is both false and slanderous. There is a bad mistake somewhere. I know my boys, as you do not; they are incapable of such an act.”

“I didn’t want to believe it myself, sir,” said President John, for the instant abashed, “but the facts are such—” He stopped and tried to think what the facts really were.

“The facts?” persisted Mr. Westcott.

“They will be stated fully at the meeting of the committee which I shall call,” answered John, recovering himself. “I merely desired to give you notice that I had received the protest.”

He turned and bent his steps toward his allies at the dressing rooms, driving two urchins in flight before him. Long before his pompous strut brought him to the Newbury end of the locker building, the two young scouts had burst in among the Westcott players with a whoop and a yell, had gathered about them in a trice an elbowing crush of the dressed and half-dressed, and with mutual support and interruption, were devoting themselves to the delectable task of relating the news. The audience listened wild-eyed, questioned, and exploded in exclamations. When the fire of questions slackened and the exclamations began to pop, Dunn seized his suit-case and silently stole away. This crowd was no place for him.

CHAPTER XI

A FRUITLESS INTERVIEW

When the Westcott boys gathered Monday morning at the corner outside the school building, every third comer bore a newspaper in his hand and hot indignation in his heart. Only those who did not read the papers, and had not learned the news which Mike and Dickie brought to the quarters, wore the complacent smile which they had carried from the field on Saturday.

President John’s friends, the reporters, had done their work thoroughly. While most of the Sunday journals merely announced the result of the game, or gave a few inches of space to a more or less inaccurate description, the Trumpeter and the Mail each sacrificed to it the best part of a column on the page devoted to sports, introduced by heavy headlines such as: WESTCOTT’S KNEW THE SIGNALS. SENSATIONAL CHARGES AGAINST BACK BAY BOYS. GAME PROTESTED. INTERVIEW WITH PRES. SMITH! From the interview it appeared that President John saw the affair in a very serious light; that the league stood for the highest ideals in sport,—a familiar phrase in the mouth of its president,—and would certainly deal sternly with dishonorable practices of any kind. A special meeting of the managing committee of the league was to be called immediately to consider the protest. If the charge should be sustained, clearly the only fair course would be to declare the game forfeited to Newbury, the score to stand on the record as one to nothing.

To say that the Westcott lads felt indignant at being thus advertised as unscrupulous cheats when they knew themselves absolutely innocent, is like describing a raving maniac as the victim of hallucination. They boiled and bubbled with rage. If President John had shown himself at the corner of Otway Street at that moment, they would have flown to mob him, though every bell in the Westcott school were clanging in their ears. But as the exalted official did not present himself to be mobbed, and the school gong did ring, they filed obediently in, and taking their seats, brooded in sullen bitterness on the outrage. A boy’s sense of justice—or, as some one has better expressed it, sense of injustice—is always morbidly keen. The boys at Westcott’s were used to a life in which the good things flowed in on them naturally, with few questions as to whether they were deserved or undeserved. Good behavior, fair work, regard for their parents’ wishes, constituted the price they were expected to pay; even on this discounts were sometimes allowed. Flat over-riding of just rights had entered into their experience as little as physical hardship. They reared against the blow like a young, high-spirited horse which feels for the first time the sting of a cruel whip.

After the morning Scripture reading, to which, it is to be feared, few gave heed, Mr. Westcott called Harrison and Wilmot into his office, where he kept them for a quarter of an hour. The other football men, if they could have had their hearts’ desire, would have sat outside the office, matching expletives, until their comrades should come forth and give them the history of the interview. This being for obvious reasons impossible, the excited lads kept their curiosity under control and went about their morning tasks with what interest they could muster,—wrestling, nauseated, with the dullness of Burke on Conciliation, abusing good English by turning it into worse than peasant German, and finding Cicero’s maledictions on Catiline but weak and watery dilutions compared with the things they could say of President John Smith. Dunn alone of those especially concerned studied that morning with absolute diligence; he did this in self-defence, to keep his thoughts from a subject—more disagreeable than lessons—to which they would wander if his grip upon them slackened but a moment.

At the lunch hour the ban was raised. A crowd packed itself about Harrison and Wilmot as soon as the two got within the lunch-room door, demanding news, and news condensed. “What did he say? What are you going to do?” was the burden of the questions, but they fell like a hailstorm in various forms and at various angles, from scores of lips at once. Harrison was staggered, but not Wilmot, whose nimble wit served an ever nimble tongue.

“He says we’ve disgraced the school,” said Wilmot, with a tragic gesture. “We’ve got to go to Mr. Smith and apologize and—”

He stopped, not because he had run out of ideas, or was put to shame by the serious faces about him, but of simple necessity. A hand was pressed upon his lips and a strong arm embraced him from behind.

“Shut up, or I’ll break your ribs,” said Talbot, quietly. “We don’t want to hear from you at all. Harry’s the man. Go ahead, Harry. I’ll keep this fellow quiet.”

Harrison, thus encouraged, started on his report. “He wanted to know all about it, and we told him. He said it was an insult to the school which we must treat with dignified contempt. We’ve got to keep cool about it and not get crazy and shoot off a lot of wild talk. That would hurt us more than anything those fellows can say. He’s going to have Yards write to the two papers, and he’ll write to the head-master at Trowbridge.”

“They’ve called a meeting for Wednesday,” said Pete.

“Do you think Trowbridge will side with ’em?” asked Hardie.

“I hope not,” answered the captain, doubtfully.

“If they think they can beat us,” offered Cable, “Trowbridge will side with us, because if we beat Newbury and Trowbridge beat us, the worst that could come for Trowbridge would be a tie, even if they got beaten by Newbury.”

“How’s that?” demanded Reeves.

“It’s right. Think it out for yourself, and you’ll see,” said Talbot, impatiently.

“And if we get one vote from Trowbridge, and one goes against us,” continued Cable, encouraged by the attention given to his remarks, “we’re sure to lose our case. There would be two votes of Newbury and one of Trowbridge against us, and two of Westcott’s and one of Trowbridge for us. Then the president would vote against us.”

“That’s right, too,” said Pete, ruefully.

“And if Trowbridge doesn’t vote at all or doesn’t come to the meeting, the result will be the same.”

“I don’t believe Trowbridge would play us that kind of a trick,” remarked Sumner; “it’s too mean a thing to do.”

At this point the suppressed Wilmot began to wave his hands about in gestures which indicated that he wished permission to speak.

“Let go of him, Pete; he wants to say something!” commanded the captain.

Wilmot, obtaining release by this pantomime, escaped to a safer position. “You haven’t said anything about going to see Callahan.”

“I forgot that. He thought Jason and some one else had better hunt up Callahan and get his evidence.”

At this proposal, Dunn, who stood on the outskirts of the crowd, was edging away, but Eaton dragged him back. “I won’t!” said the unfortunate, sullenly. “I don’t want anything more to do with it.”

“You’ve got to,” Eaton retorted. “You’ve got us into this scrape; now you must get us out.”

“You’ll have to go, too, Harry,” said Talbot, calmly treating Dunn’s refusal as if it had not been made.

“I must be at the practice. Steve can go. He’s no use for anything else.”

“I can’t go, either,” began Wilmot. “I’ve got to look after the balls and take care of the sweaters and—”

“Shut up!” interrupted Talbot. “Mike will attend to all that, won’t you, Mike?”

“Sure!”

“I’m not the man for it; I couldn’t get anything out of him,” insisted Wilmot. “A simple, inoffensive fellow like me could never make any one do anything he doesn’t want to. Pete ought to go. He’s got an awful crust.”

“You’re going,” answered Talbot; “it’s the manager’s job. If Callahan can stand your talk for ten minutes without giving you anything you ask to get rid of you, he’ll be the first man who’s ever done it. You remember the address, Jason?”

Dunn thought he did. “Then it’s settled,” said Talbot. “Let’s get something to eat.”

That afternoon Wilmot and Dunn journeyed to East Boston together in search of Callahan. They had little to say to each other on the way. Wilmot disliked Dunn, and Dunn was afraid of Wilmot; neither relished the expedition on which they were engaged. After much questioning and unnecessary wandering they arrived at No. 73 Doble Street and asked if Mr. Callahan lived there.

Yes, Mr. Callahan lived there, but was not at home; he would be in about five. The boys drifted forth to kill time as best they could, hung round the steamship docks, where a big Cunarder was being loaded, until darkness fell, and then strolled slowly back to the abode of the ex-coach.

Callahan had returned. They waited in the dimly lighted entry while their message was carried aloft, depressed by the strange surroundings and a sense of inadequacy to the task which they had undertaken. Presently a heavy step was heard descending the bare treads of the second flight above, and soon Callahan’s forbidding face came into the half-light. He stopped on the third stair and peered suspiciously down upon his visitors.

It had been arranged that Dunn should begin the interview, but at the crisis Jason was dumb.

“What is it?” demanded Callahan. “What do you want?”

“We come from Westcott’s School,” said Wilmot, perceiving that it was useless to wait for Dunn. “You’ve probably seen in the papers the trouble we’re in about the Newbury game.”

“Yes, I have,” snarled Callahan, with an oath; “and a nice mess you’ve got me into with your talk!”

“We haven’t been talking,” Wilmot answered; “it’s Newbury that’s doing the talking. We thought you’d be willing to help us out by saying that we didn’t get any signals from you, and—”

“Of course you didn’t get any signals from me—for the very good reason that I wouldn’t have given ’em to you.”

“But you offered them to us,” said Dunn, his tongue loosened by this strange statement. “You told me that day at Adams’s—”

Callahan turned fiercely upon him. “It’s a lie! I never offered you any signals. I said I was through with Newbury and could coach you if you wanted me.”

Dunn, amazed, opened his mouth to reply, but Wilmot was too quick for him. “Will you write us a statement that you didn’t give us any signals? Of course we know you didn’t, but the statement might help us.”

“Write nothing!” said the coach, shortly. “It’s none of my business. There’s nothing in it for me.”

“We’ll pay you for it,” began Dunn, with eagerness; but Wilmot, who perceived instantly that an evil interpretation might be given to this transaction, checked his colleague.

“No, we couldn’t do that, of course. It wouldn’t look right. But if you’d give us a statement denying that we got the Newbury signals from you, we should be very thankful for it.”

“I’m not giving statements. Anybody who knows Jake Callahan knows he wouldn’t sell signals. Anybody who says he did, lies!”

While speaking these words, Callahan had finished his descent of the stairs and opened the outer door. Wilmot said good night and went forth, dragging after him Dunn, who seemed on the point of raising again the question of the conversation which he had held with Callahan at the field.

“But he did offer the signals just the same!” Dunn broke out, after they had walked in silence a hundred yards down the street.

“What difference does it make?” answered Wilmot, wearily. “He’s no good to us, anyway.”

Yards was no more successful with his communication to the newspapers. The Mail hid it away in the bottom corner of the market page, where Yards himself had difficulty in discovering it. The Trumpeter sandwiched it in between a letter on Esperanto and another from an opponent of the battle-ship programme. As few who read the sports pages know of the existence of the correspondence column, and no one who reads the letters cares anything about sports, Yards’s chance of undoing the impression made by President John’s friends was about one in a thousand.

CHAPTER XII

PRESIDENT JOHN’S IDEALS

Talbot and Sumner were the Westcott members of the general committee which was to consider the protest of the Newbury captain. They did not lack advice as to what to say and what not to say, nor original suggestions concerning methods of influencing the Trowbridge vote, which, as everybody understood, must really decide the matter. Mr. Westcott was the only counsellor to whom they gave heed, and his directions they determined to follow to the best of their ability. They were to avoid all display of feeling, keep their tempers under absolute control, tell their story calmly without acrimony, and throw themselves unreservedly upon the sense of fairness of the committee. Such a course was especially difficult for Talbot, whose vehemence tolerated no trifling or evasion, and whose frankness verged on discourtesy. He felt his own unfitness for the task before him, even while he longed to be brought face to face with the traducers of his school.

“You’ll have to do the talking, Jack,” he said, as the two delegates, having patiently endured to the end the fusillade of admonitions and counsel with which their ears had been deafened all day long, took seats in the car which was to carry them to the Newbury School. “If I once get going, I’m bound to go off the handle and ruin the whole business.”

“I don’t believe you will,” answered Sumner, reassuringly. “There’s too much at stake. You just want to think of it as seven honest people brought together to consider a question of fact,—that’s what Mr. Westcott said,—not as if you were out for a fight with three sworn enemies and two doubtful characters.”

“If Smithy isn’t an enemy, I don’t know what an enemy is! I wish Harry or Steve were here in my place; either would be a lot better than I. Harry can hold his tongue, and Steve can talk an apple off a tree!”

“You can hold your tongue, too.”

“I will, if I have to bite it off—until they decide against us. When that comes, I’m going to call ’em just what they are, a pack of thieves!”

“But it may not come,” said Sumner, quietly.

“Oh, it will. Everybody thinks so. Mr. Snyder will vote with us because Trowbridge will want to seem to be fair, and Frost will vote with Newbury. That will make a tie, and Smithy will be forced in the interests of pure athletics to give the deciding vote against us.”

“I don’t believe it. Anyway, if that’s your opinion, you don’t want to show it, or they’ll think you know you haven’t any case. We want to act as if we were sure of the rightfulness of our claim, and had only to state it to have it granted.”

“I wish there was something I could do!” groaned Pete. “I hate to sit around and pretend.”

The other members of the committee were already assembled when Sumner and Talbot were shown into the room. The glance with which Pete took in this fact hardened immediately into a look of hostility, for it seemed to him probable that the five had already used their opportunity to come to a decision with reference to the object of the meeting, and that the proceedings would now be merely formal. But Sumner was already going the rounds, shaking hands with everybody in a spirit of great friendliness; so Pete, suspecting that this was the proper time to begin that assumption of confidence to which Sumner had urged him, fell in behind his colleague, with a mighty effort crowding back his feeling of distrust. Mr. Snyder and Frost greeted him cordially, and though Newbold vouchsafed but a languid clasp of the hand and murmured a palpably empty phrase of politeness through a frigid grimace, Thorne gave him a grip of reassuring warmth. He tarried therefore at Thorne’s side and talked with him for a few minutes on indifferent themes,—such as sailing and summer dances,—thereby turning his back on President John and avoiding the necessity of dissembling before that much-hated dignitary.

Thorne and Talbot were old friends, although their position now seemed to Pete more like that of enemies approaching the battlefield. Their summer houses stood within a mile of each other on Buzzard’s Bay, and even now their boats lay housed side by side. It was a pity that a naturally decent fellow like Thorne could be so blinded by rabid partisanship as to lend himself as an abettor to the scheme of a John Smith!

So Talbot was thinking, more in sorrow than in wrath, when President John mounted the platform—a recitation room was their council chamber—and called the meeting to order. They separated now to three benches, Newbold and Thorne on the left wing, Mr. Snyder and Frost in the centre, Talbot and Sumner on the right. “It’s like a court,” whispered Pete, “with Trowbridge for judge. We’re no good except to pair with Newbold and Thorne.”

The chairman introduced the business of the hour with all solemnity. The committee had met to consider the charge made by Newbury that Westcott’s had won the game of Saturday by unfair and dishonorable methods. It had been to him a great disappointment that the first contest in the new league, to which he had devoted so much time and thought, should have been darkened by scandal. He felt, however, and he was confident that the majority of the committee agreed with him, that there could be no turning back upon the ideals of the league—again those ideals!—The mere winning or losing of a game was of slight consequence compared with the supreme importance of holding unswervingly to the highest conceptions of honor and gentlemanly conduct.

“The old hypocrite!” whispered Pete in Sumner’s ear.

“Hush!” and a warning hand clutched the offender’s knee.

The chairman now read the protest,—which wound up with a demand that the game be declared forfeited to Newbury,—and complacently asked what should be done with it, addressing presumably the whole committee, but looking straight before him at the two members from Trowbridge.

“I think we ought to consider first the grounds for the protest, and afterwards, if the protest is sustained, the penalty,” said Mr. Snyder.

“Very well,” agreed the chairman; “we will hear the Newbury statements first.”

If the protest is sustained! Why should they mention the penalty at all unless they meant to sustain the protest? Talbot became more than ever convinced that the whole affair was prejudged and that the proceedings would be merely the carrying out of a prearranged plan.

He listened closely to Newbold, none the less, when the latter, in the capacity of prosecuting attorney, presented his case. Newbury had been unfortunate this year in the selection of Callahan as coach. A week before the game with Westcott’s, for certain reasons unnecessary to state, he had been discharged. Callahan was very “sore” and declared in presence of witnesses—Newbold held up a paper which he said contained their statements—that he’d “get even.” A few days afterward, Callahan had been observed at the Westcott field in long conversation with a Westcott player—another display of papers. Later this player was seen conferring with Harrison and others of the football men. In the course of this conference, one of the Westcott men dropped a paper which the witness secured; on it was written the address of the discharged coach. Suspecting an attempt to steal a knowledge of their game, Newbury had changed certain plays and signals, but because the time was too short to master an entirely new set they had been compelled to use a large number of the old ones. In the game Westcott’s had often understood the Newbury signals as soon as they were given out, and it was the old signals which they understood. Through a knowledge of the signals, Westcott’s spoiled Newbury’s play and won.

As Newbold sat down, Mr. Smith drew his hand across his forehead, swept the line of benches with a look of sorrow and pain, and sighed audibly. There was plainly no doubt at all in the chairman’s mind as to the substantial truth of the charge. It was but too clear that a treacherous blow had been struck at the fair fame of the Triangular League, and at those ideals of sportsmanship which were ever the objects of President John’s highest solicitude. But Anglo-Saxon justice has established the principle that the worst criminal has a right to be heard in his own defence. Mr. Smith turned therefore to the bench on his left, and with the manner of a judge asking the convicted felon whether he has any statement to make before sentence is passed, invited the representatives from Westcott’s to make response.

Sumner had prepared no speech; he lacked, moreover, as he would himself assert, all talent for impromptu oratory. But he could tell a plain story with candor and simplicity, and there spoke in his tones an honest conviction, which would inspire belief if the listening ears were attuned to such a voice. He denied with all the vigor he could put into words that Westcott’s had bought or stolen or had any previous knowledge of the Newbury signals. Callahan had approached one of the Westcott players and offered to betray the signals, but Westcott’s had scorned the offer. The address which the Newbury spy had discovered was thrown away, not dropped. In the game Westcott’s had learned a few signals by listening to them as they were given by the Newbury quarter, but before the game began, they had absolutely no knowledge of the signals to be used by their opponents.

“I should like to know, then, how it happened that it was the old signals, not the new ones, that you found out,” began Newbold, savagely, as Sumner dropped back into his seat.

“If that was the case,” answered Sumner, “it was merely chance. All we got was three or four numbers for holes.”

Newbold sniffed. “I should like to ask something else, too,” he continued. “You’ve played football and you know what the excitement is in a game. Do you think it is an easy thing to detect a lot of unknown signals while the game is going on?”

“No, I don’t,” answered Sumner, calmly, “but you could get a few if they were given as openly as yours were.”

“They weren’t given openly!”

At this point, perhaps in the interest of peace, Mr. Snyder interposed with a question. “What has Callahan to say about this? Have you his statement?”

Sumner recounted the futile efforts which Westcott’s had made to induce the coach to give evidence, not concealing the fact that Callahan now denied that he had offered any signals at all.

At this frank admission Newbold gave vent to a nervous titter of derision. President John smiled contemptuously. “Your stories do not hang together, Mr. Sumner,” he said.

“One story is ours and the other is Callahan’s,” answered Sumner, quickly. “They can’t hang together if Callahan lies.”

Pete whispered into Sumner’s ear, “Ask Thorne about it!”

“Ask him yourself!”

Talbot got upon his feet. “We’ve been answering questions for a while, now I think it’s our turn to ask a few. I want Thorne to tell us whether we recognized any signals on his side of the line.”

“Yes,” answered Thorne.

“How many?”

“I am sure of one, the play outside tackle.”

“Was it in the first or last part of the game?”

“The last.”

“Was it an old signal or a new one?”

“A new one.”

“I think he’s mistaken about that,” cried Newbold, and he applied himself immediately with angry exhortations to his colleague’s ear. Thorne reddened under the attack, but did not retreat.

“You see, it was just as Sumner said,” commented Talbot, addressing the central bench. “We picked up a few signals during the game. Callahan couldn’t have given us that tackle signal, if we had asked him.”

“Unfortunately it isn’t a question of one signal, but of many,” said President John, quickly. “You ask us to believe what the football experts assure us is impossible.”

“If you have a fool quarter-back, anything is possible,” retorted Talbot. “When three plays out of four in succession are sent at the same hole with only a slight alteration in the signal, a fellow must be an idiot not to guess what the signal means!” Pete stopped short there, for Sumner pulled him down.

“We didn’t do that!” snapped Newbold.

Again Mr. Snyder interfered. “I think we may as well vote now,” he said. “We have heard both sides.”

“Yes, vote!” muttered Talbot. “That’s what we’re here for! It’s no use to waste time on the truth if you’ve already made up your minds not to accept it.” The words were spoken too low to carry distinctly, a prudence which must be credited to the restraining influence of Sumner’s clutch upon the speaker’s knee.

“We will take the vote then,” announced the chairman, in accents of genuine relief; but he added immediately, “Unless some one has additional evidence to present or questions to ask.”

“I think further discussion would be unprofitable,” said Mr. Snyder, quickly. “Newbury has made a charge and Westcott’s has denied it. It only remains for us to give our decision.”

To this sentiment the general silence gave consent.

CHAPTER XIII

THE COMMITTEE DECIDES

President John had his ballots ready. “I will distribute blank slips of paper,” he said, “and Mr. Frost will kindly gather up the votes. Those who think that the protest should be sustained will write ‘Yes’ upon their ballots, the others will write ‘No.’”

He descended from his throne and paraded along the line, distributing blank ballots with a great show of solemnity. Those which he put into the hands of the Newbury delegates could hardly be called blank, as they had the word “Yes” written clearly upon them. The great chief was determined to reduce the chances of error to a minimum. Presently Frost gathered up the momentous tickets and delivered them into the hands of the chairman.

“Four to two against us!” whispered Talbot, as Mr. Smith began to separate the ballots. A squeeze upon his knee was all the answer Sumner vouchsafed. An instant after, they were both intently watching the president, across whose face, bent eagerly over the desk, swept an expression of astonishment and indignation.

