Almost before he knew it Stover was in the car and the wheels were moving at last irresistibly toward the field. There was no longer any pretense in those last awful moments that had in them all the concentrated hopes and fears of the weeks that had rushed away. The faces of his own team-mates were only gray faces without identity. He saw some one's lips moving incessantly, but he did not remember whose they were. Opposite him, another man was bending over, his head hidden in his hands. Some one else at his side was nervously locking and unlocking his fingers, breathing short, hard breaths. He remembered only the stillness of it all, the forgetfulness of others, the set stares, and Charlie de Soto fidgeting on the seat and nervously humming something irrelevant.
Caught up in this unreasoning intensity of a young nation, filled, too, with this exaggerated passion of combat, Stover leaned back limply. Outside, the street was choked with hilarious parties packed in rushing carriages, blue or orange-and-black. Horns and rattles sounded like tiny sounds in his ears, and his eyes saw only grotesque blurred shapes that swept across them.
"I'll get 'em off—they won't block any on me—they mustn't," he said to himself, closing his eyes.
Then, on top of the draining weakness that had him in its grip, came a sudden feeling of nausea, and he knew suddenly what the man opposite him with his head in his hands was fighting. He put his arms over the ledge ofthe door, and rested his head on them, too weak to care that every one saw him, gulping in the stinging air in desperation.
All at once there came a grinding jerk and the car stopped. From the inside came Tompkins' angry, rasping voice:
"Every one up! Get out there! Quick! On the jump!"
Instinctively obedient, the vertigo left him, his mind cleared. He was out in the midst of the bobbing mass of blue sweaters, moving as in a nightmare through the black spectators, seeing ahead the mammoth stands, hearing the dull, engulfing roars as one hears at night the approaching surf.
Then they were struggling through the human barriers, and he saw something green at the bottom of a stormy pit, and a great growing roar of welcome smote him as of a descending gale, the hysterical cry of the American multitude, a roar acclaiming Yale.
"All ready!" said Dana's unrecognizable voice somewhere ahead. "On the trot, now!"
Instantly he was sweeping on to the field and up along the frantic stands of suddenly released blue. All indecision, all weakness, went with the first hoarse cry from his own. Something hot and alive seemed to flow back into his veins, and with every stride the spongy turf underneath seemed to send its strength and vitality into his legs.
From the other end of the field, through the somber crowd, an orange-and-black group was trickling, flowing into a band and sweeping out on the field, while the Princeton stands were surging to their feet, adding the mounting fury of their welcome to the deafening uproarthat suddenly bound the arena in the gripping hollow of a whirlwind.
"Line up, you blue devils," came Charlie de Soto's raucous cry. "On your toes. Get your teeth into it. Hard, now. Ha-a-ard!"
He was in action immediately, thinking only of the signals, sweeping down the field, now to the right, now to the left, stumbling in his eagerness.
"Enough," said the captain's voice, at last. "Get under your sweaters, fellows. Brown and Stover, start up some punts."
Dana and Dudley went back to practise catching. Brown, the center, pigskin under hand, set himself for the pass, while Stover, blowing on his hands, measured his distance. Opposite, Bannerman, the Princeton fullback, was setting himself for a similar attempt.
In the stands was a sudden craning hush as the great audience waited to see with its own eyes the disparity between the rival fullbacks.
Stover, standing out, felt it all instinctively, with a little nervous tremor—the quick stir in the stands, the muttered comments, the tense turning of even the cheer leaders.
Then the ball came shooting back to him. He caught it, turned it in his hands, and drove forward his leg with all his might. At the same moment, as if maliciously calculated, the great booming punt of Bannerman brought the Princeton stands, rollicking and gleeful, to their feet in a burst of triumph.
In his own stands there was no answering shout Stover felt on his cheeks, under his eyes, two hot spots of anger. What did they know, who condemned him, of the sacrifice he had made, of the far more difficult thinghe was doing? He remembered Tompkins' advice; he could not compete with Bannerman in the air. Deliberately he sent his next punt low, swift, striking the ground about thirty yards away and rolling treacherously another fifteen feet before Dudley, who had swerved out, could stop it. This time from the mass almost a groan went up.
A sudden cold contempt for them, for everything, seized possession of Stover. He hated them all. He stooped, plucked a blade of grass, and stuck it defiantly between his teeth.
"Shoot that back a little lower, Brown," he said with a sudden quick authority, and again and again he sent off his fast, low-rolling punts.
"That's the stuff, Dink," said Tompkins, with a pat on the shoulder, "but you've got to get 'em off on the instant—remember that. Here, throw this sweater over you."
"All right."
He did not sit down, but walked back and forth with short steps, waiting for the interminable conference of the captains to be over. And again that same sinking, hollow feeling came over him in the suspense before the question that would be answered in the first shock of bodies.
The feeling he felt ran through the thousands gathered only to a spectacle. The cheers grew faint, lacking vitality, and the stir of feet was a nerve-racked stir. Dink gazed up at the high benches, trying to forget the interval of seconds that must be endured. It did not seem possible that he was to go out before them all. It seemed rather that in a far-off consciousness he was the same loyal little shaver who had squirmed so often on the top line of the benches, clinging to his knees, biting his lips, and looking weakly on the ground.
"All ready—get out, boys!"
Dana came running back. Yale had won the toss and had chosen to kick off.
Some one pulled his sweater from him, struck him a stinging slap between the shoulders, and propelled him on the field.
"Yale this way!"
They formed in a circle, heads down, arms locked over one another's shoulders, disputing the same air; and Dana, the captain, who believed in a victory, spoke:
"Now, fellows, one word. It's up to us. Do you understand what that means? It's up to us to win, the way Yale has won in the past—and win we're going to, no matter how long it takes or what's against us. Now, get mad, every one of you. Run 'em right off their feet. That's all."
The shoulders under Stover's left him. He went hazily to the place, a little behind the rest, where he knew he should go, waiting while Brown poised the football, waiting while the orange-and-black jerseys indistinctly scattered before him to their formation, waiting for the whistle for which he had waited all his life to release him.
