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CHAPTER III
ON THE CINDERS
On the following Monday, Allan set out after his three-o’clock recitation for Erskine Field. He stopped at his room long enough to leave his books and get his mail – the Sunday letter from home usually put in its appearance on Monday afternoon – and then went on out Poplar Street.
It was a fine, mild afternoon, with the sunlight sifting down through the branches of the giant elms which line the way, and a suggestion of Indian summer in the air. If he hadn’t been so busy with his letter he could have found plenty to interest him on the walk to the field, but, as it was, he was deeply concerned with the news from home.
There was talk, his mother wrote, of closing down the Gold Beetle mine out in Colorado, from which distant enterprise the greater part of her income had long been derived in the shape of dividends on a large amount of stock; the gold-bearing ore had given out and the directors were to consider the course to pursue at a meeting in December. Meanwhile, his mother explained, the work had stopped, and so had the dividends, and she didn’t like to consider what would happen if this source of income was shut off for all time. Allan tried to feel regretful over the matter, since his mother was clearly worried – more worried than she was willing to show, had he but known it – but the Gold Beetle was a long way off, it always had supplied them with money, and the idea that it was now to cease doing so seemed something quite preposterous. The Gold Beetle represented the family fortune, about all that remained after his father’s affairs had been settled.
Allan found other news more to his liking: Dorothy was getting on nicely at her new boarding-school and had survived the initial period of tragic homesickness; one of Allan’s friends at Hillton, now a Yale freshman, had called at the house a few days before; and Edith Cinnamon had presented the household with a litter of three lovely kittens. Edith Cinnamon was the cat, Allan’s particular pet, and the news of the interesting event remained in his mind after the reprehensible conduct of the Gold Beetle mine had departed from it. Mines stand merely for money, but kittens are pets, and Allan loved pets. A wonderful idea struck him: why not have his mother send him one of the kittens? He resolved to confer with Mrs. Purdy on his return; surely she would have no objections to his obtaining a room-mate to share the “parlor study” with him!
When he had changed his clothes for a running costume in the locker house and reached the track he found fully half a score of fellows before him. There was Hooker jogging around the back-stretch; nearer at hand was Harris practising starts; in a group at the finish of the hurdles he saw Stearns, the track-team captain, Rindgely, several fellows whose faces he knew but whose names were unknown to him, and Billy Kernahan. He drew aside to let a file of runners by and then approached the group. Rindgely nodded to him slightly, not with any suggestion of unfriendliness, but rather in the manner of one who has never been properly introduced. Billy accompanied his salutation with a critical survey of the half-clothed figure confronting him.
“How are you feeling to-day?” he asked.
“Fine, thanks!” answered Allan.
“That’s the boy! We’ll try you at three-quarters of a mile after a while. You’d better get warmed up, and then try half a dozen starts.”
While the trainer was speaking, Allan was aware of the fact that Walter Stearns was observing him with evident interest. When Billy ceased, Stearns said something to him in low tones, and the next moment Allan found himself being introduced to the track-team captain. Stearns was rather under than above medium height, with small features and alert eyes of a steel-gray shade that contrasted oddly with his black hair. Below his white trunks his legs were thin and muscular, and under the faded purple sweater his chest proved itself broad and deep. He spoke rapidly, as though his tongue had learned the secret of his legs and was given to dashes rather than to sustained efforts.
“Glad to know you, Ware,” he said, as he shook hands. “Glad you’re coming out to help us.”
“I don’t believe I’ll be much help,” answered Allan.
“Oh, yes; bound to. I saw you run in the handicaps. That was a mighty pretty race you made. By the way, do you know Mr. Long? And this is Mr. Monroe. And Mr. Mason. Keep in with Mason. He’s office-boy on the Purple and writes criticisms of the track team.”
