"What's the trouble here? Who's doing all that fumbling?" he demanded.
"My fault, sir," answered Roy.
"What's the matter?"
"I can't seem to get my hands on to it, sir. I don't think – I don't think it is coming back very well."
Horace Burlen turned wrathfully.
"You're no good, that's what's the trouble with you!" he exclaimed. "I'm sending that ball back same as I always do."
"Well, try it again," said the coach.
Strange to tell there were no more fumbles as long as Mr. Cobb was by, but almost as soon as his back was turned the trouble began again. Fumbles, perhaps, were not so frequent, but almost always there was delay in getting the ball from center to back. Finally Horace Burlen stood up and faced Roy disgustedly.
"Say, kid, can't you learn to handle that ball?" he asked. "Haven't you ever seen a football before?"
Roy strove to keep his temper, which was already at boiling point.
"I'll do my part if you'll do yours," he said. "You're trying to see how poorly you can pass."
"Oh, get out! I played football when you were in the nursery! Maybe if you'd take that red rag off you'd be able to use your arms."
Somebody behind him chuckled and Roy had to shut his lips resolutely to keep back the angry words. Finally,
"Ball to left half, through left tackle," he called. Horace grunted and stooped again over the pigskin. Again the ball came back, this time trickling slowly along on the turf. The next time it came back high and to the left and was fumbled. Roy said nothing as he recovered it and pushed it back to center, but it was plain that the fellows, whispering amongst themselves, were losing interest in the work. Roy, without turning his head, became aware of the presence of a newcomer behind him. He supposed it was Mr. Cobb and hoped the coach would notice the manner in which Burlen was snapping back. This time the ball was deliberately sent back to Roy as hard as Horace could send it with the result that it bounded from his hands before he could close his fingers about it and went wiggling off across the turf. Roy, arising to go after it, almost ran into a tall, good-looking youth of apparently eighteen, a youth with clean-cut features and snapping grey eyes.
"That will do, Horace," said the newcomer dryly. "You can rest awhile. You're pretty bad."
The center, facing around with a start of mingled surprise and dismay, met the unsmiling eyes of the captain with an attempt at bravado.
"Hello, Jack," he said. "It's about time you came. They've given us the worst apology for a quarter you ever saw. Why, he can't hold the ball!"
"Yes, I noticed it," replied Jack Rogers. "And I noticed that you seemed to have an idea that this practice is just for fun. You'd better take a couple of turns around the track and go in. O Ed! Ed Whitcomb! Come over here and play center. Fernald, you take Ed's place on the other squad."
The changes were made in a trice. After a muttered protest that the captain paid no heed to and a threatening look at Roy, Horace Burlen took himself off. The captain went into the left of the line and practice was taken up again. After that there was no more trouble. Presently Mr. Cobb called a halt and the candidates were put at punting and catching, which, followed by a trot twice around the quarter-mile cinder track, completed the afternoon's work.
Roy had worked rather hard and, as a result, he found himself pretty well out of breath when the second lap was half over. He had gradually dropped back to last place in the straggling procession and when the end of the run was in sight he was practically alone on the track, almost all of the others having turned in through the gate and made for the gym. Roy had just finished the turn at an easy jog when he heard cries of distress from the direction of the stables behind him.
"Spot, drop it! Oh, you bad, wicked cat! John! John! Where are you, John? Spot! Spot! O-o-oh!" The exclamations ended in a wild, long-drawn wail of feminine anguish.
"A girl," thought Roy. "Wonder what's up. Guess I'd better go see."
Turning, he struck off from the track at a run, crossed a triangle of turf and found himself confronted by the wide hedge. But he could see over it, and what he saw was an odd little enclosure formed by one end of the barn and two walls of packing cases and boxes piled one upon another. In the center of the enclosure stood a girl with the bluest of blue eyes, the reddest of red hair and the most despairing of freckled faces. At first glance she seemed to be surrounded by dogs and cats and pigeons; afterwards Roy found that the animals were not so numerous as had first appeared. The girl saw Roy quite as soon as he saw her.
"Oh, quick, quick!" she commanded, pointing toward the roof of a low shed nearby. "Spot has got one of the babies and he's killing it! Can't you hurry, boy?"
Roy looked doubtfully at the broad hedge. Then he retreated a few steps, took a running jump, landing three-quarters way across the top and wriggled himself to the ground on the other side in a confusion of circling pigeons.
"Where?" he gasped when he had gathered himself up.
"There!" shrieked the girl, still pointing tragically. "Can't you climb up and get it away from him? Can't you do anything, you – you stupid silly?"
At last Roy saw the reason for her fright. On the edge of the shed roof, lashing his tail in ludicrous ferocity, crouched a half-grown cat, and under his claws lay a tiny young white rabbit. Roy looked hurriedly about for a stick, but nothing of the description lay at hand. Meanwhile the red-haired girl taunted him to action, interspersing wails of despair with pleas for help and sprinkling the whole with uncomplimentary reflections on his courage and celerity.
"Aren't you going to do anything?" she wailed. "Are you going to stand there all night? Oh, please, please rescue him!"
The reflection on Roy's celerity weren't at all merited, for scarcely a quarter of a minute had passed since his advent. But if "the baby" was to be rescued there was no time to lose. The cat, apparently not understanding what all the noise and excitement was about, still held his captive and looked down wonderingly from the edge of the roof. Roy hesitated for just an instant longer. Then he seized the first apparently empty box that came to hand, turned it upside-down at the corner of the shed, and, amidst more despairing shrieks than ever, leaped onto it. Perhaps he was scared by the sudden appearance of Roy's head over the edge of the roof, perhaps by the renewed and more appalling clamor; at all events the cat abandoned his prey on the instant and took off along the roof. Roy managed to save the rabbit from a bad fall by catching it in one hand just as it rolled over the edge and in another moment was holding it forth, a very badly frightened little mass of white fur and pink eyes, to its distressed mistress. But strange to say the mistress seemed more anguished than ever. What she was saying Roy couldn't for the life of him make out, but it was evidently something uncomplimentary to him. In another moment the mystery was explained. Following the excited gestures of the red-haired girl, Roy turned just in time to see the box upon which he had stood topple and fall. Whereupon from out of it stalked a highly insulted red and green parrot, quite the largest Roy had ever seen. The bird emerged with ruffled plumage and wrathful eyes, cocked his head on one side and remarked fretfully in a shrill voice:
"Well, I never did! Naughty Poll! Naughty Poll!"
Then he chuckled wickedly and rearranged his feathers with a formidable beak. After that he turned and viewed Roy with a glittering, beady eye, and,
"Stop your swearing! Stop your swearing! Stop your swearing!"