Returning to Number 15 Tuesday to look over his mathematics before an eleven o’clock recitation, Jim found Clem reading a letter from Martin Gray. Jim knew that the letter was from Mart because the envelope of thin, ash-hued paper, adorned with a foreign stamp, lay face-up on the table. Mart had written to Clem several times since school had commenced and each letter had reported improvement. When Clem finished the present missive he folded it and returned it to the envelope rather thoughtfully. Then he raised his eyes and regarded Jim, who had taken possession of the window-seat, for a long moment before he finally announced: “Had a letter from Mart.”

“How is he?” asked Jim.

“Fine, and having a wonderful time. They’re at some place outside Florence. They’ve taken a place called the Palazzo Something-or-Other which Mart says is a stone morgue entirely surrounded by flowers. He’s playing tennis a lot, so I think he must be a good deal better.”

“I’m awfully glad,” said Jim.

“Yes, so am I.” Clem paused in the manner of one who has not finished, and after a moment’s silence he added: “He writes that he thinks now he will be able to come back to school after Christmas.”

Jim raised his eyes from the book he held and looked out of the window. “Well, that’s certainly fine news,” he commented. “Maybe he can make up enough to graduate next spring.”

“He seems to think so,” agreed Clem.

“Well, as soon as you know for certain, Clem, let me know and I’ll fix to get out.”

“No need of that. I don’t think he’d expect you to. Don’t see how he could.”

“It would be only fair, though. I’d rather, Clem.”

Clem flushed slightly and shrugged. “Oh, if you feel that way,” he said stiffly. “But I dare say he and I could get into Lykes, and so you wouldn’t have to budge.”

Jim considered that placidly. “Mean I’d stay here and get a room-mate?”

“Yes, or you could keep the room alone, unless Faculty put some one in with you.”

“Would I have to pay for the whole room if I was alone?”

“No, of course not. But I fancy they’d find some one to dump in on you. Trust them for that! Well, there’s nothing sure about it yet. Maybe you’ll have to put up with me for the rest of the year.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” replied the other mildly.

Clem frowned slightly, placed Mart’s letter in his pocket and went out, closing the door behind him with a soft violence that to a close observer might have suggested disapproval if not indignation.

At about the same time Lowell Woodruff and Coach Cade were in consultation in the latter’s room regarding the accommodations for the football squad at the hotel in Lakeville. The team and substitutes were to have luncheon at the hotel and were to dress there before and after the game, and the price submitted by the hotel had brought the alarmed manager to Mr. Cade post-haste. “Of course,” Lowell was saying sarcastically, “the poor fish misunderstood my letter. He’s laboring under the delusion that I asked a price on a week’s accommodations for the whole thirty-five.”

Mr. Cade chuckled. “It does sound so, doesn’t it? But I suppose, as the letter says, prices have risen since two years back. I’d tell him what a small appetite you have and ask him to knock off about fifteen dollars.”

Lowell grinned, but became serious again in the instant. “Oh, well, if we had plenty of money in the old sock, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot, but the jolly old treasury is so low you can see the bottom of it. And, what with fares and getting out to the field, we’ll be closing the season no better than even.”

“The field,” said Mr. Cade, “is merely a pleasant walk from the hotel, and I don’t think it would hurt any of the crowd to do it afoot. You can save ten dollars or so right there.”

“That’s so. Some of the fellows will kick, though. We’ve always ridden out before, you know.”

“There’ll be no chance of a kick,” returned the coach. “I’ll tell them I want them to have the exercise. As a matter of hard fact, I think it will do them good.”

“All right, sir. Then I’ll close with the old robber. See you this afternoon.”

“By the way, I had a caller last night. That fellow Todd.”

“Todd! Don’t tell me he’s resigned again!”

“No, he followed me after I left you to say that that paper you handed me was his.”

“The one Squires found? Well, why didn’t he say so when—”

“I asked him that and he said he was afraid the fellows would make fun of him.”

