CHAPTER XIITHE BOARD OF STRATEGY
“Home again from a foreign shore,” murmured Lanny as they climbed down from the car in the Square. “I wonder how the game came out. Bet you we got licked, Chester.”
“I don’t believe so. We’ll ask somebody.” He looked about him but caught sight of no one he knew. “There’ll be some of the fellows in Castle’s, I guess. Come on in. Want a soda?”
“No, thanks. I must be getting home. I’ll call up Gordon on the ’phone and find out. Will you be around at Dick’s after supper?”
“Yes. Wait a minute, Lanny! There’s Fudge Shaw in there. He’ll know about the game.”
Lanny, who had started toward the crossing on his way home, rejoined Chester and together they pushed through the crowd at the doorway of the populardrug store. At the right, in a corner which held a cushioned settee and two or three small wire-legged tables, sat Fudge. An emaciated rubber plant hung its leaves above his head, a tall glass of ice-cream soda was in one hand and a dripping spoon in the other, and his eyes were fixed ecstatically on the big glass jar which, suspended in the nearer window, glowed with carmine and purple.
“It’s a shame to wake him,” chuckled Chester, as they wormed their way through the throng. “What an awful looking mess he’s eating!”
“How did the game come out, Fudge?” demanded Lanny anxiously.
Fudge’s rapt gaze fell slowly away from the hypnotic brilliancy. “Eh?” he murmured.
Lanny impatiently repeated the question, while Fudge blinked and brought his thoughts back with an evident effort.
“Hello, fellows! Game? Oh, they beat us. Thirteen to seven.”
“What do you know about that?” demanded Lanny disgustedly. “Isn’t that the dickens?”
“How did they do it, Fudge?” asked Chester.
“Made two touchdowns to our one,” replied Fudge, dipping his spoon in the harlequin concoctionand conveying a liberal portion of it to his mouth.
“Oh, cut out the comedy,” said Lanny. “What was the matter with our team?”
“Search me,” replied Fudge, in an injured tone. “We just couldn’t get started, it seemed. Logan scored in the first period and the second, and we didn’t do anything until about five minutes before the end of the game. Then that fellow Hull shot a forward off to Gordon and Gordie got away with it for about thirty yards. After that they couldn’t stop us and Nelson Beaton went over for the touchdown.”
“What sort of a game did Logan play?” asked Lanny, plainly disconsolate.
“Fine! They had a grand time running around our ends, or they did until Dick put Gordon Merrick in for Felker. Felker was rotten to-day on defense. Gee, but Gordie played a great little game after he got in! And, say, Lanny, that fellow Hull is a wonder! You ought to have seen the way he fooled those fellows on quarterback runs! It was fine!”
“It must have been if we got licked like that!” said Lanny. “Was McCoy good?”
“I guess so. Pretty fair. We didn’t seem able to stop them outside of tackles, though. That right half of theirs made a seventy-yard run one time. That was when they got their first touchdown. They fooled us on a fake-kick play and sent a back around Felker’s end from our fifteen yards.”
“I knew we’d get licked,” muttered Lanny. “We must have played a solid-ivory sort of game, Chester!”
“You ought to hear the fellows roasting the team afterwards,” chuckled Fudge, struggling with another spoonful of ice-cream. “Dick, too. They say he didn’t more than half try to win. He put in six subs in the last half. What sort of a way is that?”
“I take it you didn’t get in,” said Chester, sarcastically.
“I’m on the Scrub,” replied Fudge, untroubledly. “Bet you I could have done as well as Thad Brimmer did, though. How was the Springdale game, Lanny?”
“Pretty good,” Lanny replied absently. “Six to nothing, Springdale. Well, I must be getting on. See you later, Chester.”
Chester nodded and Lanny went out. “He feels pretty bad about it, I guess,” said Chester.
“He’d have felt worse if he’d been here and seen it,” replied Fudge, philosophically. “It was p, u, n, k, punk!”
“Say, for goodness sake, what sort of a mess is that you’re eating?” asked Chester, his curiosity at last demanding satisfaction.
“This?” asked Fudge, stirring his spoon about in the glass and watching the resultant blending of colors with admiring eyes. “This is what I call an Opalescent Dream.”
“Looks more like a nightmare! What’s in it?”
“Strawberry and chocolate and lemon ice-cream and blood-orange sirup. You take a third of each and——”
But Chester, with a gesture eloquent of repugnance, had flown. Fudge smiled calmly and stirred again with still more interesting results. “Some folks don’t know what’s good,” he murmured blissfully.
