It was after the Hillsport game that the slump began. The first team seemed to fairly droop under the shock of that unexpected reverse; for to be played to a tie by that opponent was virtually no less than a defeat. Last year, even on Hillsport’s own field, Alton had easily beaten the other by 14 to 0, and for years past Hillsport had gone down in defeat, often ingloriously. On this regrettable occasion, however, the enemy had honestly earned her touchdown by outrushing Alton all through the first two periods and, finally, by old-fashioned smashing tactics, pushing across for a score. Had Hillsport possessed a more adept goal-kicker she might have departed with a victory. Ned Richards’ scurry down the field for Alton’s touchdown in the last moments of the third period had been a splendid piece of individual brilliancy, and it had, in a measure, saved the day for the Gray-and-Gold, but there was no blinking the fact that all of Alton’s efforts to gain through the Hillsport line had failed and that against a heavy, fast-working, clever team the Gray-and-Gold had showed up rather miserably. All this, realized by the onlookers, had not been lost on the players themselves, and the effect of the knowledge seemed to be paralyzing. The team promptly passed into what Captain Mart feelingly termed a “forty below” slump. Coach Cade sweated and scolded and planned and pleaded, and all through the following week the second pushed and tossed the big team about the gridiron with an amazing lack of respect. The second, awaking to the evident fact that the opponent was not, after all, invulnerable, took revenge for past abuse and aspersion and bullied and maltreated the first eleven brutally. In this reprehensible course they were aided and abetted, nay, even encouraged, by one Steve Gaston. Steve had no mercy, or, at least, showed none. The second jestingly referred to the daily scrimmage as the “massacre.” “Come on,” Captain Falls would blithely call. “Let’s go over and finish ’em up, second!” Now all this was fine for the morale of the second, as was speedily proved. Success, instead of spoiling them, improved them. It welded them more firmly together just as, doubtless, a successful sortie by the Robber Barons of the Rhine in the old days produced an increased esprit de corps. Probably a career of crime, such as the second was now following, is like that. Anyhow, Steve Gaston secretly rejoiced as he incited his desperadoes to greater atrocities.

The first didn’t take their drubbings meekly, you may be sure, but they took them. They took them three times that week. They almost cried at some of the indignities put upon them by an awakened and merciless scrub, and they fought back desperately and staged many “come backs” that never developed, and the School, attracted by the novel, well-nigh incredible spectacle of a first team being baited and beaten by a second, flocked to the field of an afternoon as for a Roman holiday. They didn’t always see the helpless victim devoured by the ravening lion, for twice the victim forgot his rÔle and held the lion at bay, and once—that was Friday—even sent him cringing back to his lair, defeated! But in any case the spectators got their money’s worth in thrills.

It would be nice to be able to say that Russell was the bright particular star of the second, but he wasn’t anything of the sort. Russell didn’t aspire to be a star, and maybe he couldn’t have been, anyway. Besides, Steve Gaston didn’t hold with stars. He discouraged them as soon as they lifted their heads into sight. His idea of a good football team was one in which eleven men acted as one man and in which none stood out above his fellows. Steve’s slogan was “Fight!”

“I don’t care,” he would say, “how much football a fellow knows if he won’t fight. He’s no use on this team. Football’s fighting, from first to last. Keep that in mind. The fellow who fights hardest wins. Fight fair, but fight. Some of you chaps act as if you thought you were in this to let the first slap your face and get away with it. You’re not, by gumbo! You want to forget that the first team fellows are members of the same frat! They’re your enemies from the moment the whistle blows, and your business is to everlastingly whale ’em. Beat the tar out of ’em! Knock the spots off ’em! That’s football. That’s the game. The harder you use those fellows, the harder they’ll use Kenly. Paste that in your helmet!”

Russell took Steve’s earnest commands with a grain of salt; wherein he was wrong, for Steve meant all he said. Russell liked football and liked to play it hard, just as he liked to do anything else he attempted, but he retained all through that unprecedented week a sneaking sympathy for the first. Probably others of his mates did also, even if they dissembled the fact most successfully. Russell made his mistake in not thoroughly dissembling, which is why there was a knock on his door that Friday evening and Coach Gaston entered.

