The cheer of the small group of men on the track itself was taken as a good omen by the Americans in the stand, and these latter at once delivered themselves of a full-grown yell, which echoed back from the brick dwellings which surround the field.
"Twenty-three feet, four inches!" came the announcement, bawled to all sides of the field through the megaphone, and again the American yells broke out.
In the storm of cheering which Frank's great jump had elicited, Vare was seen to rise to his feet and walk slowly to the start of the runway. Two of his teammates went with him, and at each of his important marks he stopped and scrutinized them carefully as if he was not sure in his own mind that they were just right. Twice he tried the full runway from the start to thetake-off block, making new marks for his guidance.
And now, being quite ready, he made his first of the three tries allotted to him. On the first he cleared twenty-three feet, two inches, and on the second bettered this mark by half an inch.
"Only an inch and a half behind you, Armstrong," said McGregor, in a nervous staccato, "but I'll eat my shoes, spikes and all, if he can equal that one of yours."
"If he does," said Frank, "it's all over, I'm afraid. How I came to get that far out is more than I can understand. It's a dream, don't wake me!"
Silence settled over the crowd as Vare faced the pit for his last trial. His face was drawn and white. Now he moves forward, crouching a little, with chin out and jaws tightly clenched. The loping run develops at half distance into a sweeping rush, the Englishman hits the take-off squarely, and leaps with every ounce of energy in his body—up, up, out, out, he goes, while the spectators at the track side hold their breaths. Now he has reached the full height of his jump, and is coming down. Will his drive carry him far enough to win? He is down in the pit, toppedover by the impetus of his rush, but the jump is clean, and the measurers are at work.
Carefully the tape is placed, carefully it is read, and then——
"Twenty-three feet, three and one-quarter inches," comes the announcement.
The Americans go mad now indeed, for the meet is won, since the Oxford champion has failed to equal Armstrong's magnificent jump by three-quarters of an inch, not much, it is true, but enough to make the difference between victory and defeat.
Just as the jubilation was at its height, a dusty, grimy youth, in what were once white flannels, rushed through the gate, and threw himself on Frank as the latter was being escorted like a young prince of the blood to the club house.
"I knew you would do it, you old lobster," cried the newcomer, who was none other than Codfish Gleason. "Sorry I couldn't get in at the death, but I was arrested three times for moving too fast for these Johnnies, and paid a five-pound fine every time. I couldn't have gone much further for my money was running short."
To say that Frank Armstrong was the hero of the occasion is to tell only a part of the truth.The youngest man on either team had achieved the greatest glory, and his teammates were not slow in acknowledging the fact. At the dinner that night in London, given to members of the four teams, Frank was called on to make a speech, and it was the shortest on record: "I did the best I could," after which he sat down covered with confusion, amid loud applause.
The next day came the sight-seeing in London and some of the nearby towns, and then a generous and thankful management stood the expense of a trip for the American winners to Amsterdam, to Cologne, to Lausanne, where the song-birds of the party serenaded the girls' school there, and then to Paris, with many side trips. But, in spite of the beauties and wonders of the strange countries, Frank said afterward that the best sight of all was the shores of Long Island viewed from the deck of the homing Cunarder.
Frank Armstrong returned to college in the fall with a reputation. His remarkable jumping which won the deciding event of the meet at Queen's Club in London, and no less the picturesque manner in which he had made his way from Brighton that eventful day, had been spread widely in the newspapers, and no one within reach of the cable or telegraph but knew the details of the story.
But the publicity and adulation in no way disturbed Frank's balance. He was much too level-headed for that, and went about his work the most unassuming of his classmates. "Nothing to make such a fuss about," he used to say. "I simply had to do it. That's all there is to it."
The luck of the room drawings had landed our three friends in Connecticut Hall, that century and a half memorial to old Yale. "Comfortable and musty," was the Codfish's comment when he had heard the news. David Powershad drawn a room in Welch Hall directly opposite. It was David's secret ambition to win a position on the Literary Magazine, and to this end he had applied himself industriously in the Freshman year. He succeeded in getting several essays and a poem accepted by the august editors. He had tried himself out, and was now going after the coveted honor with high determination.
Out on the football field the annual preparation for the great struggles with Harvard and Princeton was going on. James Turner and Frank Armstrong were enrolled as members of the squad, and took their daily medicine on the second eleven. Frank's lack of weight—he was still only about one hundred and fifty pounds—prevented him from competing on an even footing with ends twenty pounds heavier, with which the 'Varsity was well supplied that year. The quarterback position was so well filled that he despaired of winning his way there and the coaches, evidently of the same opinion, kept him where he had played on the Freshman team. Turner, on the other hand, had added weight and was in a fair way to win a place somewhere in the back field. Frank put in a great deal of time under the direction of the punting coach, andmade good progress at that department of the game, but at drop-kicking he had little opportunity.
"Drop-kicking isn't Yale's way of scoring," said Jimmy Turner one night when the day's work was being discussed in the Connecticut Hall room before a crackling fire of log-wood. "The coaches want a team that can carry the ball over the goal-line, not one that can boot it over the cross-bar."
"I know it looks better to have the force drive the other fellow back across his own goal, but since these new rules went into effect it's mighty seldom you ever see it in a big game. But I'm not knocking. I'll keep at the drop-kicking and hope for a chance."
But the chance for Frank did not come. In two of the smaller games he was called in the fourth quarter with a number of other substitutes, and when the team play was badly disorganized because so few regulars were in the line. He played at end in each case and was pulled back for the punting. Once with a good opportunity for a field goal on the opponent's twenty-yard line, a poor protection allowed a lineman to get through and block the ball—athing which very nearly resulted in a touchdown against Yale, for a free end picked up the loose ball and was not brought down until he was well into Yale's territory. While Armstrong was not at all to blame, the general crowd saw only that his kick was blocked and considered him unsafe as a drop-kicker.
Turner won his Y in the Princeton game when he was sent in to relieve Cummings, the right halfback, a few minutes before the final whistle, but Armstrong's chance didn't come. He sat through the four quarters and saw the Yale team win at the very end. A week later Armstrong was among the blanketed figures on the side-lines, who watched the struggle of Yale and Harvard up and down the gridiron, with hopes rising and falling as the tide turned one way or the other. At the very end of the game, with the score against Yale, a fumble in the Harvard back field gave Yale possession of the ball on Harvard's thirty-yard line. The Yale stand rose en masse and begged for a touchdown, but two assaults were stopped with scant advance. The coach ran down the line, looking among his substitutes.