“I think there has been a misunderstanding here,” he said slowly, as he lifted his eyes to the occupants of the Newbury bench. Newbold returned his look with a stare of fright and curiosity, but Thorne was gazing out of the window. “On one ballot ‘Yes’ had been first written and afterwards changed to ‘No.’ It is possible that I did not make myself entirely clear. I think we had better take another vote.” And he repeated once more the conditions of the balloting.

This time all the slips given out were blank. Thorne wrote his, holding it in front of him in the palm of his hand. Newbold peeped over his shoulder, uttered an exclamation and snatched at the ballot, but Thorne repulsed him with a quick uplift of the elbow and dropped the vote in the hat. The chairman sorted the ballots in feverish haste, his cheeks dark with gathering wrath. Then, rising to his feet, he darted a furious glance at Thorne, who met it bravely.

“The protest is not sustained,” he announced with an effort at calmness.

“What is the vote?” asked Frost.

The chairman made unwilling answer, “Five to one.”

Pete’s hand fell with a resounding slap on Sumner’s shoulder. “Five to one!” he whispered, exultant; “Thorne voted with us! Isn’t he a corker to do that?”

“Five to one,” repeated Mr. Snyder. “It is too bad it couldn’t have been unanimous. I should like to say before we separate that this whole affair seems to me in the highest degree ill-advised and unfortunate. Unless we respect each other sufficiently to trust in each other’s honesty and honor, we have no right to be leagued together. To encourage accusations like these we have heard to-day without incontrovertible proofs to support them is in itself an act of treachery to the League. I hope we shall never be compelled to discuss such a question again.”

The meeting was over. President John was jerking on his coat and savagely stamping his feet into his overshoes. Sumner and Talbot, having exchanged congratulatory grips, were pouring out fervent expressions of gratitude to their friends from Trowbridge, who had believed them honest men, not liars and cheats. At the moment of adjournment Thorne had taken his hat, and without a word to friend or foe, had slipped through the door. Newbold, following closely after, overtook him in the hall.

“That’s right! Run away and hide yourself, you traitor!” shouted the captain, his voice trembling with rage.

Thorne swung sharply round. “I’m not hiding from you, anyway,” he said coolly. “What have you got to say about it?”

“I say you’re a disgrace to the school. First you threw us by letting on that that tackle signal was a new one, and then you voted against us, against your own school!”

“I told the truth, and I voted for what I thought was right!”

“What you thought was right!” sneered Newbold. “You voted that way just to get in with those Westcott fellows, that’s what you did it for. But you won’t succeed. No one respects a traitor, least of all those who use him!”

This was a shot which wounded, not because it was true, but because it suggested a despicable motive for an act prompted solely by scruples of conscience. Thorne started as if pricked by a pin.

“That’s a lie, Tom Newbold, and you know it!” he flung back hotly, advancing a step toward his assailant. “I’m not trying to get in with any one, not even with you. I did it because I believe in getting games by winning ’em, not by stealing ’em.”

The captain clenched his fists and glared. “You won’t get the chance to win any more on my team, I can tell you that. No team is big enough to hold us two, after to-day’s work!”

“All right!” returned Thorne, who had recovered his self-control. “I’ll consider myself fired.”

On escaping from the council chamber, Talbot spent half a dollar of precious allowance money in telephoning to various people the happy result of the meeting. Later, he went home and devoted the hour before dinner to composing a letter to Thorne, which should express his admiration of Thorne’s honesty and courage. It was a difficult letter to write, because it was necessary to praise Thorne without condemning his schoolmates, for Thorne was not one to listen with pleasure to abuse of his associates by an outsider. As Thorne did not answer this letter, Talbot concluded that he must have bungled it.

In fact, Talbot’s honest eulogy was one of the influences which enabled Thorne to face the unpleasantness of the next two days at school with head high and colors flying. He did not answer the letter because under the circumstances he did not wish to have any correspondence with Westcott’s. The Newbold party did their best to set the ban upon him in school, to brand him as a traitor and expose him to public contempt. The means employed to accomplish this purpose, the misrepresentation, the distorted version of the proceedings at the meeting, spread broadcast, the gathering of an anti-Thorne party by promises and threats, all might interest us, if it belonged in the story. It is the result alone that concerns this narrative. The movement was ill-timed. After two days of practice with a substitute tackle in Thorne’s position, the practical politicians forced the hands of the extremists. On the morning of the Trowbridge-Newbury game, Newbold, driven to the hated course by the overwhelming demand of the school, went morosely to Thorne’s house to ask him to forgive and forget and take his old place in the game.

It was too late; Thorne had gone out of town with his father for the day. So Newbury fared to Trowbridge, spiritless through dissensions, and weakened by the absence of the best defensive player in school. Trowbridge met them with a fresh, well-fused eleven, opposed harmony and dash to disunion and blind resistance, got the jump on their adversaries in the line three times out of four, made first downs through the weak tackles almost at will,—and piled up three touch-downs while Newbury was securing one lucky goal from the field.

Alderman Skillen left the field in the middle of the second half, disgusted with football and those who had fanned his interest in it. When the score reached seventeen, President John followed the alderman’s example. Newbold, having suffered the humiliation of defeat on the field, returned to school to face cold looks and hear contemptuous comments, and to see Thorne treated as a victim of jealousy who might have saved the day if he had only been allowed to play.

But the worst blow was dealt in the meeting for the election of next year’s captain, when the team not only rejected Newbold’s candidate—Newbold himself was a senior—but actually elected Thorne by a seventy per cent vote. And the fickle school loudly acclaimed the choice.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TROWBRIDGE GAME

To Sumner more than to any one else of the Westcott School was due the fine spirit of caution and determination with which the eleven faced the momentous game with Trowbridge. He had not slackened for a moment his devotion to the team from which, according to Stover, he had been ignominiously fired. He had watched the Trowbridge-Newbury contest with a sharp eye and an open note-book. The newspapers remarked after the game that Trowbridge had gained on end runs and tackle plays and lost on kicks; and that Ricker, the Trowbridge back, was the star of the game. Sumner had not been content with any such general impressions. He had observed how the plays were started behind the line, what holes were relied on for emergencies, who was most likely to fumble punts, and in precisely what way Ricker’s interference formed and hit the line. During the last week of practice, his second team was an imitation Trowbridge, with Trowbridge end runs and genuine Ricker dashes. The Ricker of the Westcott second was alumnus Bill Ellery, Harvard junior, who could cover the two-twenty in twenty-three, and started like a deer. Two active old Westcottites from across the Charles personated Trowbridge tackles, and another guarded right end. Yards practiced his linesmen in breaking straight through, with a spring and a dart and a slap of the open hand against the opponent’s headguard; he forced them to make gripping tackles on the slippery dummy; he taught them how to master, not to kill, the men in front of them; he furnished practicable plays adapted to the powers of the team, and drilled the players in signals until obedience was automatic—but it was Sumner who prepared them for Ricker and the deceptive end runs.

“This last week’s work has been the best of all,” said Yards, the evening before the game. “If Pete’s knee holds out, we ought to be able to put up a pretty good offence, and Sumner’s second has developed our defence wonderfully.”

“And he won’t even make his W!” lamented Harrison.

“No, he won’t!” answered Yards, who could afford to be outspoken now that the end of the season was at hand. “On every point of the game McDowell is better.”

“Then you don’t think there’s any chance for Jack to get in?” asked Harrison, wistfully.

Yards shook his head. “Not unless Mac is laid out or we get a big lead.”

Regular Westcott Defence—Open
(Outside thirty-yard line)

Harrison smiled feebly at the sarcasm of this last suggestion. There was about as much chance of getting a big lead on Trowbridge as that Mac would make half a dozen goals from the field or that Bumpus would find big Hubbard an easy victim; while it was quite within the range of probability that Pete would injure his knee again and deprive the team of its only good punter, or that some accident would befall Eaton or Hardie or some other strong player whose place no one could fill. Subconsciously he shared the view prevalent in school that Trowbridge was likely to win, though he did not admit the possibility even to himself. He had never wholly approved the system of open defence which Yards had adopted from the Harvard theorists. To one used to a solid line of bodies before the ball it seemed a reckless scheme to pull the centre out of his place and put him behind the line, thus leaving open, in the wall of defence, an avenue wide enough for a cart. He could see that this method of resistance strengthened the wings, through which the longest gains are made, and rendered it possible to keep two backs in reserve for on-side kicks and forward passes; but would not this open highway through centre furnish an easy route for heavy plunges? Yards maintained that if Ford and the guards would but watch the play carefully, the gains through centre could be made unprofitably small; yet Harrison’s doubts, though unuttered, were none the less real.

Regular Trowbridge Defence—Closed

Roger Hardie’s heart was beating quick with eagerness to get into the play, when Talbot opened the game by sending the ball spinning down to the lower corner of the field. Cowles took it on the bounce, and had worked it back fifteen yards before he ran into Eaton’s arms. Through the centre highway Ricker pushed for five yards before Ford and Talbot reached him and brought him down. Another assault at the same place gave a first down. The open defence was showing its weak side. Then they sought a hole outside Bumpus, but Bumpus got free and threw the runner into Talbot’s hands. Another dash at centre yielded two yards, and with five to gain Cowles punted. Mac took the ball safely on his thirty-yard line, and sent Horr twice against the Trowbridge right flank behind Eaton and Hardie, each time gaining five yards; and Bradford once just inside Harrison, who, tugging with Tracy and supported by Talbot behind, dragged the runner eight yards before the Trowbridge men pulled him down. A tandem through right guard yielded a first down. After that an end run was blocked with the loss of a yard through the quickness of the Trowbridge tackle, and Mac decided to kick.

Pete’s punt, which was got off so quickly that the defence was hardly ready for it, went diagonally down the field, and, by rolling out at the Trowbridge thirty-yard line, prevented any running back. Trowbridge tried an end run from a fake kick, but Harrison was not deceived, and threw the runner behind the line. Then recourse was had to punting once more, but the back was slow in getting off his kick, and Bumpus, who had slapped his way through the line and leaped wildly in the air in the path of the ball, took it on his chest and beat it down to the ground. Three men threw themselves at it as it struck, and buried it deep under struggling brown bodies; but the one who lay closest to it, hugging it ecstatically in his arms, proved to be the Westcott left end.

The wave of the referee’s hand which moved the measurers down was the signal for shrill whoops from the excited band of youngsters in the Westcott cheering section. Sumner on the side-lines flung his arms about the coach in a transport of delight.

“Our ball on the fifteen-yard line!” he cried jubilantly. “We’ve got ’em now!”

“Don’t be too sure,” answered Yards, who, though just as eager, had himself under better control. “It’s a hard fifteen yards to cover.”

The players were in position now, nerved for the great struggle. Behind their forwards, the Trowbridge backs stood in a line of three. Each linesman recognized that the success or failure of the next play might depend on the quickness with which he leaped. The signal which rang out in Mac’s clear, sharp voice called for a tandem play between left tackle and guard, with Talbot carrying the ball. Eaton, straining to get the jump on his antagonist, moved before the ball, and was off side. The umpire blew his horn; the referee counted back five yards; the lines formed again.

“O dear!” groaned Sumner. “What’ll he do now?—I believe he’s going to try a drop!”

“It’s a fake,” said Yards, composedly. “He’d try another down if he meant to do that.”

McDowell was back holding out his hands, the backs had taken the formation for interference. Ford passed, but it was Talbot who received the ball and made a short, quick kick over the right side of the line. Harrison charged after it with all his speed, but Ricker beat him in the sprint, took the ball on the bounce, and ran round the Westcott captain for a gain of fifteen yards before Talbot forced him out of bounds.

From his chagrin at this failure Sumner was aroused by a loud chuckle of mirth close behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes met the exultant gaze of President John.

“Wasted his chance,” remarked the dignitary, with an oily grin of recognition. “I’m afraid he won’t get another.” Sumner nodded and moved down the line.

And now the Trowbridge men, taking courage from their escape, began to put new life into their play. Ricker shot through centre and squirmed forward ten yards. His second attempt was blocked by Ford and Channing after a short gain. Then a trick was sprung; the guards, tackles, and ends moved out suddenly six paces, leaving the centre all alone before the ball, with a great space on either side of him. The movement was supposed first to confuse the enemy, then to draw them out of position so as to leave a big hole near the centre, or to furnish a close interference for a run at end. But the Westcott rushers, having had experience with this very play as practiced by Sumner’s eleven, took it coolly as a matter of course, went through evenly along the line, and downed the dangerous Ricker before he got well under way. On the third down Trowbridge tried a forward pass on a crisscross formation, but Horr blocked off the end, and the ball, striking the ground, fell once more to Westcott’s. McDowell wasted a down in a fruitless effort to push Bradford through centre, and Horr fumbled. Trowbridge made seven yards and kicked, Talbot punted back, and for ten minutes the play oscillated between the thirty-yard lines.

At last—it seemed to Sumner that the half must be nearly at an end—a rash attempt on the part of Trowbridge to gain four yards after a third down gave Westcott’s the ball fifty yards from their opponents’ goal. Mac, who had by this time “sized up” the Trowbridge defence, now ceased experimenting, and applied his whole mental power to the task of matching the strong points of his team against the weaknesses of the foe. On the defence, Trowbridge played the centre in the line, with but a single line half-back. The Westcott quarter brought his end over, and drove his backs outside tackle and outside end, now on the short side, now on the long, gaining satisfactory distances at each stroke. Presently a second Trowbridge back came up to support the line, leaving the back-field clear. Mac recognized this opportunity for a forward pass, and seized it. Pete’s long spiral throw fell into Eaton’s hands on the enemy’s twenty-yard line. It was a close shave, for Cowles was upon him as he leaped for the ball, but Eaton held it, though he was thrown hard. A crash through centre, a skin-tackle play, a split play on a delayed pass, and Westcott’s brought up at the third down on the Trowbridge thirteen-yard line with three yards to gain, the enemy’s linesmen on their knees, and their whole back-field pushed up to support them.

But two minutes remained. If the ball were lost now, the opportunity to score would go. Harrison shouted a signal from his end. McDowell nodded, and fell back to a kicking position, giving his signals clearly as he went.

“Look out for an on-side kick!” yelled the Trowbridge captain. “Get through on them now!”

While he spoke, the ball went back. The line in the centre swerved, but held; the Trowbridge ends, followed by the tackles, swooped down upon the waiting quarter, but the Westcott backs blocked them off from the danger zone. Mac got his drop away safely, and, holding his breath, watched the ball floating upward beyond the reach of human hands. It crossed the bar three feet inside the post.

The play during the rest of the half was comprehended in two kicks. Trowbridge sent the ball on the kick-off deep into Westcott territory; and Talbot on the first down punted it far back.

Sumner, dancing with joy round Mike and the water pail, found himself again in the presence of the lord of the league.

“What about that chance that wasn’t coming?” he asked, with a sudden accession of friendliness.

“The game isn’t over,” answered President John, sourly. “A single touch-down will wipe that gain out.”

At the dressing rooms the usual discussion of the developments of the game was going forward. The bedraggled players, their mud-streaked faces aglow with hope, lay stretched on the floor about the coach, listening eagerly to his last directions. In one corner, Duane, of the Harvard Second, was explaining to Bumpus how, by proper use of his knee, he could hold Hubbard on the offence at least a second longer. Yards, having finished his general exhortation, drew McDowell aside to talk over with him the strategy of the second half, which was, in brief, to play safely, keep the ball in opponents’ territory, and watch for chances.

“If we hold them well, you’ll put in Sumner at the last, won’t you?” Mac asked.

“Not with the score three to nothing,” answered Yards, quickly.

“If we should make a touch-down, then?” persisted Mac.

The coach hesitated a moment before replying, but when he spoke, there was no uncertainty in his words. “It wouldn’t be safe. Sumner is a good fellow, and he’s worked hard for the team, but we’re playing the game to win, not to give good fellows a chance to make their W’s. I sha’n’t take any risks.”

The Westcott players trotted forth at the call, determined to make at the outset such a show of power and dash as would put Trowbridge immediately on the defensive. The Trowbridge rushers strung out across the field on a line with the ball. Westcott’s took the usual defensive positions, the centre ten yards back from the ball, the guards flanking him, but behind, the tackles outside the guards and still farther back. Cowles ran forward for his kick-off, but instead of driving the ball to the limit of his powers down the field, he sent it with a little stab of his foot diagonally across toward the side-line. It struck the line outside the Westcott left guard. Bumpus, perplexed at the unexpected play, hesitated a moment before he leaped for the ball. His hesitation cost his side dear, for two Trowbridge rushers crashed into him before he had taken three steps, and the Trowbridge end flung himself on the ball just ahead of Eaton, who pounced upon him like a wild beast upon his prey. Trowbridge had gained the ball on Westcott’s forty-yard line!

Sumner’s heart was like lead, as he saw the Trowbridge line open in wide gaps for a trick play. If the Westcott rushers lost their heads now, there was no hope for the team. But a line that sifts evenly through, with each man keeping well within his own territory, is a hard line to work tricks upon; and a strong, aggressive tackle is a dangerous obstacle to end plays. The Westcott line did sift evenly through, and Eaton was a good tackle—so good, indeed, that he burst straight into the Trowbridge interference, and, hooking the runner with a long reach, swung him directly into Hardie’s arms. The next play, which was directed at the open centre, was spoiled by Bumpus, who burned to retrieve himself, before it had advanced three yards. Then, with six yards to gain, Cowles drew back for a kick.

“Fake!” shouted Harrison. “Look out for a forward pass!”

His warning proved false; it served only to check his own line, and give Cowles a better opportunity to get off his kick. He punted high and with such splendid accuracy that the ball fell at the Westcott six-yard line. McDowell stood under it as it came down, holding his hand high aloft and claiming the privilege of a fair catch. All about him thronged the menacing Trowbridge forwards, ready to seize the ball and carry it across the line should Mac fail to hold it.

“I’m glad I’m not there!” thought the anxious Sumner. “I’d fumble it sure! If it should slip out of his hands, now—”

But it didn’t. As calmly as if he were in mid field with no one near to disturb him, Mac gathered in the descending ball and heeled his mark. Twenty seconds later Pete’s long punt rolled out at the Westcott forty-five-yard line.

Again Westcott’s held Trowbridge to a seven-yards gain in two downs, and Trowbridge, as a last resort, tried a complicated forward pass; but Tracy worked through on the end who had come round to make the pass, and threw him before he could complete it. Now, for the first time during the half, the Westcott lads took the offence, though Mac still preferred to rely on Talbot’s foot. Down sailed the ball to the Trowbridge twenty-yard line, only to be kicked back beyond the centre of the field a few minutes later. Here for some minutes the play wavered within the neutral zone. On the exchange of punts there was little advantage except that gained by

Swung him directly into Hardie’s arms.

Hardie and Harrison as they dodged down the field under the kicks, and nailed the receiver of the ball at his first step; but on the rushes Westcott’s covered more ground, and the play gradually drew near the Trowbridge end of the field.

A series of successful line plunges had brought the Westcott offence to the Trowbridge twenty-yard line, when the referee announced at the third down that four yards of the necessary ten were still lacking. Mac conferred with Harrison, and, falling back to the kicking position, knelt at Talbot’s side. The quarter caught Ford’s pass, but instead of placing the ball for a kick, he waited until the Trowbridge men were sweeping down upon him, when he passed to Talbot, who threw the ball in a long spiral that bored its way through the air far over the left side of the line. Hardie was ready to receive it, and so was Ricker. They came together with a shock, but Ricker was short and Roger tall, and the Westcott man clutched the ball over his rival’s head, as the latter tumbled him to the ground. The eight yards to the goal line Pete covered in two downs.

Sumner did not see the goal kicked; he was coasting along the side-lines in search of his friend Smith. He found him at last, just as the elevens were changing ends, standing alone near the corner of the field.

“Great game, sir!” offered Sumner, politely.

“I call it a very poor game,” answered President John, staring straight before him. “That Trowbridge line is rotten.”

“It’s hard to understand how they could beat Newbury seventeen to three,” remarked Sumner, cheerfully. “About time enough left for another touch-down, isn’t there?”

Smith made no reply to this question, unless a scowl and an unintelligible exclamation could be construed as a reply. But even thus Sumner seemed to consider the conversation worth while, for as he hurried back to the side of the Westcott coach, he was bubbling with glee.

With the score nine to nothing and the game nearly over, there seemed no serious doubt as to the outcome. So thought Mac, at least, when Harrison recovered the ball on a fumble near his fifty-yard line, and Pete punted down close to the Trowbridge goal. It was high time that Sumner should appear if he was to be sent into the game at all, but Yards made no move to send him. Mac considered the matter at intervals, while he stood far back waiting for his friends in the line to gain possession of the ball. The result of his consideration was to arouse in his mind the suspicion that Yards was working, not for a safe victory, but for a score which would leave no doubt as to the success of his coaching.

“Jack deserves a chance, and he is going to get it!” muttered Mac to himself. “If it can’t come one way, it shall another.”

The Westcott defence had just thrown back another attempt at a skin-tackle play, and Harrison signalled to his quarter to be ready for a kick. Mac was under the ball when it came down, and slipping by the end, zigzagged a dozen yards up the field before he succumbed to two hard Trowbridge tacklers. Ford came puffing back and took the ball from his hand; but Mac, instead of scrambling to his feet and calling out his signals as the team gathered, remained squirming on the ground.

“What’s the matter?” asked Harrison, anxiously, as he knelt beside him.

“My right ankle!” groaned Mac, twisting his face into an expression of frightful pain.

Time was called; Mike appeared with his water pail and sponge, closely followed by Yards. Together they rubbed the injured joint, while Mac writhed and moaned.

“How much time is left?” he asked.

“Three minutes.”

“I’ll see if I can stand.”

Yards and Harrison lifted the sufferer to his feet. He took a step with his right foot, rested his weight on it,—and went down in a heap.

“Do you think it’s broken?” asked the coach in alarm.

“I guess not,” replied Mac, transforming a grin into a grimace, “but you’ll have to send Jack in.”

Yards called for Sumner, and the maimed quarter went hobbling off the field, supported by Yards and Louis Tracy, and saluted by a booming salvo from the graduates, and an impassioned cheer from the schoolboy section. Yards proposed to send him directly to the dressing rooms and call in a physician, but Mac pleaded piteously to be allowed to see the game out. So he stood at the side-lines, leaning on Louis’s shoulder.

