The “Flubdub,” which had been mildly disapproving of the coach and the conduct of football affairs, changed its tune in the issue of that week. It found many complimentary things to say of the Team and it insinuated that those who had been criticizing Mr. Cade and his methods had formed their verdict too soon. The games with Oak Grove and Mt. Millard, declared the paper, proved that, in spite of certain discouraging aspects visible early in the season, Alton football was in a healthy condition, and that although progress had been slow it had also been sure. The “Flubdub,” in short, was suddenly optimistic and didn’t care who knew it.

On another page, however, was printed a comparison of the Alton and Kenly Hall teams based on their season’s records that seemed to provide scant grounds for optimism. Both elevens had played six games so far, Kenly had won five and lost one, scoring 114 points to the opponents’ 45. Alton had won three games, lost two and tied one, scoring 63 points to the opponents’ 35. It might have been claimed for the latter that her schedule had been slightly more difficult, but the claim wouldn’t have been easy of proof. Kenly had met but three teams which had played Alton, and aside from those there was no basis for comparative scores.

Alton took the High School contest on Saturday not at all seriously, viewing it purely as a practice game. She did, however, hope to meet with enough opposition to try out her defense. The High School eleven was completing a fairly successful season, and, while it was a light team, it was reputed to be fast and to be well handled by a clever quarter, a lad named Forster, who, it was hoped and expected, would enter Alton next Fall. Mr. Cade started the game with his first-string players on duty. Keys played right half, displacing Walsh who now seemed to be out of the running as a first-choice back. Toward the middle of the second period the coach began to make changes in the line-up, however, and before the half ended more second-string than first-string fellows were on the field. Bert substituted Keys while the second quarter had some six minutes to go and when High School, by some fast and tricky running plays, had carried the pigskin to Alton’s twenty-one yards. At about the same period Joe Tate took Dutch Kruger’s place. Dutch had been fooled frequently, his end of the line proving High School’s best bet. Joe took hold in good style and spoiled the next attempt around his position, and, after High School had tried a forward-pass into the zone and failed at it, she faked a drop-kick and smashed at the left guard position, her full-back carrying. Nat Wick was carried out by the interference and the full-back shot through for all but two yards of the required distance. On fourth down the same play was tried again, the point of attack this time being at the left of center. Certain that a kick was really forthcoming, Alton allowed herself to be caught napping and the High School plunger was through before the secondary defense rallied. It was Bert, coming in hard and fast, who nailed the enemy. He couldn’t stop the full-back, though, until Patten, breaking loose from the interference, crashed into them both. It was that timely aid that laid Bert out flat for the whole two minutes, with every atom of breath on a vacation. While he recuperated with the aid of Jake the chain was brought in and the distance measured. High School had failed of a first down by some four inches! Alton speedily kicked out of danger, and for the rest of the playing time Bert was rather too done up to do himself justice. Bus Lovell, though, was easy on him and his duties were chiefly defensive until just before time was called for the half. Then a split play with Bert carrying inside tackle was sprung, and Bert, conscious of being still somewhat limp, and nervously fearing he might mess the play up, started too soon, was forced to slow up for the pass and reached the line “on the wrong foot.” A High School forward nailed him for no gain. Before Bus could call his signals again the whistle blew, and Bert, for once, was glad to hear it.

Yet Coach Cade let him go back when the third quarter started and he played well into the last period and accounted for one long gain and several short ones. He brought the Alton sympathizers to their feet when he took a forward-pass from Galvin well off toward the side of the field—Savell had gone in back of the enemy center as if to catch there—and dodged his way over four white streaks before he was upset. Forty-three yards he raced for a forty-seven-yard gain, and after he had released the ball on High School’s nine yards it took Galvin just two plunges to carry it across. That tackle, though, had about finished Bert so far as present usefulness was concerned, and Coach Cade took him out after the score had been made, and Larry Keys went back in.