"Armstrong, get ready to go in," he said in a quiet, tense voice, but even as Frank jumpedto his feet to obey the summons, the whistle blew and the game was over.
"Another year coming," Frank said quietly as Jimmy, with arm across his roommate's shoulder, on their way from the field, protested against the hard luck.
"You're pretty cheerful about it," commented Turner, "and you deserved the chance as much as I did."
"If I had been good enough, I'd have gone in before. The coaches know what they are about. If I ever get enough weight on me, I'll have a better chance to make the eleven."
"And then you'll not be able to jump twenty-three feet," said Turner; "for every compensation there's some setback. That's the way of life."
The Codfish was bitter in his condemnation of the entire coaching system which did not discover Armstrong's "supreme merit." "The idea of not using you, Frank, when they had every chance in that last quarter. I call it a murdering shame! They might have pulled out the game."
Frank laughed. "I recognize your talent as a musician and your loyalty as a friend and your virtue as a gentleman, but I still think the coachesknew their jobs, and that when they didn't send me in they had good and sufficient reason for it. I'm not kicking. Anyway, I have two more chances, so what's the use of crying?"
The Codfish continued to growl about the "injustice" for several days, and then, like everyone else, forgot all about football and turned his attentions to the future.
Before the fall Frank had taken occasional dips in the pool when not overtired by the work at the Field. Max, foreseeing a recruit for his swimmers, took pains to encourage him, and, later, at the suggestion of Captain Wilson of the swimming team, Frank became a member of the squad. After the close of the football season, being well up in his studies and glad of the opportunity to take up a form of athletics which appealed to him strongly, he went at the work with great earnestness.
In the try-outs Armstrong won his right to a place on the team in the fifty and one hundred yards, having covered these distances in good time, and, when the intercollegiate meets came along, he did his share in point-winning for Yale.
"Armstrong," said Captain Wilson one afternoonas the two were resting after a practice spin of one hundred and fifty yards, "did you ever try to swim a two-twenty?"
"Used to go more than that distance in open water, but never in the tank. Why?"
"Well, McGill, the Canadian university, is sending a team down here in February. They have two or three crackajacks up there and they are making a little southern trip. I've just wired them the date and I'd like to make as good a showing as possible."
"We ought to be pretty good excepting in the two-twenty," said Frank.
"And if you'll work for that distance we ought to be pretty good there, too. I'll take care of the hundred as well as I know how, and I'll let Hobbs swim the fifty."
"And who swims the two-twenty for McGill?"
"Hopkins, the Olympic champion."
Frank gave a long whistle. "And so you want me to be the goat? All right, Mr. Captain, I'll do my best and lead the goat right up to the altar to be sacrificed by the Olympic champion. But to do it gracefully, I ought to have some coaching in that distance."
"And you're going to get it. I've sent forBurton to come up and give us a little advice. He was one of our best men at the distance as well as at the hundred."
"Yes, I know him. Taught me to swim."
"Really! Well, that's fine. He has the knack of teaching, and can tell you the tricks of the furlong if anyone can."
The McGill meet was only two weeks off, and Frank began his training in earnest. Twice a day he swam the furlong, first at a moderate gait and then quickening the stroke until he was traveling at good speed throughout the distance.
Burton came up from New York and spent a portion of two days with him, and, before the coaching was over, Frank had the satisfaction of beating out his old teacher of the crawl stroke.
"You're too good for me now," gasped Burton as he pulled himself out of the water at the end of the race. "I'll have to leave you to the tender mercies of Hopkins himself."
The night of the meet finally came around, and the building was all too small to hold the hundreds who crowded to the pool doors. Every seat was sold long in advance and standing room was crowded almost to suffocation. The attraction was, of course, Hopkins, who had been takingthe measure of every swimmer at his distance that he had met, and who was heralded as the greatest swimmer in the world over the furlong distance.
After Wilson had won the hundred and Hobbs had lost the fifty-yard contest, Hopkins sauntered carelessly from the dressing room, clad in a black silk racing suit. He proved to be a tall and powerful young man, heavily muscled. Alongside of him, as the two stood perched on the pool end, Frank looked very slender, but there was a suggestion of concealed strength in the latter's well-rounded limbs and of vitality and staying power in the deep chest.
"Two-twenty yards even!" sang out the referee. "Eight lengths and sixty feet. Hopkins, the Olympic champion on the left for McGill; Armstrong on the right for Yale. Ready! Get set! GO!"
At the word, both bodies shot through the air and hit the water like one. The champion used a long, rather slow but powerful trudgeon which was peculiarly mixed with the crawl in the leg action; Armstrong used a quicker crawl, in which the legs were scarcely bent at the knee, but were thrashed rapidly in a very narrow angle. The crowd expected the champion to pull away atonce, but when the two turned at the far end of the pool, they turned at exactly the same instant. Down to the starting point the swimmers came, moving with great speed, but still the Yale man stayed with his big opponent with grim determination, and even finished the fifty a fraction of a second in advance of his Canadian opponent, shooting away on the second fifty still in the lead. Twice more the swimmers covered the length of the tank without relative change in position.
And now the crowd, with nearly half the race over, seeing that their representative was holding his own, rose to their feet and delivered a wild yell which echoed among the high girders of the place, and from that time they did not cease to yell at the game fight waged in the water below them. At the one hundred and fifty-yard mark, Armstrong, putting on a burst of speed, led his great rival by five or six feet. Hopkins, who had never changed his steady drive for a moment, now quickened his thresh perceptibly, and in another length of the tank had almost overhauled the Yale man who was kicking along with every pound of energy in his body. Armstrong still led, but as they approached the two hundred-yardmark, there was less than a yard separating them.
"Armstrong! Armstrong! Armstrong!" yelled the crowd.
But the boy who was causing all the excitement was not conscious of anything but a dull roaring in his head. The noise of the cheering came to him faintly, much more faintly than the splash, splash of Hopkins's arms just behind him, and, even as he looked out of the corner of a water-filled eye, the relentless Canadian drew up nearer and still nearer.