“We should have made another touch-down if you hadn’t got hurt,” said the coach, in a resentful tone, as Horr at the first signal was pushed through outside Ben Tracy for a gain of five yards. “We had ’em on the run.”

“Jack will do just as well,” answered Mac, calmly. “He’s better on the offence than I am.”

In truth, Sumner had the advantage over Mac in some respects. He was heavier, he got into the plays better, and he profited by his close study of the game from the side-lines. The team reacted to a fresh voice, while Sumner’s strength, applied at the critical instant, helped to break the resistance and roll the wedge along. Outside guard, outside tackle, around the end, changing his attack from side to side, Sumner pushed his backs to a first down, to another, to a third. Then, when the Trowbridge secondary defence concentrated close behind the line, he worked a forward pass himself, running backward to make sure of his throw, and delivering the ball safely into Tracy’s hands. Westcott’s was on the Trowbridge ten-yard line, pressing hotly forward, when the referee’s whistle put an end to the game.

Mac lingered on the side-lines, waiting for an opportunity to congratulate Sumner on his playing. As they walked together to the dressing rooms, escorted by a half-dozen admiring youngsters, the injured quarter forgot to limp. Close by the entrance Yards accosted them.

“You ran the team finely, Sumner,” he exclaimed, with radiant face. Then, suddenly recalling Mac’s misfortune, he turned upon him and demanded, “How’s that ankle?”

“It seems all right now,” replied Mac, with an abrupt lapse from his gayety.

Yards gave him a sharp glance, and his eyes darkened ominously. “I believe you—” he began, but the beseeching look on Mac’s face checked him. “I’m glad it’s no worse,” he finished lamely.

CHAPTER XV

DUNN’S DISAPPOINTMENTS

Jubilation and swaggering self-satisfaction reigned triumphant at Westcott’s Monday morning. Certain small boys who had acquired a habit of arriving half an hour before the time of opening so as to have opportunity, before the advent of interfering teachers, for tag through the play room and up the stairs, found their numbers doubled. Instead of scampering wildly off like frolicsome kittens, they gathered in solid clusters at their end of the big schoolroom and exchanged opinions and reminiscences, sprinkling their conversation richly with comments like “Wasn’t it great when Mac made that goal!” “Did you see Fat Bumpus slide on his nose?” “I was dead scared that time when Trowbridge got down to our ten-yard line!” “The paper said—” “Papa thought—” and so on, in a series that developed itself by arithmetical progression. Richard Sumner, who had a gift for drawing, spent ten minutes, hedged in by a semicircle of admirers and supervised by Mike, in chalking on the board a splendid figure of a plunging half-back, armed cap-a-pie, which he reproduced by memory from a magazine cover. The breast of his player rampant he covered with a huge W, and underneath he printed in neat characters the score by games. When this was done, Mike produced a list of an All-Triangular eleven, which he had elaborated over Sunday, and defended with a great show of expert knowledge the right of seven Westcottites to a place thereon.

Then the older boys came in a bunch, driven in by the cold from the corner outside. They took places in the alcove that commanded the street, on watch for the members of the team as they arrived. Each one as he appeared was signalled at a distance, and hailed by name and applause as he entered the room. Harrison, of course, received a prolonged salvo, but Talbot, Eaton, and Hardie were welcomed almost as heartily, while Bumpus’s bruised face, and Mac’s complacent grin, called forth a special demonstration. Last of all Sumner was seen, hurrying late across the street, and an original salutation that would be sure to rattle him was suggested by Wilmot—but the bell rang and spoiled it all.

At noon, by general agreement, ten minutes were taken from recess and another ten from recitation,—a phenomenal concession on the part of Mr. Westcott,—speeches were made, and the school cheered their throats and enthusiasm out. It was a new experience for Roger Hardie to hear the leader call his name, and to feel in the wholehearted volley, to read in the enthusiastic faces bent upon him, that he was accounted worthy the gratitude of the school; and his content was not lessened by the fact that he had gained his place, against the general expectation, by his own merit. Yet proudly happy though he was in the consciousness of a certain success achieved, he felt no temptation to that silly vanity which is too often the result of public praise, and transforms a reasonably attractive boy into a bumptious, overweening cad. There was a reason for this, other than natural modesty. Roger had conceived a new ambition—to row on a school crew. Here again he stood at the foot of a ladder. To gain a place he must push ahead of a dozen others whose experience gave them a right to laugh at his pretensions.

Dunn cheered with the rest, but every “rah” which he forced himself to utter cost him as much effort as a line of Virgil dug out with a vocabulary. He had been badly frightened by the incident of the Newbury protest. The upper school had held him in a measure responsible for the false position in which they found themselves—most unjustly, Dunn maintained, since he had been but the bearer of a message. Certain persons, more frank than polite, had said unpleasant things in his hearing; his closest friends had for a time been cool toward him. When, with the decision of the committee, the cloud passed, Dunn plucked up spirit again, and for the last week of football practice really tried hard to retrieve his reputation. He succeeded so far, indeed, that Harrison held out hopes to him of getting into the Trowbridge game in the second half, if things went well. But things did not go well, at least from Dunn’s point of view, for at no time during the game had Yards considered it safe to exchange the steady, clear-headed, hard-tackling end for a substitute of doubtful quality. So Dunn was left minus the coveted W, and plus a strong conviction that he had been ill-used. It was not easy for him to forgive Hardie for robbing him of his place and gaining the opportunity to achieve a triumph which Dunn felt sure he could have achieved just as well. Equally unpalatable was the fact that Hardie seemed to be established on good terms with the influential set, of which Talbot, Sumner, Wilmot, and Trask formed the solid centre. On the other hand, while there were many whom Dunn called his friends, no one showed any great liking for his society except Ben Tracy and Stover, neither of whom was able to help him along toward that popularity for which his heart yearned. His poor recitation work also seemed to count against him in this strange school in which the boys actually held it the proper thing to work on lessons, and while they pretended to make light of low marks, at bottom despised a numskull. Can we wonder, then, that the disdain with which Dunn first regarded his quiet housemate, Hardie, should have turned to envy?

That afternoon Roger went down town with McDowell to buy their football hatbands—a white background striped three times with blue, the outer stripes wide, the inner one narrow. McDowell took his hat off as they emerged from the shop, and gave the new decoration a long look of admiration, regardless of the jostling crowd. “It’s not so pretty as the crew band that Pete wears,” he said slowly, “but I’d a lot rather have it. It means something.”

“So does the crew mean something,” answered Roger. “It means more than any band there is. Only a few fellows can get it, and at least a dozen can sport football bands.—Put on your dip, you lunatic. They’ll think you’re crazy!”

Mac replaced his hat, pressing it down carefully on his hair, and giving the brim a downward tilt. “The second crew get bands if they win their race,” he said; “that’s eight, and the two coxswains make ten.”

“But they don’t all get crew W’s. Only five fellows in the school have a right to them. I’d rather wear a band as a member of the first crew, if it were just one dirty yellow streak, than have both baseball and football combined.”

Mac laughed. “Why don’t you, then? All you have to do is to make the crew.”

“You can’t make the crew just by coming out for it. You’ve got to know how to row, and it takes lots of practice to learn. There isn’t any chance for an inexperienced man, with six or eight old fellows in school who have all had a year or more of it.”

“Isn’t there?” answered Mac, absently. He was looking about him at the faces hurrying past, wondering that no one seemed to mark the significant symbol that he bore. Just then a small boy in knickerbockers and light top-coat, wearing a flat hat with white band edged with blue—the regular Westcott hatband—appeared in front of them. He caught sight of the new bands, glanced at the faces below, smiled, and, stopping short in the crowd, fixed his gaze upon them, revolving in his tracks as they passed. Here was one who knew the token.

It is ever thus. The small boy looks up with veneration to the wearer of the school letter. The school athlete admires the member of a freshman team; the freshman adores the varsity captain who has so long worn the stately letter that it has quite lost its glamor. The varsity captain thinks chiefly of the task which he has taken upon his shoulders, and admires only some lucky captain before him who won his race or his Yale game, or some frail, pretty, unathletic girl whose weakness her schoolboy brother flouts. So the chain is looped.

“Who was that?” asked Roger.

“Stanley Hale,” answered Mac, with a grin. “The football band is good enough for him.—But why isn’t your chance for the crew as good as any one’s? Pete’s a friend of yours.”

“That’s just it: for that reason he wouldn’t put me on unless he had to. But what’s the use of talking about it? I shall be lucky to get on to the river at all.”

That night Louis Tracy appeared at the dinner-table a little late. “Did you get your bid for the Fridays, Ben?” he asked, turning to his cousin as he unfolded his napkin. “I’ve got one.”

Ben nodded. “Mine came this afternoon.”

“I got mine this morning,” said Cable.

“So did I,” announced Roger, who was feeling particularly happy. Talbot’s brother had procured him a good seat for the Yale-Harvard game, and Sumner had got his name put on the list for the dancing class.

Dunn looked up inquiringly. “What’s that?” he demanded. “I didn’t get anything.”

“Just the Friday dancing class at the Crofton,” said Ben, carelessly. “A good many of the fellows go.”

Dunn pondered a few seconds, then blurted out, “How do you get into the thing?”

“I was on the list last year,” replied Ben.

“So was I,” said Cable, answering a look from Dunn.

“My Aunt Mary got me my invitation,” Louis Tracy explained.

There was a moment of silence which to some at the table seemed a bit awkward; but Dunn, who was determined to probe the matter to the bottom, pushed boldly on. “How did you work it, Hardie?”

“Mine came through Mrs. Sumner. She is one of the patronesses. Jack asked me last week whether I’d like one, and I jumped at the chance.”

At this point Mrs. Adams interposed a new topic of conversation, and the tongues were soon flying at the usual rate over a safe course; but Dunn’s voice, commonly the loudest and most insistent, was only heard when a question was put directly to him. He ate his dinner in moody silence, his face darkly clouded. In the middle of dessert he excused himself, leaving the ice-cream half eaten on his plate.

“It’s tough on poor Jason to get left out of the Fridays,” said Cable, as the door closed behind him.

“What in time did you want to bring it up for?” exclaimed Ben, turning reproachfully on his cousin.

“I didn’t think about it,” answered Louis. “Jason had no business butting in, anyway.”

“He’d have found out about it sooner or later,” suggested Cable. “We were all as much at fault as Louis.”

“Can’t you do something to help him out?” asked Roger. “You might get him an invitation, Ben, I should think.”

“Well, I can’t,” Ben answered impatiently. “I don’t run the things, and none of my people do, either.”

Later in the evening Dunn came into Ben Tracy’s room and sat down on the bed. “Say, Ben,” he began, “can’t you help me to get an invitation for that dancing class? I don’t care anything about the dancing part of it, but it’s going to be awfully disagreeable to hang round here all winter and be the only fellow left out. I shall be ashamed to live.”

Ben didn’t answer. He knew very well that if he took Dunn’s name to his Aunt Mary, she would want to know all about the applicant, his character, appearance, manners, habits, church relations,—all about his father, mother, relatives, acquaintances, ancestors, his father’s business and his grandfather’s. And after her nephew had undergone the cross-examination, she would probably refuse to help him and admonish him to avoid such associations.

“You might try Mr. Westcott,” said Ben, jumping at a stray idea, as Jason jumped at answers in the history class. “He could get your name on the list easily enough.”

“He wouldn’t do it if he could,” answered Dunn, despondently. “He’s down on me and would be glad of a chance to sting me and preach at me. If your Aunt Mary can get one for Louis, she can get one for me, too. Try her, won’t you? It’ll be the greatest favor you could do me. I’ll pay it back sometime, I swear I will. Say you will, please!”

Ben looked hard at the floor. He didn’t want to say yes, and he hadn’t the heart to say no; yet something he must say. He lifted his eyes for a moment to Dunn’s pleading face.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

Dunn leaped forward and gripped his hand. “That’s the way to talk. You can fix it up all right. I’ll make it good to you some day before the year is out, ten times over!”

Dunn went back to his own room, leaving his anxieties behind him. They had settled on unlucky Ben, who brooded for a long time on the best way to approach his hypercritical aunt. When he crawled into bed at last, he was no nearer a satisfactory conclusion than when Dunn left him.

“If I ask her and she refuses, Jason will be worse off than he is now,” he muttered to himself as sleep crept over him. “I don’t know what to do!”

He knew no better when he awoke the next morning. As a result he did nothing at all, except to pity himself as a victim of unkind fate.

CHAPTER XVI

MIKE ADVISES

The next morning—it was the day for election of a football captain—Roger found Pete and Jack Sumner in the cloak-room talking earnestly together. “I want to ask a favor of you fellows,” he began, as soon as he caught sight of them. “Everybody out at Adams’s has invitations to the Fridays, except Dunn. He is awfully cut up about it.”

“I can’t help it,” said Talbot. “It isn’t my fault if he doesn’t deserve any.”

“He’s no worse than Snobson and Newgeld,” insisted Roger. “They both got in.”

“Not with my help,” retorted Talbot. “What are you bothering about it for? He wouldn’t do it for you.”

“I don’t care whether he would or not. It just isn’t a fair deal to leave him out.” Roger turned to Sumner. “There’s no use talking to Pete; he’s nothing but a savage. You’ll get it for him, Jack, won’t you? You can work your mother for it. Think what it would be yourself to be left out of a thing when all the others are in!”

“Think what it would be to be Dunn,” said Pete; “that’s a much more horrible thought.”

But Sumner was a friendly soul. “If you’re really set on it, I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “I shouldn’t want him to commit suicide out at Adams’s!”

Sumner’s words were exactly those which Ben Tracy had used to Dunn the evening before, but his deeds, as will appear later, were wholly different.

Before the football meeting, Talbot suggested that Horr deserved the captaincy, and would perhaps make as good a captain as any one else. Roger assented readily, and cast his vote in accordance with Pete’s suggestion. With Harrison, Eaton, Talbot, Sumner, and other boys of the first class out, there was left little room for choice. He had not thought of himself as a possible candidate. When the votes were counted, and the announcement was made that Horr had eight votes, Hardie four, with one each for McDowell and Ben Tracy, Roger felt grateful that four fellows had thought so well of him as to give him the compliment of their votes, but it did not occur to him either to question the loyalty of friends or to wonder why Horr should be preferred before him.

A day or two later Dunn came to the dinner-table beaming with joy, and slapped Ben Tracy hard on the shoulder.

“I’ve got it!” he announced jubilantly. “It’s all right.”

“Got what?” asked Ben, staring blankly. The face which for the last forty-eight hours had reflected nothing but spleen now shone with satisfaction.

Dunn flourished a square white envelope. “My invitation for the Fridays. It was just delayed.”

“Good for you!” exclaimed Cable. “I congratulate you,” purred Mrs. Adams. Hardie smiled, but said nothing; Ben Tracy continued to stare, puzzled to find that some good angel had relieved him of his unwelcome task.

After dinner Dunn drew Ben into the corner of the general room, and poured fervent expressions of gratitude into his ear. “Talbot and Hardie thought they were going to get me stung,” he exclaimed, “but they didn’t succeed. I had some friends myself! You’ve helped me in this thing, all right, Benny, and I won’t forget it!”

“I haven’t done anything,” protested Ben, weakly, “at least nothing worth while.”

“It’s worth a lot to me. I’ll get even with you for it some day,—and I’ll get even with that sucker, Hardie, too; he’s put those fellows against me.”

Dunn’s first step in getting even with Hardie was taken that very evening, and the method of it showed that some of Jason’s brain cells were more highly developed than those on which he relied in the preparation of lessons.

Just before bedtime he knocked at Roger’s door. “Hello!” he cried, putting his head into the room. “Will you give me a lift on this confounded Virgil?”

“Certainly,” answered Roger. “Come in—. Doesn’t your trot tell you about it?” he added with a sly grin. Dunn still adhered to the theory that the literal translation affords an excellent short cut to proficiency in an ancient language. The twenties and thirties that he received on examinations were fully offset, Dunn maintained, by the great success of his daily recitations. He always knew what the Latin ought to say, anyway; he never made any crazy blunders such as Redfield perpetrated.

“I can’t make connections with the trot in this place,” answered Dunn, calmly, “and Ben can’t. I don’t believe you can, either, if you did get eighty on the exam.”

Roger soon proved that he could—indeed, the problem presented no difficulties except such as Dunn’s stupidity had raised or his cunning invented. Having thus paved the way for his main business, Dunn leaned against the door-post, and, holding a finger between the leaves of his Virgil to strengthen the impression that he was stopping casually on the way back to his interrupted work, began to talk.

“You didn’t get the captaincy, did you?”

Roger gave a good-natured little laugh. “No, I didn’t, and I didn’t expect to.”

“You came mighty near it.”

“Four votes out of fourteen—that’s not very near.”

“I don’t mean that. You know what I mean.”

Hardie shook his head.

“The day before the election it was all settled that you were to get it. I heard so from McDowell and Bumpus and two or three others. Then something happened, and the vote went the other way.”

“What happened?” Roger was listening eagerly.

“Talbot went against you and bulldozed ’em into electing Horr. You know he’s always got to have his way.”

Roger smiled bravely. “He probably thought Horr would make a better captain.”

“I don’t know what he thought. I know what he did. He pretends to be a friend of yours, too.”

“He is a friend,” said Roger, quickly.

“The way he treated you didn’t look much like it. Good night.”

Dunn returned to his room fairly well satisfied with himself; he had given Hardie something to think of that would take down his insufferable conceit, a conceit which Dunn was convinced must be the worse since it was masked by such a quiet exterior.

In fact, if thinking was all Roger was expected to do, Dunn’s mission of malice was wholly successful. Roger did think, lying awake an hour after he went to bed, and fighting vainly against an insistent mental activity that would not be cajoled by firm resolutions or new arrangements of pillow; but the direction which his thoughts took was different from what Jason had anticipated. A week before, he would have ridiculed the idea of his being made captain; his ambition did not fly so high. Now, when the opportunity had come and gone, when the honor which, it seemed, had been almost within his reach, was bestowed upon another, he understood how much he should have prized it. Why had Talbot interfered against him? Surely not from ill-will, for the record of the season proved him as stanch a friend as an insignificant new boy ever acquired; nor from personal liking for Horr—they belonged to wholly different sets in school. It must be, then, that Pete regarded him as incompetent for the position. Moreover, if Pete thought so, it was probably true; he was just a meek, harmless, flabby sort of fellow who happened to be able to play a fair game at end, but wasn’t fit for leadership! Dunn’s shot had wounded, but not in the spot at which it was aimed. Hardie’s self-esteem was hurt, not his trust in Pete.

The next morning he turned over the subject again as he dressed. “Pete was right to think as he did, and yet he was wrong,” he said to himself. “I should have made just as good a captain as Horr. The trouble with me is that I’m always waiting for some one to recognize me and push me forward. I haven’t confidence enough in myself; there’s where I’ve got to change. I can do things when I have to. Why do I always act as if I couldn’t?”

He rode into town that morning with Mike. Mike’s society was usually a pleasure. His mind was always brimful of the present. He knew exactly what he thought on all the matters that entered into his experience, and exactly what he wanted to do. Mike never hesitated through bashfulness, nor wasted opportunities because of lack of faith to accept them!

“You ought to have been football captain,” declared Mike, as they stood on the back platform of a crowded in-bound car. “You’d make a lot better one than Horr. Horr really doesn’t know the game. I told Pete Talbot so, too. They needn’t think that because you’re quiet, you haven’t any push in you. I know better!”

“Thank you for your good opinion, Mike,” returned the smiling Hardie. “What did Pete do, fire you out?”

“No, he said he didn’t know but I was right. It ’ud have been fine to have a captain at Adams’s. We haven’t had one since I’ve been in school. There’s no one else there who’ll ever come near it.” He stopped, and a sudden gleam flashed over his face. “I’ll tell you what to do,” he exclaimed, “make the crew and be crew captain. That’ll be better yet!”

Roger laughed aloud. “Make the Harvard Varsity, why don’t you say? I may make the pair-oar if I’m lucky.”

“You’ll never make anything if you talk like that,” answered shrewd Mike. “You’re as bad as Jason, only the other way round. Jason thinks he’s everything when he isn’t anything, and you tell people you aren’t anything, and they believe you! You tell it and act it both. That’s not the way to do.”

And Hardie, being an open-minded youth, accepted this wisdom from the lips of a babe, and resolved immediately that he wouldn’t act the incapable any more, even if he must needs remain such. He didn’t tell Mike so, however; that would be throwing improper encouragement to small boys who criticised their betters. Instead, he gave a sudden jerk to the visor of the boy’s cap that brought it forward on his nose, and said reprovingly: “There’s one thing certain, Mike, you’ll never suffer from over-modesty. Now don’t say anything more about the football captain. Horr’s elected, and we’re all going to help him the best we can.”

“Sure!” answered Mike, as he calmly restored his cap to the proper place. “Don’t you suppose I know enough for that? I wouldn’t say what I did to any one but you.”

Dunn went to his first Friday in high feather, picturing to himself in advance the conquests he should make. Dancing, he felt, was his strong point. But Trask and Wilmot, the head ushers for the day, had laid strict commands on their subordinates, and Jason was introduced to none but “pills.” He did not suspect this fact until the afternoon was two-thirds gone, when after beseeching three ushers in succession to present him to Molly Randolph, a much talked-of “queen,” and being put off with flimsy pretexts, he at last discovered that there was a plot against his dignity. After that he sulked in the corner to which ungallant youths retired when the attractive partners were taken and only pills remained disengaged. Hardie, blest beyond his deserts, made the acquaintance of numerous favorites and danced the german with Helen Talbot, who amused him with a vivacious narrative of certain disputes with Joe, in which, with the help of her older brother, she came out victorious. Miss Helen vanquished Roger also, for she got him to promise her a football hatband, which, as she frankly confessed, “Joe would never give me in the world.”

CHAPTER XVII

A KINDLED AMBITION

Westcott’s was in some ways a bit old-fashioned. Holidays were grudgingly given, visitors were not suffered to intrude on recitations, and every school day was made a working day, with enforced privileges on Saturdays if the week’s work was not satisfactorily done. Scholastic flummery, the advertising quackery of shows and visitors’ days and special programmes, found no favor with the authorities. If any exception is to be made to this general rule, it must apply to the day on which school closed for the Christmas holidays, when for half an hour at the close of recitations the boys themselves took charge of the schoolroom, and celebrated in their own way their approaching liberty and their loyalty to the school.