And for a third time his legs seemed to crumble, and the whole blurred scheme of stands and field to reel away from him, and his heart to be lying before him on the ground where he could lean over and pick it up.
Then like a pistol shot the whistle went throbbing through his brain. He sprang forward as if out of the shell of himself, keen, alert, filled with a savage longing.
Down the field a Princeton halfback had caught the ball and was squirming back. Then a sudden upheaval, and a mass was spread on the ground.
"Guess he gained about fifteen on that," he said to himself. "They'll kick right off."
Dana came running back to support him. Out of the sky like a monstrous bird something round, yellow, and squirming came floating toward him. He was forced to run back, misjudged it a little, reached out, half fumbled it, and recovered it with a plunging dive just as Cockerell landed upon him.
"Get you next time, Dink," said the voice of his old school captain in his ear.
Stover, struggling to his feet, looked him coolly in the eye.
"No, you won't, Garry, and you know it. The next time I'm going back ten yards."
"Well, boy, we'll see."
They shook hands with a grim smile, while the field straggled up. He was lined up, flanked by Dana and Dudley, bending over, waiting for the signal. Three times De Soto, trying out the Princeton line, sent Dana plunging against the right tackle, barely gaining the distance. A fourth attempt being stopped for a loss, Stover dropped back for a kick on the second down.
The ball came a little low, and with it the whole line seemed torn asunder and the field filled with the rush of converging bodies. To have kicked would have been fatal. He dropped quickly on the ball, covering it, under the shock of his opponents.
Again he was back, waiting for the trial that was coming. He forgot that he was a freshman—forgot everything but his own utter responsibility.
"You center men, hold that line!" he cried. "You give me a chance! Give me time!"
Then the ball was in his hands, and, still a little hurried, he sent it too high over the frantic leaping rush, hurled to the ground the instant after.
The exchange had netted Princeton twenty yards. Asecond time Bannerman lifted his punt, high, long, twisting and turning over itself in tricky spirals. It was a perfect kick, giving the ends exact time to cover it.
Stover, with arms outstretched, straining upward, cool as a Yankee, knew, from the rushing bodies he did not dare to look at, what was coming. The ball landed in his convulsive arms, and almost exactly with it Garry Cockerell's body shot into him and tumbled him clear off the ground, crashing down; but the ball was locked in his arms in one of those catches of which the marvel of the game is, not that they are not made oftener, but that they are made at all.
"Come on now, Yale," shouted Charlie De Soto's inflaming voice. "We've got to rip this line. Signal!"
Two masses on center, two futile straining, crushing attempts, and again he was called on to kick. The tackles he had received had steadied him, driving from his too imaginative mind all consideration but the direct present need.
He began to enjoy with a fierce delight this kicking in the very teeth of the frantic Princeton rushes, as he had stood on the beach waiting for great breakers to form above his head before diving through.
On the fourth exchange of kicks he stood on his own goal-line. The test had come at last. Dana, furious at being driven back without a Princeton rush, came to him wildly.
"Dink, you've got to make it good!"
"Take that long-legged Princeton tackle when he comes through," he said quietly. "Don't worry about me."
Luckily, they were over to the left side of the field. He chose his opening, and, kicking low, as Tompkins had coached him, had the joy of seeing the ball go flying over the ground and out of bounds at the forty-yard line.
The Princeton team, springing into position, at last opened its attack.
"Now we'll see," said Stover, chafing in the backfield.
Using apparently but one formation, a circular mass, which, when directly checked, began to revolve out toward end, always pushing ahead, always concealing the runner, the Princeton attack surely, deliberately, and confidently rolled down the field like a juggernaut.
From the forty-yard line to the thirty it came in two rushes, from the thirty to the twenty in three; and then suddenly some one was tricked, drawn in from the vital attack, and the runner, guarded by one interferer, swept past the unprotected end and set out for a touchdown.
Stover went forward to meet them like a shot, frantic to save the precious yards. How he did it he never quite knew, but somehow he managed to fling himself just in front of the interferer and go down with a death grip on one leg of the runner.
A cold sponge was being spattered over him, he was on his back fighting hard for his breath, when he again realized where he was. He tried to rise, remembering all at once.
"Did I stop him?"
"You bet you did."
Regan and Dudley had their arms about him, lifting him and walking him up and down.
"Get your breath back, old boy."
"I'm all right."
"Take your time; that Princeton duck hasn't come to yet!"
He perceived in the opposite group something prone on the ground, and the sight was like a tonic.
The ball lay inside the ten-yard line, within the sacred zone. In a moment, no longer eliminated, but close tothe breathing mass, he was at the back of his own men, shrieking and imploring:
"Get the jump, Yale!"
"Throw them back, Yale!"
"Fight 'em back!"
"You've got to, Yale—you've got to!"
Then, again and again, the same perfected grinding surge of the complete machine: three yards, two yards, two yards, and he was underneath the last mass, desperately blocking off some one who held the vital ball, hoping against hope, blind with the struggle, saying to himself:
"It isn't a touchdown! It can't be! We've stopped them! It's Yale's ball!"
Some one was squirming down through the gradually lightening mass. A great weight went from his back, and suddenly he saw the face of the referee seeking the exact location of the ball.
"What is it?" he asked wildly.
"Touchdown."
Some one dragged him to his feet, and, unnoticing, he leaned against him, gazing at the ball that lay just over the goal-line, seeing with almost a bull-like rage the Princeton substitutes frantically capering up and down the line, hugging one another, agitating their blankets, turning somersaults.
"Line up, Yale," said the captain's unyielding voice, "this is only the beginning. We'll get 'em."
But Stover knew better. The burst of anger past, his head cleared. That Princeton team was going to score again, by the same process, playing on his weakness, exchanging punts, hoping to block one of his until within striking distance, and the size of the score would depend on how long he could stand it off.
"Goal," came the referee's verdict, and with it anotherroar from somewhere. He went up the field looking straight ahead, hearing, like a sound in a memory, a song of jubilation and the brassy accompaniment of a band.
