A great many years before the period of this story Alton Academy manufactured its own illuminating gas from gasoline by means of a machine in the basement of Academy Hall. The machine was connected by pipe with a gasoline tank set in a covered pit some sixty feet from the building. One fine day there was trouble with the gasoline supply and one of the faculty members known as Old Grubby descended into the pit to investigate matters. Just what occurred down there was never known, but shortly after Old Grubby disappeared from sight he reappeared with vastly more celerity, and his reappearance was accompanied by a violent concussion that brought everyone rushing to the scene or to the dormitory windows. A fortunate few gained points of vantage in time to see the teacher’s ascent interrupted by the force of gravitation and to watch his return to earth. This happened at a point many feet distant from the crater that had once been a brick-lined pit, and was quite spectacular. Fortunately, aside from a severe shaking up, some contusions and a nervous shock, Old Grubby was uninjured, although just at first it seemed to the horrified spectators that he had suffered a direful fate, since he had gone into the pit with a luxuriant growth of dark hair on his head and had subsequently descended from his flight with his scalp as bare and polished as a pale-pink billiard ball! None was more horror-stricken than the unfortunate gentleman himself, however, when he realized his plight. Clapping both hands to his head, he broke loose from the solicitous rescuers and ran agitatedly around in circles. Such extraordinary behavior on the part of an ordinarily sane gentleman was naturally adjudged to be the result of temporary dementia produced by the accident, and so, of course, all those who had arrived on the scene took up the chase. Old Grubby dodged and eluded, giving vent to inarticulate ejaculations of dismay, and the chase might have continued for quite a while had he not finally, with a cry of relief and triumph, snatched a brown object from a lower branch of a tree, clapped it on his shining head and dashed for his room.

The incident created a remarkable sensation; not so much that portion concerned with the interesting explosion of the gasoline tank as the resultant revelation. For many years Old Grubby had managed to deceive the sharpest eyes in his classes and never had there been the faintest of doubts expressed as to the naturalness of his beautiful dark brown locks. And then before the eyes of the whole school he had been exposed! After the first shock of incredulous surprise, Alton Academy roared and rocked with laughter. Students and faculty gasped and gurgled fraternally, and you may well believe that the spectacle of the Principal seated on the lower step of Academy Hall, swaying rhythmically from side to side and holding his head in his hands, did nothing to quell the contagion. History has it that at the end of that term Old Grubby resigned and took himself to distant fields where his precious secret was not known.

Now this has no place in the present narrative save as a prelude to the statement that not since its occurrence had the School known such a sensation as was caused by the appearance of Felix Adelbert McNatt as a member of the football squad!

McNatt reported on Friday afternoon, clad in ancient regalia that included the disreputable green sweater, and the news spread like wildfire. Society rooms, studies, tennis courts were deserted, and the stands beside the gridiron were so filled that you would have thought the Big Game was in progress. Disbelief vanished as the unmistakable form of McNatt was descried on the field and amused conviction took its place. “Hooray for McNutt!” shrilled an irrepressible freshman, and the audience cheered loudly. “Regular cheer, fellows!” bawled a junior, “with nine ‘McNatts’!” The response was thrilling, even if the “McNatts” became “McNutts” in the performance, and after that the new candidate had only to move a hand or a long leg to be greeted by uproarious applause!

Whether McNatt realized the sensation he was producing, or the nature of it, I can’t say. At least, he gave no sign. Perhaps he thought that every practice witnessed a similar loyal attendance and that the applause that fell to him was no more than was generally accorded. McNatt, fortunately, was not self-conscious nor sensitive. If he had been he might have found it difficult to perform the duties set him. As it was, he worked hard and faithfully and with surprising ability, proving at once that he had neither forgotten what he had formerly known of football nor had allowed his long absence from the game to put him out of condition. He tackled the dummy with the rest of the squad and showed how it should be tackled, he swung a clever foot against the ball and got thirty-five yards at a punt and he caught the returning pigskin with ease and certainty. In short, McNatt that Friday afternoon caused Coach Cade to stare and shake his head and almost rub his eyes and the audience along the sidelines to change their laughter to enthusiastic, ungrudging applause before the practice session was ended.