That was Alton’s third score, for she had gone over the High School line twice in the third period. It also proved to be her last, and the final figures were 20 to 0. On the whole, in spite of two scares, Alton had not had much difficulty with the adversary. Nor had she been provided with much work for her line on defense, since High School had early recognized the futility of attacks inside the tackles. In one way, though, the home team had profited. She had been shown that her ends were not yet good enough to cope with a really fast and clever running game. Joe Tate had shown up better on defense than any of the other three ends who had been tried that afternoon, and it was predicted that he would displace Dutch at the left wing. The prediction proved wrong, however, for Dutch continued to hold the position, doubtless in recognition of his offensive ability. As for Bert, he went back to Upton convinced that, in spite of that one fortunate stunt, he had finally and conclusively lost out to Keys in the struggle. He was rather silent, a fact not apparently noticed by Chick, since Chick was silent too.

Chick had played during nearly a half of the game and had done poorly, and he knew it and was at once puzzled and resentful. All the fall he had made light of his derelictions, convinced of his ability to play as good football as he had last season. It was Chick’s secret contention that Coach Cade should be as convinced of the fact as he himself was and so view occasional failures with a lenient eye. Now, however, Chick had begun to doubt. To-day he had earnestly and whole-heartedly tried to be the old Chick again, to show Johnny and all the others who had been viewing him askance that when it pleased him to he could play the end position as it should be played; even a little better! And he had failed. And he didn’t know why he had failed. Time and again runs had gone around him, time and again he had been put completely out of the play. And this not against a strong team but against a confessedly mediocre one! He tried to understand it and failed. Or almost. He finally entertained the theory that not his body but his mind had played him false. Looking back it seemed that his former ability to diagnose the play and act quickly had been lacking. And it came to him that, despite earlier indifference, he now wanted intensely to make good in this his last year of Alton football!

There was no evening session in the gymnasium this Saturday night and Chick had tentatively agreed to accompany Bert and two others to a lecture in the auditorium. He wasn’t particularly interested in excavations in Central America, but Bert had pleaded and he had consented—with reservations. Yet when Bert tried to find him at eight o’clock he wasn’t to be found, and no one that Bert enquired of could supply tidings of him. Bert suspected that a trip to Mooney’s would reveal the truant, but there was no time for that; nor was there much inclination. Bert had become rather disgusted with his chum’s inability to tear himself from the society of Lester Devore.

Chick was a little out of patience with himself that evening on the same score. It was foolish to go back to Mooney’s and get plucked again, for he would be plucked without a doubt. The idea that he would one day succeed in winning back the money he had lost—quite a considerable sum by now, even if not all paid—had had to be abandoned. Chick was at last satisfied that Devore was a better pool player than he was. Also, he had a sneaking suspicion that Devore had let him win on the infrequent occasions when he had won merely to coax him on to increasing his wagers. He wasn’t convinced of it, for Devore could be disarmingly frank and ingenuous when he tried to be, and it was hard sometimes not to credit the sincerity of his regret when the luck continued in his favor. To-night Chick didn’t mean to play. He couldn’t afford to, for one thing, for he had just twenty cents in his pocket. He meant to look on awhile. That would be a lot more interesting than hearing some bespectacled old geezer ramble on about the Incas, or whoever the folks were that used to live a couple of billion years ago down in—oh, that place where the chewing gum comes from! Besides, Chick was in low spirits to-night, anyway, and he sighed for lights and laughter and the familiar sound of the clicking balls. Of course Les might dun him for the money he still owed, but a lot of good it would do him! You can’t get blood from a stone!