Again the same story: ten, fifteen yards gained on every exchange of kicks, and a slow retrogression toward their own goal. Time and again they flung themselves against a stronger line, in a vain effort to win back the last yards. Once, in a plunge through center, he found an opening, and went plunging along for ten yards; but at the last the ball was Princeton's on the thirty-five-yard line, and a second irresistible march bore Yale back, fighting and frantic over the line for the second score.
Playing became an instinct with him. He no longer feared the soaring punts that came tumbling to him from the clouds. His arms closed around them like tentacles, and he was off for the meager yards he could gain before he went down with a crash. He no longer felt the shock of the desperate tackles he was called on to make, nor the stifling pressure above him when he flung himself under the serried legs of the mass.
He had but one duty—to be true to what he had promised Tompkins: not to fumble, not to miss a tackle, to get each punt off clean.
All at once, as he was setting in position, a body rushed in, seizing the ball.
"Time!"
The first half was over, and the score was: Princeton, 18; Yale, 0.
Then all at once he felt his weariness. He went slowly, grimly with the rest back to the dressing-room. A group of urchins clustering to a tree shrieked at them:
"O you Yaleses!"
He heard that, and that was all he heard. A sort ofrebellion was in him. He had done all that he could do, and now they would haul him over the coals, thinking that was what he needed.
"Oh, I know what'll be said," he thought grimly. "We'll be told we can win out in the second, and all that rot."
Then he was in the hands of the rubbers, having his wet, clinging suit stripped from him, being rubbed and massaged. He did not want to look at his comrades, least of all Dana. He only wanted to get back, to have it over with.
"Yale, I want you to listen to me."
He looked up. In the center stood Tompkins, preternaturally grave, trembling a little with nervous, uncontrollable twitches of his body.
"You're up against a great Princeton team—the greatest I remember. You can't win. You never had a chance to win. But, Yale, you're going to do something to make us proud of you. You're going to hold that score where it is! Do you hear me? All you've got left is your nerve and the chance to show that you can die game. That's all you're going to do; but, by heaven, you're going to do that! You're going to die game, Yale! Every mother's son of you! And when the game's over we're going to be prouder of your second half than the whole blooming Princeton bunch over their first. There's your chance. Make us rise up and yell for you. Will you, Yale?"
He passed from man to man, advising, exhorting, or storming, until he came to Stover.
"Dink," he said, putting out his hand and changing his tone suddenly, "I haven't a word to say to you. Play the game as you've been doing—only play it out."
Stover felt a sudden rush of shame; all the fatigue left him as if by magic.
"If Charlie'll only give me a few chances at the center. I know I could gain there," he said eagerly.
"You'll get a chance later on, perhaps, but you've quite enough to do now."
The second view of the arena was clear to him, even to insignificant details. He thought the cheer leaders, laboring muscularly with their long megaphones, strangely out of place—especially a short, fat little fellow in a white voluminous sweater. He saw in the crowd a face or two that he recognized—Bob Story in a group of pretty girls, all superhumanly glum and cast down. Then he had shed his sweater and was out on the field, back under the goal-posts, ready for the bruising second half to begin.
"All ready, Yale!"
"All ready."
Again the whistle and the rush of bodies. Dana caught the ball, and, shifting and dodging, shaking off the first tacklers, carried it back twenty yards. Two short, jamming plunges by Dudley, through Regan, who alone was outplaying his man, yielded first down. Then an attempt at Cockerell's end brought a loss and the inevitable kick.
Instead of a return punt, the Princeton eleven prepared to rush the ball.
"Why the deuce do they do that?" he thought, biting his fingers nervously.
Opening up their play, Princeton swept out toward Bangs's end, forcing it back for four yards, and immediately made first down with a long, sweeping lunge at the other end.
Suddenly Stover, in the backfield, watching like a cat, started forward with a cry. Far off to one side, aPrinceton back, unperceived, was bending down, pretending to be fastening one of his shoe-laces.
"Look out—look out to the left!"
His cry came too late. The Princeton quarter made a long toss straight across, twenty yards, to the loitering half, who caught it and started down field clear of the line of scrimmage.
A Princeton forward tried to intercept him, but Stover flung him aside, and, without waiting, went forward at top speed to meet the man who came without flinching to his tackle. It was almost head on, and the shock, which left Stover stunned, instinctively clinging to his man, sent the ball free, where Dana pounced upon it.
"Holy Mike, what a tackle!" said Regan's voice. "Any bones broken?"
"Of course not," he said gruffly.
Some one insisted on sponging his face, much to his disgust.
"How's the other fellow?" he said grimly.
"He's a tough nut; he's up, too!"
"He must be."
The recovery of the ball gave them a short respite, but it served also to enrage the other line, which rose up and absolutely smothered the next plays. Again his kick seemed to graze the outstretched fingers of the Princeton forwards, and he laughed a strange laugh which he remembered long after.
This time the punting duel was resumed until, well within Yale territory, Cockerell looked around and gave the signal for attack.
"Now, Yale, stop it, stop it!" Dink said, talking to himself.
But there was no stopping that attack. Powerless, notdaring to approach, he saw the blue line bend back again and again, and the steady, machine-like rolling up of the orange and black. Over the twenty-five-yard line it came, and on past the twenty.
"Oh, Yale, will you let 'em score again?" De Soto was shrieking.
"You're on your ten-yard line, Yale."
"Hold them!"
"Hold them!"
Two yards at a time, they were rolled back with a mathematical, unfeeling precision.
"Third down; two yards to go!"
"Yale, stop it!"
"Yale!"
And stop it they did, by a bare six inches. Behind the goal-line, Charlie De Soto came up, as he stood measuring his distance for a kick.
"How are you, Dink? Want a bit of a rest—sponge-off?"
"Rest be hanged!" he said fiercely. "Come on with that ball."
Suddenly, instead of kicking low and off to the right, he sent the ball straight down the field with every ounce of strength he could put in it. The punt, the best he had made, catching the back by surprise, went over his head, rolling up the field before he could recover it. A great roar went up from the Yale stands, fired by the spirit of resistance.
Thereafter it had all a grim sameness, except, in a strange way, it seemed to him that nothing that had gone before counted—that everything they were fighting for was to keep their goal-line inviolate. Nothing new seemed to happen. When he went fiercely into a mêlée, finding his man somehow, or felt the rush of bodies abouthim as he managed each time to get clear his punt, he had the same feeling:
"Why, I've done this before."