“And I guess they would have. Is the play really any good, Coach?”

“Tell you more in a day or two, after we’ve tried it out. It looks promising, though. I sat up with it until after midnight and I think we’ve got a pretty smooth-running play. By the way, get this back to Todd, will you? There’s some sort of a letter on the other side. Not valuable, probably, but he may want it. He left it on the table. I’m certain to forget it, myself.”

“Yes, sir.” Lowell accepted the folded sheet and dropped it in an inside pocket. “I’ll see him in math class. That all? Then I’ll beat it.”

Jim went out for practice that afternoon determined to make good. He had thought a great deal about what Mr. Cade had said the evening before and as a result the task ahead of him seemed now vastly more important and much more worth-while. He had taken the coach’s praise with a generous pinch of salt, but it had encouraged him nevertheless. To-day he showed up a great deal better than he had at any time since his misunderstanding with Clem, and those who played opposite him on the second team had their hands more than full. Both he and Sam Tennyson were relieved before the last period of the scrimmage game was over and sent off behind the north stand by Mr. Cade.

“I want you fellows to take a ball,” said the coach, “and practice some long passes. Start in at about twenty yards and increase the distance gradually. I want you, Tennyson, to get the overhand spiral throw down pat. You know how it should be made. Go ahead and learn to make it. Take plenty of time and try for accuracy and precision first. Speed and distance can come later. You, Todd, practice catching. I’ve seen you make several very good catches of a passed ball. See if you can’t do still better. Learn to take them high and make them sure. Put in about twenty minutes of it, but quit before that if your arms get tired. Go ahead.”

Sam Tennyson, who was a tall and fairly heavy youth with light-brown hair and a pair of sharp dark eyes, accompanied Jim in silence after he had obtained a ball. The full-back was a quiet chap at best, and just now he had less to say than usual. About all he did say as they made their way around the empty stand was: “Something up, Slim. Johnny’s got a hunch.”

Wednesday again the pair went through the passing practice and spent nearly a half-hour at it this time. Tennyson, who had not been called on before for the trick, progressed more slowly than did Jim. He got along well enough until he tried to speed the throw. Then the ball’s flight became erratic and Jim had to run three, four or five yards out of position to get it. But Tennyson had a long arm and plenty of strength and, throwing slowly, could make the oval travel a remarkable distance. The work went on each day, sometimes before scrimmage, sometimes after. On Friday, since there was only one scrimmage period, and the first-string players were dismissed a half-hour earlier than usual, Mr. Cade himself took Jim and Sam Tennyson in charge, leaving the argument between the substitutes and the second to Mr. Lake and Mr. Myers. When he had watched two throws he stopped the performance and coached Sam in holding the ball and in spinning it as it was shot away. “Now,” he said, “go back another five yards, Todd. What do you make that distance?”

“About forty, sir.”

“Or forty-five. All right. Now, Tennyson, elbow close to your side, and don’t forget to whip your fingers under. Just think that you’re pegging a baseball from the plate to second. It’s the same sort of a motion: a throw from the ear, as the catchers call it. That’s not bad, but you went three yards at least to the left. That’s another thing, by the way. If you must shoot to one side of the receiver, shoot to the right—your right, not his. But try to land the ball in his hand.”

Presently he walked over and joined Jim. “I think you’d better put your hand up and signal,” he said. “Better get used to doing it. Don’t signal, though, until you know that the thrower has the ball and is looking for you. If you do you advertise to the other team. That’s it, only stretch your hand just as high as you can. You’ve got a long arm, Todd, and you might as well make use of it. Remember that the thrower has to find his target quick. By the way, I see you’ve taken the bandage off your fingers. Did it bother you in catching?”

“No, sir, but the fingers are all right now.”

“Think you could catch if you had your four fingers bandaged?”

Jim observed the coach doubtfully. It sounded like a joke, but Mr. Cade’s face was quite serious. “I don’t know, sir,” answered Jim, “but I guess I could.”