The lecture was interesting, but it was a bit too long, and Bert, for one, got tired of staring at stereopticon views thrown on a screen at the back of the platform long before the entertainment ended. He accompanied Ted Ball and Lum Patten over to Lykes and when Lum insisted on their coming into his room he went and stayed until twenty minutes to ten. They talked a lot of football, and Bert was surprised when Lum acknowledged that he had hot and cold shivers whenever he thought of the Kenly game. Bert had supposed such evidences of nervousness confined to inexperienced players like himself. Then Ted chuckled and said: “I’ve never been able to sleep more than three or four hours the night before a big game, fellows. Sounds crazy, I know, but it’s a fact. Last year Coles was up reading poetry to me, Robert Frost’s, it was, for more than two hours. He had a theory that poetry would put me to sleep, but I guess he got hold of the wrong brand. Say, I’ll bet that if I could get a solid eight hours of sleep next Friday night I could play a wicked game Saturday! But I shan’t. I’ll lie awake for hours, going over signals, playing the whole blamed game in advance, from beginning to end, and wake up feeling like—like something just out of the wringer! Wonder if I can get hold of a bottle of soothing syrup!”

“I sleep pretty well,” confided the center, “and generally eat a good breakfast. But I sure hate to think about the old game. Of course, after the whistle toots and the ball’s in the air I’m all right. But until then I just have to keep my mind off the thing. How’s it take you, Bert?”

“That’s the funny part,” answered Bert in puzzled tones. “I’d ought to be scared, but I haven’t really thought much about it. Of course last year I didn’t have any reason to worry, because I didn’t have any idea of getting in. Perhaps that’s why I’m not nervous now. I mean there isn’t much chance of my starting the game, and by the time I do get in I’ll be sort of used to it. Maybe that isn’t very clear—”

“Fine thing to keep your nerve like that,” commented Ted, “and I don’t want to say a thing to shake you, Bert, but if you don’t start against Kenly I—well, I’ll swallow the ball!”

Bert looked startled, then skeptical. He turned a questioning glance toward Patten, but Lum shook his head. “Don’t ask me,” he said. “I don’t get to the conferences, Bert. ‘Mine but to do or die.’”

“Well, I think he’s just trying to get my goat,” said Bert, viewing Ted doubtfully. Ted grinned.

“That’s it,” chuckled Lum. “He’s fixing you so you won’t be able to sleep either and can read poetry to him for a couple of hours.”

When he reached Upton and was making his way toward the staircase a boy of about eighteen came toward him from the other end of the first floor corridor. He wasn’t an Academy youth; that fact was apparent even before he spoke.

“Say, Buddie, where’s Room 21, huh?”

“Next floor. Who do you want?”

“Guy name o’ Hollins. ’S he live here?”

“That’s me,” answered Bert. “What do you want with me?”

The stranger looked suspicious. “How do I know you’re the feller, huh? I got a message for him. You show me where he lives, huh?”

“I tell you I’m Hollins,” declared Bert impatiently. “Who’s the message from?”

The boy, who looked as if he ought to be hanging around a down-town corner, looked dubious a moment and then gave a shifty glance up and down the corridor. Several doors were open and there was a low hum of talk from the lighted rooms, but no one else was within earshot. “All right. Know a guy named Barton, or something?”

“Burton? Yes.”

“Well, say, he wants you to leg it over to Mooney’s. Know it, huh? Billiard joint over on—”

“I know Mooney’s. What’s he want me for? What’s the rest of the message?”

“That’s all. Just come over to Mooney’s. It was Mike himself give me the word.”

“Mike?” repeated Bert, puzzled.

“Yeah, Mike Mooney. I was goin’ by, see, an’ he calls me over. ‘Beat it up to the Acad’my, he says, an’ find Upton Hall and tell a guy name o’ Hollins in Room 21 he’s wanted here. Tell him Burton sent for him.’ I don’t know what’s up, but I seen three or four guys standin’ ’round on the inside an’ another guy sittin’ in a chair, an’ I guess some one got hurt, huh?”

“Hurt!” exclaimed Bert. “All right, I’ll come. You tell him—”

“Tell him nothin’! I’m goin’ home, see.”

The youth vanished and Bert instinctively started up the stairs for his cap. Then, realizing with dismay that it was already a quarter to ten, he turned and hurried after the messenger.