A dozen times they stopped the Princeton advance, sometimes far away and sometimes near, once within the five-yard line. Every moment, now, some one cried wearily:
"What's the time?"
The gray of November twilights, the haze that settles over the struggles of the gridiron like the smoke of a battle-field, began to close in. And then a sudden fumble, a blocked kick, and by a swift turn of luck it was Yale's ball for the first time in Princeton's territory. One or two subs came rushing in eagerly from the side lines. Every one was talking at once:
"What's the time?"
"Five minutes more."
"Get together, Yale!"
"Show 'em how!"
"Ram it through them!"
"Here's our chance!"
Stover, beside himself, ran up to De Soto and flung his arms about his neck, whispering in his ear:
"Give me a chance—you must give me a chance! Send me through Regan!"
He got his signal, and went into the breach with every nerve set, fighting his way behind the great bulk of Regan for a good eight yards. A second time he was called on, and broke the line for another first down.
Regan was transformed. All his calm had gone. He loomed in the line like a Colossus, flinging out his arms, shouting:
"We're rotten, are we? Carry it right down the field, boys!"
Every one caught the infection. De Soto, with his hand to his mouth, was shouting hoarsely, through the bedlam of cheers, his gleeful slogan:
"We don't want to live forever, boys! What do we care? We've got to face Yale after this. Never mind your necks. We've got the doctors! A little more murder, now! Shove that ball down that field, Yale! Send them back on stretchers! Nineteen—eight—six—four—Ha-a-ard!"
Again and again Stover was called on, and again and again, with his whole team behind him or Regan's great arm about him, struggling to keep his feet, crawling on his knees, fighting for every last inch, he carried the ball down the field twenty, thirty yards on.
He forgot where he was, standing there with blazing eyes and colorless face. He forgot that he was only the freshman, as he had that night in the wrestling bout. He gave orders, shouted advice, spurred them on. He felt no weariness; nothing could tire him. His chance had come at last. He went into the line each time blubbering, laughing with the fierce joy of it, shouting to himself:
"I'm the weak spot, am I? I'll show them!"
And the certainty of it all overwhelmed him. Nothing could stop him now. He knew it. He was going to score. He was going to cross that line only fifteen yards away.
"Give me that ball again!" he cried to De Soto.
Then something seemed to go wrong. De Soto and Dudley were shrieking out something, protesting wildly.
"What's wrong?" he cried.
"They're calling time on us!"
"No, no, it's not possible! It's not time!"
He turned hysterically, beseechingly, catching hold of the referee's arm, not knowing what he did.
"Mr. Referee, it isn't time. Mr. Referee—"
"Game's over," said Captain Dana's still voice. "Get together, Yale. Cheer for Princeton now. Make it a good one!"
But no one heard them in the uproar that suddenly went up. Nature could not hold out; the disappointment had been too severe. Stover stood with his arms on Regan's shoulders, and together they bowed their heads and went choking through the crowd. Others rushed around him—he thought he heard Tompkins saying something. He seemed lost in the crowd that stared at him, struggling to hold back his grief. Only one figure stood out distinctly—the figure of a white-haired man, who took off his hat to him as he went through the barrier, and shouted something unintelligible—a strangely excited white-haired man.
All the way back to the gymnasium, through the jubilant street, Dink sat staring out unseeing, his eyes blurred, a great lump in his throat, possessed by a fatigue such as he had never known before. No one spoke. Through his own brain ceaselessly the score, strangely jumbled, went its tiring way:
"Eighteen to nothing—to nothing! Eighteen to six—it should have been eighteen to six. Eighteen to nothing. It's awful—awful! If I only could punt!"
His ideal, his dream of a Yale team, had always been of victory, not like this, to go down powerless, swept aside, routed—to such a defeat!
Then he shut his eyes, fighting over again those last desperate rushes against defeat, against hope, against time, unable to believe it was over.
"How many times did I take that ball?" he thought wearily. "Was it seven or eight? If I'd only got free that last time—kept my feet!"
He remembered flashes of that last frenzy—the face of a Princeton rusher who reached for him and missed, the teeth savage as a wolf's and the strained mouth. He saw again Regan turning around to pull him through, Regan, the brute, raging like a fury. He remembered the quick, strange white looks that Charlie De Soto had given him, wondering each time if he had the strength to go on. Why had they stopped them? They had a right to that last rally!
"Eighteen to nothing. Poor Dana—I wonder what he'll do?"
He remembered, in a far-off way, tales he had heard of other captains, disgraced by defeat, breaking down, leaving college, disappearing. He dreaded the moment when they should break silence, when the awful thing must be talked over, there in the gymnasium, feeling acutely all the misery and ache Dana must be feeling.
"All right there, Stover? Let yourself go, if you want to."
The voice was Tompkins', who was looking up at him anxiously, the gymnasium at his back.
"All right," he said gruffly, raising himself with an effort and half slipping to the ground.
"Sure? How's Dudley?"
He realized in a curious way that others, too, had gone through the game. Then Regan's arm was around him. He did not put it from him, grateful for any support in his weakness. Together they went through the crowd of ragamuffins staring open-mouthed at a defeated team.
"What's the matter with Dudley?"
"Played through all the last with a couple of broken ribs."
"Dudley?"
"Yes. Go as slow as you want, old bantam."
"If we only could have had another minute, Tom—" He stopped, unable to go on, shaking his head.
"I know, I know."
"It was tough."
"Darned tough."
"I thought we were going to do it."
"Now, you shut up, young rooster. Don't think of it any more. You played like a fiend. We're proud of you."
"Poor Dana!"
Upstairs a couple of rubbers took charge of him, stripping him and rubbing him rigorously. Two or three coaches came up to him, gripping him with silent grips, patting him on the back. The cold bite of the shower brought back some of his vitality, and he dressed mechanically with the squad, who had nothing to say to one another.
"Yale, I want to talk to you boys a moment."