A mere five minutes with a squad in formation drill taught McNatt the signals sufficiently for his purpose, and later, when the second team came across, filled with ambition and an overwhelming desire to see what all the laughing and cheering was about, and McNatt was put in at full-back on the first, why, he made good from the first moment. He clung doggedly to that green sweater, though others were down to canvas, and it shone resplendent in every play. Kruger, whose wont it was to take the ball for the second and go rearing through inside or outside of tackle, saw his glory fade. The first time he tried it he ran straight into a green sweater. Those nearest heard an amazed “Whoof!” from Kruger, and then he was borne back and placed expeditiously on the turf, and a chuckling referee added another yard to the distance to be gained. But the best came when the first team, having wrested the ball from a surprised second, sprang to the assault. Cochran gained three past left guard and then Tarver called on McNatt. Gil said afterwards that the full-back got to him so quick that he almost missed the pass. Bob and Stacey did their part, and then a green streak passed between them, smashed into a luckless second team guard, caromed off a tackle and proceeded down the field, spurning the backs much as a cannon ball might treat the attentions of so many toy terriers, and, with an easy if ungraceful stride, ate up the intervening sixty-seven yards and deposited the pigskin squarely behind the goal. After which McNatt seated himself on the ball and waited for the others to come along.

Not for seasons of football on Alton Field had there been such a wild paean of delight as arose to the blue October sky just then! Reversing the usual order, McNatt had arisen from the ridiculous to the sublime, and Alton loved him for it! Joy and laughter were mingled in that long-continued outburst, continued since the sight of the elongated McNatt seated unconcernedly on the football down there moved the onlookers to new merriment. Cochran kicked a goal and the game went on, and the audience breathlessly awaited another enlivening spectacle. But another such incident would have been too much for the Law of Probabilities. McNatt smashed and wormed and twisted his way through the second team’s astonished line time after time for good gains, but when eleven outraged and argus-eyed youths are watching for the appearance of one green-sweatered enemy that enemy hasn’t much chance of escaping detection and detention, and for that reason McNatt didn’t again get free that afternoon. But he did gain every time he was given the ball, which is glory enough, while the fact that the opponents played for McNatt every time the lines heaved afforded Cochran and Mawson—or, later, Willard—an absence of attention that enabled them to do wonders.

Before the end of the game McNatt was taken out, not, it appeared, because he was exhausted or had lost any of his enthusiasm, but probably because Jake, the trainer, willed it so. After that he sat on the bench, surrounded by admirers, and explained gravely his views on Science as a Foundation for Football.

Yes, the advent of Felix Adelbert McNatt was certainly a sensation, and as such it served as a topic of conversation for not only the rest of that day but for many days following. After the first flush of delight occasioned by the finding of such a wonder, captious ones asked why McNatt hadn’t been discovered before, dwelling on the fact that he had been there right along and could have been discovered as long ago as the season before last if those in charge of football had known their business! But on the whole the School was much too well pleased to indulge in criticism. The one weak position on the team had been strengthened and a victory over Kenly loomed large. Willard received almost tearful thanks from Joe and warm commendations from the coach. The latter’s evident gratitude gave Willard the courage to offer advice. “You see, sir,” he confided, “McNatt’s got a lot of queer ideas about how football ought to be played, and he really agreed to join the team because he hopes to—to sort of reform things. He asked me if you were the sort of man he could explain his theories to and I said you were. So, if you don’t mind, I guess it would be a pretty good plan to sort of—sort of humor him, Mr. Cade, and let him tell you about Science.”

“He can tell me about Science and Art, too, if he will play the way he played yesterday!” replied the coach emphatically. “And if he can talk the way he tackles I’ll listen to him all night. And you may tell him so!”

But McNatt was biding his time. He didn’t mean to spoil his chances to put the game of football on a proper scientific basis by introducing his ideas too early. He meant to erect a firm basis first, to show by the scientific playing of a single position the plausibility of his theory that all positions were capable of like treatment, both individually and collectively in the form of the team. Also, he wanted to establish cordial relations with the powers, the coach and captain, before beginning his proselytism. Meanwhile, as Willard learned later, he devoted much time to further study of the subject, collecting much data and drawing interesting if not altogether convincing conclusions from it. As it turned out, McNatt was far too busy playing his position as it should be played to do much more that season than drive the entering wedge of reform into the football situation. He spent all one evening in Mr. Cade’s rooms on one occasion and expounded to his heart’s content, referring at intervals to a wealth of memoranda, and was listened to courteously and patiently. And on numerous other occasions he held forth to such as would listen, and, while his audience was secretly amused, outwardly his remarks met sober and reverent attention. Perhaps some day—even when you are reading this story for all I know—McNatt will be hailed as the Prophet of Scientific Football and the game will be played according to his ideas. In which case, all I can say is that I shan’t care to see it!