"Sixty feet to go!" Frank heard in a dull sort of way the official's voice. Could he do it, that impossible distance? His throat was parched and his chest seemed bursting with the strain of the pumping heart. Could he live for sixty feet more? It was a thousand miles. Summoning every last ounce of will pressure, he drove ahead blindly, following mechanically the swimming lines on the pool bottom with no help from smarting eyes. Somewhere near was Hopkins, he could feel the swirl of water from his powerful arm drives, but whether Hopkins was ahead or behind he could not tell. His arms were like lead, his legs paralyzed. A great weariness settledupon him, a great and compelling burden which benumbed all the faculties of brain and body.
About fifteen minutes later Frank found himself lying on a couch in the room of the 'Varsity swimming team, with several anxious faces looking down at him, among them that of Hopkins.
"What's the matter?" he asked in a bewildered way.
"Nothing, 'cepting you drowned yourself," said Captain Wilson, "dead as a door nail."
"Did I finish?" he asked very weakly.
"You certainly did, you finished the race and yourself at the same time. Two of us had to go to the bottom for you," said the Captain. "You sank like a stone."
"That's where I went to sleep, then?"
"I guess so, you had us scared, I tell you."
"You gave me a great race, Armstrong," said Hopkins, "one of the hardest I ever had. It wasn't record time, but it was as fast as the two-twenty is generally done. I only won by a few inches, and mighty lucky to get it at that," admitted the Canadian generously.
"If I made you work, I'm satisfied," said Frank weakly. "I hadn't a ghost of a chance to win, but I set out to make you work for your victory."
"And you did," returned Hopkins laughing.
"Congratulations to our noble little pitcher," cried the Codfish. "I see you are drafted for honors on the Southern trip."
It was mid-March and the baseball work in the cage was over. The 'Varsity nine had been at work on the open field for nearly a week, and Frank Armstrong as well as Jimmy Turner were members of the squad. Frank had shown possibilities as a pitcher, while Turner was considered a substitute catcher in second or third place. The occasion for Gleason's congratulations was the announcement in theNewsthat not only Turner but Armstrong as well was among those selected to make the trip always taken to the South by the 'Varsity nine for practice at the time of the Easter vacation.
Frank Quinton, a new graduate coach, who had taken charge of the baseball situation, had been attracted by Armstrong's earnestness and his peculiar ability to put the ball over the plate,and had undertaken with some success to teach him the art of curving the ball and at the same time retaining his control. Under the new coach's guidance the pitcher had done particularly well, and it was no surprise to anyone that he was included among the twenty players who were slated to make the trip. His chief competitors were Gilbert, a Junior, and Martin, a Senior, both more experienced in the box, but neither of first class quality. Appleton, the pitcher of the 'Varsity the year before, had graduated, and on these three named the hopes of the Yale team centered.
"And is our old friend, the trouble maker, coming along with us?" inquired Turner.
"Bettcher life," returned the Codfish. "Things might run too smoothly if I stayed at home."
"You certainly can be depended upon to add a little dash of pepper wherever you are," said Frank laughing.
"You have no cause to complain, old fel," retorted Gleason. "If I hadn't got you two thousand feet in the air last summer you could never have won your broad-jump, nor have had the chance to have your picture printed in the papers with the story of your sweet young life."
"Perhaps all that excitement did help," said Frank, "but in the future we will take no more chances in an airship."
"I'll promise you that much anyway," returned the Codfish, "but just the same I think a good deal of credit is due to your humble servant for that victory last July. Of course, I don't expect any credit for it from the unthinking public or my selfish roommates, but I have my own congratulations anyway."
"And that's a lot," laughed Frank. "Do you go down with the team?"
"Yes, all arranged, tickets, Pullman, boat, everything. I'm one of that noble band of 'heelers' who brave everything to be a supporter and lend a yell in the hostile country when most needed."
"Bully for you, Codfish," cried Turner. "We may need you, but leave your automobile at home."
The itinerary of the southern trip included Washington, where the tour opened with a game with Georgetown; Charlottesville, Va.; Richmond and Norfolk. At the latter place three games were to be played, then was to follow a boat trip up the Chesapeake Bay to Washington, where asecond game was to be played with Georgetown.
Everyone was looking forward to the delights of warm sun and spring breezes in the land of flowers, for the March winds on Yale field had been anything but conducive to good ball playing. But spring was reluctant even in the south, and warm days were few and far between. Yale lost the first game with Georgetown with Martin in the box, and fared no better with the University of Virginia nine when Gilbert, who was supposed to be the most effective of the Yale staff of pitchers, went down before the fusillade of hits.
"You will start the game with the Norfolk League team to-morrow," said Coach Quinton to Armstrong as the players were leaving the dinner table at the hotel in Norfolk. "This will be one of the best games of the trip and I want to win it."
"All right, sir," returned Frank. "I'll do my best."
Frank won his game, but at heavy expense. For five innings he pitched great ball and kept the league hitters to two runs, while the Yale team, finding themselves, batted out seven runs by clean hitting and fast base-running. Then inthe sixth Frank began to slow up and the Norfolk batters reached his delivery frequently, but runs were cut off by superb playing of the Yale infield. Every ball he pitched sent a sting through his muscles with a pain almost unbearable, but he kept on to the end of the inning.
"What's the matter with you?" inquired the coach as he came to the bench. "Is your arm bothering you?"
"Yes, something seems to be wrong with it. Hurts like thunder."
Quinton knew only too well the symptoms. Armstrong had "thrown his arm out," a not uncommon thing in early spring baseball. His muscles, not sufficiently worked out, had been injured in the delivery of the speed ball he had been pitching.
Martin finished the game and held it safely, but Frank pitched no more that trip nor during the season for the 'Varsity. For a time after returning to New Haven he was worked in the outfield, but even there was at a disadvantage because he could not shoot the ball on a long throw from the outfield. So he was displaced by a weaker hitter, and shortly after went over to the track squad where he was received with openarms by the trainer, who foresaw a certainty of added points in the coming track meets.
