CHAPTER XIXATTACK AND DEFENSE
“You see,” said Fudge, taking another bite of his banana and talking from the side of his mouth, “this fellow, ‘Young Sleuth,’ finds that when, when the old chap—Middleton, I mean, the millionaire that was found murdered——”
“I remember,” replied Dick, opening a sandwich to examine the contents.
“Well, ‘Young Sleuth’ discovers that when Middleton was a young man, before he made all his money, he was a member of a band of Nihilists.”
“Nihilists?” queried Dick doubtfully.
“Well, Socialists, I guess. Anyway, they used to meet in a cellar and plot. And it turns out that Middleton was stung with the job to kill a man. They’d draw lots, you know, and one time he drew the piece of paper that had the black dagger on it, and that meant that he was the goat.”
“I don’t see the connection between a black dagger and a goat,” demurred Dick gravely.
“Sure! The one who drew the paper with the black dagger on it had to do the deed. See? And Middleton drew it. The man he was to kill was a Governor of a State, you see. He’d been doing things these Socialists didn’t like. So they decided to kill him.”
“Quite simple,” observed Dick. “Did Whathisname do it?”
“No. That’s the point. He started to, and once he almost did it, but something happened. Then he fell in love with the Governor’s daughter and they got married and went to Europe to live because the Socialists were mad at him for not killing the Governor, and put a price on his head.”
“How much?” asked Dick interestedly.
“I don’t know,” replied Fudge. “That’s just a figure of speech. So he lived over in Europe for a long time till he thought the Socialists had forgotten their grouch and then came back to this country and made his fortune.”
“How’d he do it?” inquired Dick.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the narrator a trifle impatiently. “He was a Magnate. Anyhow, the Socialistshadn’t forgotten him at all, and every now and then they tried to kill him, do you see. Well, that’s the clue ‘Young Sleuth’ discovers, and so he tracks the Socialists and goes to one of their meetings in disguise and they find he’s a spy and he has a terrible time getting away from them with his life. I haven’t got that far yet, though. I’m where he has just discovered about the Socialists. I’ve got eight chapters done.”
“Fine,” said Dick, folding his collapsible lunchbox. “How about the movie play, though? Done anything with that yet?”
“N-no, I thought I’d better finish the story first and then dramatize it afterwards. That’s the way they generally do it. Maybe I won’t make it into a play at all, though. I read the other day that they don’t pay much for them. I guess I’ll have it published in a book first, anyway, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Dick a trifle absent-mindedly. “Look here, Fudge, you seem an inventive sort of chap. Why don’t you get your brains to working for the team?”
“How do you mean, team?” asked Fudge inelegantly.
“I mean try your hand at inventing a couple ofgood plays for us, Fudge. Ever try that sort of thing?”
Fudge shook his head. “No. You mean trick plays?”
“Not exactly. Leave the ‘tricks’ out of them. Just a good play that will put the man with the ball where he can gain through the other fellow’s line, or around it, Fudge. Imagine you’re the quarterback and want a score like anything. Locate the opposing players and then scheme to get through them. You know your rules, don’t you?”
“Y-yes, I guess so. Most of ’em, Dick. What—what kind of a play would you want?”
“A play that’ll gain ground. Any kind of a play that we can use, Fudge. I don’t know that you’ll have any luck, but it occurred to me that if you could apply some of the ingenuity you display in writing these stories of yours to the problem of devising a play to use against Springdale you might hit on something.”
“I don’t mind trying it,” said Fudge with growing interest. “You have to have a checker-board and checkers, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe those things are absolutely necessary,” answered the coach, with a smile. “Take ablock of paper and a pencil. After you’ve doped something out, study it hard. See if it’s against the rules and whether it’s calculated to deceive the enemy. Remember that the one big rule is to bunch your strength at the opponent’s weakest point. No matter how you do it, that’s the thing, Fudge. Start with that in mind and work from it. When you’ve got anything that looks good to you on paper bring it along and I’ll see what it looks like to me. If it seems promising we’ll try it out in practice. What do you say?”
“Sure! I don’t mind. I’ll do some to-night. That story can wait a while, I guess. Anyhow, it—it’s getting sort of hard to write. I dare say it will go easier if I rest-off a bit. The trouble with these detective stories is that they’re—they’re complicated! Take this Socialist business, Dick. A fellow has to study up a lot, you know. That’s one reason I thought of having them Nihilists instead. A Nihilist——”
“Why don’t you call them Anarchists, Fudge?”
“Gee! That’s it!” Fudge smote his knee delightedly. “That’s what I had in mind all the time, but I couldn’t think of the word! Anarchists! That’s what they were! You don’t have to study aboutthem, either. Every fellow knows what they are. But Socialists——”
The gong announcing the termination of recess broke in on Fudge’s remarks and the two got up from the coping and hurried back to school.
“Tell you what you do, Fudge,” said Dick, with a smile. “You make believe that the other team are the Anarchists and that this ‘Young Sleuth’ is the quarterback on your eleven. That’ll lend a certain romantic interest to the thing, and I guess you have to have that to bring out your best efforts.”
“That’s a good idea,” commended Fudge interestedly. “I’ll bet you if ‘Young Sleuth’ had been a quarterback he’d have shown some slick work!”
It was the last day of October, and but two games remained on Clearfield’s schedule before the final contest; that with Lesterville four days hence and one with Weston Academy a week later. The High School graduates had failed to get a team together and George Cotner had fortunately secured Weston for the date. Weston, the team which Lanny and Chester Cottrell had seen in action at Springdale, promised to give Clearfield just the sort of a battle needed in its final stage of preparation, one which, while not too strenuous, would thoroughlytest out its defensive strength against open plays. Weston, too, had been left without a game on the eleventh of November, and was very glad to accept Cotner’s offer of the date.