Even here the programme was very simple. When the twelve o’clock gong sounded, the whole school assembled in the big room. Old Westcottites from college poured in, thronging the wide doorway of the library, and circling the end of the schoolroom in a long line. A representative of the first class came forward, and in a little speech, delivered usually with a flushed face and in a faint, agitated voice, presented to the school a gift which should be a permanent reminder of the affection and esteem of the outgoing class. Mr. Westcott then made a response, which was followed sometimes by a few words from some teacher. After this various boys chosen from the managing class stepped forward and led cheers for the school, for the individual teachers, and for the athletic teams. Then old boys, if any were bold enough, or unable to resist the pressure put upon them, took their turn, and exhorted the school or praised it, as inspiration (or their confusion) led them. No boy who was present on the day when three captains of Harvard teams and two class-day marshals—all old Westcottites—followed each other to the platform, will soon forget the impression made by those stalwart figures, intelligent faces, and sincere if inartistic speeches. Not the bishop nor the learned professor nor the governor himself could so stir the hearts of the school. These college men were authorities, men who had achieved, heroes within the range of every boy’s admiration.

This year, only one of these representatives from the upper world was booked to address the school, but as he was no less a personage than captain of the Varsity crew, he counted in general estimation tenfold. Roger Hardie, being in the second class, played spectator and common soldier in the cheering battalion. Mr. Westcott’s speech and Mr. Cary’s left him rather cold; he had heard these gentlemen many times before in various forms of discourse from cautious praise to unreserved condemnation. But when Deering was demanded, and in response a tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, bronzed young man emerged from the library and pushed forward through a tumult of welcome, Roger’s heart leaped to greet him.

For half a minute Deering stood with his hand on the desk, waiting for the din to subside. Roger fixed his eyes upon him, and in an intense stare drank in an impression of the man. He was quietly dressed, his necktie subdued, his trousers—Dunn might perhaps have noticed—not absolutely fresh from the tailor’s goose. But Deering was one for whom clothes could do little. Such bigness, honesty, cleanness, determination, and withal such fresh unconquerable strength of youth, no smart costume could adorn. In some manner he suggested Talbot—Talbot as he might be four years hence, when his body had reached its growth and the maturing influences of college life had tamed his explosive violence.

Deering’s speech was addressed to the first class. When the boys before him reached college, he said, they would find certain men doing all sorts of things that they’d better not be doing, wasting their money and time and strength, and thinking that they were cutting a great figure. There were plenty of such fellows hanging round the college, who were of no use to the college or to themselves. They make a great mistake. No one cares anything about them, and they don’t make good. The fellow who has principles and tries to live up to them, who is willing to work hard and keep faced in the right direction, is the man who is respected, whether he makes a name for himself or not.

“You’ve got to mean right and work right,” he said in closing. “You can’t mean right unless you have principles to follow, and the only way to work right is to work hard. Here in school is the place to make a good start. I don’t need to say anything about your studies, for your teachers will see to that, but in your athletics, unless there’s been a big change since my day, there’s room for improvement. You want to play fair and play like gentlemen, but play hard. Give the best of yourselves to your practice as well as to your matches. Don’t fool, and don’t shirk, and don’t quit. And when you come to college, don’t let any one persuade you that the ideals and moral standards you’ve learned here will have to be changed.”

Had the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric from across the Charles been present in the Westcott schoolroom that morning, he would have listened patronizingly and given the speaker a passing grade in consideration of his earnestness and good intentions. Had the professor spoken in Deering’s place, the boys would have closed their ears to his careful sentences and mentally marked him F—flat failure. They voted Deering A, and after their reserved fashion, assented to his maxims and treasured up his words. Even Dunn had visions of a time coming—in the dim future, of course—when he should throw off his indolence and self-indulgence, be a “good boy” and a grind, work like a Trojan in school and out, and win back the ground that he had lost. When it came to baseball, he could show them a few things!

As for Roger Hardie, Deering’s exhortation, and even more Deering’s personality, was as a match applied to tinder. His zeal took fire immediately. If the rowing men were like Deering, if rowing made such men, rowing was the thing for him! If honest, serious work profited at all in this untried sport in which experience was held to be so important, Roger would give that work ungrudgingly as long as his presence was tolerated on the squad. This resolve sent him to the gymnasium to exercise every day during the Christmas recess, when, save for himself and Mike and two smaller urchins, Adams’s was bereft of boys. It forced him to look upon himself as, in a fashion, consecrated to a special ambition, none the less wholesome and potent because cherished in secret. It made it easier for him to keep faith with his parents and his own conscience in the presence of the insidious temptations to which he, in common with all boys of his age, was subjected.

The tide of boys flooded back to school on the second of January, noisy with reminiscences of good times enjoyed. Talbot came from a camp on the shore of Cape Cod, where he had been shooting with Trask; Ben Tracy from Montreal. Dunn had spent his freedom in New York, where he had “been to something every night and had the highest old kind of a time.” The anecdotes of his experiences furnished him amusement for a week; his listeners tired of them in a much shorter time. Aside from these anecdotes, Dunn brought back little that was new from his vacation, certainly nothing so beneficial to himself or the school as an earnest purpose. He continued to slide downhill with careless content, finding specious excuses to present to teachers for classroom failures, and flattering himself that he was playing a grand rôle in the eyes of his mates as a jaunty, devil-may-care loafer.

The winter term in all schools is sacred to work. The boys at Westcott’s, under pressure at home and in school, on the whole did their full stint with faithfulness and good-will. But there was no lack of distraction abroad or fun at school. Outside were the official amusements at Adams’s, skating at the Country Club, occasional dancing parties, lectures for the intellectual, theatre for the frivolous, and jolly visiting among friends for all. At school, some petty excitement was always to be found. A lively recitation has its interest for a keen-witted boy, especially if it exhibits a Dunn trying to palm off an old excuse or a Redfield to originate a new blunder. Some one was usually in trouble, and the trouble of a school-mate, if not too serious, is always interesting to the bystanders. And there were occasions when the amusement was not wholly innocent.

The great fault with the Westcott lads was their thoughtlessness. They had never known the sting of poverty, nor suffered from the want of anything which it was at all desirable that they should have. Some of them had feeble sense of the sacredness of property; a thing that could be bought by a small requisition on their pocket-money possessed in their eyes slight value. When Wilmot unscrewed an electric-light bulb in the lower hall and flung it the whole length of the play room to smash into a hundred pieces against the brick wall, he was simply yielding to a reckless impulse of fun. He would have taken his punishment without complaint if he had been caught, and he would have confessed the deed honestly if he had been questioned; but he had no idea that he was stealing. When Cable dropped a new stiff hat at the cloak-room door, and half a dozen rascals immediately kicked it into tatters, they thought they were having fun with Cable—until after an interview with Mr. Westcott. If a book was left about the halls,—the owner had no business to drop his books around,—some one was quite likely to use it as a missile on his way out. Talbot and Hardie and Harrison and others of the older boys regarded such an act as “kiddish”; Wilmot would commit it because of uncontrolled recklessness, Dunn because he was a fool.

It was the laboratory at the top of the building that offered to heedless spirits the greatest temptation. Here both the chemistry and the physics classes performed their experiments and made their recitations. Mr. Cary, the instructor, was neither incompetent nor a weakling; but he couldn’t be in the laboratory all the time nor in all parts of it at the same time. Interesting experiments were tried that had no place in the text-book. For two weeks a jar hidden in the corner served as a receptacle for odds and ends of chemicals, and was visited surreptitiously every day by various members of the class, curious to see what new color it had taken on. Reeves discovered that a cent could be silvered by dipping it in nitric acid, then in mercury, and then, for an instant, in the acid again. Thereupon a mania for silvering objects suddenly developed which had to be repressed by official order. With a piece of glass tubing drawn to a point and attached by a rubber hose to a faucet, Trask found that he could throw a fine jet of water to a considerable distance. He used to train this with great effect on persons standing yards away, the spray being invisible but very distinctly felt. It struck Hardie one day in the back of the neck just above his collar, as he was standing beside Mr. Cary’s desk. He couldn’t turn round or dodge the stream, for Mr. Cary was looking over his note-book, and any movement would have betrayed the offenders. So he stood helpless, furtively swabbing with his handkerchief at the back of his head, but failing with all his efforts to dam the stream that trickled down his back.

Impunity encourages. One day at recess, some scapegrace made an obnoxious mixture in an open dish by means of iron sulphide and hydrochloric acid, and fled for his life, leaving the laboratory door open. The fumes descended the stairways and reached the noses of innocent sufferers below. Mr. Westcott and Mr. Cary arrived at the laboratory simultaneously, hot on the scent, and took counsel together. Later in the day Mr. Westcott called the laboratory classes into his room and demanded the culprit. No one volunteering, he explained the danger and wrong of fooling in the laboratory, and declared that he should punish severely any further misdemeanor, even if it were necessary to inflict the penalty on the whole class.

As Mr. Westcott was not given to idle threats, there was seriousness on the top floor—for a time.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SHOOTING MATCH

Saturdays Roger usually had to himself. On these days he took advantage of his freedom to visit the library or a museum, or strolled about the city, entertaining himself with the shop windows and the mob of bargain-hunters. Occasionally he hunted up some landmark of history which appealed to his interest, turning aside on the way for a glimpse of the waterside or the markets or the queer foreign quarter where the native-born American feels himself a trespasser and is grateful for the presence of a policeman a block away. As he was new to the fascinating variety of city scenes, his attention was often caught by objects which his town-bred companions passed without noticing, either because they lacked curiosity, or because familiarity with city streets had made them indifferent.

On two or three occasions, while traversing an irregular old square, Roger had noticed a second-story sign bearing the words: “Professor Pillar, Magicians’ Supplies and Novelties. Outfits for Professionals and Amateurs. Come In and See Us.” One morning in February he decided to accept this invitation. He found himself in a little dusty room packed full of juggler’s paraphernalia. A friendly old man with very nimble fingers greeted him warmly, and pressed upon him various tricks and trinkets with such persuasiveness that Roger left the wizard’s cave poorer by a dollar and a half, and richer by a variety of queer acquisitions.

When he reached his room, he spread out his purchases on the desk before him and assured himself with some heat that it was unquestionably true that a fool and his money are soon parted. While he was thus making himself uncomfortable with reproaches, Mike happened in and became enthusiastic over the collection.

“I’ll sell them to you,” offered Roger.

Mike considered. “How much?”

“Just what I gave for them.”

“You wouldn’t do that unless you wanted to get rid of ’em,” remarked Mike, shrewdly. “I’ll give you a dollar for the lot.”

The haggling spun itself out to a length which would prove tedious to the reader if the conversation were reported in detail. The upshot of it all was that Roger reserved two articles from the collection, and sold the balance to Mike for the sum which the latter had first offered.

“Now what are you going to do with them?” asked Roger, when the dollar had been paid and the goods delivered.

“I’ll tell you,” returned Mike, proudly, “but you must keep it to yourself and not bring in anything more to spoil the market. I’m going to show one of ’em downstairs when there are a lot of kids around, and then auction the thing off. After a few days I’ll bring out another and auction that off, and so on, till they’re all gone. If I don’t make fifty per cent on the trade, I’ll give you back your money.”

It took Mike three weeks, we may add in dismissing the incident, to carry out his programme, but in the end he got back his dollar, together with a clear profit of seventy-one cents.

Among the objects which had caught Roger’s eye at the juggler’s were so-called “shooting matches,” which came in little boxes like those which contain safety matches. In appearance they resembled cigar lighters, with a smooth brown coating running up two-thirds of an inch from the tip; in action their vigor was such as to fill the heart of a non-possessor with envy. If you held one in your hand after the first flare of ignition, you got a very pretty series of tiny explosions that gave you a pleasant little thrill, and to the ignorant onlooker an amusing little shock. If the ignorant onlooker could be beguiled to strike one himself before he saw any of its fellows at work, he furnished you pleasanter thrills by dropping his match in a panic at the first pop and jumping about delightfully as it finished its performance on the floor.

In his deal with Mike, Roger reserved two boxes of these fireworks, meaning to exhibit them at the next afternoon gathering in Trask’s roof chamber, where special cronies occasionally assembled on Trask’s invitation and amused themselves with jokes and gossip. Here, if the truth is to be told, some boys smoked a little,—as a rule smoking was considered not the thing at Westcott’s,—and it would be a great joy to offer the innocent brown-tipped object to the desperate character who announced that he was going to try a pipe. On this occasion Wilmot was one of the first to arrive and the first to be tricked; afterwards he became a leader in entrapping the others. As smokers were few, non-smokers had to be drawn on; they were beguiled with invitations to light papers in the fireplace. Talbot, who appeared late and found a circle of ten eager to see him light a match, became suspicious and declined the privilege. “Light it yourself, if you want it lighted!” he said grimly. “What’s the good of doing it, anyway?”

“Just for the fun,” pleaded Wilmot. “You needn’t be scared; it won’t hurt you.”

“We all did it, and you’ve got to,” announced Trask. “If you don’t, you’ll have to smoke a big cigar.”

“It’ll take more than this bunch to make me do that,” answered Pete, looking round in smiling defiance. “I’m no cigarette sucker!”

“He’s trying to get out of it!” declared Wilmot, triumphantly. “A football player and captain of the crew hasn’t the sand to light a piece of paper!”

“He’s just contrary-minded, that’s all,” Sumner threw in. “He won’t do it because we want him to.”

“Oh, if you want me to, that’s different,” answered Pete. “Anything to oblige such dear friends. Only I won’t take Steve’s match; he’s too forward. Here, Roger, give me one. I’ll trust you.”

Roger drew out his second box, took a match from it, and handed both to Talbot. Pete stooped to perform the task expected of him, read the inscription on the box, and decided instantly on the course to be pursued. At the first explosion he whirled about with the sputtering thing in his hand and plunged toward Wilmot, who sprang away from him with a yell of fright.

“Aha!” cried Talbot, dramatically, as he threw the spent match into the fireplace, “who’s the sandless one now? He’s afraid of his own innocent little matches!”

“They aren’t mine,” replied Wilmot, a little rattled by the fact that the laugh had turned against him. “They belong to Hardie, and he won’t tell where he got ’em.” This last statement was added in the hope that it might lead the conversation away from his own discomfiture. “Did you ever know such a hog?”

“Let him discover the place himself, as I did,” protested Roger. “He’s lived in the city all his life.”

“Don’t tell him,” advised Talbot. “He’s better off without ’em.”

And then the whole company fell to questioning Roger, as in a game, concerning the kind of shop at which the matches were procured. He answered all questions truthfully, though insulting doubts as to his honesty were cried aloud before the end of the list was reached, a list which began with possibilities such as groceries, drug stores, cigar stands, news stands, street fakirs, toy-shops; proceeded with dealers in firearms, fireworks, sporting goods—and tailed out into the most idiotic suggestions that foolish brains could originate. Wilmot capped the climax by declaring that it was from a school-supply house that the matches came. “They’re for use in school,” he shouted with glee; “that’s what they’re for!”

Hardie laughed and shook his head.

Then Wilmot started on a new course, and pleaded for a few out of the new box.

“You’ve got a whole boxful, and I’ve only one left,” he urged. “Go halves, and I won’t call you a hog any more.”

But Hardie was still obdurate. “Children shouldn’t have matches,” he said.

Wilmot turned away in disgust. “You’re worse than a hog, you’re a whole drove of swine! I wouldn’t look over the edge of the sty at you!”

The next morning Roger relented. He didn’t feel at all sure that Wilmot was to be trusted with tools of such potential power for disturbance; but like all right-minded boys, he hated to be considered stingy. He hunted up Wilmot as soon as he reached school the next morning and reopened the case.

“Do you still want those things, Steve?” he asked.

“Sure I do,” answered Wilmot, promptly. “I think you might at least tell me where you got ’em.”

“Well, you can have my box. Only you must be careful with them.”

Wilmot pocketed the box with alacrity. “I’ll be careful, all right. You don’t suppose I’d set the building on fire, do you?”

“No, not that! You don’t have to do that to get into trouble.”

“You needn’t worry. I’m not looking for trouble.”

Wilmot never was looking for trouble; he had no need to do so, as it had a habit of coming to him unsought. The caution, too, which he had promised to exercise, was rather of a wily than a practical character, as was demonstrated by his conduct when he reached the laboratory that morning. Six or eight fellows were already there waiting for the new experiment to be announced; Mr. Cary was still on the stairs; and Redfield and a few others had gone down for books.

“I’ve got Hardie’s matches!” Wilmot called eagerly to the waiting audience, “and I’m going to put ’em in the back part of my drawer. If any fellow should happen to take one out, break off the end, and put it into Reddy’s sand bath, why, I shouldn’t know anything about it. See?”

“None of it for me,” remarked Trask. “I’m not going to run my head into any noose.”

“You haven’t the nerve,” said Wilmot.

“Neither have you, or you’d do it yourself!”

Mr. Cary now appeared with the laggards, and the class was soon set to work. On one boy Wilmot’s short address made a deeper impression than the directions of the teacher. Dunn had long been casting about for some easy means of raising himself in the popular esteem. While he felt no doubt that his true worth must appear as soon as the baseball season began, he was unwilling that this recognition should be postponed to so late a day if he could achieve it earlier. Here was an opportunity to take a long step forward by accepting the general challenge which Wilmot had issued, and proving himself a bold fellow when Trask had acknowledged that he did not dare and Wilmot himself hung back.

A sand bath, as most of my readers know, is a bowl-shaped vessel filled with sand in which fragile glass flasks are placed in order to insure an even heat. A bunsen burner under the sand bath heats the sand, and, through the sand, the flask and its contents. Redfield had just lighted his burner and was busy weighing out his chemicals. Dunn passed behind him, and directing his attention to something across the room, tucked a match-end into the sand in Redfield’s bath and went on to his own table. Scarcely three minutes had elapsed when the half-dozen lads who had been watching furtively over their work heard a slight explosion, followed immediately by an exclamation from Redfield, who went crashing back on the row of tables behind. At the same time they beheld a small geyser of popping sand spurt into the air and descend in a shower about the burner.

Mr. Cary rushed to the spot, likewise all the boys, both those who were in the secret and those who were not. “Go back to your work!” ordered the teacher, and the boys slunk away, though not beyond earshot. “What’s this, Redfield?” he asked sharply.

The victim of the explosion, having recovered from his fright, stood giggling with nervousness. “My sand blew up, sir,” he said.

“Do you know what made it do so?” demanded Mr. Cary, sternly.

“No, sir. I was standing right here waiting for the thing to heat. It went off all of a sudden, right up in the air, and kept snappin’ all the way up.”

“And you know absolutely nothing more about it?”

“Not a thing!” answered Redfield, with evident honesty. “I wouldn’t blow myself up if I could help it.”

There seemed no reason to doubt the truth of Redfield’s statements; he was not only incapable of skilful dissembling, but also, as was generally known, a favorite target for heartless schoolboy pleasantry. Mr. Cary, therefore, asked no further questions, but turned off the gas from the burner, and dumping out the smoking sand poked it over in search of clews to the explosion—to the great delight of the half-dozen unworthies who were in the secret. Finding nothing, he bade Redfield start again with fresh sand, and returned to his desk.

A half-hour later Fluffy Dobbs’s mess blew up in the same way. This time the instructor, being hardly a dozen feet away, caught the full effect. He came directly to the smoking bath, but though his face blazed with indignation, he was too wise to embark on an interrogation which was unlikely to yield positive results.

“Don’t you think something is the matter with the sand, sir?” asked Wilmot, innocently. “Perhaps there’s nitre in it.”

“It isn’t likely.”

“Can this have anything to do with it?” suggested Wilmot, offering a charred bit of wood which he had picked up from the floor. The instructor took it, smelled of it, and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “If these explosions are due to the sand, it is a remarkable occurrence. If they were deliberately caused, it is a very dangerous and culpable form of joke. We shall take only one experiment to-day. As soon as you have finished with that, you may go.”

Mr. Cary stood close to Wilmot’s desk during the rest of the exercise, either because it was in a central position or because he saw in the disturbance the fine Italian hand of that young gentleman. One awkward result for Wilmot was that, not daring to take the match-box from his drawer in the presence of the teacher, he was obliged to leave it behind when he went. Dunn, too, made a misplay. He had used two of the three matches taken from Wilmot’s box on Redfield and Dobbs; not knowing what to do with the third, he broke off the end and poked it into the bag of fresh sand which stood at the end of his table.

The first thing Mr. Cary did after the boys had left the laboratory was to examine the sand in the bag. At the very top, like Benjamin’s cup hidden in the mouth of the sack, he found the match-end which Dunn had placed there. He compared this with the charred piece picked up by Wilmot. Over these he mused a few minutes; then, with the instinct which sends the police, after an important break, to the haunts of certain well-known criminals, he went straight to Wilmot’s drawer. There, under the soiled laboratory coat, he discovered the fatal box. He broke off a match-head, put it into a sand bath, and in five minutes had an explosion of his own. After that he gathered up his exhibits and hied him to Mr. Westcott’s office.

The laboratory excitement furnished a topic of deep interest to certain groups during the lunch hour. Dunn, who was sure that he had made a hit, talked largely of his achievement. Wilmot, though pleased with the unexpectedly full success of his idea, was a little worried that he had been forced to leave his treasure in the laboratory. It wouldn’t do to use the thing too often, and Dunn was capable of firing off all the precious matches in a day. By the end of recess, largely through Dunn’s enthusiastic narratives, the incident had been aired among the older boys. Towards two o’clock word came to Wilmot that he was wanted in the head-master’s office.

What happened in the half-hour during which Wilmot was closeted with Mr. Westcott was never fully known to the boys. Steve spoke of it very unwillingly, and his memory of such scenes was never good. The instant he saw the fatal box of shooting matches on the table before him, he knew that it was all up with him, and his only course was to obtain the best terms of surrender possible. The terms were hard. He was suspended from school for a week. His parents were to be notified; he was to make up all lost lessons at home with a tutor; the school was to be informed of the misdeed and the penalty; he was not to return to the chemistry class unless Mr. Cary expressed a desire to give him another trial. Against the suspension Steve pleaded piteously; he would copy thousands of lines, stay after school hours every day, apologize to anybody and everybody,—if only the message didn’t go home. But Mr. Westcott was inexorable; the letter was posted that very afternoon.