The day after McNatt’s first appearance with the team was the day of the Hillsport game. Hillsport School was a much smaller institution than Alton Academy, but it made up for lack of numbers by self-esteem and aggressiveness. It had held a place on Alton’s football schedule for four years, during which time it had met with one defeat, had played one tie and had won one victory.

The victory had come to it last year, on Alton Field, and in the ecstasy of triumph the Hillsport supporters had tarried in town long enough to record that triumph for posterity. Loyal Altonians on their way to church Sunday morning found to their horror and indignant surprise that the legend: “H. S. 14, A. A. 6,” appeared in large green characters on a dozen hitherto blank walls and boardings! The worst of it was that the insulting inscriptions were there to stay. Perhaps the elements would, in the course of years, subdue, perhaps obliterate, those vivid brush streaks, but today they looked as glaring as they had on that first calm Sabbath morning. Alton had viewed and exclaimed and muttered vengefully for some days, but as time passed familiarity bred indifference, and now it was only when a visiting relative innocently asked the meaning of the cryptic signs that indignation and a thirst for revenge welled again in the Alton breast.

Last year’s defeat and those insulting green painted symbols of disgrace combined to form a mad desire for revenge this fall in the heart of every Alton fellow. There were some whose outraged sensibilities even induced the opinion that a victory over Hillsport was more to be desired than a triumph over that arch-enemy, Kenly Hall. This, however, was an extreme view held by only a few, although among the few were several representative minds: as, for instance, Mr. Robert Wallace Newhall and Mr. Calvin Grainger. Mr. Newhall stated distinctly and with much feeling, in the presence of Mr. Grainger, Mr. Myers, Mr. Proctor and Mr. Harmon, that if “we don’t lick the tar out of those fresh mutts tomorrow I won’t come back here!” Mr. Grainger, who had earnestly striven the preceding spring to wreak revenge on Hillsport on the baseball diamond, and had failed, applauded the sentiment, but others, frivolous-minded persons like Martin Proctor and Joe Myers, expressed only derision.

“What would you do, Bob?” asked Martin. “Stay over in Hillsport and blow up the school buildings?”

“He knows blamed well,” laughed Joe, “that he’s safe. With old Felix McNutt tearing holes in the line, Hillsport’s got about the same chance to escape a walloping as Bob has to get to heaven!”

“I hope you’re right,” said Cal Grainger. “I’d feel disgraced if those fresh guys licked us again.”

“They won’t,” Joe assured him. “Not this year. Boy, we’ve got a team now! With McNutt in there, that’s a mighty pretty backfield, and Kenly’s going to know it three weeks from tomorrow!”

“Three weeks!” exclaimed Willard. “Not really?”

“Why not?”

“But—but that’s so soon! Gee, I thought the Kenly game was lots further off!”

“It isn’t, though,” answered Joe, shaking his head. “And those three weeks will be gone before you know it, too. It’s funny about that. One day you’re in the middle of the season, and then, seems like it was the next day, you wake up and the Big Game’s right on top of you! It—it sort of scares you, too!”

“Say, Joe, what’s the real dope on Kenly this year, anyway?” asked Bob thoughtfully.

Joe shrugged. “You know as much as I do. She’s had about an average season, I guess. She’s played five games, one more than we have, and has lost two, won two and tied the other. You can’t tell much about Kenly until along toward the end of the season, any more than you can about us. Last year she didn’t look very good until the Lorimer game. Then she walked all over Lorimer to the tune of twenty-something to nothing. That was the week before we played her, you know, and it made us sit up and take notice. But taking notice didn’t do us much good, for she walloped us when our turn came.”

“The papers speak pretty well of her backs,” observed Cal. “She has one fellow, I forget his name—”

“Puckhaber?” asked Joe.

“That’s it, Puckhaber! Some name, I’ll say! He’s good, isn’t he?”

“He’s all right, but he wasn’t anything remarkable last fall. We stopped him as well as we stopped any of her backs. She’s got a good man in Timmons, though, her left end. He’ll bear watching, fellows. Well, it’s nine-thirty, Bob. Time to turn in. This may be your last night in the old school, son: better make the most of it!”