He looked up. In the center of the room was Rivers, coach of coaches, around whom the traditions of football had been formed. Stover looked at him dully, wondering how he could stand there filled with such energy.
"Now, boys, the game's over. We've lost. It's our turn; we've got to stand it. One thing I want you to remember when you go out of here.Yale teams take their medicine!"
His voice rose to a nervous staccato, and the sharp, cold eye seemed to look into every man, just as at school the Doctor used to awe them.
"Do you understand? Yale teams take their medicine! No talking, no reasoning, no explanations, no excuses, and no criticism! The thing's over and done. We'llhave a dinner to-night, and we'll start in on next year; and next year nothing under the sun's going to stop us! Go out; take off your hats! A great Princeton team licked you—licked you well! That's all. You deserved to score. You didn't. Hard luck. But those who saw you try for it won't forget it! We're proud of that second half! No talk, now, about what might have happened; no talk about what you're going to do. Shut up! Remember—grin and take your medicine."
"Mr. Rivers, I'd like to say a few words."
Stover, with almost a feeling of horror, saw Dana step forward quietly, purse his lips, look about openly, and say:
"Mr. Rivers, I understand what you mean, and what's underneath it all, and I thank you for it. At the same time, it's up to me to take the blame, and I'm not going to dodge it. I've been a poor captain. I thought I knew more than you did, and I didn't. I've made one fool blunder after another. But I did it honestly. Well, that doesn't matter—let that go. I say this because it's right, too, I should take my medicine, and because I don't want next year's captain to botch the job the way I've done. And now, just a word to you men. You've done everything I asked you to do, and kept your mouths shut, no matter what you thought of it. You've been loyal, and you'll be loyal, and there'll be no excuses outside. But I want you men to know that I'll remember it, and I want to thank you. That's all."
Instantly there was a buzz of voices, and one clear note dominating it—Regan's voice, stirred beyond thought of self:
"Boys, we're going to give that captain a cheer. Are you ready? Hip—hip!"
Somehow the cry that went up took from Dink all thesting of defeat. He went out, head erect, back to meet his college, no longer shrinking from the ordeal, proud of his captain, proud of his coach, and proud of a lesson he had learned bigger than a victory.
After the drudgery of the football season he had a few short weeks of gorgeous idleness, during which he browsed through a novel a day, curled up on his window-seat, rolling tobacco clouds through the fog of smokers in the room. He had won his spurs and the right to lounge, and he looked forward eagerly to the rest of the year as a time for reading and the opening up of the friendships of which he had dreamed.
Old age settled down rapidly upon him, and at eighteen that malady appears in its most virulent form. Perhaps there was a little justification. The test he had gone through had educated him to self-control in its most difficult form. He was not simply the big man of the class, the first to emerge to fame, but the prospective captain of a future Yale eleven. A certain gravity was requisite—moreover, it was due the University. To have seen the burning letters S-T-O-V-E-R actually vibrating on the front pages of metropolitan papers, to have gazed on his distinguished (though slightly smudged) features, ruined by an unfeeling photographer, but disputing nevertheless the public attention with statesmen and champions of the pugilistic ring—to have felt these heavenly sensations at the age of eighteen could not be lightly disguised.
So he lay back among welcome cushions, book in hand, and listened with a tolerant ear to the rapid-fire comedy of McNab and Buck Waters. He stayed much in his own room, which became a sort of lounging spot where the air was always blue with smoke and a mandolin orguitar was strumming a low refrain or a group near the fireplace was noisy with the hazards of the national game.
Pretty much every one of importance in the class dropped in on him. The preliminary visiting period of the sophomore societies was nearly over. With the opening of the winter term the hold-offs and elections would begin. He understood that those who were uncertain wished the advantage of being seen in his company—that his, in fact, was now the "right" crowd.
He intended to call on several men who interested him: Brockhurst, who had made his appearance with a story in theLitwhich announced him as a possible future chairman; Gimbel, about whose opinions and sincerity he was in doubt; and, above all, Regan, who genuinely attracted him. But, somehow, having now nothing to do, his afternoons and evenings seemed always filled, and he continually postponed until the morrow what suggested itself during the day. Besides, there was a complacent delight in being his own master again and of looking forward to such a period of independent languor.
The first discordant note to intrude itself upon this ideal was a remark of Le Baron's during one of the evening visits. These embassies were always conducted with punctiliousness and gravity. The inquisitorial sophomores arrived about eight o'clock in groups of three and four. As McCarthy was the object of attention from a different society, Stover, when the former's inspectors arrived, shook hands gravely, and shortly discovered that he had a letter to post at the corner. When the committee on Stover appeared trimly at the door, McCarthy rose at once to return a hypothetical book, after which the conversation began with about as much spontaneity and zest as would be permitted to a board of alienists sitting in judgment on a victim. The sophomores wereembarrassed with their own impromptu dignity, and the freshmen at the constraint of their superiors.
On one such occasion, after the committee of four had spent fifteen minutes in the grave discussion of a kindergarten topic, and had filed out with funereal solemnity, Le Baron returned for a more intimate conversation.
Since the night of his introduction to college, Stover had had only occasional glimpses of Le Baron. True, he was generally of the visiting committee that called every other night for perfunctory inspection, but through it all the sophomore had adopted an attitude of almost defensive aloofness and impartiality.
"I want to talk over some of the men in the class," said Le Baron, falling into an arm-chair and picking up a pipe, while his manner changed to naturalness and equality. Stover understood at once that the attitude was a notice served on him of the security of his own position.
"Dink, I want to know your opinion. What do you think of Brockhurst, for instance?"
"Brockhurst? Why, I hardly know him."
"Is he liked?"
"Why, yes."
"Who are his friends?"
Stover thought a moment.
"Why, I think he rather keeps to himself. He strikes me as being—well, a little undeveloped—rather shy."
"Do you like him?
"I do."
"And Schley?"
The question was put abruptly, Le Baron raising his eyes to get his answer from Stover's face.
"Schley?" said Dink, considering a little. "Why, Schley seems to—"
"Regan?" said Le Baron, satisfied.
"One of the best in the class!"
"He seems a rather rough diamond."
"He's proud as Lucifer—but he has more to him than any one I know."