The Board of Strategy, as George Cotner chose to call it, met in Dick’s parlor that evening at half-past seven, Dick, Lanny, Cottrell and Cotner present. Dick disposed of the afternoon’s contest with Logan in few words.
“They outplayed us,” he said frankly. “Our linewas fully as good as theirs, I think, but their backs were better. Besides, they had more plays and used them well. We were handicapped by a lack of plays and those we had didn’t fool them. They made practically all of their gains around our tackles and couldn’t make much impression on the line. They got their first touchdown as the result of a fine run by Showalter, their right half, which put the ball on our thirteen yards. From there they took it over in one play, around our right end. Felker was neatly boxed and they had no trouble. Their next score was after they had worked our ends and thrown a forward pass for gains that took them from the middle of the field to our twelve yards. They finally got through Wayland for the last half-yard. They made twelve first downs to our seven, I believe. We outpunted them by about five yards on an average. Hull, who took your place, Chester, ran the team very well and was very clever at carrying the ball. He promises remarkably well and ought to make a first-class quarter by next Fall. We used six substitutes in the third and fourth quarters. Merrick at right end showed up well and made a clever catch of a forward pass and a thirty-yard run that made possible our touchdown. Onthe whole, the substitutes did good work. I’m sorry we couldn’t have won, Lanny, but the game showed us our weaknesses, and that’s something. Now, what did you fellows learn at Springdale?”
“Mighty little,” answered Lanny. “They got on to us and stalled all through the last half.”
“What about the first half?” asked Dick.
“Weston played all around them in the first quarter. Used a lot of queer stunts from open formation, like double-passes back of the line, with an end breaking through or a half running wide. The plays weren’t much, but Springdale didn’t get on to them for a while. In the second period she opened her line out and dropped an extra man behind it. That worked better. She made her score by pretty clever work. Got off three dandy forward passes and mixed her plays up well.”
“What formation did she use on attack?” asked Dick.
“Same as last year. For kicking she played her ends way out. It wasn’t a fair test, though, for Weston is a light team and couldn’t do much with the Springdale line. If she’d use that kicking formation against us we could smear her every time, I guess.”
Dick continued his questions, making notes from the information he received, and at last said, with a smile: “On the whole, I think you chaps managed to find out a good deal. Still, it’s pretty evident that Springdale didn’t show anything new. She wouldn’t, I suppose, so early in the season. We’ll see what the Springdale paper says Monday about the game.”
“Look here, Dick,” said Chester, “what’s the—the ethics of that sort of thing?”
“What sort of thing, Chester?”
“Why, scouting, as we call it; spying on the other fellow.”
“I don’t know,” replied Dick slowly. “I don’t think I’ve ever considered it. Why do you ask?”
“Because I felt like an awful sneak over there this afternoon,” was the answer. “So did Lanny, only he wouldn’t own up to it.”
“Everyone does it,” observed George Cotner.
“That doesn’t make it right, though,” said Chester doggedly. “I don’t believe it is right, either. If it were I wouldn’t have felt so like a—a fox!”
“I’m sorry,” said Dick. “I wouldn’t have asked you to do it if I’d known you were going to feel that way about it.” He jabbed a pencil thoughtfully into the tablecloth. Then, “Honestly, fellows, I don’tknow what to say about it. As George says, everyone does it; colleges and schools everywhere. I suppose that if we look on football as a sort of athletic warfare—to coin a term—we have every right to spy on the enemy in order to learn, as in real warfare, what his condition is and what his plans may be.”
“Surest thing you know!” agreed George.
“On the other hand, if we look at football as merely a—a gentleman’s pastime, the spying part is hard to defend. It’s rather a difficult question to answer, Chester.”
“A football campaign,” declared George convincedly, “is exactly like real war. We form our army, we train it, we map out a campaign, we plan strategies. If the enemy has weak spots in its—its battle-line we want to know it so we can throw the brunt of our attack there. As long as the other fellow doesn’t hide behind fences and hold secret practice we’ve got a perfect right to go and watch him and learn what we can. It’s done all the time. All the big colleges do it and I’ve never heard any objections made before. Why, bless you, fellows, Springdale will be over here scouting in a couple of weeks!”
“Just the same,” returned Chester, using his favorite expression, and bringing a smile to Lanny’s face, “no more of it for me,ifyou please!”
“Is that how you feel, Lanny?” Dick inquired.