And he was not disappointed, for Frank, now out of baseball because of his accident, gave his entire time to the perfection of the broad jump, and won first place at the Harvard and Princeton dual meets. He took second place to the great Moffatt who made the trip across the continent from the University of California, and set a mark at twenty-three feet nine inches, which even Frank's unusual skill failed to equal, although on three different trials he had improved on his jump at the Queen's Club in London. Armstrong was now rated as one of the best jumpers in any of the colleges. But his ambitions in the direction of baseball and football had failed to materialize through accidents of one sort or another. He was the kind of a boy, however, who was willing to do as well as it was possible the thing that was available without repining about the things impossible.
During the stay at Norfolk the Codfish sustained his reputation as a friend of trouble. On the way down from Washington he had scraped acquaintance with a classmate named Chalmers, who had some acquaintances in Norfolk. Theparty was hardly established at the hotel when Gleason hunted up his friend Chalmers and suggested that they take a ride in one of the snappy looking motor cars that stood in front of the hotel for hire. Chalmers pleaded poverty.
"Only four dollars an hour," said Gleason, "and we can look all over the town. Bully old place, all wistaria and pretty girls and happy darkies. Come on, don't be a tight wad!"
"Four dollars an hour would break me. At that price I could ride about ten minutes. Let's walk," suggested Chalmers.
"Oh, come on, let's show these southerners some speed. I have fifteen dollars in my inside pocket. There's a perfectly ripping blue car out front with a darky all fussed up to beat the band. It looks like a private rig and all that. One hour will do the trick, and I'll foot the bill."
That argument moved Chalmers, whose finances were low. Together the boys located the blue motor car with its snappy driver, immediately after lunch, and tumbled into the tonneau.
"Where do you-all want to go?" inquired the driver.
"Oh, just show us around," said the Codfish, with a wave of the hand. "Show us all theflossy streets and the monuments, but I warn you now I don't climb any of them. Fire away."
Thus admonished, the driver headed his machine in the direction of Ghent, threading the streets of the quaint old town while the boys lay back luxuriously on the cushions of the tonneau.
"Gee whiz," said Chalmers, as the blue car rolled down Boissevain avenue, "there's Miss Smith or I'm an Injun."
"Where, who and what?" inquired the Codfish, immediately alert.
"Just coming down the steps of that white house over there."
"Know her?"
"Sure. Kid sister's roommate at school or something like that. Been at our house once. Promised Sis I'd look her up, but didn't expect to have time."
"Gee, but she's a pippin," said the Codfish, enthusiastically. "Let's ask her to take a ride in our pretty blue car!"
"And thereby kill two birds with one stone."
"Which two?"
"Keep my promise to Sis and do a humane act.She lives miles from here I know. Probably been calling."
"Poor thing, we ought out of common courtesy ask her to ride home. I hate to see so pretty a girl walking with nothing better than a dog for company. Go ahead, be a gent; have a heart!"
By this time the car had traveled a block or so beyond where they had passed Miss Smith, whose steps were bent in the opposite direction to that in which the boys were headed. Chalmers was finally convinced by the persuasive Codfish that the automobile should be offered to the young lady, and the driver was ordered to turn around. The pedestrian was soon overtaken, and, hat in hand, Chalmers sprang from the car and intercepted the young lady.
"Miss Smith, I believe?" he said, advancing with a grin.
"Oh, Mr. Chalmers, I'm so glad to see you. Your sister wrote me you were coming down, but I never thought you would remember me."
"How could I ever forget?" said Chalmers, making his most elaborate, and what he considered fetching, bow. "This is my friend Mr. Gleason of Yale."
"So glad to meet Mr. Gleason," chirped theyoung lady. "And you-all are down with the Yale team? Isn't that too lovely?"
Neither of the boys could see just how it was "too lovely," but they took it for what it was worth.
"Will you permit us to drive you home?" said the Codfish, waving his hand magnificently toward the blue motor car. "Chalmers says you live miles from here."
"Oh, that would be too lovely," gurgled Miss Smith. "I just adore motoring, and it is such a nice day, too. I live only a mile from here, but it would be sweet to ride that far in your car."
Miss Smith was escorted to the blue motor, and established in the middle of the rear seat while Chalmers and Gleason took seats on either side of her. The bull terrier, not nearly so much pleased with motoring as his mistress, spread himself over the floor and occasionally made frolicsome dashes at Gleason's Yale blue silk socks, a large expanse of which was showing.
"Get out, you little beast," cried Gleason, alarmed for the welfare of his beautiful socks. "Chew Chalmers over there, he's much better chewing than I am."
"O, don't mind him, Mr. Gleason, he justadores blue. I simply can't keep anything blue around the house. Always eats it up."
"Well, he can't eat any of my blue stuff. He must be a Harvard dog; quit it, Fido," as the dog made another dash.
A few minutes' drive brought them to Miss Smith's house. "O, I simply don't want to get out," she said.
"Then why do you?" queried the Codfish. "It pains us to have you leave. We were just looking around, you know, and would like to have someone point out the sights of your gay and festive city."
"That would be too lovely, and I'll be so glad if you'll take Cousin Mary."
"Cousin Mary is on," said the Codfish. "Where does she live?"
"O, just around the corner. She loves motoring, too, and we poor people down here can't have automobiles of our own."
It was but a minute's trip to Cousin Mary's, and matters were facilitated by discovering the young lady in question standing in her doorway, hatted and gloved, with a camera in her hand. She was more than plump, she was decidedly fatand had red hair. The Codfish decided he wasn't for Cousin Mary. Introductions were quickly made and the call explained. Cousin Mary was willing to ride anywhere so long as it was in a motor.
"Now where shall we go?" inquired the Codfish. "You tell us. This will be a personally conducted tour, you know."
"O, it would be just too lovely to drive to Virginia Beach," gushed Miss Smith.
Chalmers, who knew something of the geography of the territory, winced and tried to catch his companion's eye, but that individual failed to see the warning glance, and ordered—"Drive to Virginia Beach, James."
"All right, sah," and the machine shot off for the Beach. Chalmers very generously took the seat alongside the driver, leaving the Codfish with the girls in the tonneau, which was a disposition highly satisfactory to the latter. But he took care to put Cousin Mary on the far side of the seat.