The next day was a bitter one for Steve Wilmot. Immediately after breakfast his mother retired to the privacy of her chamber to weep; his father paced the library for some time before he could calm himself sufficiently to give the boy a hearing. It was not the first occasion on which Steve had brought unhappiness upon his family. From the day when he began to walk he had been blundering into scrapes. He had been dealt with by all recognized methods of discipline. Severe punishment, denunciation, threats, gentle remonstrance, pleading, exhortation, loss of allowance—none had prevailed to change his nature. A psychological expert had once declared that since Steve’s escapades were mere boyish tricks without malice, they would be outgrown in time. The hope born of this assurance had carried the parents over such shocks as the visit of policemen to warn against trespassing in the public garden, or an indignant letter from a good lady whose cat Steve had snowballed as the dear animal was taking an innocent walk on the alley fence. Now it appeared that their hope had been a delusion, for suspension from school was a humiliation which the family had hitherto been spared. Mr. Wilmot talked gravely about putting the young man to work, but he didn’t mean it. In the end, he accepted Steve’s promise that he would walk circumspectly hereafter all the days of his life. Mrs. Wilmot also found comfort in the reflection that Steve was at bottom neither dishonest nor vicious, and that the salutary effect of the lesson might be expected to outlast the four remaining months of his school career. After all, he might have done worse things than carry shooting matches into a school laboratory. So she dried her tears and hoped again.

CHAPTER XIX

A LOSS TO THE NINE

Meantime the school had heard the proclamation of the sin and its punishment, and looked upon Wilmot’s vacant seat. The exile was missed. Dunn chuckled ecstatically over the amusing fact that the official lightning had passed by the bold man of action and struck the crafty suggester. His merriment was coldly received.

“You’d better shut up, Jason,” said Trask, roughly. “Any fool can stick a match into a sand box when he’s given the match and told how to do it.”

“And no one but a fool would have put that one into the bag,” declared Eaton. “I believe that’s what gave poor Steve away.”

“That’s right,” said Sumner, in confirmation. “And Steve said one, not three. If only one had gone off, Cary wouldn’t have suspected anything, and Steve wouldn’t have got stung. You gave the thing dead away.”

Dunn, who had by this time lost all pride in his handiwork, glowered across the table. “If he was afraid of getting stung, he ought to have kept clear of the thing altogether,” he growled. “He took his risk, and I took mine. It isn’t my fault if he left his matches in the drawer!”

“He wouldn’t have left them there if Cary hadn’t forced him to, and Cary wouldn’t have been standing over him if you hadn’t tried to burn the whole box at once.” This, from Trask, was but a repetition of Sumner’s argument.

“You both ought to be spanked,” remarked Talbot. “It isn’t fair that one should be soaked and the other not.”

“Would you have me go to Westcott and say, ‘I’m guilty, please sting me too?’ I see myself doing that!” Dunn gave a derisive laugh at the idea.

“No one who knows you would expect that of you,” replied Talbot, significantly. “It wouldn’t do any good, either. Hardie tried to help Steve out by confessing that he brought the matches to school and offering to take part of the punishment, but it wouldn’t go.”

Dunn sniffed his contempt. “And old Westcott soaked him for it.”

“No!” answered Talbot, shortly. “He isn’t that kind of a man.”

After this conversation Dunn avoided all reference to the laboratory incident, and would have been glad to have the others forget it, but they continued to regard him as responsible for Wilmot’s misfortune, and withdrew their favor from him. Those were unpleasant days for Archibald Dunn; no one at Adams’s would have much to do with him, and the conviction, in part justified, that he was not receiving from the boys a fair deal kept him morose and sulky. Moreover, frank letters concerning his work were going home to his parents, which served to plunge him more deeply in trouble. Having shirked and trifled so long, he was well-nigh incapable of doing anything else.

About the time of Wilmot’s return to school, Talbot called out the candidates for the crew. They came in a flock, ranging in size from Bumpus the fat to McDowell the small, and in degrees of chance according to the popular estimate, from Talbot the sure-to-make-it to any one of a half-dozen equally sure not to make it.

“What’re you doing here, Bump?” asked Mac. “You don’t suppose any crew could pull you, do you?”

“I’m out for the exercise,” responded Bumpus, unruffled. “What’re you doing here? You don’t suppose you could pull any one, do you?”

“I’m out for the fun,” explained Mac. “There’s nothing doing, and I’m tired of the gym.”

These two, of course, were among those considered sure not to make it. Where Hardie stood, no one could tell until he began to row on the machines, and then the experts opined unanimously that his chances were slim. The captain arranged the candidates in fours to suit himself. There was a first four, which Talbot stroked, made up of the fellows left in school who had rowed in the first or second boat the year before. Then a second containing those of unofficial rank but known experience; and after these, squads of four taken without much care in grouping. All the instruction they received was such as could be given by the captain or his aids.

Roger got a place at two in the third squad, and did what he could to carry out the directions given him—pull his stroke through hard all the way, recover sharply, start his slides back with a gradual, deliberate movement, and use his legs. It was all new and strange to him, so totally different from anything he had tried before that experience in rowing in an ordinary skiff with an ordinary pair of oars seemed of no help whatever. He perceived his awkwardness quite as clearly as the bystanders who whispered together as they watched him,—and he felt it besides, as they could not. The secret ambition which he had cherished since the day when Deering made the speech in school assumed the form of an absurd presumption. But he had no thought of giving up.

Bumpus got his exercise, and Mac his fun. The others got fun, too, when Bumpus rowed, for he proved the jolliest clumsy porpoise that ever tried to sit in a boat. He was too big for his seat. He couldn’t get forward to begin stroke, and when he finished, the chances were even that he couldn’t recover at all. His candidacy was of short duration. Talbot had to get rid of him to keep his squad under control.

Mac, on the other hand, took to the practice as if he had done it for years. Every suggestion made to him was translated immediately into his stroke. From catch to finish, from recovery to catch, his stroke seemed one blended, graceful movement.

“What a pity he isn’t bigger!” said Talbot to Eaton, who stood beside him. “He’s a natural oarsman.”

The second day McDowell stroked the third crew, while Hardie blundered along on the fourth. A fortnight later he was still blundering along, with nothing to sustain his courage but a resolution to hang on as long as there was anything to hang to.

And now Dunn received a blow that hurt. The call had gone forth for candidates for baseball, and Dunn’s name appeared near the head of the list. Mr. Westcott then summoned Dunn to an official interview, in which he informed the sanguine ball player that in consequence of his continued poor performance of school work, he could not be allowed to play on the nine. “We have kept you here,” said the head-master, “in spite of your neglect, only because we were not willing to believe that a boy could be six months among us without catching from teachers and boys something of the spirit of serious work. So far, we have apparently failed to make any impression upon you. At the present time there is not a single subject in which you could be recommended for college examinations. This being the case, we cannot allow you to assume new responsibilities which would interfere still further with your study.”

And then the teacher made a serious attempt to bring home to the misguided boy the wrongfulness and folly of his course, but Dunn heard nothing but the fact that for him there was to be no baseball. His answers were given in stolid monosyllables; he went forth suffocating with rage.

No one knew better than Dunn that his school life had been a failure, but his point of view was very different from that of his teachers. Dunn’s scholastic ideal was formed somewhat on the lines of Kipling’s Stalky. To dodge one’s work, outwit one’s teachers, and triumph at examination by luck and cleverness represented to Dunn the only truly desirable way of conquering school drudgery. The real thing was to be popular, to be in the important set, to play on the teams, and be talked about. When Stalkyism, as exemplified in Dunn’s recitation career, proved a flat failure, and the expected popularity turned out to be only a kind of contemptuous freedom to disregard him, he had consoled himself with assurances of a different experience on the baseball field, where he should shine with no uncertain light. Now with a single word Mr. Westcott had robbed him of his opportunity. He felt like a soldier who at the critical moment of defence finds that his cartridges have been stolen and that he is at the mercy of the enemy.

Stover listened to his tale, deeply disgusted. Braggarts are usually liars or victims of delusion, but occasionally one is found to make good some of his boasts. Stover had investigated Dunn’s baseball career and believed in him.

“It’s a low-down trick!” he burst forth. “That’s the way they do here. If they find a fellow who can play something, they scare up some excuse to rule him out. Anything to discourage athletics!”

“I suppose it’s no good to kick,” said Dunn, despairingly.

“I’ll tell you what to do. Go to the old man and play the penitent. Tell him that you’ve done wrong, and that you’re going to study hard from now on. If you can put it up to him strong enough, he’ll fall on your neck and forgive you. You’ll have to make a good bluff at work for the next two or three weeks until you get your reputation up, but it won’t hurt you any to do that. Some of the fellows out there at Adams’s will give you a lift. There’s Hardie, now; he’s a good-natured fellow and a pretty good scholar; he’d help you out if he knew what you’re up against.”

“I guess not,” said Dunn, hopeless. “He’s always been down on me.”

“I don’t believe it. He got you that invitation last fall for the dancing school. I don’t see why he shouldn’t help you now.”

“It wasn’t Hardie. Ben Tracy got it,” corrected Dunn, quickly.

“Ben Tracy nothing! It was Hardie. I heard Sumner talking about it at the time. It was Hardie that did it. He isn’t so conceited as some of that crowd. If you go at him right, he’ll help you. Now do as I say, and see what comes of it.”

This news concerning the invitation to the dancing class—he had not forgotten his anxiety at the time—set Dunn’s thoughts in a new direction. The more he recalled the circumstances, which included Ben’s clumsy disclaimer, the more he was inclined to believe that Stover was right. For the first time during the year Dunn clearly perceived that he had been in some respects a silly fool. For the first time it dawned upon him that some of these fellows whom he had been so ready to disparage might be in reality better and more deserving of honor than he. He was honest enough to recognize that if he had been in Hardie’s place he would have acted in a far different way.

Following Stover’s counsel, he went to Mr. Westcott with an artificial penitence on his lips; but there was already a half-formed, half-real penitence in his heart. By what means Mr. Westcott pierced his shell and made this half-penitence wholly real, we may not inquire. The head-master had a skill in such interviews, the product of much experience and a genuine desire to help rather than to punish; and Dunn’s career offered few points capable of defence, when considered with frankness and honesty. That his repentance was indeed real, and his resolution to face about, was, for the moment at least, genuine, is proved by two circumstances: first, he acquiesced, though sadly, in Mr. Westcott’s decision that if he was to regain lost ground, he could not afford the time and the thought which school baseball required; secondly, he confessed, unsolicited, many of his misdeeds, including his part in the episode of the sand bath.

“I suspected it,” said Mr. Westcott, “but we won’t consider that now. That belongs to the past. We start anew to-day.”

CHAPTER XX

IN THE PAIR-OAR

Dunn’s change of heart was not as sudden as it seemed. A boy often builds for himself a certain structure of false principle which it gratifies his vanity to consider his permanent philosophy of life. When faults in this structure develop, he shuts his eyes to them or patches them with flattering sophistries; and even when the foundations are actually crumbling away, he affects a firm confidence because he is too weak to face the task of rebuilding. In the end some bitter experience may undermine the last support and bring down the edifice with a crash.

So it was with Dunn. He had been aware for some time that he was on the wrong track, but he could not bring himself to acknowledge the fact. The information that even when he felt most bitter against Hardie, Hardie had secretly done him a good turn, stirred his sense of shame and disproved his assumption that all the boys had been down on him from the beginning. He recognized clearly enough now that he had been making a fool of himself, and that the only sensible course was to retrace his steps and start anew in a different path. He went that evening to Hardie’s room, announced that he was going to turn over a new leaf, and asked if he might drop in occasionally for a lift over a hard place. He said nothing of the dancing-school invitation; that lay now too far away in the past.

Hardie met him so cordially that Dunn was moved to open his heart still further. “What is the matter with me, anyway?” he demanded bluntly. “I wish you’d give me the bottom facts, right out straight.”

Hardie smiled. “You don’t do any work.”

“Oh, I know all about that. I’m a loafer and a goat besides. I don’t mean about studies. Why don’t the fellows like me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Hardie, warily. “Don’t they like you?”

“No, they don’t. You know they don’t. Now, what is it?”

Roger looked shyly across the table at the questioner; he didn’t know what to answer.

“Spit it out!” insisted Dunn. “Just give me the truth. I can stand it.”

“Well,” said Roger, slowly, “for one thing, you talk too much.”

Dunn stared. “I don’t think that’s such a crime. I’m nothing compared with Wilmot. His tongue’s going all the time.”

“Oh, he’s different,” exclaimed Roger, hastily. “He talks a lot of trash, but he’s amusing, and the fellows like it. He never talks about himself.”

“And my talk isn’t amusing and is always about myself.”

“Not that exactly, but you’re always thinking about yourself. You don’t take much interest in anybody else.”

“It isn’t easy to do it if they won’t let you,” said Dunn, with a gloomy smile. “What else?”

“Your ideas are different from theirs. You think things are funny that they don’t. They don’t like your way of looking at things.”

“In other words I’m all wrong,” growled Dunn, in disgust, as he rose to go. “I couldn’t please ’em, anyway, and I shan’t try it, but I’m going to stop talking and cut out smoking and get right down to work.”

“For how long?” asked Roger, with a grin of incredulity.

“Right through the year,” returned Dunn, hotly. “You don’t believe me, but you wait and see!”

With this bold assertion on his lips, Dunn made for his room. The door was just closing behind him when Roger called out, “Oh, Jason!”

Dunn returned, closed the door and backed against it.

“Aren’t you going to play ball at all?”

“No; what’s the use? If I can’t play on the team, I might as well cut the whole thing out and study.”

“You can’t study all the time. You might come out just the same and play on the second and pitch for batting practice. It would show the right spirit, and the fellows would appreciate it. You know how they all felt about Sumner.”

“I won’t do it,” answered Dunn, stubbornly. “I’ve been cut off from the team, and now it’ll have to get along without me. Sumner always had a chance to get on the team again; I’m out of it for good.”

The time had come for the crews to take to the river. The Boston schools row under the patronage of the Boston Athletic Association, which provides boats and coaches, arranges for the races, and furnishes prizes. Each school enters two fours, a first and second, which compete in separate races. As Westcott’s possessed a pair-oar of her own, there were places in the boats for ten men exclusive of the coxswains. Talbot narrowed down his squad to eleven, allowing an extra man for accidents and illness, and getting rid of the rest by the easy method of not inviting them to report on the river. Hardie, to his delight, received orders to bring his rowing clothes to the boat-house. He did so fully conscious that his destination was neither the first nor the second. Talbot had said nothing to this effect,—indeed, Talbot, now that the rowing season was actually to begin, abated something of his intimacy,—but there was a general agreement as to the provisional formation of the crews which was almost authoritative. Of the new men who had come out, three had shown promise of skill as oarsmen. One of them was Bursley, a quiet fellow who came in every day from a suburb a dozen miles out, tall, muscular, and teachable. Louis Tracy was another, and finally McDowell, who, though he had grown during the year, was still undersized. On the first crew were to be tried—so the report ran—Talbot, Bursley, Eaton, and Pitkin; on the second, Weld, Sumner, L. Tracy, and McDowell; Wilmot, Hardie, and Redfield would thus be left over for the pair-oar.

This forecast proved correct except in one particular. To his surprise, Roger got a trial the first day out, at two on the second. We may well call it a trial, for such it surely was to all concerned. More accurately described, it was a demonstration of incapacity. Roger’s struggles with his oar stirred his rowing companions to fierce growls, the coxswain to abuse, the loiterers on the float to gestures and grins of malicious enjoyment. Poor Number Two couldn’t get his oar in right; it twisted in his hand and pulled under, it wouldn’t come out when it ought and as it ought. Delayed by the insidious clutch of the water, he started his slide before he had freed his blade, and his knees rose and blocked the backward movement of his handle. Though he put forth extraordinary efforts to master the oar, the oar insisted on mastering him. By good luck and violent slide rushing, he managed to avoid taking Number Three in the back, but half the time he was holding or backing water, and all the time he was preventing bow from keeping stroke. Strive as he might with mind and body, his strength wrought nothing but confusion. A half-hour of this fruitless wrenching and blundering was all the crew could stand; the boat was headed in, and Roger was unceremoniously dumped upon the float.

Louis Tracy took his place—and kept it. After that, the disenchanted but still determined Roger rowed bow on the pair-oar to Wilmot’s stroke, and toiled over the unmanageable oar. It had a way of plunging under, every few strokes, and pulling the side of the boat down; then it stuck deep in the water, and Coolidge, the cox, would reprove, and the offending bow would grip his handle still tighter and vow that this particular fault shouldn’t occur again. But it did occur again, and others as heinous. He couldn’t get his oar away after he had raised it from the water; he rushed his slide instead of drawing it gradually back so as not to check the motion of the boat; he could not put into practice the apparently simple direction that the legs were to bear the burden of the work. As a result his back suffered,—and the temper of his mates, who poured out on his head reproach and sarcasm until the ineffectualness of words was made apparent, when they relapsed into a humorous pessimism that was more unflattering than abuse.

The crew of the pair-oar was under another disadvantage: very little coaching trickled through to them. Caffrey, the Westcott coach, gave his attention chiefly to the first and incidentally to the second: the pair-oar shifted for itself, or received one set of amateur directions one day and another the next. As Roger thought of it, he and Wilmot were in the position of a slow steamer trying to overtake one which was several knots faster. Only a breakdown in the leader could prevent the distance between them from growing hourly greater.

“What’s the matter with Hardie?” asked Talbot, one day, as he walked down with Wilmot to the boat-house. “He doesn’t seem to be gaining at all.”

“He’s just rotten,” answered Wilmot, despairingly. “A low-caste baboon would do better!”

“He may get it yet,” said Talbot.

“He may!” echoed Wilmot, derisively; “oh, yes, he may! But I’ll bet you a dollar to a cent that he won’t!”

A fortnight passed: Bursley was making good in the first, and Mac had been promoted to stroke on the second, but Roger’s improvement was scarcely noticeable. He was beginning to fear that rowing was something for which he was physically unfitted, as a fat man for pole vaulting. In spite of his hardened muscles he became easily tired; his poor form wore on his back and wrists and arms. Good rowing is easy rowing: Roger’s was both bad and hard. Yet in spite of all discouragement he enjoyed the practice. It was interesting to struggle for the hoped-for improvement, even though the hope proved vain, to observe the other crews on the water, to rest on the oar, a little out of the channel, and watch the Varsity eight sweep magnificently by, with the nose of the coaching launch close at the shell’s rudder, the oarsmen’s bodies bending in beautiful unison, the water boiling back from the driving blades. Roger never saw Deering’s crew without a thrill of that awe which the subaltern feels when he stands in the presence of a famous general. It represented power, skill, and determination concentrated; in it was embodied a kind of majesty before which the schoolboy oars bowed with instinctive reverence. Every crew on the river gazed at the Varsity in rapt admiration, but the Varsity recognized the presence of no one but itself.

One afternoon in early May, Coolidge turned the bow of the pair-oar upstream. For a mile Hardie’s oar played its old tricks, twisting in his hand and pulling under, tipping the boat, spoiling the stroke, filling with disgust and despair the hearts of the little crew. Near the Cottage Farm bridge they stopped to watch a college eight pass. When they started again, it occurred to Roger to see whether the rowlock would not carry his oar, and permit him to concentrate his attention on his slide and the recovery. To his surprise the oarlock did carry the oar. His wrists were relieved of an exhausting strain; his blade plunged under no longer. He found that a little easy toss of the oar at the end of the slide would bring the blade squarely into the water.

“What’s the matter with you, Bow?” called Coolidge, amazed. “You’re rowing right!”

And watch the Varsity eight sweep magnificently by.

“It’s about time,” growled Wilmot.

Hardie, delighted, gave his whole mind to his movement, ceasing to steal side-glances at his blade, and watching Wilmot’s back more closely. The oar was beginning to catch spontaneously and hard, his slide to return naturally with the motion of the boat. The pair-oar continued upstream to the edge of Soldiers’ Field, then turned and retraced its course,—a three-mile row,—but Roger felt no weariness. The relief from the awkward strain which he had been putting upon himself made the work seem like a rest. Just above the Harvard bridge they met the first boat, which stopped to enable the captain to watch them, and Pete sang out something which could not be heard. Later when they were all dressing in the boat-house, Coolidge asked what this message was.

“Oh, nothing of importance,” answered Talbot. “I only said that bow was doing well.”

“It seems to me of importance,” said Roger, whose face glowed with joy. “That’s more than you’ve said so far this year.”

“I’ve been thinking lately that I might never be able to say it at all,” said Talbot.

Meantime on the ball field things were going badly for Westcott’s. Dunn reconsidered his resolution and went out to give the batters practice and play general helper, but he couldn’t make Ben Tracy a good pitcher or Stover a forceful captain. The school appreciated Dunn’s efforts and thought better of him for them. Jason was studying, too, though with no very startling classroom results. He had a tutor for an hour every afternoon, and he often worked the whole evening in Hardie’s room.

“I’m almost glad that I couldn’t play on that nine,” he said one evening as he brought in his books; “they’re a terribly poor lot, and Stover doesn’t get anything out of ’em. Think of Newbury beating them twelve to two the other day!”

“They may brace up near the second game,” suggested Roger.

Dunn shook his head; “No, they won’t. It isn’t in ’em. Did you see Smithy leading the cheering at the game? He was wild to beat!’

“If they can win the baseball and the crew now, they can get along without the football.”

“Oh, they won’t win the crew,” declared Dunn, “we’ll have ’em there.”

“Lanning says they’re going to,” said Roger. “He coaches Newbury.”

Dunn considered a moment. “I don’t see how Pitkin can be strong enough to row a hard race. He’s bow on the first, isn’t he?”

“Yes, and he rows well, too.”

“You ought to be there. You could stand the pace.”

Roger laughed. “I can’t even make the second. A little while ago Wilmot wanted to kick me off the pair-oar.”