Allan shook hands with the three, while the group laughed at Stearns’s fling at the managing editor of the college weekly. Long was a startlingly tall fellow, with a crooked nose and twinkling, yellowish eyes, and Monroe was short and thick-set, and looked ill-tempered. Mason, Allan recognized as one of a half-dozen men whom he had seen about college and as to whose identity he had been curious. Mason was the sort of fellow that attracts attention: tall, broad-shouldered, with shrewd, kindly eyes behind glasses and a firm mouth under a straight and sensitive nose. He looked very much the gentleman, and Allan was glad to make his acquaintance. He was in the dark as to what position Mason really occupied on the Purple, and so the point of Stearns’s joke was lost on him. But he smiled, nevertheless, having learned that it is sometimes well to assume knowledge when one hasn’t it.
“See you again,” said Stearns. The others nodded with various degrees of friendliness and Allan took himself off. The track was in good condition to-day and held the spikes firmly. Allan jogged up and down the stretch a few times, trying his muscles, which on Saturday had felt a bit stiff after the mile run, and lifting his knees high. Then he started around the track. Half-way around he drew up behind Hooker.
“Hello!” said the latter. “Nice day, isn’t it?”
Allan agreed that it was, and the two went on together to the turn. There Hooker turned up the straightaway.
“Going to try starts?” he asked. “Let’s go up to the end there.”
Allan couldn’t see the necessity for becoming proficient in the crouching start until Hooker explained as they returned from a brief dash, in which the younger lad had been left wofully far behind.
“Sometimes,” said Hooker, “you’ll want the pole at the start, and if you’re placed two or three places away from it, you won’t get it from a stand, you see. But if you use the crouch and get away quick, you have a pretty good show of getting ahead of the men who have the inside of you. Let’s try it again. You give the signal this time.”
After ten minutes of it, Allan picked up his sweater and followed Hooker down the track to report to Kernahan. The football men had taken possession of the gridiron by this time, Long and others were practising at the high jump, and altogether the field looked very busy.
“You and Ware try three laps,” said the trainer to Hooker. “Watch your form, now, and never mind about your time. I’ll attend to that for you. Take turn about at the pacing; you take the first lap, Hooker. Want to get into this, Larry?”
Rindgely nodded and peeled off his sweater. The others had to trot about for a minute or two while Rindgely stretched his muscles. Then the three got on to the mark, Billy gave the word, and they started off at an easy pace, Hooker in the lead, Allan next, and Rindgely in the rear. All three hugged the rim of the track and settled down into their pace. On the back-stretch they had to slow down once to avoid a group of football substitutes who were crossing the cinders, and once Rindgely was forced to leap over a ball that came bouncing out onto the track, and was much incensed about it. Hooker’s pace was wonderfully steady, but Allan thought it rather slow. At the mark Billy told them to “hit it up a bit now,” and Hooker slowed down, letting Allan into the lead.
Allan increased the pace considerably. This time there were no interruptions, and they neared the end of the second lap fresh and untired. Kernahan glanced up from his watch as they sped by.
“All right!” he shouted. “Get up there, Larry, and hold that pace.”
Rindgely took the lead. As they commenced the turn Allan’s gaze, wandering a second from the front, lighted upon a tall, wide-shouldered and somewhat uncouth figure at the edge of the track. Strange to say, the figure nodded its head at him and waved a hand, and as Allan went by there came a stentorian cry of encouragement that might have been heard half across the field:
“Chase ’em down, Freshman! Give ’em fits!”
Allan bit his lips angrily as he sped on. What business had that big chump yelling at him like that when he didn’t even know him? Pretty fresh, that’s what it was! Allan hadn’t made the acquaintances of so many fellows but that he could remember them, and he was quite sure that he had never met the big chap who had yelled. But at the same time there had been something familiar about the fellow’s voice – too familiar, thought Allan with a grudging smile – and he wondered who he might be and why he had singled him out for his unwelcome attentions. Then the incident passed for the time out of his mind, for the last turn was almost at hand and Rindgely was increasing the pace.
