There was keen unhappiness at the training table that night, and discussion rampant. It was no longer a question of losing one man who was a little better than another, but of parting with a star. Butler was no worse than he had been all through the season; but to play Butler now in place of Lindsay was like playing a substitute. And in student opinion it was not only unfair and unnecessary, but preposterously silly, to take a strapping, husky lad like Lindsay out of the game, when during the whole season, as an inexperienced learner, he had been mauled up and down the field by heavier men and rougher teams, and had emerged smiling and strong, with red cheeks and clear eyes, and every joint working as if on ball-bearings. This opinion was general. Only Lindsay’s presence and Lindsay’s evident respect for his father, even when he felt that his father was hopelessly wrong, checked the more violent expression upon the tongue.

Various were the suggestions offered. “Don’t receive the letter,” advised Hendry. “It was lost in the mail.”

“Say nothing and keep right on playing,” counselled Read. “It’s only nine days to the game now.”

“Play under an assumed name,” urged Milliken. “He won’t be there to see.”

All this Wolcott received with a contemptuous smile, and Laughlin gave no heed. Both knew that the advisers were not serious.

“I’ll be over about eight with Poole and Ware,” said Laughlin, as they rose from the dinner table, “and we’ll see if there isn’t some way out of the hole. I don’t propose to give you up till we’ve tried every chance there is. I’m going over now to consult Grim. He may know of some way of influencing Mr. Lindsay.”

But at eight o’clock, when the captain appeared with his two counsellors, he had a discouraging report to lay before the meeting. Mr. Graham declined to interfere. Mr. Lindsay had not consulted him, and he certainly should not assume unasked the responsibility of urging that a boy be exposed to what a parent considered a dangerous strain.

“Never mind,” said Ware. “I didn’t expect any help from him, anyway. It’s up to us to convince Mr. Lindsay, if he’s to be convinced. Now, Wolcott, first tell us exactly what the trouble is. Are you weak somewhere, or is your father scared by newspaper stories, or what is the matter? Did he ever see a football game?”

“I don’t think he ever did,” replied Wolcott, answering the last of the triple volley of questions. “The fact is, he never has liked the modern system of college athletics. He says that in his time they used to sit under the trees and talk of what they were going to do in the world, and a prize oration was the highest honor of college life; now the ideal is a professional ball player or a pugilist; and instead of gathering to listen to a debate or an essay, they troop to the field and howl for a lot of gladiators. I’ve heard that kind of thing so many times that I can repeat it word for word,” he added with a melancholy smile. “Most athletes, according to his idea, are an inferior lot who never are heard of after they leave college. And then, as you say, he reads all the stories of injuries in the papers and takes them all for gospel truth.”

“Does he refuse to let you go out in a sailboat with a proper skipper, because so many greenhorns try to sail boats and are upset; or to go driving, because horses run away?” demanded Poole, addressing himself vigorously to the argument implied in Wolcott’s words.

Wolcott smiled grimly, but made no reply. It seemed a bit hard to be held responsible for his father’s views.

“That’s no use, Phil,” said Laughlin. “You aren’t arguing with Mr. Lindsay. What we want to do is to present our case so that he’ll take our point of view. Now in the first place, how many accidents have we had here in Seaton with about a hundred fellows playing every fall?”

“None this year,” said Ware. “Elkins broke his collar-bone last year, and the year before a fellow smashed his nose. Of course there were bruises and lame shoulders, but they don’t amount to anything.”

“Both these fellows you mention were green men,” said Laughlin. “That’s the point we want to make. It’s the green, untrained boys who get hurt—fellows who haven’t had proper care and teaching, and who go floundering into the game without knowing how they ought to dress or what to do with their arms and legs, or how to tackle or how to fall.”

“A good many of the cases of accident in the newspapers are fakes,” said Ware; “the dead man is attending recitations the next morning. Most of the real accidents happen to absolute greenhorns—fellows playing for the first time, without the slightest knowledge of the rudiments of the game,—and it’s almost always off in some remote place where they don’t know much about football, not in the centres where the game has been going on for a long time.”

“Put those things down,” said Laughlin to the last speaker. “You act as secretary, Dan.”

“There are some accidents in games where little, young fellows are played against heavy teams,” said Poole; “but that’s the fault of the management.”

“None of these conditions are found here,” commented Laughlin, “and as a result we don’t have accidents of any account. Got that down, Dan?”

“There’s one thing you’ve forgotten,” suggested Wolcott. “There are the accidents that come from foul play.”

“Dirty football!” ejaculated Laughlin. “That’s true; but we shan’t have that in the game with Hillbury.”

“Put it down, just the same,” said Poole. “Let’s give him all the facts.”

“Now about the newspaper stories,” said Ware, looking up after a few minutes of scribbling, during which he had translated “dirty football” into terms less concise but more comprehensible to Mr. Lindsay. “Wouldn’t it be well to send him Walter Camp’s investigations of football accidents reported in the newspapers, and those figures that a Western college professor^[1] got out? I have them both somewhere.”

“That’s good,” said Laughlin, “and give him a good straight statement of this poor chap’s condition. Collins said to-day he never saw a fellow thrive on the game like Lindsay. Gaining all the time, aren’t you, Wolcott?”

Wolcott nodded without a smile. His heart was wholly with the arguments, but that they would prove effective he had little hope. He knew well the strength of his father’s convictions, the honesty and sincerity of his desire to do the best possible for his only son. He could hardly be imagined as yielding to the arguments and sentiments of a lot of boys.

“Who’ll explain about that slap in the head and taking him out of the Harvard Second game?” asked Ware.

“I’ll do that,” said Laughlin, “in my part.”

The meeting broke up after arranging for a round robin in three sections, Ware to set forth the facts as to accidents, Laughlin the exigency of the school, and Wolcott a plea from his own point of view. He sat down to this after the others were gone, and put into his letter all the longing and disappointment of his heart. He went back to the year before, when he had gradually learned to appreciate the manly, forceful character of the captain, and had caught the eagerness of his ambition for the team; he dwelt on his hard work through the summer to strengthen himself to take a place in the line; he told modestly of his laborious pushing up through the list of candidates; of his study of himself and his position and the men he had to meet, and his final unquestioned triumph. He had grown under the discipline, not rougher and more brutal, but stronger and firmer physically, and more collected, more resolute, more capable mentally. The great climax of all his labor was but a week away. He was perfectly able to play; the team needed him. There was but the slightest chance of physical injury. To drop out now would be a terrible sacrifice. He was ready to make it, of course, if his father insisted, but would he not reconsider and let him play the season out?

In the morning the trio gathered after chapel and put the three missives together in an envelope. Laughlin’s contribution was the shortest, Ware’s the longest. Ware weighed the package and affixed two stamps.

“Will he read all this?” queried Laughlin, suspiciously, as he poised the heavy envelope in his hand.

“Sure! every word of it,” replied Wolcott, promptly.

“Will it have any effect on him, do you think?” demanded Ware.

Wolcott smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid not. You’d better not count on me any longer in the game.”

“Come out and watch the signal practice, anyway,” said Laughlin. “That can’t hurt you. Keep up the training, too, and take a little exercise every day. I’m not giving up yet.”