“Want to try a good ball, Mart?” asked Jimmy that afternoon while the candidates were assembling for practice.

Mart Proctor accepted the pigskin and looked it over critically. “Where’d you get it, Jimmy?” he inquired. Jimmy explained and Captain Proctor dropped the ball to the ground, caught it on the rise, balanced it in his right hand, tried it in his left and then fell to a careful inspection of the seams.

“Looks good,” he commented.

“It is good,” responded Jimmy earnestly. “Try a kick, Mart.”

So Mart, nothing loth, swung a sturdy leg, dropped the ball and watched with satisfaction its forty-five-yard flight down the field. “Kicks well,” he acknowledged while a willing youth chased the pigskin and hurled it back. “Let’s see it again, Jimmy.”

But while Jimmy was handling it a third person joined them. “What make of ball is that, Cap?” asked Mr. Cade.

“I don’t know. Jimmy here is booming it. Something he got in the village at the new store a couple of the fellows have started.”

“Proctor and Farnham,” commented the coach as he read the label. “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of it. Used out West a lot, I believe. Very sturdy looking trick, isn’t it? Feels nice, too. A good wet weather ball, I’d say. Grain’s very heavy, if you notice. Gives you a good hold.”

“It’s the best ball I ever put a foot to,” declared Jimmy impressively. “I can get a lot better distance with it than I can with the ball we’re using.”

The coach smiled. “They must be giving you a commission, Austen,” he laughed. “I’m glad, though, you like it. Only, don’t get so used to it that you won’t be able to kick one of our sort. How you getting on, by the way?”

“Oh, pretty fair,” replied Jimmy modestly. “I guess I’m sort of getting the hang of it. Neirsinger and I put in a couple of hours this morning.”

“That’s fine,” said the coach. “Well, let’s get started, Captain Proctor.”

So Jimmy deposited his ball with Jake the trainer, with instructions to guard it with his life, and departed to the field where for the succeeding thirty minutes he trotted about behind Appel in signal drill. The second team proved far less formidable that afternoon and the first walked through its line three times for touchdowns and ran rings around it meanwhile. Rumor had it that Steve Gaston, second team coach, expressed dissatisfaction very strongly to his charges after the day’s work was over. Certain it is that on Wednesday there were several changes in the scrubs’ line-up, changes which resulted in a smaller total of points for the first team, but which did not entirely satisfy the big coach. Gaston had spent two seasons as a second team player, for some not quite explicable reason never reaching the first. Perhaps this was because he knew football just a little better than he could play it. Last season an injury to his leg had laid him off a few days before the end, an injury which seemed at the time inconsequential enough but which had afterwards proved so serious as to bar him from football for two years at least. Had it not been for that injury Gaston would have been this year’s second team captain. As it was, a wise Athletic Committee proffered him the position of coach, and Steve, bitterly resenting the fate which had deprived him of the fierce joys of the game, could have wept with delight. Of course he did nothing of the kind. All he did do was accept with a contained air and earnestly promise to show the committee and the School the best scrub eleven of recent years.

It is frequently easier to promise than to perform, however, and now, in the second week of the term, Steve Gaston was learning as much. He had started, a week since, with a promising lot, many of them veterans from last year, a few old campaigners with two years of service behind them. He had gathered a scanty handful of likely youngsters from last season’s freshman and dormitory teams, youngsters, of course, who for one reason or another were not yet varsity caliber. Falls, an experienced guard, had been made captain, and the second had started off with fair prospects. The difficulty in building up a second team, however, lies in the fact that just as sure as a player shows anything resembling remarkable ability a hawk-eyed first team coach snatches him away. This is likely to happen, too, toward the end of the season, when there is scant time left in which to break in a substitute. But it may happen at any period, and Steve prayed for a team that would be composed of hard, steady workers and that would contain not a single “phenom.”

The start was like most starts. The first team, playing together better, made Steve’s aggregation look very weak and very futile. But that was to be expected. It took time—yes, and patience, too—to weld seasoned, plugging veterans and inexperienced, high-tensioned newcomers into a smoothly-working whole. After a few days the scrubs began to lose some of their rough edges and Steve relaxed a bit.

Thursday brought new frowns of perplexity to his rather rugged and very earnest countenance. The ends were not what they should be, nor did they look to Steve like fellows who could be taught. Then, too, on the other side of center from Captain Falls, the guard position worried him. On Friday he switched a full-back candidate to the guard position and tried young Williams, who had played quarter rather brilliantly on a dormitory eleven last fall, at left end. But the results were not satisfactory. The backfield man lacked the steadiness required of a lineman, and Williams’ performance showed Steve that he was sacrificing a good quarter-back in the securing of a doubtful end. Steve cudgeled his brains and, after supper that Friday night, metaphorically seized his club and set forth on his man-hunt. At a little after nine he arrived at Number 27 Upton.

His prey, attired in a stained and faded old blue flannel dressing gown, his stockinged but slipperless feet supported on his bed, his chair tipped precariously back so that the light from the green-shaded lamp fell over his shoulder, was deep in study. On the other side of the table Stick Patterson sat with head in hands and nose close to his own book. Stick was down to trousers and shirt, for the night was warm. Visitors were infrequent at Number 27, and so when the somewhat imperative knock sounded both occupants looked up startledly. It was Stick who called “Come in!” in a decidedly ungracious tone of voice. Then Steve Gaston entered, big and broad-shouldered and, somehow, momentous looking, and Russell’s chair came down with a crash of its front legs and his dressing-gown was ineffectually drawn together.