As was his way, Steve got to business at once. “I’ve been watching you playing pretty closely this last week, Emerson,” he began, settling into a chair, “and I’m curious. Thought I’d come around and have a little talk with you. Now, suppose you tell me, first off, just what you think the matter is.”

“Matter?” echoed Russell. “What is the matter?”

“You tell me,” answered the coach. “I’ve seen fellows who could play and fellows who couldn’t play—a lot more of the last kind than the first, you bet!—but it’s sort of out of the ordinary to find a fellow who can play and doesn’t. Must be a reason, of course, so I thought I’d ask you.”

Russell looked every bit as puzzled as he felt. “But I don’t get you, Gaston. Are you—do you mean me?”

Gaston nodded. “Of course. You’re the man. If it’s a private matter, Emerson, and you’d rather not let me in on it—”

“But I am playing, Gaston! I don’t understand what you mean!”

“Yes, you’re playing, and I guess that’s the trouble. Maybe some one’s clipped your claws, eh?”

Russell couldn’t have said whether Gaston’s tone had been sneering or not, but he flushed as he answered warmly: “If you mean that I’m not trying my hardest and doing my best—”

“Uh-huh, that’s it,” replied the coach easily. “Why don’t you?”

“But I tell you I am!”

Gaston smiled gently and shook his head. “No, you’re not, Emerson. Maybe you think you are, but you’re not. You go through the motions very nicely. You follow the ball as closely as any of the fellows, you sense plays well and you handle yourself finely. But you always hold something back, son. I’ve seen it time and again. To-day, for instance, you let Crocker get around you twice, and you tackled Austen on one play there as though you thought he was made of glass and might break in the middle.”

“I stopped him,” protested Russell.

“Sure, you stopped him! But, man alive, don’t you know that he was carrying the ball? Don’t you know that a smashing hard tackle will sometimes make the runner drop the ball? I’ve seen a college game won by the team that tackled the hardest. Sooner or later a runner will get a jar that’ll send the ball out of his arms. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, and it’s worth counting on, Emerson, for games have been won before now because of a fumbled ball.”

“But I don’t want to kill any one!”

“Don’t worry about that. Players don’t get hurt by hard tackling, beyond a bruise or two. It’s because we count on hard tackles and stiff blows that we train for the game as we do. No fellow who learns to take a fall the right way gets anything broken. Emerson, you can’t play football and consider the other fellow’s feelings. Now, as I’ve said, I’ve watched you, and I like your style, but, by gumbo, son, you’re not doing yourself justice! And you’re not playing fair by me! You’ve heard me tell the team over and over that when the game starts those other chaps aren’t friends of ours, they’re the enemy. And the enemy is something to lick! I don’t care if the man playing opposite you shares your room here, Emerson. When you’re playing against him he’s just as much your foe as if he wore the red K on his sweater! Funny I can’t drill that into you chaps. I’ve tried hard enough!”

“Seems to me,” said Russell, “that’s carrying it pretty far.”

“No, it isn’t. You think a minute. What are we in business for? To give practice to the first team, eh? Sure! All right. Now suppose we’re a poor lot. What’s the result? First gets feeble opposition. She walks through us, holds us for downs, fools us on plays, out-punts us. She gets the notion that she’s pretty good and is right pleased and cocky. Then she runs up against a real team and gets knocked into a cocked hat. What good’s that?”

“I know all that,” acknowledged Russell, “but we aren’t that bad, Gaston.”

“Of course not, but don’t you see the point? We’re here to do our honest, level best, Emerson, to fight hard every minute, to show the first that she’s just a bunch of mutts, to knock her down and rub her face in the mud and teach her to fight, fight! That’s our part in licking Kenly next month. That’s our share of the big moment. The better we are, the better the first will be.”

Russell sighed. “Maybe that’s all true, Gaston, but it doesn’t seem to me that we have to play like muckers to do our share.”