Allan began to feel it at the turn, and when they swung into the home-stretch and the pace, instead of settling down to a steady finish, grew faster and faster, he came to the unwelcome conclusion that he was not in the same class with the other two. Rindgely, in spite of all Allan could do, lengthened the space between them. Hooker, seeing that Allan was out of it, passed him fifty yards from the mark and strove to overhaul the leader. But Rindgely was never headed, and finished several yards in front of Hooker and at least thirty ahead of Allan. When they turned and jogged back to the trainer, the latter was slipping his watch into his pocket.
“What’s the good of doing that, Larry?” he asked, disgustedly. “That wasn’t a race.”
“Oh, I just wanted to liven it up a bit,” answered Rindgely, grinning. “What time did I make, Billy?”
“I didn’t take you,” answered the trainer, shortly. “That’s enough for to-day.”
Allan turned away with the others, but Billy called him back.
“What was the matter?” he asked. “Pace too hot for you?”
“I suppose so; I couldn’t stand that spurt.”
“Well, that was some of Larry’s nonsense; he’d no business cutting up tricks.” He was silent a moment, looking across to where the second eleven was trying vainly to keep the varsity from pushing over her goal-line. Then, “Ever try the two miles?” he asked. Allan shook his head.
“I don’t believe I’d be any good at it,” he answered. “Not that I’m any good at the mile, either,” he added, somewhat discouraged at the outcome of the trial.
“What’s the best you ever did at the mile?”
“About four minutes forty-five seconds.”
“You did it inside of forty, Friday.”
“I did?” Allan looked his surprise. “Oh, but I ran a hundred and twenty yards short.”
“I allowed for that,” answered Billy, quietly. “Now, look here, Ware; you’ve got it in you all right, but you don’t make the most of yourself. You let your feet drag back badly, and you’ve been trying after too long a stride. You make that shorter by six inches and you’ll cut off another second after a while. And to-morrow I’ll show you what I mean about the stride. There’s plenty of time before the dual meet in the spring, and by then we’ll have you doing things right. The only thing is,” he added, thoughtfully, “whether you wouldn’t do better at the two miles. What do you think?”
“I really don’t know,” answered Allan, doubtfully, “but I’d like to try it.”
“Well, there’s lots of time. The indoor meet in Boston comes along in February; we’ll have you in shape for that, and you can go in for the mile and the two miles. Meanwhile, you’d better come out with the other men while the decent weather lasts.”
“Do you think I can make the team?” Allan asked, hopefully.
“Easy; but they don’t take new men on till after the trials in the spring.”
“Oh!” said Allan, a trifle disappointed.
“Don’t let that bother you,” advised the trainer. “You’re as good as on it now. You make the most of the fall training, Ware, and keep fit during the winter. I’d go in for hockey or something. Ever play hockey?”
“Yes, but I can’t skate well enough.”
“Well, get plenty of outdoor exercise of some sort this winter; don’t let the weather keep you indoors.”
“All right, I’ll remember.” Allan’s gaze wandered toward the locker building. Half-way across the field a big figure was ambling toward the gate, hands in pockets. Allan turned quickly to the trainer. “Do you know who that fellow is?” Kernahan’s gaze followed his. After a moment:
“That’s a freshman named Burley. Know him?”
“No; I just wondered who he was,” Allan replied.
“And I don’t want to know him,” he muttered, irritably, as he trotted off to the locker house.
But Fate seldom consults our inclinations.
CHAPTER IV
HAL HAS AN IDEA
It seemed to Allan during the next few days that the bulky form of Peter Burley was bent upon haunting him. On Tuesday morning, in English, he was aware of Burley’s presence a few rows behind him; when he looked around, it was to encounter the big fellow’s smiling regard. There was really nothing offensive in that smile; it was merely one of intense friendliness, quite unconventional in its intensity, but it irritated Allan greatly. Why couldn’t Burley let him alone? Just because he had kept him from falling and lugged him to the dressing-tent, he seemed to have an idea that Allan was his especial property. And then the cheek of scrawling his silly name on a fellow’s door! And yelling like a three-ply idiot at the track!