Secret practice began the following day and Clearfield was set the task of learning a new formation and a number of plays from it. Dick now considered that the team was well enough versed in the fundamentals, although more than once in the ensuing two weeks of practice fellows were sent back to the dummy or drilled in other rudimentary branches when they showed signs of forgetting their a, b, c’s. Dick had not yet attempted to develop the attack beyond what might be required of it from week to week. He had spent the first six weeks of the season in grounding the players in elementary football, in developing what he called the wits of the fellows—by which he meant the ability to think quickly in all sorts of situations and act accordingly—and in securing coherence. There had been a period when every fellow played for himself, a later period when the line and the backfield played as though they were in no way related, and now there had come a third stage of development in which the entire team of eleven men played together. Absoluteperfection of team-play was still lacking, and Dick was satisfied that it should be, for he was convinced that no football team ever reached the top-notch of excellence and stayed there twenty-four hours. Dick believed that the team which attained the height of its season’s form to-day began to go back to-morrow, and his biggest fear was that Clearfield High School would reach the zenith of development too early. His ambition, in short, was to trot the Purple on to the field on the eighteenth of November ready to play as it had not played all the Fall and as it could not play the day after. How nearly he would succeed in realizing that ambition remained to be seen.
While he had not yet paid much attention to offense, an offense had developed naturally on the groundwork he had prepared, an offense which, found wanting in several contests, had come into its own in the Benton game. With the defense, however, Dick had started early, since, when all is said, a good defense is harder to construct than a good attack. Consequently the team’s offense was a full fortnight behind its defense, and offensively and defensively both it was far more backward than Springdale. Dick, though, was not worrying aboutthat. It was his theory that Springdale had been developed too early and was likely to reach its top form at least a week before its principal game.
The new attack formation—now known as Formation B—was introduced to the Varsity on the Wednesday before the Lesterville contest. It was designed to conceal the play until the last possible moment and required only slight shifts of the backfield before the ball was snapped. A close line of seven players was used. The left halfback stood behind left guard and some two yards back, the right half in a corresponding position on the other side, the quarterback stood three yards directly behind center and the fullback stood three yards farther back of quarter. From this formation plunges at any position, and runs, forward passes, lateral passes and punts could be got off without enough shifting to appraise the opponent of the character or point of attack. The center usually passed direct to the runner. The feature that was most important in Dick’s eyes, however, was that it not only concealed a punt but protected the punter. Fullback had only to drop back another step or two and quarter need only jump to the right out of the path of the ball to convert a rushing to a kicking formation. Toadd to the deception, these slight shifts need not be followed by a punt. A fullback run around either end or a forward pass might follow, or the ball at the last moment might be snapped to either of the other three backs. The formation had promised well on paper and by Thursday it had proved itself.
Dick’s campaign was built around Morris Brent to a large degree. Dick did not believe that his team was sufficiently powerful in rushing ability to gain with certainty through the Springdale line inside the latter’s twenty yards. Nor, while he looked for some success with forward and lateral passing, did he expect to be able to cross the opponent’s goal line by that style of play. It was Morris’s drop-kicking he was counting on inside the enemy’s twenty-yard line, and there appeared to be no good reason why that accomplished young gentleman should disappoint him. Morris was now taking his regular amount of work and had been making seven and eight goals out of ten in practice and in scrimmage with the Scrubs. What might happen, though, if Morris went stale before the game or had an off-day on the eighteenth, Dick hated to think!
He did not flatter himself that his plan was a secret from the enemy, for Springdale well knewMorris’s kicking powers and knew that he was as good as ever, in spite of his accident in the Summer. The only deception Dick could hope to indulge in was that of concealing his plays until the moment came to strike. Once inside the Springdale twenty-yard line, Clearfield would be expected to try for a field-goal unless, which was not at all likely, she found herself able to rush the ball over for a score. Springdale had twice sent scouts to watch her opponent play, a proceeding which had visibly annoyed George Cotner, who had never become reconciled to Dick’s and Lanny’s “no scouting” edict. However, it is doubtful if the Springdale spies discovered anything of use to their team. On one occasion they had seen Clearfield beaten by Corwin and on the other had watched the Purple capture the Benton contest by the use of the most elemental plays.
Springdale herself had come through a successful season, meeting with but one defeat and one tie. She was due for a hard game next Saturday, but, after that, like Clearfield, she was opposed to a team which was likely to afford her only a good stiff practice. One point there was on which Dick had finally satisfied himself. Springdale was withoutthe services of a player who could be relied on to score by goals from the field. An excellent punter she did have; two, in fact; but a drop-kicker was not included in her assets. Springdale, in a word, was counting on a victory to be secured by all-around superiority of line and backfield and not by the individual efforts of any one star. Dick often wished that he, too, was able to pin his faith on a powerful attack that would win through the opponent’s line. The trouble with depending on a single individual to win a share at least of the points was that if anything happened to the individual either before or during the game the fat was in the fire! Consequently, he watched after Morris like a mother hen protecting a lone chick, and sometimes ruefully told himself that he was unwisely banking too much for success on one boy’s right leg! If anything happened to that leg——
But Dick refused to dwell on that contingency. He couldn’t afford to and keep his wits about him!
On Saturday the Varsity, twenty-five strong, journeyed to Lesterville in a special pumpkin-hued trolley-car and engaged in the last hard game before the final test.