“Hello, Gaston,” said Russell, surprised. “What—I mean— Do you know Patterson?”

Steve didn’t and shook hands rather perfunctorily and took the chair that Russell yielded. Russell perched himself on the bed and gathered his scantily covered knees within his arms. He thought now that he knew Gaston’s mission, for he had suddenly recalled the forgotten fact that Gaston had become second team coach. Steve smiled, but it was plainly only a sop to etiquette, or whatever law it is that decrees that a guest must show pleasurable emotion on arrival. So, perhaps, did the Cave Man smile ere he raised his club and smote, subsequent to dragging off his victim. Although Steve didn’t smite, having got that brief smile out of his system he approached his errand with as little delay as his distant progenitor.

“How does it happen you’re not with us this fall, Emerson?” he asked severely.

Russell, who had determined to put on a bold front and be as adamant to all pleas and protestations, secretly quailed a little. There was that about this big, serious-faced youth that made him wish he had not been discovered in dressing-gown and “undies”; his attire, or lack of it, put him at a disadvantage, for it is difficult to do battle, even moral battle, when your unclothed ankles stare up at you from under the frayed hem of a dressing-gown and you are distressingly aware of a large hole in your left sock! Russell had to blink once or twice before he answered, and blinking took time and looked like hesitation and so weakened his cause right at the outset.

“I haven’t time for football this year, Gaston,” he answered finally. “You see, Patterson and I have started a small store—”

“Yes, I know that,” interrupted Steve impatiently. “I hope you do well, Emerson. But that store won’t take all your time, I guess. We’re up against it for good men this fall and I’d take it as a real favor if you’d give us a hand, old man.”

That phrase “good men” didn’t unduly elate Russell. He knew that Gaston would use it in like circumstances to any fellow he might be after. Still, there was a pleasant sound to it. Russell shook his head, though, and steeled himself.

“I’m afraid it can’t be done. I’d like to, Gaston, but I’m in this store business to make some money, and there’s only Patterson and me to look after it. Patterson tends the place most of the morning, generally, and so I have to be down there afternoons. If it wasn’t for that—”

“You played end a good deal last year, didn’t you?” Steve asked. Russell felt helplessly that Gaston hadn’t been one bit impressed by what he had told him. Russell nodded dolefully.

“Quite a bit,” he conceded.

“Thought so. We need you, Emerson. Got a place ready and waiting for you. Fact is, I want to make this year’s second something the School will remember and talk about for the next ten years. I want to turn out a rip-snorting bunch of fellows that’ll make the first team sit up and take notice. You’ve got to have a good scrub team if you’re going to have a good first, Emerson. You can’t train a first team against a lot of easy-marks and then beat Kenly. No, sir, you’ve got to have something hard to go up against, and the better your second team is the better your first will be. Well, I mean to give the school a great second, Emerson, and that’s why I’m after you; you, and a couple of others who have been playing possum. I want all the good stuff I can get hold of, and, believe me, I’m going to get it!”

“Yes, of course,” answered Russell uneasily, glancing toward his room-mate for assistance. Stick, however, was pretending to study, and Russell saw that he must expect no help from that quarter. He went on more firmly. “I wish I could help you, Gaston—”

“Oh, not me, Emerson! Never mind about me! It’s the School you’re going to help, you see. Keep that thought in your mind, son. You can’t turn down the School, can you?”

“Why, no, but—”

“When a fellow can play football, Emerson, he’s got a duty to the School, and you don’t need to be told that. Fellows like you don’t hesitate at a sacrifice when the good of Alton is at stake. And you’ve been here long enough to know that a fellow who goes out and does his best on the second is doing just as much for the success of the big team as he would be doing if he played on the first instead.” Gaston was horribly earnest, and his brown eyes bored Russell’s implacably. Russell stirred uncomfortably.

“Well, but, you see how I’m fixed, Gaston,” he said pleadingly. “I—we’ve put quite a little money in this thing, and we can’t afford to lose it. Fact is, between you and me, we—the store hasn’t got started very well yet, and it wouldn’t do at all to get careless about it. Now, if—”

“No, indeed,” agreed Steve quite heartily. “Naturally, you want to make it go. I don’t blame you. I’d see what arrangement I could make, Emerson.” He glanced at Stick. “I dare say Patterson can fix it somehow to take charge in the afternoon long enough for you to get in some work. A couple of hours would do. Patterson would be doing his part, too, that way. Every fellow wants the team to win, of course, and is willing enough to do what he can.”

Patterson looked over and scowled. “That’s all right, Gaston, but I can’t tend that shop morning and afternoon both. I’ve got recitations and things. Seems to me there must be plenty of chaps for your team without Rus!”

“Got to have him, Patterson.” Steve arose smiling calmly but inexorably. “You fellows fix it up between you. You can do it better without me, so I’ll be going along. I’m grateful to you, Emerson, for doing what you’re going to do, even if, as I’ve said, it isn’t as a favor to me. And the School doesn’t miss these things either. Well, I’ll look for you Monday, old man, and I’ll give you a chance to be mighty useful. Good night. Good night, Patterson.”

“Night,” replied Stick morosely.

“Good night,” said Russell. “You—you mustn’t count on me, though, Gaston. I’ll think it over and if there’s any possible way—”

“Sure! I understand. That’s the way to talk.” Steve paused in the open door and smiled back appreciatively. “Monday at three-thirty, then!”

When the door had closed Russell stared blankly across at Stick and Stick scowled darkly back at Russell.

“A nice mess you’ve made of it,” growled Stick disgustedly.