"It's a question what he'll do."
"I'd back him every time."
"You are quite enthusiastic about him," said Le Baron, looking at him with a little quizzical surprise.
"He's a man," said Stover stoutly.
"Of course, the football captaincy will probably be between you two."
"Regan?" said Stover, amazed.
"Either you or Regan."
Stover had never thought of him as a rival for his dearest ambition. He remained silent, digesting the possibility, aware of Le Baron's searching inquiry.
"Of course, you have nine chances out of ten, but the race is a long one."
"He would make a good captain," Stover said slowly.
"You think so?"
"I hadn't thought of it before," Stover said, with a sudden falling inside, "but he has the stuff in him of a leader all right."
"I wish he weren't quite so set," said Le Baron. "He hasn't made a particularly favorable impression on some of the fellows."
An involuntary smile came to Stover at the thought of Regan's probable reception of a committee of inspection.
"He doesn't perhaps realize the importance of some things," he said carefully.
"He doesn't," said Le Baron, who was not without a sense of humor. "It's a pity, though, for his sake. I wish you'd talk to him a little."
"I will."
Le Baron rose.
"By the way, what are you going out for this spring?"
"This spring?" said Stover, surprised.
"Ever rowed any?"
"Never."
"That doesn't make any difference. You learn the stroke quicker—no bad habits."
"I'm light as mischief."
"Oh, I don't know—not for the freshman. We want to stimulate the interest in rowing up here. It's a good example for a man like you to come out. Ever done anything in baseball or the track?"
"No."
"Rowing's the stunt for you." He went toward the door, and turned. "Have a little chat with Regan. I admire the fellow, but he needs to rub up a bit with you fellows and get the sharp edges off him. By the way, when you start rowing I'll get hold of you and give you a little extra coaching."
When McCarthy came grinning through the door, he found Dink, his legs drawn up Turkish fashion, staring rebelliously at the ceiling.
"Hello! In love, or what?" said Tough, stopping short. "Recovering, perhaps, from the brilliant conversation?"
"By George, I'm not going out for anything more!" said Dink, between his teeth.
"Heavens! haven't you slaved enough?"
"You bet I have. I'll be hanged if I'm going through here—just varsity material. I'm going to be a little while my own master."
"You think so?" said McCarthy, with a short,incredulous laugh. "Every one's doing something." McCarthy was a candidate for the baseball nine.
"Have you heard anything about Regan?" said Stover, between puffs.
"In what way?"
"Have any of the sophomores been around to see him?"
McCarthy exploded into laughter. "Havethey? Didn't you hear what happened?"
"No. What?"
"They spent half the night locating his diggings, and when they got them the old rhinoceros wouldn't receive them."
"Why not?"
"Hadn't time, he said, to be fooling with them."
"The old chump!"
"Lucky dog," said McCarthy, between his teeth. "I wish I had the nerve to do the same."
"What the deuce?"
"It makes me boil! I can't sit up and have a solemn bunch of fools look me over. I can't be natural."
"It's give and take," said Dink, smiling. "You'll think yourself the lord of the universe next year."
"I'm not so sure," said McCarthy, gloomily.
"Rats!"
"Oh, you—you've a cinch," said McCarthy. "They're not picking you to pieces and dissecting you. Half the crowd that come to see me have got some friends in the class they'd rather see in than me. I'm darned uncertain, and I know it."
Stover, who believed the contrary, laughed at him. He rose and went out, determined to find Regan and make him understand conditions.
His walk led him along the dark ways of College Street into the forgotten street where, under the roof of a bakery, Regan had found a breathing-hole for five dollars a month.
For the first time a little feeling of jealousy went through Stover as he swung along. Why should he help build up the man who might snatch from him his ambition? Why the deuce had Le Baron mentioned Regan as a possible captain? No one else thought of such a thing. Compared to him, Regan was a novice in football knowledge and experience. Still, it was true that the man had a stalwart, unflinching way of moving on that impressed. There was a danger there with which he must reckon.
He found Regan in carpet slippers and sweater, bending grimly over the next day's Greek as if it were a rock to be shattered with the weight of his back.
"8-16-6-9-47," said Stover, in a hallo, giving the signal that had sent him through the center.
Regan started up.
"Hello, Dink, old bantam; glad to hear your voice."
Stover entered, with a glance at the room. A cot, a bureau, a washstand reënforced by ropes, a pine table scorched and blistered, and a couple of chairs were the entire equipment. Half the gas globe was left and two-thirds of the yellow-green shade at the window. In the corner was the battle-scarred valise which had brought Regan's whole effects to college.
"Boning out the Greek?" said Stover, placing a straight chair against the wall so that his feet could find the ledge of the window.
"Wrestling with it."
"Don't you use a trot?" said Stover in some surprise, perceiving the absence of the handy, literal short-cut to recitation.
"Can't afford to."
"Why not?" said Stover, wondering if Regan was a gospel shark, after all.
"I've got too much to learn," said Regan, leaning back and elevating his legs in the national position. "You know something; I don't. You can bluff; I'm a rotten bluffer. I've got to train my whole mind, lick it into shape and make it work for me, if I'm going to do what I want."
"Tom, what are you aiming for?"
"You'd never guess."
"Well, what?"
"Politics."
"Politics?" said Stover, opening his mouth.
"Exactly," said Regan, puffing at his corncob pipe. "I want to go back out West and get in the fight. It's a glorious fight out there. A real fight. You don't know the West, Stover."
"No."
"We believe in something out there, and we get up and fight for it—independence, new ideas, clean government, hard fighters."
"I hadn't thought of you that way," said Stover, more and more surprised.
"That's the only thing I care about," said Regan frankly. "I've come from nothing, and I believe in that nothing. But to do anything I've got to get absolute hold of myself."
"Tom, you ought to get in with the fellows more. You ought to know all kinds," said Stover, feeling an opening.
"I will, when I get the right," said Regan, nodding.
"Why the devil don't you let the University help you out a while? You can pay it back," said Stover angrily.
"Never! I know it could be done, but not for me," said Regan, shaking his head. "What I need is the hardest things to come up against, and I'm not going to dodge them."