Perhaps the fact that Burley, whoever and whatever he was, was markedly popular rather increased Allan’s prejudice. Wherever Burley sat in class there was invariably a good deal of subdued noise and laughter, and when he left the hall it was always as the center of a small circle of fellows, above which Burley towered head and shoulders. Secretly, Allan envied Burley’s success with his fellows, but in conversation with Smiths he dubbed Burley a mountebank. Hal was visibly impressed with the word and used it unflaggingly the rest of the year.
Wednesday, Burley was again on the field, but this time he made no remarks as Allan passed him on the track; merely smiled and nodded with his offensive familiarity and then turned his attention to the football practise. As usual, he was the center of a group, and after Allan had passed the turn he heard their laughter and wondered if Burley had selected him as a butt for his silly jokes. After that Allan saw him at least once a day until on the following Wednesday night, when the freshman election took place in Grace Hall, and Burley leaped into even greater, and to Allan more offensive, prominence.
There were two leading candidates for the presidency, and, contrary to the usual custom, the opposing forces had failed to arrange a compromise and a distribution of offices. The contest was prolonged and exciting. On the ninth ballot, Mordaunt, a St. Mathias fellow, won amidst the howls of the opposition. The rival candidate was elected secretary, but promptly and somewhat heatedly declined. New nominations were called for, and Burley was proposed simultaneously from two sides of the room. His name met with loud applause. Burley, sitting unconcernedly near the door, grinned his appreciation of the joke. Two other names were offered, and then the balloting began. On the first ballot, Peter Burley, of Blackwater, Col., was elected.
Burley tried to get on to his feet to refuse the honor, but owing to the fact that three companions held him down while the chairman rapped wildly for order, he failed to gain recognition. The next moment the election was made unanimous. Allan grunted his disapproval. Hal said it didn’t much matter who was secretary; anybody could be that.
Hal accompanied Allan back to the latter’s room and stayed until late, talking most of the time about his chances of making the varsity squad, what he was going to do if he didn’t, and how he didn’t give a rap anyway.
“Of course, I can make the freshman team all right, but what’s that? They have only four outside games scheduled, and two of those don’t amount to anything; just high schools. The only game they go away for is the one with Dexter. And this thing of working hard for a month to play the Robinson freshmen isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.”
“Who will win?” asked Allan, suppressing a yawn.
“That’s the trouble. It’s more’n likely that Robinson will. We’ve got a lot of good men – fast backs and a mighty brainy little quarter – but we haven’t got any support for our center. Cheesman’s a wonder, but he can’t do much with guards like Murray and Kirk beside him. Why, Kirk doesn’t weigh a hundred and seventy, and Murray’s only a hundred and eighty-something. Poor is going to issue another call for candidates; he’s going to ask every man of a hundred and seventy-five or over to come out. Say!”
Hal sat up suddenly in the Morris chair and looked like a Great Discoverer.
“Say what?” murmured Allan, drowsily.
“What’s the matter with that man Burley?”
“A good deal, I should say, if you ask me,” answered Allan.
“I mean for a guard,” said Smiths, impatiently.
“He probably never saw a football,” objected Allan. “They don’t play it out West, do they?”
“Don’t they, though! Look at Michigan and Wisconsin and – and the rest of them!”
“I refuse.”
“Why, Burley’s just the man! He must weigh two hundred if he weighs a pound!”
“Looks as though he might weigh a ton. But if he doesn’t know the game – ”
“How do you know he doesn’t?”
“I don’t. But if he did know it, wouldn’t he have been out before this?”
Smiths was silenced for a moment.
“Well, even if he doesn’t know it, he can be taught, I guess. And we’ve got a whole lot of science now; what we need is beef.”
“Burley looks more like an ass than a cow,” said Allan, disagreeably. Smiths stared.
“Say, what’s he done to you, anyway? You seem to be beastly sore on him.”
“I’ve told you what he’s done.”
“Oh, that! Besides, he lugged you off the track; that’s nothing to get mad about, is it?”