CHAPTER XXI

THE SECOND CREW

Never did small boy yearn for the swimming-hole as Roger Hardie for the next practice. He lay awake for an hour, going over the details of the stroke as he hoped to use it. He had got control of the oar now, he was sure; he didn’t swing out, he didn’t rush his slide, and he did pull straight through—all positive virtues. The problem now was to catch sharply, to pick up the movement with the legs as his trunk came up, shoot the whole body back in one continuous and even strain, throwing his entire weight against the stretcher—“jump right back from the stretcher,” as Caffrey had once said. After that he must make a smart recover, get the hands away promptly, and rest as his slide went cautiously back, so as to be able to put all his strength and weight into the next push against the water. It wasn’t the back that was to do the rowing, nor the arms, but the whole body, and especially the legs. All this as theory was splendidly clear, but how much could he put in practice? What right had a clumsy fellow like him to expect to attain a skill which other fellows had failed to gain with years of practice?

He fell asleep with this question echoing in his brain, alternately vowing that he would do it and convinced that he could not. The rising bell woke him. He was unspeakably glad to be waked, for he was dreaming that he had fallen back into his old bad ways, that the water sucked the oar blade down after every stroke, that Coolidge and Wilmot had rebelled and Pete had told him to try baseball, and put Redfield into his place. He was inclined to take the dream as a bad omen until at luncheon Talbot informed him that Weld was out with a sore finger, and that he would have to row bow on the second that afternoon. He bethought himself then that dreams are said to go by contraries, and took heart.

Caffrey seated himself in Mike’s place when the crews went out—Mike was cox of the second—and coached the first from the second boat, occasionally transferring his exhortation to the crew that pulled him. Hardie put his whole soul into his rowing and listened with all his ears. Caffrey’s principal point of attack in the first boat was Pitkin at bow, whom he accused of minor shortcomings and one very serious fault—not rowing hard enough. “You’re late all the time, Bow. Your oar must move as soon as it strikes the water, otherwise you back water. You’re shirking, Bow! Don’t let the boat finish out your stroke. Keep over the keel, Two; you’re rolling round too much. Don’t follow your arms around, that makes you swing out. Together there—you’re awfully sloppy!”

And then he gave his attention for a time to the second. “Pull straight through, Three. Keep your hands down and pull straight in. Quicker on the recover, Bow. Don’t feather under. Take your oar out square and feather as you drop your hands and shoot away. That’s better. Don’t bury your oar so deep!”

How different it was from knocking about with Wilmot in the pair-oar! There was a feeling in the boat as if boat and oars and men worked in unison, a swift, steady, exhilarating, forward glide that gave the oarsmen a sense of power and skill. Every one worked intently with Caffrey’s eye upon him. Every stroke was a contest against one’s own treacherous faults, with the feel of the boat, the facility of the oar, the criticism of the coach as test of success. By this test Roger was satisfied that he had acquitted himself well. When, at the Cottage Farm bridge, the coach called, “Let her run,” he rested on his oars, with such a feeling of delight as he had not experienced even when Westcott’s won the Newbury football game, back in November. To make clear what happened during the rest of the row that day, and to set forth certain events of the remainder of the week, we cannot do better than transcribe Roger’s own letter to his mother, written on the following Sunday. Nine-tenths of it was about rowing, in which Mrs. Hardie could only feel the reflection of her son’s interest; and half of what she read she did not understand. Perhaps my reader can do better.

“Dear Mother:

“This has been a great week for me, and I’m going to tell you all about it, though I can’t make you see it as I do. You know I got saved over for the pair-oar when the Westcott squad was narrowed down to two crews and a pair-oar, with coxes for each. This is the final narrowing down except that the day before the race the pair-oar bunch gets the hook. I had been slopping along in the pair-oar with Steve Wilmot, being more or less rotten all the season, never at all decent, and often for long stretches absolutely ROTTEN, making both cox and Steve awfully sore, and doing much worse than the worst school crew on the river, which is saying a good deal. A few days ago I went out as usual and began badly, but after a while I seemed to catch on all at once, and began to row decently. We went a long way up river, and I kept on getting the habit of pulling somewhat right. By the time I got home my rowing had improved several thousand per cent. Pete saw me just as we came in (Pete is the captain) and seemed awfully surprised that I was doing so well.

“The next day Eliot Weld was out with a sore finger, and they put me into his place in the second. Caffrey acted as cox, and I felt that if I ever was going to have a chance to show what I could do, I had it then. I did pretty well, I think, for Caffrey didn’t say much to me. The two crews went along together for a while, then the coach sent the first down and made us all stop and put on sweaters. Then he pulled out a clipping about the adoption of a new, unorthodox stroke in England by some of their colleges, and read it to us, making comments and illustrating and explaining. He had found some one who had the same idea he had and who believed in the same stroke that he tried to teach us.

“We started down just as an inferior college eight came along, pulling a regulation good hard stroke. Caffrey said: ‘We may as well race this eight now they are here,’ and started us up. He is heavy, but he knows more about managing a crew than all the other coxes together, and everybody has confidence in him and doesn’t get rattled. He pushed us along as fast as we could go to a bridge. We had a fraction of a length start, but we gained until we went through the bridge a length ahead of the other crew. Of course the eight was not racing, but it was pretty good for us, to spurt a four-oar faster than an eight goes when rowing at a good pace. This was not one of the Varsity eights, of course, but an upper class eight, or a club eight. It would have been the height of ridiculousness and especially of freshness to row against the freshmen or the 2d or 3d Varsity. After a short stop to tell us what he wanted us to do, we went all the way back to the boat-house without a break and at a good pace. On the way down Caffrey talked to us, telling us how to save strength or favor some muscle, and trying to get us to rest on the recovery.

“I was dead tired when we got to the boat-house, but I think I pulled just as hard on the tired stretch as at any other time, excepting, of course, the race. I think Caffrey raced us to give us confidence and to get us into the habit of not getting rattled. And now for the most important thing of all. I was promoted to the second. It was because I pulled so hard and didn’t give in or weaken. Pete told me so while we were dressing. Weld must take the pair-oar. I’m out of that. I may get kicked back in a little while, but it will not be from lack of effort on my part if I do. I would rather make the second crew than anything else (except the first), as that means something; for our crews are in a different class from any of our other teams, and 2d crew this year means 1st crew next year (if I can possibly make it)!

“That was on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been rowing on the second every practice without being kicked, but I live in a continual state of terror that some one will oust me from my place. Of course there’s only Wilmot and Weld, and Wilmot’s too short and fat to be any good, while Weld is not supposed to have the staying power, but I shan’t be free from worry until the race starts (and that’s still nearly three weeks off). Even if I can hold my place, I might get sick or hurt somehow, and so be thrown out.

“On Friday we went out in the worst weather we ever had. The rain blew so fast that sheets of it would go into Mike’s megaphone, so that he really spent more time in blowing out water than in talking, though this was only when we were bucking the wind. We were all soaked about five minutes after we left the boat-house. The waves were very bad, often piling right over the boat. The rain came down so fast that it looked like a mist, and you couldn’t see the shore from the middle of the river. We didn’t stay out long, for there was no chance for good rowing. When we came in, we found that the roof leaked. Little Mike was down on the Newbury bunch because some one of them pinched his collar buttons one day, so that he hadn’t anything to button his collar to. So he put the clothes of the Newbury crews, who were still out, under the leak.

“This is a terribly long letter and will cost something to send it to Buenos Aires, but I wanted to tell you all about the crew business even if it does bore you. It means a lot to me. If you went to Westcott’s, you would understand. You can read between the lines that my health is good and the studies are going all right. I got 82 in a history exam, on Monday. Love to all.

“Your affectionate son,

“Roger.”

“What do you think of that?” asked Mrs. Hardie, four weeks later, after her husband had patiently toiled through the letter. “Fancy their going out in a tempest that soaked them in five minutes!”

“I don’t care about that,” said Mr. Hardie. “It’s the race that troubles me. It is a great strain on the heart, and the Hardies have a tendency to weak hearts.”

“Roger takes after me, and my family have good tough hearts,” returned Mrs. Hardie, quickly, seeing, as she thought, a disposition on the part of her husband to disapprove the boy’s rowing. She was touched that her son should count on her loving interest in all that occupied his thoughts; she objected strongly to making use of his confidences to thwart the ambitions which he cherished most deeply, thus perhaps banishing forever the frankness in which her mother heart delighted.

“Besides,” she added, “I wrote him all about that last week. He can be trusted to look out for himself.”

CHAPTER XXII

A SHIFT IN THE BOAT

A fortnight later another letter packed full of the inevitable rowing gush started on the long journey to Buenos Aires.

“Dear Mother:

“I have so much to tell you about the crew this time and such a wonderful story of luck that I must answer your questions right off at the beginning or I shall surely forget to. You must let me know what boat you’re coming on in June so that I can meet you at the dock. It must seem funny to get two summers in the same year. If summer vacations went with them, I should like that myself. It is all right about the Comptons. I called there a long time ago. I did not want to go, but as you wanted me to, I went, and had a very decent time after all. They asked me to dinner a few days afterward. I had to accept because I couldn’t very well get out of it. They gave me a swell feed, and there were two girls there whom I had met at dancing school. Joe Compton is a conceited little mutt. I will make my party call when the rowing is over, as it will be after another week. I think I shall get recommendations for 16 points, though the English isn’t certain yet. You must not expect me to pass them all off. Nobody does that but the sharks, and you know I am not a shark. Jason Dunn, the boy you ask about who turned over a new leaf, keeps it turned all right, but as far as studies are concerned, it is still blank. You don’t need to ask me to help him, I couldn’t prevent it if I wanted to, as he studies in my room almost every night. I don’t dislike him as I used to. I will order the new suit, but I think the old one would do, and I could spend the money more profitably on something else. The boys here don’t care much about outside clothes, though they’re terribly keen about having fresh socks and shirts every day, and they run wild on neckties. My laundry bill is a whopper. Now for the real news.

“I rowed on the second a whole week. Of course we did not get a great deal of Caffrey, but Mike is pretty good, and Pete Talbot would tell me after the practice some special fault he had seen in me, and then I worked with all my might to straighten it out. I kept on getting accustomed to use my legs and run the leg motion into the body and arms (that doesn’t sound right, but it is the best I can do to explain it), and I found the work a lot easier. You see if you row with a fixed seat, the whole strain is on the back and arms, and the pull is with strength alone. On the sliding seat, you row against your stretcher (that’s the foot-board) and the legs furnish most of the power. The skill comes in in blending everything together in one easy, natural motion, and getting back to take your next stroke without checking the boat by the return of your slide. I could feel all along that I was gaining, though I was slow on the recover, and bungled my oar still. The fellows all seemed to think I was going to make good in the second, and I was delighted, for our second is about the best second on the river, and Mac sets a perfectly wonderful stroke.

“One day near the end of the week Caffrey went out with us. He watched me all the time, but he didn’t say anything to me in particular except to get away on my slide hard at the start and slow down at the finish, and to keep the top edge of my blade just below the surface of the water, and not feather under. I knew all this before, but rowing directions are awfully hard to apply. You have to watch the back of the man in front of you for your stroke, and yet start at the very instant he does. That means that you must feel when he is going to start and start with him. That’s an example of what they expect of you in a boat; other things are a good deal harder.

“On Friday the first went to Suffolk to race the Suffolk School. They have a little course out there of about a quarter of a mile, and they practice for just this short distance with an awfully quick stroke. Of course they always beat the crews that come to row them because the visitors are not used to rowing that way. It is like putting a half-miler to run a hundred yards with a sprinter. Well, our crew pulled an awfully snappy race and came within a quarter of a length of winning. They would have won, too, Rust said (the cox), if Pitkin had not got rattled with the fast stroke and caught a crab and lost a good half-length. He was all in, too, at the finish, while Pete and Jim Eaton and Bursley felt as if they were just beginning to row. The Suffolk fellows always row themselves out. Rust told me all about it. Of course I did not go. The crew had to leave at 12 o’clock to get the train, and they don’t let you cut recitations here to see races. They think they are terribly generous to let the crew off.

“Monday was our day on the river. We don’t row every day, because there are not boats enough to go round, and only two coaches for eight schools. Caffrey coached us for a while from a launch that belongs to one of the boys, and then sent both crews up to the starting-place of the regular mile course and told us to race down to the boat-house. The first gave us a length start. Caffrey had said that we must think of our form all the time and pull for all that we were worth every instant the oar was in the water. It was the hardest work I ever did in my life, but I gave all my attention to my form and my oar, and I didn’t notice how tired I was till we got nearly to the Harvard bridge. For a while I occasionally got a glimpse of the first behind us, and that kept me encouraged, but about halfway down they passed us, and then I just had to pull blind, and I did my best. I knew I could stand it if the rest could. A little above the bridge, Mike called for a spurt, and Mac hit it up three or four strokes faster. I saw Sumner’s head begin to wabble, and I knew that he was getting to the end of his rope, and I began to worry about what I should do if he gave out. But Jack is good stuff, and he held out to the finish. By and by Mike cried out, ‘Ten strokes more! Make ’em hard now!’ and I found I had plenty of strength left after all. It is strange that though you seem to be pulling yourself out, there is always something left over!

“When Mike called ‘Let her run!’ I was so tickled to think that I had kept my form all the way and rowed a good race that I sat up and grinned. That grin was worth a lot to me as you will see. Pitkin slumped down in the boat as soon as he stopped rowing. Caffrey had been alongside of us all the time watching every man. Afterwards he had a talk with Pete. I heard him say, ‘Pitkin’s face was all screwed up the last quarter, he was rowing weak; the other fellow just went white, and at the end he sat up and laughed.’ They saw me look up at that so they moved away. I guessed they were speaking of me, and I felt good, I can tell you, to think I had done well and proved my right to be in the second boat instead of the pair-oar.

“Pete asked me to wait for him (he’s an awfully slow dresser), so I hung round on the float and watched some of the other boats. Caffrey had gone out with Waterville High who were waiting for him. Their crew is pretty good too. By and by Pete came along, and we went up together to the car. And what do you think he said to me? Pitkin and I were to change places.

“I was so set up and so happy that I couldn’t study much, and I couldn’t get to sleep for a long time.

“Since then I have rowed bow on the first all the time, and there is practically no chance at all of my being put back, as the practice is over now. To-day the pair-oar bunch was fired. They knew it was their last time, so Wilmot and Weld got Trask for cox and came out, all three smoking cigarettes with a great air of superiority and rowing about as they liked. They came down to where we were practicing racing starts with the second, above the Harvard bridge, and watched us. They were in very good spirits and jollied the two boats, sitting in attitudes of ease in the pair-oar in the warm sun, and occasionally rowing. They thought they were having a fine time, but any one of them would have given almost anything to sneak into the boat—except Trask, perhaps, who has a heart and isn’t allowed to row. There was a lot of talk as to whether any one would dare to call Caffrey ‘Bill,’ as it was the last day, but no one was fresh enough to.

“The preliminary heats come on Wednesday. Our second stands a good chance to get the championship, but the first, which is the most important, of course, has to face much better crews. I hope we can get into the finals, anyway. Some of the papers say Bainbridge is going to win, and some say Newbury, which has a husky, big crew.

“All we want is to beat Newbury. They’ve won the championship at baseball already, though they have to play us one more game. If they beat us in the crew, they get Smithy’s cup for a year; if we beat them, we get it. Smithy has come out again. He was at the baseball game in all his importance, and they say he’s trying to work the officials for the races so that Newbury can get the best course. By the time I write my next letter it will be all over. I’d cable you about it, only it costs so much and you’ll have sailed by that time. I am writing this on Friday to give it a good start.

“Affectionately,

“Roger.”

The next morning Roger slept late. He got up feeling listless and dispirited; and though he assured himself as he dressed that he had every reason to feel both happy and vigorous, the lethargy clung to him so insistently that after breakfast he returned to his room and lay down. In addition he was troubled by an occasional stitch in the left side. Was it possible that he was going to fall ill, at this of all times? Could it be that he too had developed a weakness of the heart such as his father suffered from? The thought sent a shiver down his spine. It couldn’t be so, it shouldn’t be so! He would not be cheated out of his reward after all these weeks of hard uphill work.

Towards noon Dunn came whistling in from school, where he had been spending his Saturday morning in enforced diligence. He pounded on Roger’s door, opened it, and dexterously flipped a letter across to the figure on the sofa.

“Buenos Aires,” he said curtly. Then, suddenly perceiving that Roger was lying in an unusual state of quiet, or reading signs of discouragement in his face, he added: “Hello! You aren’t sick, are you?”

“I guess not,” answered Roger, smiling drearily; “I felt a little tired.”

“You’ve been overdoing, that’s all, I guess. Talbot works you too hard. You ought to cut practice for a day or two.”

“Practice is over, anyway,” responded Roger.

“You want to take it easy until the race, then, and not think about it,” said Dunn. “We can’t afford to have you overtrained.”

Dunn departed and Roger took up his letter. He read with keen interest until he came to the last page, when a look of dismay swept over his face. “Your father is greatly concerned about your rowing,” ran the fatal passage. “We know an English gentleman here who rowed on the Cambridge crew, and he says that oarsmen not infrequently get some form of heart disease from the great strain put upon the heart in racing. Your father wanted to write immediately and forbid your rowing, but I told him that if you could play football without harm, you ought to be able to row a mile, and prevailed on him to leave the matter in your hands. Before you take part in any race you must see a good physician, Dr. Long, for example, and make sure that your heart is sound. You can’t afford to purchase the petty glory of rowing in a schoolboy race at the price of ill-health for the rest of your life.”

Roger dropped the letter from his hands and groaned aloud. “He won’t pass me, I’m sure. It’s all up with me if I go to a doctor. Why couldn’t the confounded letter have got lost on the way!”

CHAPTER XXIII

THE WEAKENED HEART

The rest of the day Roger spent in moping, fuming, and intermittent attempts to divert himself by reading or work. Feeling wholly without appetite, he did not go down to luncheon when the bell rang. As a consequence Mr. Adams came up, inquired sympathetically about his condition, and proposed to telephone for a physician. But a physician was, at that moment, the last person that Roger desired to see; he could not reconcile himself to the thought of submitting his dearly cherished hopes to the decision of some bigoted foe of rowing who would condemn him on principle and flatter himself that he had saved another body from destruction. He had passed the Athletic Association doctor at the beginning of the season; why was not that enough to satisfy his mother’s requirement?

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” he said, avoiding Mr. Adams’s eye. “I’m just a little off my feed. I shall be all right by to-night.”

“It’s always better to attend to these things at the outset,” rejoined the teacher. “The doctor wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I don’t want him!” persisted Roger, fretfully. “He’d just stir me up.”

Mr. Adams observed him with curiosity. Here was a childish unreasonableness which he had never before seen in Roger Hardie. “I’ll wait till to-night, then. Isn’t there something Mrs. Adams or I could do to make you more comfortable? Shouldn’t you like something to read, or some one to read to you?”

Roger thanked him, but thought he should take a little nap and then perhaps go for a walk. So Mr. Adams was induced to leave, and Roger lay back on his couch, with eyes staring wide open and thoughts pounding hard. He had staved off the doctor for a time at least.

As he lay there assuring himself that nothing could be the matter with his heart and that he should certainly be quite well by night, reviling himself for being such a fool as to fall ill on the eve of a race and vowing that he would row anyway, Dunn came softly in on new rubber-soled shoes. He was going to Cambridge to see the Harvard-Princeton game, but before he went he wanted to express his sympathy and offer consolation. Dunn did not use these trite expressions nor did he talk like a phrase book of etiquette, but he meant well and Roger understood him. The consolation took the form of a lurid, six weeks’ novel which Dunn commended as “pretty fair.” An hour with this pretty fair tale of Jason’s lending was about all Roger could stand; he threw it down gladly when Mike appeared to invite him to go out and watch the game between the Weary-Willies and the Easy-Resters which Mike was to umpire.

He fared forth, therefore, with Mike, and established himself at the shady end of the players’ bench, prepared to be quietly amused. Dickie Sumner thrust a sheet of paper and a pencil into his hand and bade him keep score. It was a great game and most amusing, but totally devoid of quiet. The Easy-Resters rested not at all, but tore up and down the foul lines, jeering at the battery of their opponents and abusing the umpire. The Weary-Willies answered unweariedly jeer for jeer. When, in the middle of the fifth inning, the E-R’s assaulted Mike, and, sweeping him off the field, dragged Roger out to take his place, the new umpire could not for the life of him determine whether the score stood seven to six in favor of the E-R’s or six to five for the W-W’s. So he left Mike to continue the score after his own fashion, and devoted himself to securing order on the diamond and enforcing his decisions by threats of injury from the baseball bat with which he had armed himself.

The game was over, and the players were arguing noisily about the score—Mike had made the E-R’s pay dearly for the violence offered to the sacred person of the umpire—before Roger bethought himself of his illness. He was apprised of it now by a sensation of faintness, and a startling dizziness that fell upon him suddenly and for the moment frightened him with the fear that he was the victim of one of the “spells” to which, as he vaguely knew, people with weak hearts are subject. But the fear was overborne by a fierce determination that surged up in a defiant flood, insisting that the undesired was the untrue. It was not his heart! His heart was as strong as any one’s, whatever his father might fancy. He would not be ill, he would row! He set his teeth and clenched his fists and steered his way straight for the house. There he threw himself into a chair in the common room, and taking up a paper, turned to the sports page, on which a reporter had given his opinion as to the probable outcome of the schoolboy races. Newbury was picked for first place, with a good fighting chance for Bainbridge Latin,—both coached by Lanning. Westcott’s was the best of the Caffrey crews, but did not look like a winner; the Back Bay boys rowed in good form, but they lacked the power of the big men in the other boats. While form was unquestionably an important element in the success of a crew, mere style could never take the place of endurance and strength.

So much Roger at last comprehended after several readings and with much effort to control his trembling hands and wavering eyes. He put down the paper in disgust, and resting his heavy head on his hand, mingled in a dizzy confusion despairing self-reproach and genuine prayers for help.

The dizziness had worn off, but the weakness still remained, and the consciousness of this weakness undermined the props of determination as fast as they were set up. The boys were gathering for dinner; they threw curious and not unsympathetic glances at the disconsolate figure in the lounging chair, and talked in tones uncommonly subdued of the effect Hardie’s illness would have on the chances of the crew. Presently Felton came in from the long corridor, surveyed the room, and catching sight of Hardie in the chair slapped him roughly on the shoulder.