“I guess it is, Dick. I don’t say I wouldn’t do it again if you say it’s all fair and right, but I didn’t like it to-day very much. For my part, I can’t see why it should be necessary. If all the teams agreed not to do it I suppose we’d get on just as well. After all, it doesn’t do much good, I guess. A team doesn’t show its real stuff until its big game. I think we could get on without it.”
“I’m perfectly willing to try,” said Dick. “Somehow, now that you mention it, it doesn’t seem quite—well, gentlemanly. But that raises the question, Lanny, of how far wecango and act like gentlemen. Is it fair, for instance, to read about the other team’s progress in the newspapers?”
“Quite, I’d say,” replied Lanny. “Seems to me that’s different. If information gets into the papers that’s their lookout, and anyone has a right to read it.”
“If scouts get into their grandstand that’s their business, too,” said George. “What’s the difference?”
“The difference is,” answered Chester, “that they are willing the newspaper stuff should be published, but they aren’t willing that we should see them play. And they can’t keep us out if we have the money to buy tickets. You can talk your head off, George, but I know thereisa difference.”
“I can’t see it!”
“It’s there, just the same,” muttered Chester.
“Well, let’s agree that it is wrong, fellows; or, at least, bad form, a little underhand, a little ungentlemanly. Let’s make a rule not to do it. We’ll play it safe, in other words.” This from Dick.
“That’s all right if you can get the other fellow to cut it out too,” demurred George, “but if he doesn’t he’s got a big advantage over us. I call that pretty crazy business.”
“Oh, let’s be crazy, then,” exclaimed Lanny. “Fair sport is fair sport, but spying isn’t! It’s sneaky stuff! Let’s call it off.”
“Right-o,” agreed Chester. “And I dare say when Springdale learns that we’ve stopped it she’ll stop it too.”
“She’s not likely to believe we have stopped it,” observed George dryly, “after seeing you two fellows over there this afternoon.”
“No; but she’ll believe it after awhile,” said Dick cheerfully. “So we’ll call that settled. Now then, let’s see what we’ve learned to-day.” He picked his memorandum book from the table and began to turn the leaves. “Personally, I’m pretty well pleased with this Logan game. It’s shown up a whole lot of weak places, fellows, and you can’t make repairs until you learn where the breaks are. If we can get through the Corwin game with no worse results we’ll be doing pretty well.”
“Great Scott!” groaned Lanny. “Don’t tell me we’ve got to take another licking next week!”
“I hope not, but if we are licked and we get through with no injuries, as we did to-day, and we find out our mistakes as well as we did to-day, I’ll be satisfied.”
“The school won’t,” replied Lanny glumly. “Three defeats out of five games would be going it pretty strong, Dick.”
“Fairly,” returned the coach untroubledly. “So would being beaten by Springdale, Lanny.”
“Of course, but—oh, well, you know best, I dare say,” Lanny sighed. “If it wasn’t that I happen to be captain, Dick——”
“There’s a good deal of growling about to-day’sdefeat,” observed George Cotner. “Of course, fellows always do kick when the team loses and cheer like mad when it wins. Still, I’m inclined to think it might be a good plan to—well, to make a little extra effort and win next week’s game, Dick. Just for the—er—the look of the thing, you know.”
“Bless the look of the thing,” said Dick placidly. “We’ll win if we can do it without disturbing the plan of development we’ve settled on. If we lose, the fellows will just have to howl. What we’ve got to do is keep our eyes on the Eighteenth of November!”
“You bet!” said Chester. “Who cares whether Corwin is beaten or not? Or Benton, or Lesterville? We want to lick Springdale! That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”
“I dare say,” agreed George; “but isn’t there always the danger of losing so many games that the team will think itcan’twin?”
“You mean it might develop the habit of defeat?” laughed Dick. “That’s a new idea, George. I didn’t know you were such a psychologist.”
“I’m not, I’m a Methodist,” retorted the manager.
“There may be something in your theory,though,” Dick continued, “and so I guess it will be best to let them win once in awhile.” Dick’s eyes twinkled as he turned to Lanny’s somewhat disconsolate countenance. “Which game on the rest of the schedule would you rather win, Lanny?”
“What!” exclaimed the captain. “Do you mean that—” Then he caught the gleam of laughter in Dick’s eyes and grinned relievedly. “We’ll beat the grads,” he said. “How’ll that do?”
“Finely! So let’s get busy and see where we stand.” Dick took up his memorandum again. “Move up here, George, and let me have those notes of yours. That’s the ticket. Now then, starting with the plays we used——”