As mile after mile was spun off, and still the destination was not reached, the Codfish began to wonder what the length of the drive might be, but his pride forbade him to ask. On and onwent the car at an easy pace. They had been out nearly two hours from the hotel, and the Codfish began to make mental calculations. "Two hours, that makes eight dollars," he calculated, "another hour and a half back, that makes fourteen. That makes some little bill. I can readily see I'm busted already!" His conversation began to halt, but the lovely Miss Smith was concerned only in the beauties of the landscape which she pointed out to her companion on the seat, who was not so deeply interested as he might have been had things been different.
At last the car drew up at the Beach. "How far do you call it down here, James?" inquired the Codfish, nonchalantly. He was still calculating.
"I reckon about twenty-five miles," said the driver. "Kaint make much time on these here roads."
"Yes, I noticed that," returned the Codfish dryly.
The young ladies were overjoyed to be at the Beach. They walked on the sands and took photographs.
"Cousin Mary just loves to take photographs," Miss Smith explained. Then the girls discoveredthey had a call to make—would Mr. Chalmers and Mr. Gleason mind? A very dear girl friend whom they hadn't seen for a whole month was at the Beach. Would they come? No, then they would only be gone a few minutes. It was "too lovely" to have such a chance to call.
So the boys were left behind to wait impatiently. The minutes passed and then more minutes.
"And there's that blooming motor sitting there at four dollars an hour," growled the Codfish. "Three hours and fifteen minutes gone already. I'm bankrupt now and twenty-five miles to go back. I'll be entirely insolvent by the time we turn up in Norfolk."
Fifty minutes more passed and Miss Smith and Cousin Mary reappeared on the scene only to exhaust another reel of films photographing the car, the pavilion, a decrepit boat drawn up on the sands, and several sea views. "Cousin Mary is so artistic," explained Miss Smith. "You ought to see some of her sea views, they are just too sweet."
"I've enough sea views to last me the rest of my natural life," muttered the Codfish underhis breath. "I'm not much for sea views at four dollars an hour."
When everything necessary and unnecessary that the girls could think of had been done, the motor was turned in the direction of Norfolk, and set off at, a leisurely pace much to the disgust of the Codfish. The longer the driver took to cover the distance, the more money he made. Time was money to him with a vengeance.
On the outskirts of Norfolk, and just as dusk was beginning to settle, the rear shoe gave way with a loud explosion.
"How long?" inquired the Codfish, laconically.
"I reckon 'bout twenty minutes," replied the driver, at which Miss Smith set up a remonstrance. "We must be home. Mother will think something dreadful has happened. The trolley is only a few blocks from here. We can't wait that long for him to fix the old tire."
"All right, then," said the Codfish. "We'll all go, and James, you see us at the hotel after you get fixed up again." He was glad of the opportunity to have the automobile white elephant off his hands, and saw a chance of getting to the hotel and preserving his dignity before the girls. He could get the money he needed as soonas he got back. But his luck was against him in the shape of the darky driver who was both obstinate and suspicious.
"Kaint do dat, sah," the driver protested, "last time I do dat, I done get stung. We done been out five hours and a half, dat makes twenty-two dollars, not countin' little something you gwine to give James."
"O, Mr. Gleason," cried Miss Smith. "I thought it was your own car." There was a note of reproach in her voice, and the speaker tossed her head. A ride in a hired car didn't seem so luxurious as in a private one.
A hasty conference between the two boys resulted in the pooling of all their cash in hand, which amounted to just $16.25. This amount the Codfish offered the driver, who refused it and loudly argued for his rights before a gathering crowd. He would not let his passengers out of his sight, so it was finally arranged that Chalmers should see the young ladies home while he, the Codfish, held as a hostage, hung around for another half hour while the shoe was replaced. He reached the hotel late for dinner, where he borrowed sufficient money to pay the driver.
Of course, the story got out, and the two participants never heard the last of it. It was even resurrected in the class day histories at the end of Senior year.
After college closed Frank Armstrong and Jimmy Turner joined a party of engineers and their assistants, whose work it was to survey a new railroad through the heart of New Brunswick, one of the Maritime provinces of Canada, and for two months they enjoyed the life of veritable savages in the open air. Following the pointing finger of the compass they burrowed through the tangled forests, sleeping sometimes rolled in blankets with a bunch of fragrant hemlock boughs for a pillow, and, only when the weather was bad, under the protecting service tents, several of which had been brought along for bad weather. Many nights, however, the tents were never set up at all, and the whole party of young men slept with only the stars for their roof. Frank made himself invaluable at river crossings, of which there were many, for bridges were few and far between. It was his duty to swim the barring river with the engineers'"chains" which he did with such success that he was nicknamed "the torpedo." Later he was followed by other members of the party on homemade catamarans.
The life agreed with both the boys, and when the party finished its work and took train at the little station of Harcourt on the Intercolonial railroad, with clothing ragged from the rough caress of the tangled woods and shoes guiltless of blacking, they might well have been mistaken for young lumbermen instead of college students.
Ten days later they were in football clothes on Yale field, obeying the call for early fall practice before college opened. Frank had put on ten pounds during the summer, and for the first time felt himself strong enough to withstand the punishing work of the game. He was hard as nails, in perfect condition and eager for any work the coach might set him at. Again he was placed at end in practice by Coach Hanley, and made such good progress that in the middle of the first game he was called in to play the position, where he acquitted himself with such credit that he earned a word of praise from Captain Baldwin.
Through the long, hard grueling work of thefall he fought for his place, alternating between the 'Varsity and the second eleven, learning something every day under the tuition of this or that coach for the purpose of helping Yale turn out a winning team. Turner was firmly established at right halfback, and gave promise of becoming a great player. His irresistible smashes earned many yards for Yale in the minor games of the season, and it was a common prediction that he would be first choice for the place in the championship games. He succeeded not by any great speed but by his instinct for the opening his linemen made and his almost uncanny ability to keep his feet and burrow for a gain through the worst tangle of human bodies. It was Turner who was always given the ball down near the goal line to carry it across, and he rarely failed to accomplish his end.
The uncertainty regarding who was to play right end was banished in the Brown game which preceded the Princeton game by one week. The game was a hard one, and neither side could score a touchdown. Frank was called in at right end to replace Saunders, and on the second line-up took a well delivered forward pass and scored with practically a free field. Twice again beforethe game was over he proved his ability in this particular play. His baseball helped him in the handling of the football, and his speed and elusiveness in an open field added to his chances. It was therefore no surprise to anyone in the college when he was slated to go in the first line-up against Princeton.