“Muckers! Gosh, no! But there’s nothing muckerish in playing hard. Hard playing isn’t dirty playing, Emerson. I’ll chuck any fellow on the second who plays dirty, and do it before the umpire can open his mouth. But I want my men to give me everything they’ve got, Emerson. When they give it to me they’re giving it to the School. Next month you’ll sit and watch the big team wallop Kenly, and you’ll say to yourself: ‘Some team that, some team! And I helped build it! I blamed near wore myself out, and maybe I won’t get the last bandage off before Christmas, but it was worth it! That’s my team that’s winning, and I taught it how!’ Well, I must be going. There’s a conference at Johnny’s in ten minutes. Think over what I’ve said, Emerson. Good night.”

And Steve was gone, having wasted no time on ceremony.

Russell did think it over, during the ensuing few minutes before Stick came in and, later, when the light was out and he was curled up in bed. He knew that Gaston was right, and before he went to sleep he had determined that the second team coach should never again have cause to reproach him for holding back. Maybe Gaston took the whole thing too seriously, but that was up to Gaston. Russell’s duty was to obey orders.

The first journeyed to New Falmouth the next day and played High School. New Falmouth was a manufacturing town and the High School bunch was a very husky aggregation of youths who played the game of football earnestly and in a manner that doubtless won the warm commendation of Steve Gaston. It is possible, though, that they sometimes allowed their enthusiasm to lead them into devious ways, for there was much penalizing that afternoon and some cautioning, and if further proof was needed there was Nichols’ ensanguined nose and Mart Proctor’s extremely discolored eye! The game was lacking in science but not in interest, for it see-sawed back and forth as the twelve-minute periods passed and neither the goodly army of Alton supporters or the much larger assemblage of enthusiastic and strongly prejudiced New Falmouth cohorts dared predict a victory for its team. At the end of the first quarter Alton was in the lead, 6 to 0. When the half was done the teams were tied at 6 to 6. When the third period had passed into history, the Gray-and-Gold was once more trailing, for again New Falmouth had scored a touchdown, without, however, adding a goal to it. At the final tooting of the horn Alton was victorious by the narrow margin of one point, the complete score being 13 to 12. Mawson, succeeding where Mart Proctor had previously failed, had added the deciding point amidst the hostile howls and shrieks of the enemy. After that five minutes more of play had failed to alter the figures.

Alton had certainly not done herself proud, but she derived some joy from the victory and returned home with the notion that she had got her feet back on terra firma once more and that, come Monday, she would show that second team that it couldn’t bite her and get away with it! That was the team’s notion. The School wasn’t nearly so set-up, while Coach Cade, although he kept his own counsel, was not unduly optimistic. That slump was still hanging around, as the day’s game had shown, and he didn’t look for an immediate departure. Such maladies as that which held the Alton football eleven in its grip are mysterious and difficult to conquer. They must run their course, although that course may be shortened by skillful handling of the case. Having tried heroic measures for a week, Coach Cade now decided to try opposite methods. On Monday there was no work for any of those who had taken part in the New Falmouth game, and, consequently, no scrimmage with the second. On Tuesday the work was light, and again there was no meeting with the scrubs. The latter were chagrined and insulting. The first didn’t dare face them, they declared. Johnny was afraid to have them hurt. As a result of such charges there were two mix-ups between first and second team players, one in the locker-room that was halted this side of bloodshed, and one which was said to have gone four full rounds to no decision. The latter was held back of Haylow and witnessed by an appreciative audience in nearby windows. Neither affair did anything towards fostering that spirit of forbearance so deplored by Steve Gaston!

Meanwhile, from Kenly came bright reports of the Cherry-and-Black team, and Alton Academy settled down into deep pessimism on the subject of the big game. This, it was clear, was not to be an Alton year. Youths of literary proclivities wrote indignant letters to the school weekly—a few of which were published—and wherever two or more were gathered together the invariable subject of discourse was What’s the Matter with the Team? In such unsatisfactory way the early season passed and the Mount Millard game loomed closely ahead.