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