"I'm putting you in, Armstrong," said Coach Hanley, "in spite of the fact that Saunders has had more experience. In other words, I'm taking a chance with you. Don't fall down. This Princeton team has a strong line and we've got to fox them with the forward pass. Keep cool, and use your head all the time."
The instructions sounded easy enough, but when Frank took his place at right end on the day of the game, under the eyes of thirty thousand people, to say that he was nervous expressed only a small part of his feelings. While the big Yale center placed the ball at midfield for the kick-off he lived, like other high-strung players before him, what seemed a whole year of his lifetime. He was almost overcome by the sudden fear that he might not be able to do what was expected of him, and the barking cheers from the Yale side of the field added to his nervousnessinstead of encouraging him. Twice Biddle, the center, placed the ball, and twice the stiff breeze topped it over. Frank's heart was pounding, and he felt weak and ineffective, but at the shrill scream of the whistle, and as the ball rose in the air and soared off in the direction of Princeton's goal, his mind cleared like a flash. He regained his grip on himself, and sped off down the field like the wind, feeling a moment later the grim joy of shock and strain as his arms closed around the legs of the man with the ball, who came sweeping up the field, behind what seemed like a wall of interference. How he reached the runner, he never knew, but the fact that he had reached him seemed to give him the strength of ten men.
Twice the Princeton backs were shot at his end. Once he got the runner, and the second time he spilled the interference, leaving Turner to take the man with the ball, which he did with a jolting tackle that jarred the Princeton man's very being.
Up and down the field surged the tide of battle, while the stands under the urging of the cheer-leaders gave out on the one side or the other an almost steady roar of cheers. In spiteof their volume they seemed strangely far away to the players whose energies were engaged entirely with the matter in hand.
Once the new right end was drawn in, and a Princeton back slipped around him for fifteen yards. The sharp reprimand from the captain was not necessary for he was raging at himself, savage at being tricked. A moment later he was tricked again: the back made a feint at the end, went inside him and was stopped by Turner.
"That's the place," yelled a Princeton coach, "put it there again!" It looked like a weak place indeed, and the Princeton quarter, after making his distance on the other side of the line, again shot his catapult at right end.
This time Frank went through the interference, and tackled so viciously that there were hisses from a few in the Princeton stand. He was fighting mad, crazy to hurt and to be hurt. Again and again he hurled himself blindly against the Princeton onrush only to be borne backwards.
Suddenly he realized what the matter was. The coach's words came to him: "Keep cool, play your game and keep your head working." It was like a dash of cold water, and he wasimmediately cool. He had a grip on himself in a moment, and he now smiled back into the mocking eyes of his opposing end where a moment before he had glared in hate. He had obtained the mastery over himself.
Again the play swung around to his end, but this time he met it coolly and deliberately, and checked it without the gain of a foot, while the Yale stand announced its approval with a mighty and spontaneous shout. Time after time the Princeton attack at the right end was met and turned back, and Saunders, who had been told to get ready to replace Armstrong, sat down again at the motion of Coach Hanley, and wrapped his blankets around his shoulders. This much Frank saw out of the corner of his eye, and a thrill of satisfaction went through him. He had learned his lesson and was making good.
It is not our intention to tell the story of Frank's baptism of fire, nor how the two evenly matched teams battled to a tie at the end of four desperately fought periods. Frank played through three of these periods, and although he played well and did all of his duty, he never had a clear chance at a forward pass. The ball was thrown either too far or not far enough on thehalf dozen tries at the pass, or the attempt to throw was spoiled by the eager Princeton forwards who crowded through the line. At the end of the third quarter he was taken out weak and staggering from his exertions, and Saunders went in.
But the coach's "All right, Armstrong," was music to his ears as he came over to the side-line to be immediately wrapped in a big blanket by the trainer.
That night, while the team was dressing in the Gymnasium, the coaches gave the men the benefit of some advice. "You fellows forgot most of the time," said Hanley, "that you were a team. You were playing every man for himself. You should have licked that Princeton team, and the only reason you didn't was that you were not a Yale team. We don't want brilliant individual stuff. One must help the other. If you get together before next Saturday we can beat Harvard. If you play as you did to-day, Harvard will lick you out of your boots, because she has a great team and it is together. You are just as good, but you are not together." It was straight talk, and it sank deep.
Monday was a day of rest at the field, but onTuesday the final preparation for Harvard began. Behind locked gates under the urgings of the half a score of coaches who had hurried to New Haven, the previous practice and even the Princeton game were like child's play. Armstrong was at right end, a position which he had fairly won, but Saunders on the Second eleven fought tooth and nail to displace him. It seemed to Frank that the Second eleven coaches had a particular grudge at his end, for he was called upon to stop more than his share of attacks. But he was able to do what was expected of him, backed up as he was by the sturdy and omnipresent Turner who withstood everything with a never-failing energy.
Wednesday's practice, fiercer than the day before, if that could be, found Frank Armstrong still in possession of his place at right end, but it was with a sigh of relief that he heard the welcome "That's all," of Coach Hanley. He watched with interest the usual celebration of the Second eleven which marks the end of the year's practice.
On Thursday the 'Varsity, with substitutes, a score of coaches and heelers, took the afternoon train to the north, and were quartered at a hoteljust outside of Cambridge. A brief signal practice was held in the towering Stadium on Soldiers Field Friday, where the last instructions were given to the men. It would be too much to say, and not the truth, that the night was a peaceful one for most of the Yale eleven. Turner and Armstrong were quartered in separate beds in the same room. The former slept like a log, apparently free from all thoughts of the morrow. Frank, on the other hand, tossed and turned, got up in the night and sat at the window while his companion snored contentedly. In the early hours of the morning he finally dropped into a sleep which was disturbed by dreams of the Harvard runners slipping past just beyond his reach. How he got through the morning he never knew, but he did get through somehow, and finally found himself dressed for the fray and in the big 'bus with the rest of the eleven, headed for the Stadium.
"There go the Yaleses!" sang out an urchin.
"Dey won't look so nice as dat when de Harvards get through wit' dem," shouted his companion.
