Varrell took to the management of the team with a quietness and assurance that put hope into the hearts of the small but determined band which represented the great West. The few days that were left for practice were used to the utmost. In the morning the captain found time to show individual players about shooting and lifting and stopping shots. In the afternoon he drilled the team in passing and dodging and checking. There was a little murmuring when a big forward was taken out of the game because he was uncertain on his skates; and more still when another was relegated to the list of substitutes for playing his own game instead of fitting into the scheme for team work. But Varrell’s answer was conclusive: “Our only chance to win is by team play. We have no stars, and on their team are two or three men who have played in the best city rinks. United we win; scattered we lose.” The murmurers said no more.

That last Saturday before the Christmas holidays was clear and cold. The course had been chosen on the river where high banks ran nearly parallel twenty yards apart. The snow, which had been cleared away the day before, was piled up behind the goal-posts, forming end barriers sixty yards from each other, and completing, with the river banks, a natural enclosure of about the regular rink size.

On the banks gathered the patriotic factions,—the New Englanders in the open field on the left, swaggering merrily about their fires and hurling derisive cheers across the ice to the Western contingent, who were established among the pines on the right. This latter band of supporters, though weaker in numbers, had, from their position, a certain advantage which they made the most of. They swarmed into the trees with impromptu banners; when they were out-cheered, they devised an unintelligible chant which made up for lack of voices; and, finally, Tompkins of Montana developed a weird, penetrating yell, something between a whoop and a scream, which no one on the opposite bank could imitate or match, and which he uttered at impressive intervals from the upper branches of the tallest pine.

Yet, with all this show of patriotism, the noisy rivalry seemed quite free from bitterness. The gibes flew back and forth; there were cheers and counter cheers and chants, and Montana hoots from the pine tree, but the mood was of frolic, not of fight. For the spectators it was a lark, pure and simple; hardly any one really cared at the outset what the result was to be.

On the ice the spirit was different. Dick looked into John Curtis’s face and, behind the patronizing grin, read very clearly a poorly masked defiance. Todd, the Yank forward end, fingered his stick nervously over the ice as he waited for the call to places, and on his cheeks appeared the telltale white spots which Dick had seen before in the great football games when Toddy had set his teeth and fought for ground by the inch. Bosworth, the Yank coverpoint, leaned scowling on his stick, eying his opponents with sombre malevolence.

“They are fighters, not players,” said Dick to himself, disapprovingly. “They seem to think they’re out against Hillbury.”

And it did not occur to him that his own men looked equally fierce and determined. Sands stood ready at goal, but he had not a word for the boy who was beside him waiting to take his sweater when the game was called. Varrell was moving about with the quiet confidence of a master, which is more impressive to an opponent than noisy display. And as for Melvin himself, one did not need to be told that his whole heart was in the contest. The school knew well that what Melvin did, he did with all his might; a stranger would have read determination in the open face. Little Durand was about the only one of the fourteen who seemed to share the mood of the spectators. He flourished and circled about, chattering gayly up to the very moment of beginning.

The preliminaries were soon arranged. “Ready!” called the captains, and a moment later, at the first sound of the referee’s whistle, the two forwards were scraping and twisting to secure the puck on the “face-off.” Curtis got it, or thought he had; but before he could really call it his, a Greaser blocked his play, and Durand, dexterously picking out the puck, swept it across to Rawle, who dribbled it along, passed back to Durand, received it again, and lost it in the crush at the Yank goal. In another moment it came flying through the air on a lift, far down in the Greaser defence field.

Dick succeeded in stopping it and sending it on toward Varrell. The Greaser captain was off-side; but he allowed his opponent just to touch the puck, and then with a sudden swing to one side he was off down the ice, sweeping the puck with him. The first opponent he dodged. Big Curtis, who was next in order, made him pass; but the exchange gave him the puck again, and after several quick diagonal passes with Durand that brought them near the Yank goal, Varrell gave his stick a sudden hard flourish, and the puck shot like an arrow between the goal-posts, grazing the goal-tender’s knee as it passed.

It was all done so quickly, so unexpectedly, that for a moment the Western supporters under the pines and in the pines seemed unaware that their team had scored. Then as the sticks of the team brandished in air made the fact clear, a confused mixture of cheers, screeches, whoops, and catcalls gave proof that the West was both patriotic and appreciative. On the New England side indifference seemed to prevail.

“One!” said Sands with joy, as the puck came back to the centre.

“The first one, you mean,” returned Dick, in a low tone. “We’re not through yet.”

The next goal came hard. The Eastern team was heavier and generally stronger, but the members could not or would not play together; and if they got the puck down near the Greaser goal, they usually lost it before the goal was really threatened. Once a hard shot close at hand struck Sands in the pit of the stomach, and the spectators cheered and jeered as the gasping lad feebly lifted the puck away from its dangerous proximity to the goal. He had his breath again in a moment, however, apparently none the worse for his experience. Soon after, Curtis and Durand came together as both rushed for the puck at the same time, and the spectators under the trees cheered wildly as the little fellow crouched low for the collision, and the big football player sprawled over him upon the ice. But Varrell was the objective point of the strongest attack. Though he played coverpoint, he had an arrangement with Brown, one of the forwards, to exchange places on signal; and the result was that he appeared now in the defence, now in the attack, apparently scenting the course the puck was destined to take, and always equal to the need.