“We’ll try it Monday. That’s the way. Take them high and pull them down quick. And freeze onto them hard, Todd. Never mind about being too particular on the throw. I don’t believe you’ll be on that end of it much. I want you to specialize on catching. You see, I’ve had you in view all the season as the man who might work in nicely at the other end of a long pass. You might drop around this evening after nine and I’ll tell you how I mean to use you a week from to-morrow.”

Saturday’s game with Oak Grove went about as predicted. The opponent was never dangerous, and this year, while the visitors put up rather a sterner defense than usual, Alton had no difficulty in scoring two touchdowns in the first period and one in the third and in keeping her own goal-line uncrossed. In fact, Oak Grove never had the ball inside the Gray-and-Gold’s thirty-yard line save in the last quarter when the Alton team was composed almost entirely of first and second substitutes. Pep Kinsey, who acted as quarter-back during three periods, was the individual star for the home team, making some dazzling run-backs of punted balls and twice scampering around the Oak Grove end for long gains. Besides that he ran the team smoothly and fast, getting plays off with a celerity that more than once found the opponents completely unprepared. Frost made two touchdowns and Sam Tennyson one, and Steve Whittier kicked two goals. Steve had rather an off-day in the backfield and yielded his place to Larry Adams when the last half began. It was in Steve’s absence that Kinsey missed the try-for-point after that third touchdown. The final score was consequently 20 to 0.

Nothing new was shown by Alton, although Oak Grove opened her bag of tricks wide and tried some weird plays in an effort to score in the fourth period. There was a good deal of punting, with honors fairly even, and each team tried the passing game, Alton making good four out of seven attempts and Oak Grove succeeding five times out of fourteen. Two of Alton’s passes were pulled down by Jim, and only a watchful defense prevented him from getting away on long runs. He showed an almost uncanny ability to get into position unnoticed and on each occasion that the ball was thrown to him he caught unchallenged. Only alertness and speed on the part of the Oak Grove backs spoiled his chances of long gains. Jim put himself back on the football map that afternoon and finally and conclusively ousted Willard Sawyer from the position of right tackle. This fact was not known to Jim then, but he may have guessed it. Others did. Jim was a terror on offense and as solid as a stone wall on defense. He raced his end nip-and-tuck down the field under punts and was into every play it was possible for him to reach. In brief, Jim had a big day, and if half a dozen other Alton men hadn’t played far better than they had played before that season he might easily have shared the honors with Pep Kinsey. But the Gray-and-Gold eleven had found its stride and Jim’s work was no better than that of several others.

In the last period there was a brief scare when Oak Grove, fighting valiantly and desperately against what was almost a third-string Alton team, hurling forward-passes of all sorts to all directions, faking passes to hide off-tackle plays, using criss-crosses of every conceivable variety, worked her way to Alton’s twenty-seven yards, where, meeting at last with denial, she was forced to a well-nigh hopeless try-at-goal from the thirty-six yards. The attempt failed widely and she had shot her bolt.

That game added more enthusiasm at Alton, and the mass meeting in the auditorium that evening attained unprecedented heights of emotion. There were speeches and songs and cheers, and noise and confusion enough to gladden the heart of the most irrepressible freshman. And after the adjournment the whole affair was reËnacted with only slightly less enthusiasm in front of Academy Hall, the evening’s program ending with a large and certainly hilarious parade around the campus and, finally, to Coach Cade’s residence. Learning at last, after repeated demands for a speech, that the coach had gone home over Sunday, the parade disintegrated, its component parts returning to their various domiciles in small, but far from silent, groups.

On Monday the final week of preparation for the great battle started with a hard practice for all hands. No one was spared and no one, it seemed, desired to be. The second earned a broad niche in the local Hall of Fame that afternoon if only for emerging from the two periods of fighting without casualties. The first team had found itself and was there to show the world!