Roger started and shot a menacing look at the offender. “What’s the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with you?” retorted Felton. “Pete wants you at the telephone.”

Roger dragged himself to the telephone. “Is that you, Roger?” sounded Talbot’s clear voice.

“Yes.”

“How are you? They told me this afternoon that you were under the weather. You aren’t going to be sick, are you?”

“No, it’s all right. I’m better to-night.”

“That’s good. Be careful what you eat, and get to bed early. We can’t afford to lose you. They assigned places this afternoon for the trials. We got the outside.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so. There won’t be any current to help us, and a head wind would set us back a lot. They’re counting on our weakening at the finish. They don’t know us. I’m not afraid of any weakening in the first boat now that Pitkin is out.”

Roger groaned audibly. “What’s that?” asked Talbot.

“Where’s Newbury?” substituted Roger.

“Inside, next to the wall. Smithy got that arranged all right.”

“How does he come in?”

“How does he come into anything? Pulls wires and works his friends in the B.A.A. He’ll be on the referee’s launch in some official capacity, I’ll bet my head. I’m willing to let Newbury beat us in the trials, but we must make second place so as to get into the finals. I should like to save our strength as much as possible for the real thing. We ought to find Brookfield High and Boston Latin pretty easy; they are the others in our heat.”

“That’s right; our second could put it over either of them.”

“Well, take good care of yourself. Remember about eating and getting to bed. Good-by.”

Roger hung up the receiver and returned to the common room. The talk with Pete had put new life into him. Excited by the news and the prospect, he thought of his illness only as something which he had really left behind him, and which might be wholly disregarded. His mother’s instruction as to the examination of his heart he would not consider just now. There must be some way out of the dilemma. He must row, whatever happened; on that he was determined.

The dining-room doors opened just as he came down the corridor, and Roger went in with the first rush. Acting on the assumption that he was well, and hungry from a day’s fasting, he fell to greedily. Soup, roast, vegetables, pudding, fruit—he took them all, like any of the perpetually hollow boys who called the food at Adams’s “bum,” yet devoured it like cormorants. Mr. Adams was not at dinner; if he had been there he must have marked with uneasiness the feverish glitter in Roger’s eye and the abnormal convalescent’s appetite.

After dinner the company sallied forth to the playground, the younger lads to indulge in a screaming game of scrub, the older ones to sit round on the grass and watch Dunn trying to teach Cable to hold a pitched ball. Dunn had declared that Cable should learn, and Cable had declared that he couldn’t. In the contest Cable very clearly proved his case—to Dunn’s disgust and the infinite amusement of the onlookers. The sport terminated at half-past seven, when Jason, spying his tutor coming across from the street, drove a particularly vicious in-curve at the unfortunate Cable, who dodged the missile by an awkward sprawl, and trudged submissively after it to the distant elm trees.

Roger followed Dunn into the house. For the last fifteen minutes a sensation of approaching calamity had been growing upon him. The proud spirit of defiance with which he had declared himself well had forsaken him. His brain reeled under a dull, oppressive weight. The dinner which he had so recklessly devoured seemed like a mass of hardening cement in his stomach; his lips trembled, perspiration broke out on his forehead. Utterly wretched, he dragged himself upstairs to his room and sank into a chair by the open window.

“And you thought you could row!” he groaned. “You poor fool!”

And then he was sick, violently sick, with convulsions that shook his whole frame, sending great throbs of pain crashing through his brain. He dropped his clothes in a pile on the floor and crept into bed, where he lay with cheek buried in the pillow, listening horrified to his own heart beating “tub-up! tub-up! tub-up!” in his ear. There was no longer any doubt of his condition. “It’s my heart!” he muttered wildly to himself. “My heart has gone back on me. They knew more about it than I did. I’m not fit to row!”

The head throbs subsided after a time, and Roger began to think. He recalled certain occasions in his childhood when he had suffered from sick headaches. His mother used to sit beside him then, holding his hand, and, with her quiet, soothing presence, helping him to bear the pain. He missed her now, terribly. He felt, too, that he had forfeited his right to her ministrations; he had been disloyal to her, in intent at least, when she had been steadfastly loyal to him. The very command against which he had rebelled was proof of her sympathy, for it was the result of her effort to save his rowing when his father would have forbidden it out of hand. “She did her best for me,” he thought in keen self-reproach, “and she trusted me, and I was going back on her. It’s all up with the rowing now; I shall never sit in a boat again, but I’ll have the examination if I ever get out of this, just to prove that I’m what she thinks I am.”

This resolution brought him a certain composure. He ceased to mourn, and presently fell asleep. The sun was already slanting down through his open window when he awoke. Mr. Adams stood at the bedside.

“How do you feel this morning?” asked the master. “If sleep can cure you, you ought to be well. You’ve slept over breakfast in spite of all the noise.”

“I’m better,” answered Roger, who had profited by the interval to get his bearings. “My head doesn’t ache any more, but I feel rather weak and hollow.”

“We’ll send you up something to eat. What shall it be?”

“I think I’d better see a doctor before I eat anything,” replied the boy, humbly. His attitude had changed over night.

Mr. Adams nodded approval to this sentiment. “That’s right. You ought to have seen one yesterday. I’ll telephone for Dr. Brayton. In the meantime I’ll have them send up a little toast. You can nibble on that if you feel faint.”

The toast came, and Roger nibbled on it as long as it lasted. He felt better, far better. The heart spell was evidently passing. Dunn came in and sat on the bed for half an hour, telling a long tale of his tragedy of hard work and not forgetting at its close to exhort the patient to keep up his courage and get well before Wednesday. The exhortation drew a strained smile to Roger’s face, such a smile as we assume to shield from intruding eyes the knowledge of a hurt—and the hurt smarted long after the complacent Jason had left the room.

Mike was the next visitor. He sat down with sober face in a chair fronting the bed, and said nothing after his “Hello, Roger!” for some time, though he stole occasional shy glances at his sad-eyed friend.

“Are you much sick?” he asked at length.

“I don’t know,” answered Roger. “The doctor will tell me when he comes.”

“Won’t it be terrible if you can’t row?” sighed the boy, his big eyes soft with pity.

Roger squirmed. “It’ll be hard, of course, but if I can’t, I can’t.” He tried to speak lightly, but the attempt was a failure.

There was silence again for a time. Mike looked obstinately down at the cap which he was smoothing on his knee. Roger was thinking of his condition and of the sacrifice which he was making. He felt so much better this morning that had it not been for the fatal heart weakness, he could have fancied himself within a few hours of complete recovery. He should be like Trask, apparently perfectly well, but barred from everything worth while—no more rowing, no more football, no more long swims, or hard all-day tramps over the mountain peaks with the joy of covering, between breakfast and supper, the score of steep miles which the average tramper was happy to bring within the limits of two whole days! Henceforth he must nurse himself and avoid over-exertion and be content with golf or tennis, playing with girls, perhaps, or kids! What a dreary, disgusting prospect!

“Pitkin shirks,” offered Mike, who had been pursuing his own train of thought.

Roger stared for an instant without comprehension. Then, as he perceived that practical Mike was worrying over the change in the first boat, he answered hopefully, “He won’t shirk in the race; he’ll put in all he has.”

“But he hasn’t the power.”

Before Roger could meet this objection, a knock was heard at the door. As Mr. Adams came in with the doctor, Mike slipped away unnoticed. Dr. Brayton sat down by the bedside, and in a very friendly, comrade-like way asked the boy questions. Then he felt the patient’s pulse, looked at his tongue, put the stethoscope to his chest, took his temperature. Afterwards he drew out a little block in a neat leather case and wrote on the top leaf certain mysterious words.

“What’s the matter?” asked Roger, with an anxious quaver in his voice.

“Over-eating and worry,” answered the doctor, laconically.

“Is it bad?”

The doctor smiled. “We shouldn’t call it a very serious case.”

“I mean my heart,” faltered Roger.

“Your heart! Have you had trouble with your heart?”

“No-o, but my father has a bad heart, and I could hear mine beat awfully hard last night. I was afraid something was the matter with it.”

The doctor took up his instrument and again listened long and carefully. Roger could feel his breath come and go with hurried, uneven pace as the examination drew out. He was excited, anxious, shrinking from the truth yet eager to know the worst. It seemed ten minutes before the doctor folded up his stethoscope and returned it to his bag.

“What’s wrong with it?” demanded the boy, faintly, after waiting for some seconds for the doctor to speak.

“Nothing. It’s perfectly normal.”

Roger gasped. “And it isn’t weak?”

“It’s as strong as a prize fighter’s. Your trouble is with the digestion.”

“Shall I be laid up long?”

“Not if you obey directions. You’ll have to be careful for a day or two.”

A wonderful change swept over the patient’s face. The dismal air of resignation to an evil fate fell from him like a mask. His eyes flashed bright with hope and eagerness. He popped into a sitting posture with a quickness of recovery that would have delighted Caffrey’s heart, and stretched out both hands toward the physician.

“Can I row on Wednesday? Oh, doctor, please say I can!”

Dr. Brayton laughed aloud. “Not if you act in that way. Lie down and keep quiet, and do what you’re told.”

“I’ll do anything, starve or eat slops or lie here like a log till Wednesday,” declared Roger, as he fell back again in obedience to orders, “but you’ve got to make me well enough to row. You’ll do it, won’t you?”

“We’ll see. Stay quietly in bed to-day, take only the nourishment which I have ordered, and don’t get up to-morrow until I come. You must get your strength back before you can think of rowing.”

For the rest of the day Roger lay in uneasy happiness, taking with Fletcher-like deliberateness the sloppy messes that were brought to him, receiving visitors as they drifted in after church, and kicking his legs like a lusty infant. The burden of his despair had suddenly lifted as a cloud cap lifts from a mountain peak and discloses miles of glorious, sunny landscape that had seemed but a little before as hopelessly buried in gloom as the peak itself. At times he could hardly restrain himself from leaping forth from bed and dancing out his joy. In the afternoon, when the fellows went off for walks, he took a nap; he awoke refreshed and impatient to be moving. He obeyed his orders, however, helped out by a book and the presence of various friendly souls who had time on their hands and could talk indefinitely of nothing. At night he slept again for long, unbroken hours.

In the morning the doctor came, looked him over, ordered a beefsteak for his breakfast, and told him to go back to school. Roger ate the beefsteak with the satisfaction of a hungry tramp who has chanced upon a square meal after an experience of two days with dogs and crusts; but before he left for school he slipped into the gymnasium and tried a dozen strokes on the rowing machine.

It was all right; he was a little weak, but he could pull his old stroke. He had two days in which to recover his strength.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TRIALS

President John, glorious in apparel and self-importance, strutted along the boat-house float, blowing cigarette smoke into the faces of waiting oarsmen, playing the patronizing oracle to the newspaper men, and juggling rowing terms for the benefit of everybody within earshot. What strings the genius of the Triangular League had pulled with the Athletic Association to obtain his appointment as race official we may not inquire; of the fact there was no question. A certain Mr. Henderson shared with him the responsibility of being judge at the finish, but the glory of office President John took to himself. In his eyes Henderson was but the zero which added to one makes ten. He himself was both the one and the ten.

On a heap of sweaters in a corner of the open room of the boat-house lay stretched the Westcott crews, awaiting, under pretence of calmness, the moment for carrying out their boats. They could not start until the arrival of the launch which was to bear the officials. Meantime various friends who had smuggled themselves into the close quarters clustered about to stay up their champions and divert their minds from the race.

“Ben has got his quinquereme out,” said Mike, coming in from a visit to the float. “They’re rowing round here challenging everybody to race.”

“What’s the quinquereme?” asked Roger, raising himself on his elbow.

“It’s an old eight-oared ship’s cutter from some Spanish war vessel, that Ben discovered down by the East Cambridge bridge,” explained Pete. “He’s filled it full of fellows who want to see the races.”

“Why does he call it a quinquereme?”

“Because he likes the name, of course,” declared Eaton, laughing. “He doesn’t care what it means. Fluffy and his gang have picked up a big dory thing they call a bireme. They’re going to row the quinquereme.”

“That’s all over,” said Mike. “The quinquereme beat out the bireme and the pair-oar. Tracy says he’s going to challenge the second next.”

“Let’s go out and see them,” proposed Roger. He raised himself into a sitting position as if to carry out his suggestion, but Talbot pulled him back.

“No, you don’t,” ordered the captain. “You aren’t here to amuse yourself!”

Just then the cry arose that the launch was coming, and the non-combatants crowded to the door. Through one of the wide arches of the bridge, its parapet topped for a hundred yards by a dense row of heads, the slender Veritas was speeding down upon the boat-house.

“Second crew out!” commanded Talbot. McDowell and his men fetched their oars from the corner and laid them side by side at the edge of the float; then they brought out their boat, and, dropping it into the water, fitted their oars into the locks and took their places. When toe straps were well adjusted and the slides fully tested, friendly hands laid hold of the blades of the port oars at Mac’s signal, and shoved the boat forth.

“Attention!” called Mike. “Ready!—Row!”

The four oars took the water with a hard clean catch. Backward swung the blue, white-lettered jerseys in perfect unison; forward they came again, their slides returning easily with the motion of the boat, and again the blades snatched at the water and drove it back in one steady, prolonged push. The lads in the untippable old quinquereme mounted their benches and yelled the school cheers in a fierce burst of loyalty. A knot of old Westcottites on the bank echoed the cheer.

“What a stroke that kid sets!” said Talbot. “If he were only six inches taller and twenty pounds heavier—”

“I shouldn’t be on the first crew,” offered Roger, as Pete hesitated.

“Some of us wouldn’t, that’s a sure thing,” returned Talbot. “We’ll watch the launch off, and then go back and lie down.”

The Veritas took on board the officials and the newspaper men, and headed up river after the crews. President John had elected to go with the launch. He posted himself beside the steersman in the bow, standing proudly erect to be seen and admired of all men, and cast a long glance backward at the common herd that thronged the float.

“Doesn’t he make you sick?” growled Talbot, as they watched the Veritas plough her way upstream. “I suppose Newbury isn’t responsible for him, but I’d give my allowance for all summer to be sure of getting ahead of him. I’d row till I dropped dead rather than let that goat see us beaten.”

“He won’t see our second beaten, to-day,” said Eaton. “We’ve got the best thing in seconds on the river.”

“But he’ll see us beaten,” returned the captain. “I hate to give him so much rope, but second place is good enough for us to-day. On Friday we’ll have a real try at ’em.”

They lay down again in their old corner, telling Rust to call them out when there was anything to see.

“This is the worst part of it,” said Pete. “There’s nothing so hard as waiting. How goes it, Roger?”

Roger shook his head with a melancholy little smile that barely lifted the corners of his tight-closed lips. Pete threw at him an uneasy look.

“You don’t feel sick again, do you?” he asked quickly.

This time Roger’s lips parted to a full grin, “No,” he answered with emphasis. “I’m nervous, that’s all. I want to be doing something.”

“You’ll feel all right as soon as we get into the boat,” rejoined Talbot, relieved. “What we want is some one to jolly us up a little.”

Just at that moment, as if in response to the captain’s wish, a young man, displaying under a panama hat a face wreathed with smiles, appeared at the door and trotted towards the Westcott corner.

“It’s Happy Hutchins!” cried Pete. “Hello, Hap! Why didn’t you come before, you old fraud?”

Hutchins was shaking hands violently all round, calling every one by name as if he knew the whole crew as well as he knew Pete and Eaton.

“I couldn’t get here. I was afraid they weren’t going to let me off at all. If they hadn’t, I’d have cut the job entirely. How I’d like to be in you fellows’ shoes! The Newbury cox will be the only one on their boat to see Westcott’s to-day. Gee, but I wish I was pulling an oar!”

Roger glanced with curiosity at Pete’s face to see what effect this boundless confidence had upon him. Pete was grinning broadly, but only with pleasure in Happy’s society. He didn’t need the stimulus of artificial encouragement.

“What’s the job, Hap?” asked Eaton.

“Arlington Trust. Fill ink-wells and run errands. Three dollars a week. It nearly pays for my lunches.”

“Don’t get discouraged,” urged Pete. “Perhaps you’ll be made a vice-president next year.”

“I’ll probably get a raise next year that’ll pay my car fares,” answered Hutchins, calmly. “Where’s old Withers? Do you suppose he’ll remember me?”

“He’ll never forget the man that stepped through the bottom of the pair-oar!” declared Pete. “He’s sore about it yet.”

That was the first link in a chain of reminiscences that sent the minutes flying. Hutchins had not succeeded in getting into college in spite of an extra year, and two long summers of arduous slaving; but he was the jolliest, best-hearted chap that Westcott’s had ever failed to make a scholar of, and he couldn’t open his mouth without being entertaining. Eaton had just reminded him of his historic attempt to prove to the coach by argument that he wasn’t feathering under, when two harsh toots of a steam whistle cut his explanations short and sobered all faces.

“Trowbridge!” exclaimed Eaton and Pete, in unison.

“What’s ours?” asked Hutchins, quietly.

“Three. If Trowbridge is ahead, we’re close behind, you can depend on that,” said Talbot.

“Let’s go out,” proposed Roger.

“Not yet. They’re some distance up, still.”

For two minutes they waited in silence, listening. Then the whistle screeched once more, this time distinctly nearer.

“One! Two!” counted Hutchins. “Trowbridge! Come on out!”

The captain made no objection, and the crowd broke for the float. They were none too soon. The launch was breasting the water a length out from the arch in midstream. Alongside, but still under the bridge, was Mac’s crew, an indistinct streak in the shadow. From the second arch inshore, the bow of the Trowbridge boat was just emerging. Ten seconds later, both boats were clear of the bridge, sweeping towards the finish line. No other crew was in sight.

“Pull there, Westcott’s!” yelled Hutchins, as if he could reach the distant crew with his voice. “Hit it up, stroke!”

Talbot said nothing, but his eyes were glued on the approaching boats, now hardly twenty strokes from the finish line. His heart was heavy with disappointment. He had expected much from this second crew. When doubts as to his own assailed him, his faith in Mac’s crew had never wavered. He had expected them to win their trial heat with ease, to make up in a measure for the chagrin the school would feel if the first only gained second place.

“Gee! see ’em hit up the stroke!” cried Hutchins, suddenly gripping Pete’s arm and dancing in the water that flooded the float. “Look at ’em gain! That’s the way, Westcott’s! They can’t meet it! Look at their heads roll round! They’re all in. You’ve got ’em, Westcott’s. Hold ’em! Hold ’em!”

At this point Hutchins broke off his wild ejaculations to splash across to a cluster of old Westcottites standing near the boat-house and lead a cheer. While the cheer rang out, Mike was counting the last half-dozen strokes, and urging his men to row them hard. His boat cut the finish line half a length ahead of Trowbridge, whose exhausted oarsmen fell forward upon their oars as the coxswain bade them cease rowing. The spurt had caught them with no surplus of strength to draw upon.

After this there was no need of artificial diversion in the boat-house. The fellows on the second vowed that they had lots of strength left, that they were holding back so as to keep Trowbridge from pushing too hard, and that they could have kept the lead from the beginning if they had wanted to—all of which was believed because it was pleasant to believe. The exchange of questions and answers, explanations and congratulations absorbed every one’s attention until the toots of the launch again called the crowd forth to see the finish of the last heat of the seconds.

And now the moment was come which Talbot’s crew had been both longing for and dreading. As he helped carry the boat out, Roger was conscious of a shrinking—a nervous, unsettling fear that his strength and skill might not be equal to the test before him. He glanced at Pete to see if he too felt the depressing influence, but the captain’s face showed only a deeper line of determination about the mouth, and his voice as he gave the necessary orders sounded calm and reassuring. The unnatural tension was at its height as Roger sat with arms outstretched for the catch, waiting for the coxswain’s word. It clung to him still during the first strokes, as the boat got under way from the float. Then gradually the familiar movement absorbed his attention, and the grip on his heart loosened. The harmony of the swaying bodies, the monotonous creak of the slides on their rollers, the wash of the water against the sides, the “feel” of the boat beneath him as it drove steadily forward—all contributed to wake in him the old confidence and exhilaration.

As the crew passed under the bridge on their way to the starting line, the cheers from admirers above descended in a loud blare, but by this time he was beyond the need of such encouragement. He knew that the boat was going well, he exulted in the conviction that he had his form and his strength, and could row that day as well as any other.

The crews got off well. The dozen quick starting strokes put the nose of the Westcott boat six feet ahead of Newbury. Brookfield High and Boston Latin were still farther behind. Roger was a little dilatory in obeying the starting signal, and as a result, in his efforts to follow his leader, he rowed his first strokes too much with his arms; but by the time Pete lengthened out, he was in form again, his legs thrusting strongly against the stretcher, his blade catching the water sharply and hard, his pull straight through to the end of the long stroke. He bore in mind the last warning he had received from the coach, and gave particular attention to getting his hands away quickly, keeping in the middle of the boat and avoiding the abrupt return technically known as “rushing the slide.” He saw nothing but the back of the man in front of him, heard nothing but the exhortations of the coxswain, until four blasts of the whistle close at hand assured him that the Westcott boat was leading. Soon after this he began to feel tired, and wondered vaguely if he were not pulling too hard, but with the second toot of the whistle this sense of weariness yielded somewhat, and a glimpse caught over Eaton’s shoulder of Brookfield High, lengths behind, gave him courage.

“Halfway!” called Rust. “Keep it up now, Newbury’s gaining. Watch your form, Bow!”

From the launch came the signal that Westcott had lost the lead to Newbury. Roger wondered if he were really rowing badly or was just being warned to prevent a slump. He wondered also whether Talbot would spurt or let Newbury go ahead. And while he wondered, toiling at his oar and watching his slide, he felt the stroke quicken and rallied to meet it.

And then a new sound reached his ears, the sound of school cheers from the bridge. Again the launch whistled four times. They were ahead again! The cheers were clearer now and close at hand. Roger’s breath was coming hard with every stroke; he got no rest on the returning slide; his legs were weakening, he was tired all over, but not too tired to row; and he drove his protesting muscles as if they were things separate from himself, and he a cruel master lashing them on.

As they passed into the shadow of the bridge, the launch sent forth a single long shriek. The sound filled the Westcott bow oar with furious resentment. Was Pete going to let Newbury slip in ahead now, after holding them the whole distance? Why didn’t he spurt? Why didn’t he give his crew a chance to win its proper place? The spirit of battle that surged through Roger’s heart blotted out the consciousness of weariness and feebleness; he yearned for the opportunity to do something more than pull with all his might at the stroke set him.