The Yanks grew rougher and more violent. Todd took to body checking where it was not necessary; Bosworth, when a Greaser got the puck away from him, followed on at his heels with ill-concealed malice, and banged away viciously at the unlucky man’s shins, even though it was apparent that the puck was wholly beyond the pursuer’s reach. Such tactics, unless checked, are usually the prelude to rougher play; and Dick, for this reason, was doubly grateful when, from the edge of the mÊlÉe around the Yank goal-posts, Rawle swiped the puck through a second time. Play had hardly been resumed when the referee’s whistle announced the end of the first half.

As was to be expected, the jubilation under the pines was earnest and loud. In the opposite camp, where the neglected fires were dying away in smoke, quite different conditions prevailed. A few, with heroic repression of natural sympathy, still pretended to regard the whole matter as a joke, in which victory or defeat meant little or nothing. The great majority, however, unable to rise to this level, were distinctly conscious of having in some way been cheated. They had come out to be amused, and part of the amusement was to consist in seeing the impudent Greasers given a sound beating. And here were their men, including such big husky athletes as Curtis and Todd, and fellows who had been glorified as city rink experts, like Bosworth and Richmond, overthrown by a set of amateurs.

“Rotten!” said Marks, the connoisseur of sports, as he interviewed Curtis and Todd during the intermission. “Perfectly rotten! Did you get us up here to fool us?”

“I didn’t ask you to come,” returned Curtis, trying to keep his good nature. “If you can do much better, come out yourself.”

“Oh, I’m no athlete,” rejoined Marks, hastily, “but I can see what the fault is better than you do. That Varrell plays most of their game. You’ve got to use him up. Give them a rougher game. Push ’em hard. When two of you start for the puck, let the puck go where it pleases; just smash at the man. When the man’s out of the way, you can take your time about the puck. You’re heavy and have the advantage.”

“That seems rather mean,” said Curtis.

“Mean!” exclaimed Marks. “Did you ask a Hillbury man to excuse you when you tackled him on the football field? I guess not.”

Curtis glanced around the group and read the looks of approval. “Well, then,” he said finally, “make it rough, but let’s have fair play,”—his eye rested on Bosworth as he said this,—“and no low tricks. Everything must be straight and aboveboard.”

When the game began again, the new spirit was immediately apparent. The Yanks got the puck and tried to drive it down by weight, but the off-side rule checked them. Durand still stole the puck from behind their sticks and put his shoulder so low that he could not be overturned; while Varrell still hovered on the edge of the scrimmage and drew the puck as a magnet draws a scrap of iron. Despite the heavy body checking, the play lingered about the Yank goal, for the Yank forwards did not follow the puck back closely on the defence, and Melvin or Sands soon sent it into Yank territory again. Rawle tried for goal, and failed. Durand missed in his turn, and then Varrell got the puck thirty yards away, and while his opponents were watching for a pass, by a long beautiful shoot made the third score for his side.

And now the Yanks’ patience gave out. Rules or no rules, they were determined that their opponents should make no more goals.

Again Varrell took the puck, and with his familiar tricky movement of the wrist started down the ice.

“Look out for Bosworth,” yelled Durand, whom Todd was obstructing at the side-lines. But Varrell’s dull ears served him ill. Bosworth, who was close at the Greaser’s heels, thrust his stick suddenly between Varrell’s rapidly moving legs and threw him with a crash to the ice, right under the feet of Richmond, who was speeding up from another direction. Richmond went down, too, tripping hard against the prostrate form.

The Greasers hissed, the Yankees groaned. John Curtis, be it said to his credit, ordered Bosworth from the ice before the referee could interfere; but the advantage of the “accident,” as Bosworth called it, was on the side of the Yankees. Varrell was helped off the scene, barely able to lift his leg.

The teams went on with six men each. With Varrell the Greasers had lost the mainspring of their attack. Superior weight and superior physical strength began to tell. The puck kept returning to the Greaser defence. Then came a scrimmage before the goal, a quick shoot from the outskirts of the crowd, and the Yanks were exulting over their first score.

“Only four minutes more,” pleaded Dick, skating down the Greaser line. “Hold them that long for Varrell’s sake. We can do it, if we will.”

And the weary six rallied once more. Durand was knocked about like the puck itself, but he stuck gamily to his work, and zigzagged and circled and dodged as before. Sands saved one goal with his hands, another with his feet. Dick met body check with body check, and lifted high and sure. But never before had he listened so anxiously for the sound of the referee’s whistle. When it came, and he knew certainly that the game was won, he flung his stick into the air and led the gathering Greasers in a long, hearty cheer for Varrell, who, lying on the meadow bank bedded in Yank blankets, was watching the result with his heart in his mouth.

“Great work you did this afternoon,” said Tompkins two hours later, popping his head into Melvin’s room. “Any part of you that isn’t black and blue?”

“I didn’t suffer much,” replied Melvin. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

“I hope not,” said Tompkins. “Do you know what battle in Roman history the fray reminded me of?”

Dick shook his head. “I don’t know any history. I passed it off last year.”

“The battle of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths,” replied Tompkins, wisely. “It’s a case of history repeating itself. The Visigoths won both times.” And then he added, “I don’t believe the Goths would have been guilty of some of the things I saw done on the ice this afternoon.”