“I suppose not; I’m not mad about that – or anything else. He just – just makes me tired.”
“Well, I’ll bet he’s our man.” Smiths jumped up and seized his cap. “I’ll run over and tell Poor.”
“What, at this time of night?”
“Pshaw! it’s only eleven-thirty. He’ll be glad to know about it.”
“He’ll probably pitch you down-stairs, and serve you right.”
“Not much he won’t. Good night.”
“Good night,” answered Allan. “I’ve got some surgeon’s plaster, if you need it.”
Hal Smiths slammed the door and took the front porch in one leap. Then the gate crashed. Allan listened intently.
“That’s funny!” he muttered. “He must have missed the lamp-post!”
He took up a book, found a pencil, and opened the table-drawer in search of a pad. As he did so, his eyes fell on a folded sheet of lined paper. He read the penciled words on it – “Peter Burley” – and, refolding it after a moment of indecision, tucked it back in a corner of the drawer, frowning deeply the while.
Allan didn’t see Hal the next day; neither was the objectionable Burley visible on the field in the afternoon when Allan ran his first practise over the mile. Kernahan didn’t hold the watch on him, the distance was unfamiliar to him, and he lost all idea of his time after the fourth lap, and ended pretty well tuckered out.
“All right,” said the trainer, when it was over. “You ran it a bit too fast at the start. But you’ll get onto it after a while.”
On Friday Allan saw Hal only for an instant and had no chance to question him as to the result of his midnight visit to the freshman football captain. Consequently, it was not until Saturday that he learned of Burley’s appearance on the field as a candidate for admission into the freshman team. There was no track work that afternoon, since the Erskine varsity played State University. Allan went out to the field alone and watched the game from the season-ticket holders’ stand, and cheered quite madly when the Erskine quarter-back, availing himself for the first time of the new rules, seemed to pass the ball to a trio of plunging backs, and after an instant of delay set off almost alone around State’s left end with the pigskin cuddled in his arm, and flew down the field for over seventy yards to a touch-down.
That settled the score for the first half, and the teams trotted off with honors even. There was a good deal of dissatisfaction expressed in Allan’s neighborhood over the playing of the home team, and much gloomy prophecy was indulged in in regard to the outcome of the final and most important game of the season – that with Erskine’s old-time rival, Robinson University.
About the middle of the intermission, Allan heard his name called, and looked down to see a small, sandy-haired fellow waving a note-book at him. Allan waved back, and the owner of the note-book – the latter his never-absent badge of office – climbed up the seats and was duly pummeled and laid hold of on his way. Tommy Sweet was a Hillton fellow, and considering that he had been a class ahead of Allan at that school, the two had been quite friendly there until Sweet had gone up to Erskine. So far Allan had not seen much of him, for Tommy was “on the Purple,” as he liked to put it, and was an extremely busy youth. Tommy’s friends declared he would find something to do if he was strapped in bed.
The key-note of Tommy was eagerness. His wide-open blue eyes were always staring about the world in search for something to engage his attention, and his ridiculously small mouth was forever pursed into something between a grin and an exclamation-point. His hair was just the color of tow, and the freckles which covered every available portion of his face were several shades darker, but harmonized perfectly. He was tireless in the search for news for the Purple, and when it came to activity would have made the proverbial ant or beaver look like a sluggard. Tommy thought sleep a criminal waste of time, and even begrudged the moments spent in eating.
Tommy was only perfectly happy when doing four things at once; less than four left him dull and dissatisfied. Clarke Mason once said: “I’ll bet some day Tommy will commit second-degree murder so they’ll give him hard labor for life.” For the rest he was a cheerful, likable fellow, aggressively honest and painfully conscientious.
“What did you think of that run of Cutler’s?” he asked, breathlessly, as he sank onto the seat at Allan’s side. “Peach, wasn’t it? It’ll show up great in the diagram I’m making; see!” He opened his note-book and exhibited a puzzling maze of lines and dots, figures and letters. “That’s the first half. Everything’s there – runs, kicks, plunges, penalties, the whole show.”