Occasionally the 'bus passed Yale sympathizers,and then it got a cheer or: "Go to it, Yale, you're the boys who can do it!"
From every direction throngs of people were heading toward the great concrete structure whose huge gray bulk seemed to fill the horizon. Already thousands swarmed in its arches, and even at this hour little black specks of human beings were seen outlined on its upper heights against the sky. Progress became slower as the 'bus neared the field, and it finally took the combined efforts of a squad of police to break the crowd sufficiently to let the Yale players through to the Locker Building within the shadow of the Stadium walls.
The game was to be started at two o'clock, and at a quarter of that hour it would have been difficult to find a vacant place in all those towering tiers. Yale occupied the south and Harvard the north side of the field. The cheer-leaders were tuning up, as it were. Back and forth across the field were flung songs and cheers, and in this lull before the battle each applauded the other's efforts.
Five minutes before the hour the Harvard captain, with his red-jerseyed and red-stockinged warriors at his heels, dashed through the gateat the northwest corner of the field. A great wave of crimson seemed to sweep the Harvard stand from end to end as the thirty thousand Harvard sympathizers rose to their feet, waving flags and red bandannas. A crackling cheer like musketry rolled across the field. While the Harvard cheer-leaders called for a cheer for the team, the Yale stand sat motionless. A minute later, however, it sprang into life as Captain Baldwin led his men onto the field through the same gate at a loping run. The Yale crowd was smaller, but what a noise it did make!
After a few minutes of signal practice, the two captains with the officials met at the center of the field and tossed for choice of sides. The coin which was flipped in the air by the referee fell heads, which was the side Captain Randall of Harvard, had called, and he indicated with a sweep of his hand that he would take the west end of the field. What little wind was then blowing at his back was the only advantage he had. Both elevens quickly dropped into their places, the whistle shrilled and the game was on.
That was a game which went down in history as one of the fiercest and hardest ever played between the two old rivals. It was clean andfree from bad feeling which sometimes marks close games, but intense from the first line-up to the last. Harvard, after receiving the ball on the kick-off, cut loose a smashing attack through the line, reeling off the yards with terrible, tremendous force, a force that Yale did not seem to be able to meet successfully.
Down over the white lines went the Harvard machine, plays timed to perfection and gaining wherever they struck, not much, but enough in three tries to carry them the necessary yards for a first down. A perfect roar of cheers boiled up from the Harvard side of the field while Yale seemed paralyzed. Only after the ball had been pushed well into Yale territory did her cheer-leaders begin to get something like a cheer of volume.
But Yale was learning, and before Harvard had progressed to the danger zone the advance was stopped, and Yale took the ball, an act that was approved by a mighty cheer.
Turner bored through for eight yards on the first play, and followed it up with enough to make a first down, but there the advance stopped. Porter, the Yale fullback, who was doing the punting, was hurried by the rush of the Harvardforwards, and his kick almost blocked. It traveled diagonally across the field for a bare fifteen-yards gain, and was Harvard's ball.
"Now stop 'em right here! Take it away," commanded Captain Baldwin. "You can do it!"
But Harvard was not to be stopped just then. Playing like red demons, they fought their way foot by foot into Yale's territory, and threatened the Yale goal. Turner and Armstrong were on the bottom of every heap when the play came at their side, but the best they could do was to keep the gains down. They could not entirely stop them. But the gallant Yale line rallied less than ten yards from their goal, and again checked the crimson attack. So determined were the Harvard team to make a touchdown that they scorned to try a field goal, and depended on a forward pass to make the necessary distance.
Armstrong, alert for just such a move, intercepted the ball and again it was Yale's. Yale's rushing attack was stopped short and Porter was sent back to punt.
"Block it! block it! block it!" yelled the Harvard partisans but although the red line tried desperately to do this, Porter succeeded in getting his kick off, but the ball went high, was heldback by the wind which at that moment was blowing a stiff breeze, and it dropped into the Harvard quarter's hands a bare twenty yards back of his line of scrimmage. A groan went up from the Yale hosts as Harvard, for the third time, took up the march down the field.
Yale's defense stiffened and made her opponent's going become harder. With five yards to go for a first down, the Harvard quarter and his right end executed a neat forward pass which put the ball on Yale's twelve-yard line directly opposite the posts, and one smash at right tackle put it three yards nearer the goal line.
"Touchdown! touchdown! touchdown!" begged the Harvard stand.
"Hold 'em, hold 'em, hold 'em!" pleaded Yale, but the pleading was of no avail, for that splendid Harvard team, working like a well-oiled piece of machinery, drove on and over their opponents till the ball lay only three yards away from the goal. A touchdown seemed inevitable.
Captain Baldwin drew his men together in a little group and exhorted them to such good purpose that the next charge was stopped dead in its tracks. Again the lines faced each other, again came the crash of body meeting body. The Harvardback with the ball tucked under his arm shot off to the left, slipped inside his own tackle and was clear of the first line of defense. But as he straightened up from his running crouching position, Turner met him with a bull-like rush, picked him clear off his feet and threw him with such violence that the ball flew from his grasp and bounced crazily along the ground in the direction of the goal. Man after man took a diving shot at it as it rolled until the turf was covered with sprawling figures. Finally the ball disappeared beneath a mass of bodies which the referee slowly dug apart and found—Frank Armstrong wrapped around the ball in a loving embrace!
"Yale's ball," was the silent announcement of the scoreboard, but never was an announcement before or since greeted with such a yell.
From that moment the tide of battle turned. Porter got off a long, low twisting punt which caught the Harvard backfield man napping. He made a desperate effort to reach it, but although he got his hands on the ball he could not hold it, and was swept away by a blue avalanche. When the smoke cleared away, Captain Baldwin was lying on the ball on Harvard's forty-yard line.Before the teams could line up again, the whistle blew to end the quarter and the teams changed ends of the field.
Three minutes later the game was on again, this time with Yale the aggressor and Harvard on the defensive. Conditions of the first quarter were reversed and now it was Yale, the team fighting like one man, who was pushing her opponents steadily down the field. Held at the thirty-yard line with three yards to go for a first down, the Yale quarter sent a pretty forward pass to Armstrong who made a beautiful catch and was not downed till he was run out of bounds at the fifteen-yard line. Pandemonium reigned among the Yale hosts, and the cheer-leaders tried vainly to get a unison cheer. The crowd would not look but kept their eyes glued on the play.