"Still, you ought to be with us; you ought to make friends."
"I'm going to do that," said Regan, nodding. "I'm going to get in at South Middle after Christmas and perhaps get some work in the Coöp." He took up a sheet of paper jotted over with figures. "I'm about fifty dollars to the good; a couple of weeks' work at Christmas will bring that up about twenty more. If I can make a hundred and fifty this summer I'll have a good start. I want to do it, because I want to play football. It's bully! I like the fight in it!"
"What sort of work will you do?" said Stover curiously.
"I may go in the surface cars down in New York."
"Driving?"
"Sure. They get good pay. I could get work in the mines—I've done that—but it's pretty tough."
"But, Tom, what the deuce do you pick out the hardest grind for? Make friends with fellows who only want to know you and like you, and you'll get a dozen openings where you'll make twice what you get at manual labor."
"Well, there's this to it," said Regan ruminatively, "It's an opportunity I won't always have."
"What the deuce do you mean?"
"The opportunity to meet the fellow who gets the grind of life—to understand what he thinks of himself, and especially what he thinks of those above him. I won't have many more chances to see him on the ground floor, and some day I've got to know him well enough toconvince him. See? By the way, it would be a good college course for a lot of you fellows if you got in touch with the real thing also."
"Are you a socialist?" said Stover, who vaguely associated the term with dynamite and destruction.
"I may be, but I don't know it."
"I say, Tom, do you go in for debating and all that sort of thing?"
"You bet I do; but it comes hard as hen's teeth."
Stover, who had waited for an opportunity to volunteer advice, finding no opening, resolved to take the dilemma by the horns.
"Tom, I think you're wrong about one thing."
"What's that?"
"Holding aloof so much."
"Particularly what?"
"I'm thinking about sophomore societies, for one thing. Why the deuce don't you give the fellows a chance to help you?"
"Oh, you mean the dinky little bunch that came around to call on me," said Regan thoughtfully.
"Yes. Now, why turn them out?"
"Why, they bored me, and, besides, I haven't time for anything like that. There are too many big things here."
"They can help you like the mischief, now and afterward."
"Thanks; I'll help myself. Besides, I don't want to get their point of view."
"Why not?"
"Too limited."
"Have you been talking to Gimbel?" said Stover, wondering.
"Gimbel? No; why?"
"Because he is organizing the class against them."
"That doesn't interest me, either."
"What do you make of Gimbel?"
"Gimbel's all right; a good politician."
"Is he sincere?"
"Every one's sincere."
"You mean every one's convinced of his own sincerity."
"Sure; easiest person in the world to convince."
Stover laughed a little consciously, wondering for a brief moment if the remark could be directed at him. Curiously enough, the more the blunt antagonism of Regan impressed him, the more he was reassured that the man was too radical ever to challenge his leadership. He rose to go, his conscience satisfied by the half-hearted appeal he had made.
"I say, Dink," said Regan, laying his huge paw on his shoulder, "don't get your head turned by this social business."
"Heavens, no!"
"'Cause there's some real stuff in you, boy, and some day it's coming out. Thanks, by the way, for wanting to make me a society favorite."
Dink left with a curious mixture of emotions. Regan always had an ascendency over him he could not explain. It irritated him that he could not shake it off, and yet he was genuinely chained to the man.
"Why the deuce did Le Baron put that in my head?" he said to himself, for the tenth time. "If Regan beats me out for captain it'll only be because he's older and has got a certain way about him. Well, I suppose if I'm to be captain I've got to close up more; I can't go cutting up like a kid. I've got to be older."
He resolved to be more dignified, more melancholy,shorter of speech, and consistent in gravity. For the first time he felt what it meant to calculate his chances. Before, everything had come to him easily. He had missed the struggle and the heartburnings. Now, suddenly, a shadow had fallen across the open road, the shadow of one whom he had regarded as a sort of protégé. He had thoughts of which he was ashamed, for at the bottom he was glad that Regan would not be of a sophomore society—that that advantage would be denied him; and, a little guiltily, he wondered if he had tried as hard as he might have to show him the opportunity.
"If they ever know him as I do," he said, with a generous revulsion, "he'll be the biggest thing in the class." York Street and the busy windows of Pierson Hall came into his vision. A group of sophomores, ending their tour of visits, passed him, saluting him cordially. He thought all at once, with a sharp rebellion, how much freer Regan was, with his own set purpose, than he under the tutelage of Le Baron.
"I wonder what I'd do if no darn sophomore societies existed," he said to himself thoughtfully. And then, going up the stairs to his room, he said to McCarthy as he entered: "I guess, after all, I'll get out and slave again this spring—might as well heel the crew. I'm just varsity material—that's all!"
The first weeks of the competition for the crew were not exacting, and consisted mostly of eliminating processes. Stover had consequently still enough leisure to gravitate naturally into that necessity of running into debt which comes to every youth who has just won the privilege of a yearly allowance; the same being solemnly understood to cover all the secret and hidden needs of the flesh as well as those that are outwardly exposed to the admiration of the multitude.
Now, the lure of personal adornment and the charm of violent neckties and outrageous vests had come to him naturally, as such things come, shortly after the measles, under the educating influence of a hopeless passion which had passed but had left its handiwork.
About a week after the opening of the term, Stover was drifting down Chapel Street in the company of Hungerford and McCarthy, when, in the window of the most predatory haberdasher's, he suddenly was fascinated by the most beautiful thing he had ever seen adorning a window. A tinge of masculine modesty prevented his remaining in struck admiration before it, especially in the presence of McCarthy and Hungerford, whose souls could rest content in jerseys and sweaters; but half an hour later, slipping away, he returned, fascinated. Chance had been kind to him. It was still there, the most beautiful green shirt he had ever beheld—not the diluted green of ordinary pistache ice-cream, but the deep, royal hue of a glorious emerald!
He had once, in the school days when he was blossoming into a man of fashion, experienced a similar sensation before a cravat of pigeon-blood red. He peered through the window to see if any one he knew was present, and glanced up the street to assure himself that a mob was not going to collect. Then he entered nonchalantly. The clerk, who recognized him, greeted him with ingratiating unction.