“What’s it for?” asked Allan. “Anything to do with geometry?”
“Why, no; it’s – Oh, quit your kidding! It’s to go with my report of the game. It shows how the gains were made and who made ’em. And I’ve introduced something new in diagrams, too. See these figures along the edge here – 4:17, 4:22, and so on?”
“Well, I see something there, I think,” answered Allan, cautiously.
“Those signify the time each play was made,” said Tommy, triumphantly. “That’s never been done before, you know.”
“I see. But it must keep you pretty busy. Do you have to write the game up, too?”
“Oh, yes.” Tommy showed three or four pages of awful-looking scrawls from a fountain-pen. “That’s done in a sort of shorthand, and I write it out full length at the office. Say, where did you tell me your room was? I meant to put it down, but forgot it. Purdy’s? Oh, yes; I know where that is. I want to come around some evening, if I can ever find the time. How are you getting on? Anything I can do for you? Any fellows you’d like to meet? No? Well, let me know if I can do anything for you. Very glad to, you know. That was quite a race you made the other day. Billy seems to have taken a fancy to you, doesn’t he? He’s all right, Allan; you shine up to him and – Hello! there’s a fellow I want to see. Come and see me, will you? Twenty-two Sesson, you know. So long, old chap!”
Tommy hurried pell-mell down the stand, shaking off detaining hands, and disappeared into the throng. Allan took a long breath; he felt as though a small hurricane had been playing with him. The teams came onto the field again and the second half began. It proved uninteresting, and only the superior weight of the Erskine eleven won them the game finally by the close margin of a safety. Allan followed the throng out of the enclosure and across toward the locker house and the gate. But half-way there the crowd divided, and Allan presently found himself looking on at the practise of the freshman teams. The first team had the ball on the second’s five-yard line and was trying very hard to put it over to an accompaniment of command and entreaty from the coaches.
“Third down and two to go!” some one shouted. A shrill voice called a jumble of figures and a tandem slid forward at a tangent, and for an instant confusion reigned. Then suddenly a roar of laughter went up, the line of watchers broke forward, and Allan found himself directly in the path of what at first glance looked like an avalanche of canvas and leather. Springing back, he escaped being borne along by the group of struggling players, in the center of which, rising like a city sky-scraper out of a huddle of shanties, stood forth, calm and determined, the countenance of Peter Burley.
In his arms, struggling but helpless, was the first eleven’s left half-back, and to his back and legs and, in short, to every portion of his anatomy, hung the enemy, for all the world like bees on a nest in swarming time. Behind them the second eleven pushed and shoved, and relentlessly the whole mass moved down the field. And somewhere, drowned by the laughter of the spectators and the despairing shrieks of “Down! Down!” from the abducted half-back, sounded feebly the referee’s whistle.
One by one the impeditive players dropped away, and Burley’s triumphant advance toward the enemy’s goal was stopped by the referee and two coaches. Burley set down the half-back, in whose arms the pigskin was still clutched, but did not release his grasp until his obligations were hurriedly but clearly explained to him. Then he patted the half-back on the shoulder in a paternal manner and retraced his steps to the enthusiastic applause of the convulsed throng. The second team hugged as much of him as they could encompass and he smiled cheerfully, but was evidently still somewhat perplexed. The ball went to the second on her eight yards and the game continued, Burley, at right guard, looming head and shoulders above his companions.
Allan watched the game for a few moments longer, and then continued his journey. Somehow the calm, inscrutable manner in which the big freshman had strode down the field in unquestioning obedience to what he had supposed to be his duty appealed to Allan. It had been awfully funny, and Allan smiled as he recalled it. But the incident had held for him something more than humor, just what he hardly knew; but whatever it was, and even though he would have found it difficult to give a name to it, it completely changed his feeling toward Burley. By the time he had reached Mrs. Purdy’s front gate, he was wondering whether Burley still desired his acquaintance.