Now it was Yale's turn to call for a touchdown, and the tiered thousands did it right lustily, but unfortunately, for their hopes, a bad pass on the next play lost five yards and Turner was stopped on the next attempt.
"Armstrong back!" cried the quarter.
Frank left his place at end and took up his position fifteen yards back of the line of scrimmage, measuring carefully the distance to thegoal posts, thirty-five yards away, while the crowd waited in breathless silence. The lines crouched tense and ready. The ball shot back from Biddle on a long pass to Frank but it came so low that he had almost to pick it from the ground. Quick as a flash he straightened up, dropped the ball to the ground, and drove his toe against it as it rose again. Away it spun on its course, while the eyes of forty thousand people strained after its flight. But luck was against Yale that day. The ball, traveling straight and true, had not been given quite enough power. It struck the cross-bar, bounced high in the air and fell back into the playing field where a Harvard back pounced upon it. Harvard punted on the kick-out over forty-five yards and after several exchanges without result, the half ended and the tired players tramped slowly off to the Locker House to be told by the coaches why they had not done their work just right.
Fifteen minutes later the game was on again, but not with its first fierceness. No human beings could continue the pace set in that first half, and the play settled into a punting duel between Porter and his opponent, with neither team able togain much by straight rushing. Both tried forward passes but with a few exceptions they failed for one reason or another. The quarter passed without either team threatening the other's goal, and predictions were beginning to be made that barring accidents the game would be a tie.
Five minutes after the fourth period began, a fumbled punt by the Yale quarter and a recovery by an alert Harvard end shifted the battle with jarring suddenness into Yale territory, with Yale on the defensive. Again the Harvard machine began to work with its first smoothness and down, down they drove the ball in spite of a desperate defense.
Held at the ten-yard line, the Harvard quarter, who in the early season had been heralded as a great drop-kicker but who had shown nothing of his ability in late games, dropped back ten or twelve yards behind his line and put the ball between the posts with neatness and dispatch. When the tumult, which the field goal had brought to pass in the Harvard stands, quieted down again Yale set out to win back the points lost. But it seemed like a hopeless task, for Harvard,with victory in sight met every effort, and stopped it.
Time was flying, and many of the Harvard people, feeling assured of Harvard's victory, were filing out of the stands. Yale supporters stayed on, hoping against hope, for only five minutes were left to play.
Suddenly the Yale quarter changed his tactics. Catching the Harvard backs in a favorable position for the play, he snapped a forward pass to Armstrong who caught it and made the middle of the field on a dodging run, where he was brought down from behind. The gain brought hope back to drooping Yale spirits, and a cheer rattled across the field. Immediately on the heels of this successful pass, which drew out the Harvard defense, he sent Turner into the line and added another eight yards. The tide of Harvard departure was suddenly checked by this hostile demonstration, and seeing that the defense did not close up, the heady little quarter tried Turner again with such effect that it was a first down.
The Yale stands were cheering like mad, at this unlooked-for burst of speed when the team was supposed to be beaten. The captain himself,with Turner clearing the way, lunged forward five yards and added two more a moment later. Again the Harvard defense crept in and the Yale quarter, seeing his opportunity, drove another forward pass to Armstrong who caught it cleanly and was off like the wind. He sidestepped the tackle by the opposing end, ran obliquely toward the side-line, stopped and let the rush of tacklers pass him, slipped out of what seemed an impossible position, and with a clear field, with the exception of one man, cut straight for the goal line with friend and foe thundering behind. Straight at the tackler, who waited with outstretched arms, he ran. The muscles, which had been crying for rest a moment before, were now like steel. Now he was within two steps of the Harvard back. He appeared to be running straight to certain disaster, but as the Harvard tackler lunged forward, Frank swung his body to one side, brought his forearm down with all his force on the outstretched arm nearest him, and was past. The momentary check, however, brought a fleet Harvard end up to him, who, unwilling to take a chance at the Yale man's flying legs, sprang full upon his back. The force carried Frank off his feet, staggering headlong.Even with the burden on his back he managed to fall head-first toward the goal line, where he was instantly pinned to the ground by two tacklers with such force that he lay stunned.
He required the services of the trainer with sponge and water bottle before the play could be resumed. The ball lay exactly ten yards from the goal and in the face of the known defensive strength of Harvard, it seemed an impossible task to put it over from there.
Captain Baldwin took the ball two yards on the first try and then the red-headed Turner, like a maddened bull, drove through for four yards in a whirling mass of red and blue-legged players. Again Turner was called upon and when the pile untangled, he had laid the ball within two yards of the coveted white line which to cross meant glorious victory.
Captain Baldwin drew his men back for a conference while the stands stopped their cheering long enough to speculate whether he would attempt a goal from the field or risk defeat on an attempt to carry the ball across for a touchdown. Doubts were soon set at rest for the Yale team sprang back into regular formation and crouched for the signal.
You might have heard a pin drop in that vast crowd, so still they were as the two lines crouched, with swaying arms and tense bodies. Snappily came the signal, sounding high, clear and shrill in that amazing quiet, followed by the crash of meeting lines. Turner with his head down between his mighty shoulders, drove like a catapult into the struggling mass on the heels of his captain. There was a moment of squirming and grinding, then the whole mass fell in a sort of pyramid which refused to untangle itself even at the orders of the referee, and he was obliged to pull and dig to get at the bottom. And what he found at the bottom was Turner, bruised and bleeding, but joyfully happy with the ball hugged to his breast and across the goal line by four inches!
It was of no account that the kick-out (for the touchdown had been made well toward the corner of the field) was bungled. Yale had scored a touchdown and the lead. Two minutes afterward the whistle ended the game, and the wildest sort of celebration began. Every member of the Yale team was seized, protesting, and carried by the half-crazed students in a whirling march around the field. Hats were thrown over thegoal posts by the hundreds, the owners entirely indifferent as to whether they ever got their headgear back again. Many students went back to New Haven that night minus their hats, but little did it matter as Yale had won a glorious battle in the face of what seemed certain defeat. And the names of Turner and Armstrong were on every tongue.
That night Turner was elected captain and Frank cast his vote for his old friend although he himself had been nominated as a candidate.