"Glad to see you here, Mr. Stover. What can I do for you?"
"I thought I'd look at some shirts," he said, in what he believed a masterly haphazard manner.
"White lawn—something with a thin stripe?"
"Well, something in a color—solid color."
He waited patiently, considering solicitously twenty inconsequential styles, until the spruce clerk, casually producing the one thing, said:
"Would that appeal to you?"
"It's rather nice," he said, gazing at it. Entranced, he stared on. Then a new difficulty arose. People didn't enter a shop just to purchase one shirt, and, besides, he was known. So he selected three other shirts and added the beautiful green thing to them in an unostentatious manner, saying:
"Send around these four shirts, will you? What's the tax?"
"Very pleased to have you open an account, Mr. Stover," said the clerk. "Pay when you like."
Stover took this as a personal tribute to his public reputation. Likewise, it opened up to him startling possibilities, so he said in a bored way:
"I suppose I might just as well."
"Thank you, Mr. Stover—thank you very much! Anything more? Some rather tasty neckties here forconservative dressers. Collars? Something like this would be very becoming to you. We've just got in a very smart line of silk socks. All the latest bonton styles. Look them over—you don't need to buy anything."
When Stover finally was shown to the door, he had clandestinely and with great astuteness acquired the green shirt on the following terms:
By the time he had made this mental calculation he was half way up the block. Then, his extravagance overwhelming him, he virtuously determined to send back the Gladstone collars, to show the clerk that, while he was a man of fashion, he still had a will of his own.
Refreshed then by this firm conscientious resolve, he went down York Street, where he was hailed by Hungerford from an upper story, and went in to find a small group sitting in inspection of several bundles of tailoring goods which were being displayed in the center of the room by a little bow-legged Yankee with an open appealing countenance.
"I say, Dink, you ought to get in on this," said Hungerford at his entrance.
"What's the game?"
"Here's a wonderful chance. Little bright-eyes here has got a lot of goods dirt cheap and he's giving us the first chance. You see it's this way: he travels for a firm and the end of the season he gets all the samples for himself, so he can let them go dirt cheap."
"Half price," said the salesman nodding. "Half price on everything."
"I've bought a bundle," said Troutman. "It's wonderful goods."
"How much?" said Stover, considering.
"Only twenty dollars for enough to make up a suit. Twenty's right, isn't it, Skenk?"
"Twenty for this—twenty-two for that. You remember I said twenty-two."
"Let me see the stuff," said Stover, as though he had been the mainstay of custom tailors all his life.
Now the crowd was a New York one, a little better groomed than their companions, affecting the same predilections for indiscreet vests and modish styles that would make them appreciative of the supremacy of green in the haberdashery arts.
"This is rather good style," he said, with a glance at Troutman's genteel trousers. "What sort of goods do you call it?"
"Imported Scotch cheviot," said the salesman in a confidential whisper.
Stover looked again at Troutman, who tried discreetly, without being seen by the unsuspecting Yankee, to convey to him in a look the fact that it was a crime to acquire the goods at such a price.
Thus tipped off, Dink bought a roll that had in it a distinct reminiscent tinge of green, and saw it carried to the house, for fear the salesman should suddenly repent of the sacrifice.
At half past eight that night, as he and Tough McCarthy were painfully excavating a bit of Greek prose for the morrow, McNab came rushing in.
"Get out, Dopey, we're boning," said McCarthy, reaching for a tennis racket.
"Boys, the greatest bargain you ever heard," said McNab excitedly, "come in before it's too late!"
"Bargain?" said Stover, frowning, for the word was beginning to cloy.
McNab, with a show of pantomime, squinted behind the window curtains and opened the closet door.
"Look here, Dopey, you get out," said Tough, wrathfully, "you're faking."
"I'm looking for customs officers," said McNab mysteriously.
"What! I say, what's this game?"
"Boys, we've got a couple ofCuba libredagos rounded up and dancing on a string."
"For the love of Mike, Dopey, be intelligible."
"It's cigars," said McNab at last.
"Don't want them!"
"But it's smuggled cigars!"
"Oh!"
"Wonderful, pure Havanas, priceless, out of a museum."
"You don't say so."
"And all for the cause ofCuba libre. You're forCuba libre, aren't you?"
"Sure we are."
"Well, these men are patriots."
"Who found them?"
"Buck Waters. They were just going into Pierson Hall to let the sophs have all the candy. Buck side-tracked them and started them down our row. Hungerford bought twenty-five dollars' worth."
"Twenty-five? Holy cats!"
"For the cause ofCuba libre! Joe is very patriotic. All the boys came up handsomely."
"Are they good cigars?" said Dink who, since hispurchases of the day, was not exactly moved to tears by the financial needs of an alien though struggling nation.
"My boy, immense! Wait till you smoke one!"
At this moment there came a gentle scratching at the door, and a chocolate pair appeared, with Buck Waters in the background.
"Emanuel Garcia and Henry Clay!" said McNab irreverently.
"They smuggled the cigars right through the Spanish lines," said Waters who, from constant recital, had caught the spirit of unconquerable revolution.
"How do you know?" said McCarthy suspiciously, watching the unstrapping of the cigar boxes.
"I speak French," said Waters with pride, and turning to his protégés he continued fluently, "Vous êtes patriots, vous avez battlez, soldats n'est-ce-pas?You see, they have had a whole family chopped up for the cause. The Cuban Junta has sent them over to raise money—very good family."
"Let's see the cigars," said Stover. "How much a box?"
Curiously enough this seemed to be a phrase of English which could be understood without difficulty.
"Fourteen dollar."
"That's for a box of a hundred," said McNab, who screwed up the far side of his face, to indicate bargaining was in order.
"Of course," said Buck Waters, "everything you give goes to the cause. Remember that."
"Try one," said McNab.
The smaller Cuban with an affable smile held up a bundle.
"Nice white teeth he's got," said Buck Waters encouragingly.
"Don't let him shove one over on you," said McCarthy warningly.
Waters and McNab were indignant.
"Oh, I say fellows, come on. They are patriots."
"If they could understand you they would go right up in the air."