But Pete did not respond to the ardent wish of the bow oar. The race was approaching its end. The launch gave its final signal—one hateful blast.

“Ten strokes more!” yelled Rust. “Make it good now. Hard! Hard!”

Then Talbot, either to test his crew or to show what he could do if he tried, suddenly “hit her up.” Bow oar met the challenge with a burst of furious energy. He was mad all through. He felt like tearing his outrigger from the side, like driving his stretcher into Eaton’s back. Those ten strokes were the hardest Roger had ever rowed. The boat leaped forward. The lead of three-quarters of a length which Newbury had, grew less with every push of the Westcott oars.

“Let her run!” called Rust, and the crew rested. Newbury had won, by a quarter of a length. Roger held himself upright, though breathing heavily. His limbs were in a quiver, his heart was sore against Pete’s cautious policy. They had lost a race that might have been won! Brookfield was splashing along five lengths away, trying hard to avoid the ignominy of being last.

CHAPTER XXV

THE FINAL STRUGGLE

President John hurried from the launch to the Newbury crew, who were stiffly disembarking at the side of the float.

“A splendid race!” he cried exultantly, as he grasped the hand of the victorious captain; “a splendid race! That’s the way to do the thing,—get the lead in the first half of the course and hold it. And you had plenty of strength in reserve, too, didn’t you?”

Downs glanced a little doubtfully at his men. “I think so.”

“You’ll do it easier next time,” asserted the distinguished man. “A defeat like this breaks the spirit of a crew. What you want now is a good rest. I’ll see if I can’t get you a holiday for to-morrow.”

“That would be great! Do you think you can?”

President John’s knowing smile suggested mysterious reaches of influence which he was much too modest to mention. “I guess it can be arranged. We can’t afford to take any risks. The first name on that cup has got to be Newbury Latin.”

Westcott’s paddled in to the float, turning their boat over directly to Bainbridge Latin. Roger stripped for the shower in silence with lowering face.

“How do you feel now it’s over?” asked Pete, after staring for some seconds at his sullen companion. “All in?”

“No! Mad and disgusted!”

“You’ve nothing to be disgusted about,” said Eaton. “Rust says you pulled like a fiend the whole way. I’m the one to be disgusted. I didn’t row myself out at all.”

“That’s just it! If Pete had put up the stroke two minutes earlier, we’d have left ’em behind half a length! Now they’ll crow and the newspapers will call us a sandy but outclassed crew, and half the fellows will believe it.”

“Cut out the growling!” commanded the captain. “What I did was right, and I’d do it again. I didn’t know how you fellows were standing it, and there was no use in killing ourselves, with the finals on for day after to-morrow. But I’ll give you one sure pointer: you’ll have all the spurting you want on Friday.”

“Bring on your spurt!” snapped the bow oar. “We’ll meet you.”

Roger felt calmer after his shower—calm enough to regret his rash boast. Pete had the pluck inherent in good blood, the indomitable spirit that faces odds undaunted, and only fails when brain and body can no longer serve it,—and Pete was not one to forget. It was a foolish thing to say, especially for an inexperienced oar who had rowed but one race in his life, but as the boast could not now be retracted, the only course for Roger to pursue was to carry it out. This he secretly resolved to do if his good-for-nothing legs didn’t go back on him.

The papers next morning were scanned with eagerness. They generally considered that first place in the finals would lie between Bainbridge Latin, which had run away from its rivals in the second heat, and Newbury, with Westcott’s a good third. All agreed that Westcott’s was likely to win the race for seconds.

“It’s a wonder they concede that much,” said Pete, sarcastically. “They always act surprised if we win anything.”

Dickie Sumner, made audacious by the knowledge that he was the bearer of important news, came pushing into the group of older boys that filled the big bay window. “Have you heard about the Newbury crew’s getting a holiday?” he demanded.

His brother Jack seized him roughly. “What is it?”

“They’re going down to Cohasset to spend to-day and to-night. They aren’t coming back to school until ten o’clock to-morrow, and they don’t have to prepare any lessons.”

“Who told you?” asked Jack, suspiciously.

“Winny Thorne. I saw him on the car. His brother’s on their crew.”

“And we’ve got to stay here all day and study all the evening on to-morrow’s lessons!” exclaimed Louis. “It’s a roast!”

“They ought to let the first crew off, anyway,” said Eaton. “The second doesn’t need it so much.”

“They could come down with me to Manchester,” offered Rust. “The house is open, and I could take care of five perfectly well.”

“Do you suppose the old man would let us?” asked Eaton.

Talbot considered. “He might, if we could make him see that it’s necessary. I’ll try him, anyway.”

After the opening Bible-reading, the captain of the crew followed Mr. Westcott to the office. He returned in three minutes, crestfallen. “It’s no go,” he passed the news along. “He wouldn’t even discuss it.”

Some very sour faces scowled over the tops of books for the next half-hour. Those near the windows stole occasional glances into the street and across to the Garden beyond. It was a perfect June day, warm and quiet, with limpid air sleepily stirring and the sun beaming benignly over all. The autos of the unimprisoned idle slid by in endless succession, bearing their fortunate occupants whithersoever fancy called. The new green leaves on the trees in the Garden quivered soothingly over the groups of nurses and perambulators and playing children, and the poverty-blessed loafers slouching in unambitious contentment on the benches. And this beautiful day Newbury could enjoy, care-free, on the rocks at Cohasset, while the Westcott fellows were mewed up in a stuffy schoolroom, grinding out loathsome lessons. It was wicked!

The day passed as others before it. Lessons had to be learned and recitations made. That night every oarsman was pledged to be in bed at half-past nine. Out at Adams’s all noise was forbidden after nine o’clock, on pain of frightful tortures. Roger slept ten hours without a break, and awoke at sound of the rising bell, feeling strong enough to row the race alone.

The school hours of Friday dragged out their wonted course. At two, Talbot was called to the telephone, and emerged, chuckling tremendously, to meet McDowell at the foot of the stairs.

“It’s the biggest joke I ever heard. The Newbury fellows sat round on the rocks all day yesterday in sleeveless shirts, and burnt their arms so that they couldn’t sleep at all last night. And we slept like tops!”

“Gee, but that’s great!” crowed Mac. “I hope the old man won’t hear about it, though!”

“Where you going?” demanded the captain, as Mac started up the stairs. “You ought to be getting out to the boat-house.”

“Volunteer French,” answered Mac, calmly. “I can’t afford to miss it. I only got fifty on my last exam. The race doesn’t come till three-thirty. I’ll be out in time.”

Talbot gaped after the lithe figure as it scurried up the stairs. “After-school work on the day of the race!” he gasped. “And Newbury with two days off! This is a pretty school!”

Mac turned up at three o’clock, whistling as unconcernedly as if he were out for an ordinary practice, quite undisturbed by the reproaches hurled at his head. By the time he was dressed the Veritas was in sight, bringing the whole Varsity crew to see the races, and sailing under the command of Deering himself. President John again elected to go on the launch, convinced that here his light would shine more brilliantly, and desiring to make sure in advance of the best vantage-point from which to gloat over the whole triumphant course of his crew when the great race came off.

The atmosphere on the launch that day was unfavorable to the shining of lesser lights. Deering’s authority and Deering’s personality dominated the little craft. Though the Varsity captain spoke pleasantly to the referee, discussed the arrangement for sending off the boats with the starter, and greeted one of the newspaper reporters cordially as “Billy,” he ignored completely the presence of the father of the Triangular League, who sat obscurely in the stern, scowling with affected indifference over his cigarette.

“He won’t speak to me, eh! Just like a Westcott snob!” the president muttered to himself. “What do I care? He won’t be so proud when he sees Newbury lead his school by four or five lengths. I hope Yale will lick his crew to their knees!”—a feat, by the way, which Yale failed to achieve by some quarter of a mile.

To the Varsity men in the bow of the Veritas, the race for second crews seemed a tame affair. Westcott’s got a lead of half a length at the start, increased it to a whole one at the quarter, doubled this advantage during the next half mile, and added still another length in a pretty display-spurt beyond the bridge. Hoarse and happy, Mike brought his boat in to the float past a crowd of yelling, dancing friends who were putting to an extreme test the boasted stability of the old Spanish cutter. The members of the first crew, delighted to consider the complete victory of their schoolmates a good omen for their own race, helped Mac and his men out of their boat and poured sweet praises into their ears.

“Nothing like a little extra French after school to get you ready for a race,” panted Mac, as Talbot wrung his hand and blessed him with a dozen different kinds of exclamation. “I hope you fellows won’t suffer from lack of it.”

“Suffer from lack of it, you old idiot! Do you suppose we have strength to throw away?”

“Get a lead in the beginning,” urged Mac, becoming serious. “It’s a lot easier to keep it than to get it after you’ve lost it. Newbury will quit if you can once show them your rudder.”

Pete nodded.

“And drive your crew,” continued Mac. “They can stand a lot more than they did on Wednesday.”

“I think they’ll have a chance for all the work they want to do. I’ll try to satisfy even Roger.”

Bow oar reddened, but said nothing. He knew well that Pete would push the crew to its last gasp, and he had doubts as to his ability to hold his own with the hard-muscled, strong-headed stroke, who was as incapable of yielding as the Old Guard of surrendering, or the dying bulldog of relinquishing his grip on his enemy. There was one method, of course, by which Roger could meet the strain, and come out fresh at the end to smile at Pete’s challenge. He might weaken just a little on his pull as the labor told, might put a trifle less than his best into his stroke, and thus shrewdly save himself from extreme exhaustion. But to do that was to be a quitter, and bow oar’s scorn for a quitter was equal to Pete’s. “I’ll give him all I’ve got, anyway,” he said to himself. “If I break, it will be because I can’t row any more, not because I won’t.”

There was trouble in starting. Westcott’s and Bainbridge got twice into position and drifted away again before the others, shuffling for places, reached the line. Waterville was badly cox-swained; Newbury apparently loitered on purpose, hoping, after the manner of certain Varsity crews at New London, to worry opponents by prolonged suspense. So at least Pete opined, and his word, passed back through the boat, set four pairs of jaws tight together and swamped all nervous fear under a hot wave of determination. When the pistol-shot rang forth, Newbury’s oar-blades were already in the water. As the stroke lengthened out, after a hundred yards, Newbury and Bainbridge were neck and neck, half a length ahead of Westcott’s, which was rowing a steady, smooth stroke which looked like an exhibition of skill, yet carried with it the united heave of four straining bodies.

“Those Westcott fellows aren’t bad,” said Deering, who stood beside reporter Billy and watched the struggling oarsmen with the eye of an expert. “They move well, catch together, and get their hands away quickly.”

“Good crew!” answered Billy, wisely, “but too light to last well. They’re coming up on Newbury now. It’s about time for Bainbridge to shake ’em both.”

Deering was silent for some seconds, gazing with that concentration of attention which a horse fancier gives to the movements of a blooded steed. “That crew is going to be hard to shake,” he said finally. “They’ve got a half length on Newbury without raising the stroke more than a point. There’s hardly any check between strokes.”

“And Bainbridge has got a length,” said Billy, significantly.

In the Westcott boat Rust was urging Two to be careful about his slide, and informing Talbot of the relative position of the crews. Pete raised the stroke slightly, and his crew pushed a whole length ahead of Newbury, which likewise spurted, but lost through inferior form the advantage gained by the accelerated stroke.

“Halfway!” yelled Rust. “We’ve got a good length on Newbury. Steady now! Hard all the way through! Don’t rush your slide, Two!”

Talbot held to the increased stroke, sure that the critical moment of the contest with Newbury was at hand; if he could open water between the boats, he was confident that Newbury would never rally. His men followed him in splendid unison. For Roger the first great weariness had passed. He was rowing mechanically now, putting into his drive all the strength which he thought safe to force from himself, his whole attention concentrated on his oar and his slide and the back of the man before him. He heard the four blasts of the whistle which announced that Bainbridge was leading, but he cared little for that; he was rowing to beat Newbury, and Newbury was behind!

“Open water!” exclaimed Billy. “Half a length of open water! I wish I had taken that bet of three to one on Newbury against Westcott’s. Newbury’s out of it for sure.”

“Not yet!” said a stifled voice at his elbow. “I’m not giving up yet. They’ll come up on ’em. They’ve got to.”

Billy turned to find John Smith at his side, occupying the place of the Harvard captain who had gone aft to his crew. President John’s eyes were fixed upon the Westcott boat in a hostile glare, his hands tightly gripping the rail, his face drawn with suppressed emotion.

“Make it up!” answered the unsympathetic Billy. “How are they going to make up two lengths against that crew? Why, the more they try to spurt, the worse they row! Number Three there is about all in now. You can see it yourself.”

“Bainbridge will beat ’em anyway,” muttered Smith, fiercely. “Go it, Bainbridge! Kill ’em, Bainbridge!”

“Go it, Bainbridge! Kill ’em, Bainbridge!”

Billy threw a glance of curiosity at his neighbor’s face and grinned broadly. “Been betting heavy against Westcott’s and feels sore,” he said to himself; but Billy was mistaken. It wasn’t a losing wager that charged that face with venom, but defeat and wounded vanity. President John considered himself a sportsman; in fact he was only a partisan; rabid, narrow, unforgiving. He hated the crew that was vanquishing his own, that was stealing from him the triumph which he had confidently expected and in the prospect of which he had openly gloried.

The crews were close to the bridge now. Roger longed for the comfort of its shadow, longed for the word of the coxswain that the end was near. He felt now as he swung forward to his catch that he had but a half-dozen more strokes in his body. To row another hundred yards seemed absolutely impossible.

“Bainbridge only two-thirds of a length ahead!” shouted Rust. In answer Pete bellowed over his shoulder: “Get into it now! Don’t quit!” Roger felt the stroke quicken and mechanically followed. For the first time during the race the remembrance of Pete’s challenge recurred to him. He was worn and weak; his eyes bleared, his head was a dull depressing weight upon his shoulders, every muscle in his body cried aloud for mercy; but his spirit rose in defiance and sent along the quivering nerves a command which the muscles could not disobey.

“Only half a length now!” cried Rust, as the boat emerged beyond the bridge. “You can do it, only twelve more!”

Talbot lifted his stroke another notch, and Rust counted. At each pull Roger assured himself that he could do one more, and threw into that one all the power that was in him. He could hardly see Eaton’s back as it swayed before him. The race had lost interest for him; he was fighting Talbot, proving that he was no quitter.

“Seven—eight,” counted Rust. “Pull! Pull! You’re almost there!”

Four more! To Roger those four strokes seemed like four of the labors of Hercules. He could do but one before he broke,—but one more after that. Dizziness came sweeping over him, he gasped hard for breath. One more before he fainted!—

“Let her run!” screamed the coxswain.

Roger dropped, but caught himself by a supreme effort as Pete turned his dripping, heaving shoulder to look at his crew. Over the stooping bodies of Three and Two he saw the upright form of Bow, smiled faintly, and lurched heavily forward, while Rust splashed water into his face. Behind him Bow slumped down upon his oar.

CHAPTER XXVI

CONCLUSION

“Westcott’s by six feet!” announced Mr. Henderson, judge at the finish, as the crowd pressed about him to learn the official verdict.

Mac and his men burst forth in a howl of joy. Trask threw up his arms and yelled the news across the water to the crew of the quinquereme, who went wild with excitement. Their historic boat, which had escaped the missiles of war unscathed, very nearly succumbed to the perils of peace. The Veritas, swinging round to the float after the laggard crews had crept in, found the cutter shoved directly into its path through the efforts of two lads who continued to chop the water vehemently while they yelled, as oblivious to the direction they were taking as stokers in the hold of a steamship to the course laid down by the navigator. The Varsity manager, who was steering the launch, backed his engine and saved the cutter for another race day.

Meantime Billy was scribbling notes on a block of yellow paper, Deering was smiling in dignified exultation among his crew, and President John, his face white with ill-suppressed rage, was reviling to two curious reporters the folly of the Newbury oarsmen who had thrown away a sure victory.

“The very best crew on the river!” he declared with emphatic spacing of words and savage jerks of the head. “Look at the weight and strength in that boat! Why, they pulled away from Westcott’s on Wednesday without half trying. It was just a little practice spin for ’em. Then I got ’em a holiday yesterday at the shore, and what did they do? Trotted round on the rocks and played ball in the red-hot sun in sleeveless shirts! Burnt their arms raw, of course. They didn’t get a wink of sleep all last night.”

“Westcott’s had it on ’em to-day all right”, remarked the reporter. “That crew looked pretty good to me!”

“It’s a fair enough sort of a crew, but they had luck and we didn’t. That’s just what beat us, hard luck.”

Smith turned away to leave the launch, which was already fast. The Ledger man glanced after him and winked at his companion.

“Sore!” said the latter, tersely.

By this time the Westcott oarsmen had revived and brought their boat in to the float. Here, in the forefront of the enthusiasts, stood a tall, deep-chested young man, wearing a hatband with the revered crimson and black vertical stripes, who shook hands with each weary rower as he left the boat and gave him a personal compliment which was destined to remain a cherished memory when the general events of school life should have faded into the limbo of things forgotten. Then Deering returned to the launch, which was soon speeding up the river to its moorings; and the Westcott crew, already recovering from the grinding strain through the quick recuperative power of sturdy boyhood, and too happy to heed their exhaustion, carried their boat into the house, where they gave themselves up to the refreshing luxury of the shower bath and the delight of mutual congratulations.

The next day was a happy one for the boys at Westcott’s. From the older fellows who hailed the triumph of their fortunate mates with a delight untouched by envy, to the little chaps in knee trousers in whose eyes the members of the first crew were as demigods, complacency and pride pervaded the school like a mild intoxication. Mr. Westcott made a speech of congratulation in which he expressed himself as especially pleased that such excellent crews had been developed without interference with the regular daily work—a sentiment which the boys, if they did not appreciate, were, under the circumstances, willing to forgive. Pete, too, made a speech—a jerky, inartistic, vehement little harangue, strong in patriotism though weak in rhetoric, which was uproariously applauded. Then the cheers were let loose, a din that made the windows rattle and caused the neighbors for half a block to regret that they had not fixed upon an earlier date for migrating to the quiet of the country. “It clamor cœlo,” muttered Mr. Stevens, senior classical master, with a quiet smile, and he stole away to his own recitation room to save his ear-drums.

Almost as noisy was the welcome given a few days later to the cup itself, when it made its second appearance before the school, coming this time for a year’s sojourn. President John, who had gulped down the bitter medicine which had been forced upon him, and now was trying to forget the taste of it, sent with the trophy a flowery note which Mr. Westcott read to an appreciative audience.

“I’ll bet he swore when he wrote that,” whispered Wilmot to his seat-mate.

Pete nodded. “It must have come hard. When he showed the thing to us last fall, I never expected to see it here again.”

“They probably can’t keep it another year,” said Steve, loftily. “There won’t be much here after we leave.”

But the little boys of big faith, in the front seats, who were straining their eyes to make out the inscription on the first shield, had not shared the anxieties of their elders, nor did they now worry about the year to come. They had known all along that their champions could be trusted to bring the school colors out on top, while as for the future—what future was there but the June examinations and the summer vacation?

One more formality had still to be attended to before the athletic season could be declared closed,—the election of a captain of the crew for the next year. It was merely a formality, for, since Roger Hardie was the only one of the five who would not graduate, the choice was strictly limited.

“It’s a great honor to be captain of the Westcott crew,” said Roger, as he came downstairs with Pete after the meeting, “but I wish there had been some competition. It’s like winning a race by default.”

“You didn’t do any defaulting in the race,” replied Talbot, somewhat illogically, “though I was a good deal troubled about you early in the season. I had a guilty conscience for several weeks.”

“Why?”

“Because I had prevented your being made captain of the eleven.”

“I knew you did. You didn’t think I was fit for it. I didn’t blame you.”

“Nonsense! I wanted you for the crew captain next year. I took long odds, and I couldn’t explain because I couldn’t be sure you’d make good. At one time I thought you never would.”

Roger gave a laugh of contentment. “I was an awful dub at first. Wilmot wanted to fire me out of the pair-oar.”

“And I wouldn’t let him,” said Pete, complacently. “I thought you had the stuff in you, if we could only bring it out. Next year you’ll be first lord of the school, and I shall be lost among six hundred freshmen.”

“Lost!” echoed Roger, derisively. “Anybody can find you easy enough, if he’ll only search the freshman boat. Your seat will be down somewhere near the stern.”

THE END.

- Transcriber’s Notes:

- Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

- Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.

- Typographical errors were silently corrected.

- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were only made consistent when a predominant form was found in this book: e.g. “practice” and “programe.”

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Table of Contents

- THE SCHOOL FOUR
- PREFACE
- CONTENTS
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- CHAPTER I JOHN SMITH, PRESIDENT
- CHAPTER II THE CUP
- CHAPTER III ARCHIBALD DUNN
- CHAPTER IV RECRUITS FOR THE FOOTBALL SQUAD
- CHAPTER V AT ADAMS’S
- CHAPTER VI THE STORY OF JASON
- CHAPTER VII SUMNER CHOOSES A SUCCESSOR
- CHAPTER VIII A SLIGHTED OFFER
- CHAPTER IX THE NEWBURY GAME
- CHAPTER X THE SCOUTS BRING NEWS
- CHAPTER XI A FRUITLESS INTERVIEW
- CHAPTER XII PRESIDENT JOHN’S IDEALS
- CHAPTER XIII THE COMMITTEE DECIDES
- CHAPTER XIV THE TROWBRIDGE GAME
- CHAPTER XV DUNN’S DISAPPOINTMENTS
- CHAPTER XVI MIKE ADVISES
- CHAPTER XVII A KINDLED AMBITION
- CHAPTER XVIII THE SHOOTING MATCH
- CHAPTER XIX A LOSS TO THE NINE
- CHAPTER XX IN THE PAIR-OAR
- CHAPTER XXI THE SECOND CREW
- CHAPTER XXII A SHIFT IN THE BOAT
- CHAPTER XXIII THE WEAKENED HEART
- CHAPTER XXIV THE TRIALS
- CHAPTER XXV THE FINAL STRUGGLE
- CHAPTER XXVI CONCLUSION
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE