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Title: The Rockspur Eleven
Author: Burt L. Standish
Release Date: February 13, 2022 [eBook #67397]
Language: English
Produced by: Carlos Colon, David E. Brown, Harvard University and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROCKSPUR ELEVEN ***
The Rockspur Eleven
A FINE FOOTBALL STORY FOR BOYS
BY
BURT L. STANDISH
AUTHOR OF
“_The Merriwell Stories_”
[Illustration]
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
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Copyright, 1900
By STREET & SMITH
The Rockspur Eleven
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1--The Desert Argonaut.
2--A Quarter to Four.
3--Thorndyke, of the _Bonita_.
4--A Round Trip to the Year 2000.
5--The Gold Gleaners.
6--The Spur of Necessity.
7--The Mysterious Mission.
8--The Goal of a Million.
9--Marooned in 1492.
10--Running the Signal.
11--His Friend, the Enemy.
12--In the Web.
13--A Deep Sea Game.
14--The Paymaster’s Special.
15--Adrift in the Unknown.
16--Jim Dexter, Cattleman.
17--Juggling With Liberty.
18--Back From Bedlam.
19--A River Tangle.
20--An Innocent Outlaw.
21--Billionaire Pro Tem and the Trail of the Billy Doo.
22--Rogers of Butte.
23--In the Wake of the _Simitar_.
24--His Audacious Highness.
25--At Daggers Drawn.
26--The Eighth Wonder.
To Be Published During July.
27--The Catspaw.
To Be Published During October.
28--The Cotton Bag.
To Be Published During January.
29--Little Miss Vassar.
THE ROCKSPUR ELEVEN.
CHAPTER I.
A BOY WITH A TEMPER.
Danny Chatterton came up the street whistling a merry tune, while Don
Scott lay under an apple-tree back of his father’s house, munching
an apple and scowling blackly, although the September afternoon was
pleasant and sunny enough to put any boy in an agreeable humor. Judging
by the sour expression on Don’s face one might never have fancied the
half-devoured apple in his hand was sweet.
Spying the boy beneath the tree, Danny stopped, leaned on the fence,
and called:
“Hullo, Scotty! What you dud-dud-dud-doing?”
“Can’t you see?” growled the boy addressed. “I’m eating an apple.”
“Dud-does it hu-hurt ye much?” grinned the cheerful lad at the fence.
“What do you eat it for if it makes you fur-fur-feel so bad?”
Don’s answer to this bit of persiflage was a still blacker scowl and
sullen silence. Danny kicked the fence and whistled, a twinkle in his
eyes.
“Say, gimme an apple,” he entreated. “You’ll mum-mum-mum-make yourself
sus-sick trying to eat the ho-ho-whole of ’em.”
The boy under the tree picked up an apple and threw it viciously at the
sarcastic fellow outside the fence, who caught it with one hand, crying:
“Judgment! Out! Gug-gug-great work!”
Then he gave the apple a wipe on his jacket and took a trial bite out
of it, his manner being suspicious till he had tested it, upon which
his face betrayed satisfaction and he immediately took a still larger
bite.
“Ji-ji-ji-jimminy!” he stuttered, speaking with his mouth full and
chewing and talking at the same time. “It’s sus-sus-sweet! I never
knew that was a sus-sweet apple tut-tut-tree, and I thought it must be
sus-sour or bub-bub-bitter from the way you looked. If I’d known----”
“Better not come round here for apples after dark,” grimly warned Don.
“Pat sleeps over the kitchen, and his window looks right out onto this
orchard. He’s got a gun loaded with rock-salt, and he’d shoot just as
quick as he’d take a drink of water.”
“If that’s the case,” grinned Danny, “judgin’ by the cuc-cuc-color
of his nose, there ain’t no great danger that he’ll ever dud-do any
sus-sus-sus-shooting. But say, ain’t you coming up to the field for
pup-pup-practice?”
“No!”
Don replied in such a short, savage manner that Chatterton paused with
his mouth stuffed full and stared.
“Hey?” he exclaimed. “Wh-why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Well, that’s a gug-good reason, but it ain’t mum-mum-much of an
explanation. We cuc-cuc-can’t do our bub-best without the whole eleven,
and we’ve got to pup-put in some hot pup-practice if we expect to
cuc-cuc-cut any ice with them Ha-Highlanders next Saturday. Sterndale
will lul-look for every mum-man this afternoon.”
“Let him look and be hanged!” snapped Don, sitting up and clasping
one knee with both hands. “He’ll find out there is one fellow who
won’t stand to be called a chump and a duffer by that cheap city dude,
Renwood.”
Danny threw the apple-core backward over his shoulder.
“But Renwood is our cuc-cuc-coach, you know,” he said. “He knows all
abub-bub-bub-about playing football.”
“He says he does, but I don’t believe he knows half as much as he
pretends to, and I’ll bet he’s a great bluffer. Anyhow, he can’t shoot
off his mouth at me. What’s the matter with Sterndale? He’s captain,
but he permits this Renwood to run things. He makes me sick!”
“So that’s what ails ye, is it? I knew it was sus-sus-something. You
gug-gug-gug-got mad because Renwood mum-made some talk to ye when you
fur-fur-fumbled his pass last night.”
“I didn’t fumble it!” snarled Don. “He was to blame himself, for he
didn’t pass it right, and then he tried to lay it all on to me. I won’t
take that kind of talk from anybody, I don’t care who it is!”
“Bub-bub-bub-but the rest of us have to tut-tut-take it,” chattered
Danny. “He even gave Sus-Sterndale a bub-bub-brushing up abub-bout his
kicking.”
“And the more fools you for standing it! Just because he’s lived in
Boston and played football on Boston Common, he takes us for a lot of
chumps down here. No stuck-up city chap can lord it over me, and don’t
you forget it!”
“But he’s our coach!” said Danny, again. “We don’t know much about
fuf-fuf-football, and he knows everything. Highland has a reg’ler
college player for a cuc-cuc-coach, you know.”
“That’s all right. He doesn’t play with the Highlanders; he only
coaches them; and he knows his business. If we had such a fellow as
that----”
“You’d get mum-mum-mad the first tut-time he tut-talked straight to ye.
You’re always gug-gug-gettin’ mad and sus-sulking so you sus-sus-spoil
everything you go into. That’s what’s the mum-mum-matter with you.”
Don sprang to his feet, his face turning pale and his eyes gleaming.
With his hands clenched, he advanced toward the fence.
“You better go along about your business, Chatterton!” he grated. “I
won’t take that kind of talk from you, either! You can run your old
football team without me, and you’re all a lot of soft-headed chumps to
let Renwood lord it over you. Now, don’t make any back talk to me! Go
on and tell them what I think of them.”
Danny backed away from the fence and sidled off, as Don came forward
threateningly.
“I don’t know but we’ll get along bub-bub-better without ye,” he
declared, with a taunting grin. “You’re always rah-rah-raising a
rah-rah-row.”
Don had reached the fence, and, in a sudden burst of rage, he tore off
a broken picket and flung it after Danny, who skillfully dodged the
missile and then hastily scudded away, still laughing.
“That’s right--run!” snarled Don, glaring after the little fellow. “If
I had hold of you, I’d make ye laugh out of the other corner of your
mouth!”
He kicked the fence savagely, and then retreated to the apple-tree once
more, in anything but an agreeable humor.
Pat, the Irish hostler and man about the place, came round to the front
of the house, leading Dr. Scott’s horse, attached to a light driving
carriage. The doctor, medicine-case in hand, appeared at the front
door; but, instead of descending the walk and entering the carriage at
once, he came down the steps and turned into the orchard back of the
house, where his son was still sulking under the sweet apple-tree.
“My boy,” said the doctor, a gravely handsome man with iron-gray beard
and dark eyes, which now seemed strangely sad, “sitting there at my
window just now, I happened to overhear your conversation with that
other lad.”
Don flushed a little, but continued to scowl, though he had risen to
his feet and was standing in a respectful attitude of attention before
his father.
“I noted,” said the gentleman, “that you were in a very bad humor, and
your words told me why you were angry. I also observed that you flew
into an unreasonable passion at the close of your talk. Now I am not
going to lecture you, Don, but I wish to warn you. You must learn to
govern your temper, my son, or it will control you, to your sorrow and
everlasting regret.”
“But, father, there are times when it’s impossible not to become
angry,” protested the boy.
“Perhaps it may seem so, but every time a person gives way to a fit of
anger he weakens his self-control and makes himself less capable of
successfully coping with the trials and emergencies of life.”
Don made a swift, impatient gesture.
“I can’t help getting mad!” he cried. “It’s no use for me to try to
restrain my temper; I have tried, and I can’t do it.”
“It shows how much your will-power is weakened already when you make
such a confession,” said the doctor, regretfully. “I once thought the
same about myself.”
“You, father?” exclaimed the boy, in surprise. “Why, I never knew you
to lose your temper. I didn’t suppose----”
“Because I was taught to control my passions at any cost, and a bitter
lesson it was, my son. When I have noted how quick and choleric you
are, I have sometimes been tempted to tell you the whole sad story, but
it is something of which I do not like to think or speak, and so I have
refrained. Perhaps I will do so some day; but, in the meantime, I urge
you, Don, to struggle with yourself to get the mastery of your temper
at any cost, which I sincerely hope may never bring to you such sorrow
as an act of mine, done in a moment of anger, brought upon me.”
The doctor spoke with such earnestness that Don was greatly impressed,
and he immediately promised:
“I’ll try, father--I’ll try, though I am afraid I cannot succeed.”
“You can and must, my boy. Be sure you have my sympathy, for I know you
inherited your passionate temperament from me. Do not fear to come to
me for sympathy and encouragement any time.”
With those words, the doctor turned away, leaving Don standing there
beneath the tree, watching him depart. The gentleman entered his
carriage, and, with a wave of one gloved hand to his son, drove away.
Don followed the retreating figure with his eyes till it disappeared
from view, and then he earnestly murmured:
“It doesn’t seem possible that he ever could know what it is to be
really and truly angry, for he is the best and kindest father in the
whole world. For his sake I’ll do my best to control my temper--I’ll do
my best.”
CHAPTER II.
ANOTHER BOY.
Don’s musings were broken in upon by a familiar voice, which cried:
“Hello there, old man! What’s the matter with you--in a trance? Come
out of it!”
Looking up, Don saw Leon Bentley stopping outside the fence. As usual,
Leon was smoking a cigarette. He was dressed in a padded football suit,
with his cap set rakishly over one ear, and his manner was that of one
possessed of unlimited conceit and an overwhelming sense of his own
importance.
Don had never liked Bentley but his dislike had not been particularly
noticeable, for he was a fellow who, on account of his quick temper and
sulky moods, had few associates and no close companions among the boys
of the village.
Bentley had a strong taste for flashy clothes and cheap jewelry, being
inclined to swagger and boast and use profane language, so it was not
strange that any thoroughly self-respecting boy in the village did not
care to be regarded as his intimate friend.
At one time close friendship had seemed to exist between Leon and
Rob Linton, a lad whose bullying inclinations had caused him to be
disliked secretly by those who openly professed admiration and regard
for him; but even Linton, awakened at last to his own faults, sickened
of Bentley and fell to avoiding him as far as possible, which left Leon
casting about for another associate.
Remembering the words of his father and his own resolution to try to
control his temper, even though Linton’s free-and-easy manner around
within him a feeling of resentment, Don held himself in check, nodded
shortly, and said:
“Hello, Bentley. Going to practice?”
“Sure thing,” returned Leon, airily. “Got to do it, I suppose, though
it’s a horrid bore. Fellow has to practice to keep in the swim and be
a real athlete; and he has to be an athlete nowadays, or take part in
athletic sports, at least, in order to stand any show with the girls.
If he isn’t right in it they’ll throw him down for some fellow who is,
even though that fellow may be as long, lank, awkward and clownish as
that duffer John Smith. Why, even a girl like Dora Deland, proud as
she is, has fallen to raving over him since he happened to turn out
something of a baseball pitcher. You must show your skill, old man, if
you hope to cut any figure with Zadia Renwood.”
Bentley fell to laughing over his final words, as if he regarded them
as a good joke; but he stopped suddenly as he saw Don step quickly
toward the fence, scowling his fiercest.
“Have a care with that tongue of yours, Bentley!” Scott almost snarled.
“Because I happen to be acquainted with Zadia Renwood does not give you
license to make cheap talk, and I won’t take it from you.”
Leon whistled softly, and then hastened to declare:
“I didn’t mean anything, Scott, so what’s the use to flare up and get
mad like that! You ought to take something for that temper of yours. At
the smallest spark you go off like a flash of powder.”
Don paused, and his flushed face suddenly began to pale, for he
realised how soon he had flown into a passion after vowing to do his
best to control his temper, which filed him with shame and vexation
over his own weakness.
With an effort, the boy cast out from his soul the anger that had
seized upon him, and he actually forced a faint smile to his face,
which made it seem rather handsome in a dark and cloudy way.
“You’re right, Bentley,” he said; “I was a fool to become angry over
your careless words, but neither Zadia Renwood nor any other girl
is anything to me, for you know I dislike girls. They’re all silly
creatures.”
“They may be silly, but they’re sweet,” Bentley grinned, in a manner
that was decidedly repulsive to the other boy. “I tell you, girls are
great inventions, and I know you’d like them, old man, if you’d just
overcome your foolish prejudice against them. And Zadia Renwood is a
peach, too! I’m sure she’s struck on you, and you only have to brace
up----”
Don stopped the speaker with a gesture.
“That will do, Bentley!” he exclaimed, harshly, holding himself in
check. “Even if I cared for girls, I’d steer clear of Dolph Renwood’s
sister.”
“You don’t like him?” questioned Leon, pulling out a package of
cigarettes and selecting one, which he proceeded to roll gently between
the palms of his hands, all the while watching Don with a curious,
cunning look in his washed-out gray eyes.
“I hate the cad!” broke out Scott; but he suddenly seemed to remember
his failing and got a firm hold on himself. “He puts on too many airs,
Bentley, and he makes a great bluff that he’s a football expert; but it
is my private opinion, which I am willing to express publicly, that he
doesn’t know the rudiments of the game.”
“I think so, too,” eagerly nodded the lad outside the fence, as, with
his yellow-stained fingers, he nervously pulled a little of the filling
from one end of the paper wrapper. “And Sterndale is a fool to let that
city fop run things the way he does. Never knew Dick to be so soft
before, but I suppose we’ll have to stand it if we wish to play the
game. Come, it’s time we were on the field now.”
Don hesitated. “I don’t think I’ll go,” he said, in an unsettled manner.
“Oh, rats!” cried Leon, lighting the prepared cigarette from the
stub of the one he had finished, which he tossed aside. “Come along,
Scott, for you’re needed, and it’s your duty to play for the honor of
Rockspur.”
“By your own words a few moments ago, you confessed that you are not
going into the game for any such reason, but simply to win admiration
from the girls. I do not believe any fellow who plays football for such
a reason can do his best and be of real value to the team.”
A suggestion of color mounted to the sallow cheeks of the
cigarette-smoker, and he laughingly retorted:
“That was talk, Scott; of course I’m going into the game to help the
home team win. We can’t afford to lose any good man, and so you’ll come
along with me. As for Renwood, we’re not the only ones who are sick
of his high-handed style of lording it over us, and we may be able to
bring about a change, if we go at it in the right manner. Get your suit
and come on.”
Plainly undecided, Don leaned on the fence.
“My suit is in the dressing-room under the grand-stand,” he said. “I
did make up my mind not to have anything more to do with the team as
long as Renwood was coaching----”
“That was when you were mad, old man. Of course, I don’t blame you, but
don’t let your temper cause you to go back on your own town. Renwood
doesn’t really belong here, anyhow; he’s only just moved here since his
father, seeing that Rockspur is bound to become a famous summer resort,
has bought up the East Shore land as a speculation. I don’t believe in
letting such an outsider come in and run things. If you and I combine
against him, we can bring enough of the others to our way of thinking
to set him back into the place where he belongs.”
Don did not fancy the idea of forming such an alliance with Bentley,
but he sought to justify it by telling himself that it was for the good
of the Rockspur football team, and that there was no harm in uniting
with Leon on such an issue.
“I’ll not become friendly with him,” thought Don, “simply because we
both think the same way about this matter. A man is likely to find
it needful to have business relations with another whom he would not
accept as an associate, and this is purely a matter of business.”
He was soon to learn that such relations are always to be avoided when
possible, and that, justly or unjustly, a man or a boy is judged by the
company he keeps.
“Come on,” urged Leon. “We’ll talk it over on our way to the ground.”
“When I was angry I declared I wouldn’t play on the team with Renwood,”
Don mentally said; “but it is my duty not to let my anger control me.”
Then, vaulting over the fence, he joined Bentley, and they set off
together toward the football field.
CHAPTER III.
THE FOOTBALL FIELD.
The Rockspur baseball ground, leveled and fenced through the energies
of Dick Sterndale, captain of the village nine, was also to serve as a
football field. Already Sterndale and Renwood, assisted by others who
were interested and enthusiastic, had measured and lined off the field
and erected the goal-posts at each end.
The marked-off field was three hundred and thirty feet long and one
hundred and sixty feet in width. The measurements had been obtained by
the aid of a tape, and then lime-lines had been drawn with a marker to
indicate the actual field of play. Outside this field and inside the
fence was a varying amount of room. At one point the fence was only
eight feet from the boundary of the playing field, and this was the
smallest permissible amount of space.
Having obtained the outer boundaries of the playing field, the tape was
run down the side-lines and wooden pegs were driven into the ground
exactly five yards apart. When the pegs were all down, the tape was
stretched across the field from a peg on one side to a corresponding
peg on the opposite side, and the lime marker was run over the tape, so
the field was marked off with twenty-one lines between the ends, or
twenty-three lines if the end lines were included.
Then the fifth line out from the end, or the twenty-five yard line,
the point of kick-out, was made broader than the others, so it could
be plainly distinguished. This was done at both ends of the field, and
then the exact centre of the field, on the eleventh five-yard line, was
marked with a large round spot to indicate the place of kick-off.
With this accomplished, the field was fully laid out, and the setting
of the goal-posts, the most difficult task of all, followed. Sterndale
selected four cedar posts which were long and straight and obtained two
cross-bars which satisfied him in every particular. The posts were cut
to a length of twenty-three feet, which gave an allowance of three feet
to be sunk into the ground, and the cross-bars were somewhat more than
nineteen feet long, as the posts were to be set exactly eighteen feet
and six inches apart, it being necessary for the cross-bars to over
lap, so that they might be securely spiked to the posts.
In setting the posts, the tape was stretched across the end of the
field and the middle of the line marked, which was a distance of eighty
feet from either side. This done, with the middle mark as a starting
point, nine feet and three inches were measured off in opposite
direction along the line, the two points for the posts being thus
determined. Holes nearly three feet in depth were excavated at these
points and the posts erected in them, the ground being packed solidly
about them, causing them to stand securely without braces, which are
needless and dangerous, as a player might trip over them or be forced
upon them and injured.
When Scott and Bentley reached the field they found all the members
of the newly-organized Rockspur Eleven were present, besides a number
of youthful spectators and a few who were anxious to be classed as
substitutes.
A little at one side from the others, Dick Sterndale, the handsome,
manly-looking captain of the team, was essaying the drop-kick, coached
by the boy Don Scott disliked, Dolph Renwood. Renwood was rather
slender, although just now, in his padded football suit, he did not
look so, and he had sharp, blue eyes, which to the village boys often
seemed full of laughing scorn and contempt even while he spoke to them
in a most serious or friendly manner. It was those eyes which caused
the Rockspur lads to distrust Dolph for all of his apparent sincerity
and interest in their sports and pleasures; and those eyes had done not
a little to arouse the resentment of quick-tempered Don Scott, who bore
half-hidden ridicule with less grace than open contempt.
The players’ bench used by the baseball team had been moved aside
to make room for the football field, but it stood back by the rail
in front of the bleachers, and Don walked toward it, passing close
to Sterndale and Renwood. Having seated himself on the bench beside
two small boys, he was able to overhear Renwood’s instructions to
the captain of the team, although he pretended to be giving them no
attention whatever.
“There are three ways to make a drop-kick,” Dolph was explaining. “You
can’t do it any old way, Sterndale. In the first place, you must take
hold of the ball right.”
“How’s that?” the big captain meekly asked.
“You may hold it with one hand, like this, with the point toward the
goal, and drop it that way, taking a somewhat side-swinging kick; or
you may hold it precisely the same with both hands and drop it; or,
finally, you may hold it with both hands in this manner, pointing it
away from the goal. It must never be dropped flat or directly upon the
end. Now watch.”
The “coach” dropped the ball and kicked it handsomely, sending it
sailing through the air in a long, graceful arc. It was pursued and
captured by some small boys, who had a scrimmage over it, out of which
one broke with it hugged under his arm and came running back toward
Dick and Dolph.
“In kicking the ball,” Renwood went on, “you must hit it squarely with
the toe the very instant that it rises off the ground. Now let me see
you try it.”
Sterndale took the ball from the panting youngster who brought it up,
held it with both hands as directed, and dropped it. In kicking he was
a trifle too quick, and the result was anything but satisfactory.
“No, no!” exclaimed Renwood, impatiently. “Don’t kick it after it hits
the ground. Can’t you understand that? Your toe must hit it just the
instant it rises from the ground. Try to fix that in your head.”
“Is that Sterndale?” Don Scott asked himself, in amazement. “Can it be
that he’ll let anybody talk to him in that tone of voice?”
Dick was the acknowledged leader of the village boys and their accepted
commander in all things. As captain of the baseball nine, he had seemed
to know everything worth knowing about the game, and he had been
skillful in imparting his knowledge to others and in handling his men
to the very best advantage. When the Rockspur lads decided to organize
a regular football team for the first time, Sterndale was unanimously
chosen captain, although he confessed that he was almost unfamiliar
with the game.
The boys regarded it as a piece of good fortune when Redwood offered to
coach them, claiming to have been a member of the Hyde Park A. A. C.
and to have played in a large number of football games in and around
Boston; but Scott and Bentley were not the only ones who had been
annoyed by the city lad’s supercilious ways and condescending airs,
although the others held their resentment in check, feeling that they
could not afford to antagonize Dolph as long as he was instructing them
in the arts of the game they wished to learn.
Again Sterndale tried the drop-kick, and this time he was successful,
sending the pigskin sailing through the air in handsome style, so that
Renwood declared:
“That was good. Try it again.”
When the ball was returned, the captain made a still better kick, and
again received an expression of approval from the coach.
“Now,” said Dolph, “all the members of the team seem to be here, so
I think we’d better get them together and put in some practice on
signals. They bungled things terribly last night. I think you’ll find
some of them are no earthly good.”
As he said this, he turned and looked at Don Scott, who felt on the
instant that the words were meant for him, and a pang of anger shot
through his heart, causing his hands to clench savagely and his jaws to
harden.
“We have the best fellows in the village on the eleven,” asserted
Sterndale, loyally.
“Good fellows do not always make good football players,” said Dolph,
knowingly. “But get them together, and we’ll see if they can do any
better than they did last night.”
Observing Don, Dick called:
“Come on, Scott. Where’s your suit?”
“Don’t need it,” returned the boy on the bench. “I’m not going to
practice.”
“What?” exclaimed Dick, walking over. “Oh, come, that’s nonsense! You
aren’t sick, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s different,” said the captain, quickly. “If you’re sick, I
don’t expect you to practice.”
Don rose to his feet.
“Yes, I’m sick,” he hoarsely declared. “I’m sick of that fellow Renwood
and his airs and insults. I’ve stood them just as long as I can. I know
he meant me when he said some of the men on the team were no earthly
good, and----”
“I know you’re mistaken,” cut in Dick, quickly. “Now, wait a minute,
Don. It was only a short time ago that we thought of getting the team
together for practice, and he observed that you were not here, and that
Bentley had not arrived. He said we’d better wait, for, while we might
get along without Bent, we needed you in your position as half-back.
That was not all. He said that, whatever changes were made on the team,
he believed you had been given the right position and should be kept
there.”
For a moment Don found himself at a loss for words, but he finally
muttered:
“He didn’t mean it. It was just some of his sarcasm.”
“I am sure it was nothing of the sort. He was in earnest.”
“Then why did he make such talk to me last night? And why did he look
at me in such a way just now when he said some fellows on the team were
no earthly good?”
“He didn’t talk to you any plainer than he does to any of the fellows.
They say professional coaches sometimes swear at the men they are
training and are as bad as slave-drivers. You must remember that he has
been coached by a professional on the team he played with in Boston,
and I suppose he considers that the proper way to talk to men. Now,
Don, old man, you know we can’t get along without you on the eleven
any more than we could have made the record we did if you hadn’t been
on the nine. I know you’re loyal to Rockspur, and you’re going to
help us down those Highlanders. Don’t mind the way Renwood gives his
instructions, but just get right into gear and show what you can do.
I’m depending on you, Scott.”
Dick had a hand resting on Don’s shoulder while speaking, and there
was deep persuasion in his manner and the inflection of his voice. It
was this quality of inducing others to do as he desired that had made
Sterndale a leader.
Don wavered a moment, the thought coming to him once more that he must
do his best to conquer his temper and that this was another occasion
for him to prove his self-control, whereupon he said:
“All right, Sterndale; I’ll do it for you. But I can’t stand everything
from Renwood. I’ll get into a suit in a hurry.”
Then he trotted off toward the dressing-room beneath the grand-stand,
while Dick, following him with his eyes, muttered:
“Confound your surly temper! I’d like to tell you just what I think of
you, but it isn’t policy now, for we need you on the team.”
CHAPTER IV.
DON LEAVES THE TEAM.
It did not take Don long to get into his football suit. Danny
Chatterton met him as he was coming from the dressing-room.
“So you ch-ch-ch-changed your mind?” grinned the little fellow, winking
in a taunting manner. “Must have cuc-cuc-cooled off sus-some after I
left ye. Or was it Bub-Bentley gug-got you to come along? He-he’ll
make a real good ch-ch-chum for you! Tell you what, I’d rather be
fuf-friendly with a stuck-up city chap, as you cuc-cuc-call Renwood,
than to only have a ch-chum like Bub-Bentley.”
“You mind your own business, Chatterton!” harshly advised Don. “I’m not
making a chum of anybody.”
“Well, there’s a pup-pup-pup-pretty good reason for that,” returned the
aggravating little rascal, as he sidled away. “If you had a ch-chum,
you’d gug-get mad and eat him inside of th-th-three days.”
Scott bit his lip, assailed by a sudden conviction. “That’s the reason
I’ve never had a real chum,” he thought. “It’s my temper. I have no one
but myself to blame, I suppose.”
He was actually feeling humiliated and humble when he joined the
others, who were grouped about Renwood and Sterndale. Dolph and Dick
were talking over the code of signals and the simpler plays to be
learned.
“Of course,” said Renwood, “when we become familiar with the common
and conventional plays, then we can study up new formations and new
moves in the game. Until we’ve seen just what kind of material we have
and what sort of a team it forms as a whole, we cannot decide upon our
general style of playing. If the men prove to be fast and light on
their feet, we’ll see what we can do in the way of running and surprise
plays. If they are not fast, but are dogged and heavy enough, we’ll see
what kind of a bucking team they’ll make. Or it is possible we may find
that we have a great kicking team. But, no matter what general style of
playing may be decided upon, after getting into a game it may be found
expedient to change to another style in order to best assail the weak
points of the opposing team.”
This was plain, sensible talk, and the boys, with a single exception,
listened to it attentively. The exception was Roger Ford, a deaf-mute,
surely a peculiar fellow to have upon a football team. Ford, however,
was a real athlete, a great runner and wrestler, and a fellow of nerve,
so that, at his own solicitation, he had been given a place on the
eleven, Sterndale having decided to try him, for all of the fear that
his deafness might prove a serious detriment.
“Mr. Sterndale, your captain,” continued Dolph, “has familiarized
himself with the signals and certain plays that we are to try
to-day. I presume the rest of you have studied the signal code, so
that you will know just what to do on every occasion. If you wish to
have the team succeed, you must always do your level best to obey
any signal given. The fellow who is looking for individual glory and
an opportunity to show off will prove to be a disadvantage and an
encumbrance to the eleven.”
As he spoke these words his eyes seemed to rest meaningly on Leon
Bentley, whose thin lips curled and who turned away contemptuously.
When Renwood had delivered this little lecture, Sterndale called for
the men to line up, which, with some confusion, they proceeded to do at
the centre of the field. The line-up was as follows:
Sterndale,
F. B.
Scott, Mayfair,
R. H. B. L. H. B.
Renwood,
Q. B.
Smith, Linton, Sprout, Chatterton, Ford, Bentley, Murphy,
R. E. R. T. R. G. Snap-back. L. G. L. T. L. E.
Among those selected as possible substitutes was Thad Boland, the
laziest boy in town, who, in mockery of his habitual slowness of
movement, was generally called “Old Lighting.” Thad was a big fellow,
besides being wonderfully strong, and, could he be aroused to action,
it was thought he would prove a perfectly irresistible thunder-bolt in
the line; but only something of a most remarkable or alarming nature
could arouse Thad to display his dormant energies, although he enjoyed
watching others indulge in athletic games and contests, and was almost
invariably on hand when anything of the kind was going on.
The best runners had been placed in the ends of the line. During
the baseball season which had just closed John Smith had shown to
his doubting companions that he was a fellow of courage, nerve and
coolness, and Sterndale had insisted on giving him a position of
prominence on the eleven.
At John’s side was Rob Linton, his former enemy, now his enemy no
longer; while next came Jotham Sprout, nicknamed “Bubble,” who was
generally regarded as the weakest man in the line, although it was
hoped that his blundering might turn to the advantage of the team, as
often had been the case in games of baseball.
Danny Chatterton had been placed at centre, where, on the signal, he
was to snap the ball back to Renwood, who would pass it according to
the pre-arranged plan. Danny was rather quick in his movements, and
Sterndale had been convinced that he would be the best man for the
position.
On the left of Chatterton was the deaf-mute, Ford, who had been given a
position where the plays were nearly all of a simple nature. Bentley,
the cigarette-smoker, was left tackle, and Dennis Murphy, a gritty and
somewhat beligerant Irish youth, stood on the extreme left end.
Taken all together, the material that composed the team was as good as
most small country towns could furnish. It remained to be demonstrated
what Sterndale and Renwood could make of the material.
When every player was in position, the ball was placed on the ground
between Chatterton’s feet, and the crouching men waited for the signal.
“I want you to form and run forward with the ball ten or fifteen feet,
just the same as if you were in a game,” said Dick, now taking command
of them. “Ready!”
They crouched in anticipation, and then Dick quickly called off several
numbers, whereupon, with a skillful movement, Chatterton snapped the
ball into Renwood’s hand and he passed it to Mayfair, who started like
a flash, hugging it under one arm and plunging after the men who formed
in front of him and rushed forward as interferers.
Jotham Sprout seemed rather bewildered, and, as a result, he blocked
Linton and fell over his own feet, while the others surged across his
body, giving him several knocks and kicks, which caused him to sit up
and howl.
“Say, what in time do you fellers take me for? Ev’ry dinged one of you
kicked me or stepped on me! I bet a dollar my wish-bone is dislocated!”
he moaned, rubbing his fat stomach.
“You’ll have to keep awake if you’re going to play this game,” sharply
declared Renwood. “Better try that over again, Captain Sterndale.”
“Line up again,” ordered Dick. “Now mind your p’s and q’s. You’ll have
to start quicker, Bubble.”
“I can’t start as quick as Chat,” confessed Jotham; “but it’s going to
take more to stop me when I get going.”
When the men were lined up again, the signal was repeated and the play
was carried out in a far more satisfactory manner. Then the signal was
changed so the ball was passed to Scott for practically the same kind
of a play.
It is possible that Don was nervous, for he fumbled the pass the very
first time, and the ball quite escaped from his clutch. This made him
so angry that he sprang after it and gave it a fierce kick. In a moment
Sterndale was at his side.
“That won’t do, old man,” said Dick. “Any of us is liable to make a
fumble, so don’t----”
“Mayfair didn’t!” panted Don, his face flushed and his eyes flashing.
“It wasn’t my fault! I don’t propose to be made a show of!” He gave
Renwood a savage look.
“Steady!” warned Dick. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do! It was the same way yesterday. Put another fellow in
Renwood’s place and I’ll guarantee to get the passes all right.”
This was enough to arouse Dolph, who promptly said:
“Don’t try to blame any one else for your own fault, Mr. Scott. I
passed you the ball in exactly the same manner that I passed it to
Mayfair. He took the pass cleanly.”
“And by that you call me a fumbler, do you? All right! I knew what
would happen!” He took three steps toward Renwood. “I knew you meant
me when you said there were some men on the team who were no earthly
good,” he went on, his anger blazing forth unrestrained. “You don’t
like me, because I won’t bow down and let you walk on my neck. I’m not
one of the bowing kind, Mr. Renwood, and I’m just as good as you are,
if you have played football in Boston. You come down here with your
airs and expect to overawe us because we live in the country, but you
are nothing but a stuck-up----”
Sterndale grasped with crushing force the arm of the angry and excited
speaker, and he sternly said:
“Stop right where you are, Scott! You are making a spectacle of
yourself by letting your unreasonable anger run away with your
judgment. Renwood is our coach, accepted by unanimous consent, and as
such he has a right to instruct and criticize us. We should feel under
obligations to him for his kindness, and----”
“His kindness!” snarled Don. “Bah! He has found an opportunity to show
off, and he’s making the most of it. It is my opinion that we might
do better without his instructions and without him on the team. If
we’ve got to have him, let him go up into the line and take his chance
with the others. He chose his own position, where he’ll always have
something important to do, yet where there is little danger of being
hurt, for he never runs with the ball and he’s not in the front with
the interference. I can see through him, if the rest of you do not.”
He would have said more, but Dick stopped him again.
“Not another word of this, Scott!” he cried. “You’ve lost your head
entirely, and you’d better----”
“Oh, I’ll get out!” grated Scott. “Hands off me, Sterndale! You are not
my master! You can keep your city cad on the team, and I’ll leave! That
will settle it.”
He tore himself from Sterndale and strode away. Renwood was angry now
and would have followed him, but the boys stopped him.
“Let him go,” said the captain. “No one can reason with him when he
gets that way.”
“I don’t want to reason with him,” muttered Dolph, who was pale round
his mouth; “I want to hit him!”
But Dick used his influence, and Don was permitted to walk away, while
Thad Boland was called in to make up the eleven. Boland was given
Smith’s position on the end, Smith being brought back to the place made
vacant by Don.
Sitting alone on the bleachers, Don Scott saw the boys line up again
and continue practice without him. He saw them try a number and variety
of plays from signals, and he heard Renwood give them instructions in
forming a wedge and in mass-play. He ground his white teeth together
as he watched them, and the hot fury within him seemed burning and
consuming his very heart. He noted that they seemed to get along
quite well without him, and it was plain that they were beginning to
understand some of the difficult strategy of the game, even if they
could not execute it rapidly. The formation for sending a runner
round the end was tried several times, and then the “criss-cross,” or
double-pass, was essayed until Smith and Mayfair, working together,
seemed to have obtained some skill at it.
It was gall-and-wormwood for the fiery-tempered youth, who, having put
aside all desire to restrain and control his anger, now entertained
the most bitter and revengeful thoughts. He was angry toward Bentley,
too, for not speaking out and siding with him in his outburst against
Renwood.
There was quite a gathering of spectators who watched the practice, but
Don noticed them very little, failing to observe that among them were
three girls who were much interested.
At last the practice was over, Sterndale announcing that they had done
enough for one day. Then, as Renwood was giving them some instructions
about dieting and getting into good condition, Don leaped down from the
bleachers and strode out upon the field. When the group broke up, the
coach found himself face to face with the lad who had withdrawn from
the team.
The rather handsome face of Don Scott was sullen and scowling, and
there seemed to be a gleam in his black eyes.
“I have a few more words I want to say to you, Renwood!” he said, his
voice hoarse and unsteady.
“And I have something I want to say to you!” Dolph flung back
instantly. “A fellow with such a beastly temper as you have isn’t fit
to play football, and the team will be better off without you.”
With a cry, Don sprang forward and drew back his clenched fist,
intending to strike Renwood full in the face; but a pretty girl with
gold-brown eyes stepped between them, and he saw before him the sister
of the fellow he hated.
CHAPTER V.
AN UNFORTUNATE COMPACT.
Don’s hand dropped instantly and he fell back a step, gasping and
trembling, startled and abashed.
The slender left hand of the girl rested on the breast of her brother,
while her right was lifted with the open palm toward his angry enemy,
upon whom her eyes were turned with an appealing look in their
gold-flaked depths.
“Don’t!” she said, shrinking a little before the clouded face of the
angry lad.
“Zadia!” exclaimed Dolph. “This is no place for you!”
She would not let him put her aside. “No, no!” she almost panted; “you
shall not fight! Please, Mr. Scott, don’t fight with Dolph! Promise me
you will not--for my sake.”
Renwood flushed with shame, thinking the others might fancy he was
seeking protection from his enemy behind his sister’s skirts; and he
begged her to go away, but she remained firm.
“I am sure it is all a mistake, and there is no reason why you should
be enemies,” she said. “Anyhow, you must not fight. You must promise
me, Dolph, that you will not fight with him.”
“I can’t do it,” muttered Renwood. “If he’s bound to fight, I shall not
run away. He’ll get all he wants.”
Immediately the girl turned appealingly to Don.
“Then you must give me your promise,” she said. “Please do!”
It was hard to resist such an appeal from such a source, and Don stood
there biting his lip, silent and uncertain. She stepped up to him
boldly, and placed her hands on both his arms, looking up into his
flushed face in supplication.
“Please promise me!” she breathed.
He drew a long breath. “All right,” he said, “I’ll promise; but don’t
ask any more of me--don’t expect anything more!”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, I don’t deserve any thanks! I shall take care to avoid your
brother, as the easiest way to keep from breaking my promise to you.
I--I’m sorry anything happened--for your sake.”
His voice that had been harsh seemed to soften with the final words,
but he gave his head a toss as he turned away; and then, without
stopping or heeding anybody, he hurried from the field.
“I suppose they’ll all say I’m to blame,” he muttered to himself, as he
walked swiftly past the academy and hastened down the hill. “I don’t
care if they do! I couldn’t stand it from that fellow, and that’s all
there is to it.”
He had gone some distance before he noticed that he was wearing the
football suit and had left his own clothes in the dressing-room beneath
the grand-stand. When he made this discovery, he paused a moment,
tempted to go back at once.
“No,” he finally said, shaking his head; “they’d be there, and some of
them would be changing their clothes. I don’t want to see any of the
fellows now--I don’t want to talk it over.”
So he went on.
Had he returned, he might have arrived at the gate in time to hear an
interesting bit of conversation between three girls. Zadia Renwood was
talking with the two companions who had accompanied her to the field,
Dora Deland and Agnes Mayfair.
“I’m sorry,” said Agnes, with genuine sympathy expressed on her sweet
face and in her dark eyes. “I’m sorry your brother should have trouble
with any of the boys, Zadia, and I’m sure Don Scott will be sorry when
he gets over being angry.”
“I’m not very sure about that, myself,” Dora laughed, with curling
lips. “He has a frightful temper, which he never tries to restrain, and
I think he’s just perfectly horrid. I can’t bear him. Of course he was
entirely to blame, and I think----”
“Perhaps he was not wholly to blame,” interrupted Zadia, generously.
“Even though Dolph is my brother, I know he is not perfect.”
“I think he’s perfectly splendid,” smiled Dora; “and I know Don Scott
must have been to blame, for he always is. So there!”
“I shall tell Dolph that you were his champion.”
“Oh, don’t--not for the world! But I don’t like Don Scott; I never did.
He scowls so, and he looks as if he’d bite anybody.”
“Now,” said Zadia, with a little laugh, “if I were to confess the
truth, I’d tell you that I think him a handsome fellow--really and
truly I do! Ana he looks the handsomest when he is angry. I don’t
believe he’d be afraid of anything, and I’m sure he’d become a natural
leader if he could master his temper.”
“Goodness, Zade!” cried Dora. “I really believe you are struck on him!”
“Oh, no!” protested Dolph’s sister, though she flushed betrayingly.
“But I can’t help liking him, for some reason.”
Little did Don dream how the sister of the lad he so disliked felt
toward him, and he was convinced in his heart that she must despise
him, which, although he would not confess it even to himself, made him
all the bitterer.
Concealed by a thick hedge near his home, he saw the boys trooping down
the street from the football field, chatting and laughing. They seemed
to have forgotten about him, and he clenched his hands and ground his
heel into the ground as if crushing out a life beneath his foot.
“They’re a lot of soft things!” he muttered. “Not one of them has a
mind of his own or any real spirit. I despise them all!”
The three girls seemed to have found companions suited to their tastes,
for they had paired off with three of the boys. In advance were John
Smith and Agnes Mayfair, the tall lad looking rather awkward beside the
graceful, dark-eyed girl. Just behind them were Dolph Renwood and Dora
Deland, Dora seeming very well satisfied with her conquest, if conquest
it was.
“They make a good pair,” declared Don to himself, with curling lips.
“She’s called the prettiest girl in the village, and it has spoiled
her, for she thinks every fellow who sees her is struck on her. She
has an idea that the village boys are not good enough for her, so she
always smiles on strangers. Just because Renwood comes from Boston she
has an idea that he’s a superior sort of person. Bah! He is welcome to
her, and she’s welcome to him.”
Following Dolph and Dora were Dick Sterndale and Dolph’s sister. The
lips of the watching lad tightened and his brows lowered.
“So she has taken up with Sterndale,” he whispered. “I expected she
would, for he has a way of getting round any girl; but she’s too good
for him, even if she is Renwood’s sister. If she’d ever heard him joke
about his mashes, as I have, she’d take care. She’d better keep away
from him if she values her good name.”
For all that Dora Deland was the belle of the village, in Don’s eyes
she did not compare at all favorably with the city girl, who carried
herself with more grace and whose clothes had a certain something
about them that bespoke better taste. In fact, there was that marked
difference between the two girls that always distinguishes the
city-bred from those reared in the country.
Dick’s hearty laugh rang out as his companion made some observation.
“Yes, that is where he lives,” said the captain of the eleven, with a
motion toward Don’s home.
The boy behind the hedge neared Dick’s words, and then Zadia said
something he did not hear, but Sterndale laughed again in his hearty
way.
“Talking about me!” grated Don, his teeth clenched. “She is laughing,
too! I suppose she thinks I’m a common country fool! What do I care for
what she thinks!”
Still he watched them as they passed onward down the tree-lined street,
and his heart was hot in his bosom.
“Perhaps she’ll not think so much of herself after she’s been round
with Sterndale a while,” he muttered; “for just as sure as she lets
him hang round her she’ll discover people are talking. Everybody knows
Sterndale, and still it’s the strangest thing in the world that almost
any girl in the village would be glad to take up with him. He has a
way about him that makes them like him, no mater what he does; while
something about me makes folks dislike me, no matter what I do. It’s my
luck to be just as I am! I can’t help it! It’s no use for me to try!”
His father drove up to the door, having just returned from his
afternoon calls; and Don took pains to keep out of sight while Dr.
Scott surrendered the horse and carriage to Pat and entered the house,
for he was in no mood to meet his father just then.
When he was satisfied that all the boys had passed, he went round to
the back of the house and threw himself on the ground beneath the sweet
apple-tree, giving himself up entirely to bitter thoughts.
He was mistaken, however, about all the boys having passed, for he had
not been reclining beneath the tree two minutes before Leon Bentley
appeared, slowly following the others.
At sight of Bentley, Don sprang up, calling sharply:
“Look here, Bent, I want to see you. Come over here, where we can talk.”
Bentley crossed the street and vaulted the fence. The expression on his
sallow face was anything but pleasant.
“Yes, and I want to see you, too,” he said, apparently paying no
attention to Don’s scowl of anger. “This is our chance to have a little
talk where no one will hear us.”
“I want to know one thing,” said Don, “and that is if you meant what
you said to me here before we went up to the field to practice.”
“Of course I meant anything I said,” declared Leon, flinging himself
in a comfortable position on the ground. “What are you driving at, old
man?”
“You said you did not fancy Renwood’s style of lording it over us.”
“Well, I’ll stand by that, you can bet your life!”
“You spoke about combining against him.”
“Don’t you think it about time to do something of the sort?”
“And yet,” flared Don, “when he gave me a call-down on the field and we
had our little trouble, you never opened your head. You kept closed up,
like a clam, and it looked as if you sympathized with him. Why didn’t
you stand by me? Why didn’t you show your colors? What ailed you?”
“Now don’t fly off the handle,” grinned Leon, producing a package
of cigarettes, “You need something to soothe your nerves. Have a
cigarette?”
“No! I don’t smoke them.”
“I know; but you’ll find them mighty soothing to the nerves, and you
need something of the sort. Try one.”
“No; I don’t like the smell of them.”
“You will after you smoke a few. They’re great, old man. Just try one,
now.”
“I’m too mad to smoke or do anything else but fight. Take the things
away! Why don’t you answer my question?”
Leon selected a cigarette and prepared it for lighting. Don found it
hard to restrain himself while the fellow was doing all this. When
Bentley had lighted the cigarette, he took a deep pull at it, inhaled
the smoke, and let it escape from his mouth in little puffs as he asked:
“What was your question?”
“I asked you why you didn’t show your colors and stand by me when I had
my quarrel with Renwood.”
“I didn’t consider it policy just then, Don.”
“But you saw I was all alone. Everybody seemed against me. If you had
put yourself openly on my side just then I’d appreciated it.”
“Sometimes it is best not to be too open in such affairs. The matter
with you is that you’re too open in everything. If you hate a fellow,
you let him know it right off, so he’s prepared for any move you make
against him. Now, I don’t believe in that. If I hate a chap, I just
keep still till I get a good chance to soak him, and then I can take
him by surprise.”
Leon said this with a foxy smile that was rather repulsive to the other.
“No, I don’t fancy that way of doing things,” admitted Don, promptly.
“If I hate a fellow, I want him to know it. It’s a satisfaction to have
him know just what I think of him.”
“And it puts him on his guard against you. That’s not my style. I’m
just as sore on Renwood as you are, but I felt that I might hit him
harder if I kept still. I’m onto him, and I know he’s down on me. He
wants to chuck me off the eleven, so I wasn’t going to play right into
his hands by siding openly with you and giving him a good excuse to
turn Sterndale against me.”
“Confound Sterndale! I’m sick of him! He is letting this city cad
manage him.”
“Of course he is, but he’d get hot in a minute if anybody told him so.”
“What makes you think Renwood wants to get you off the eleven?”
“Why, he’s been throwing out hints. He’s said there were some fellows
on the team who were no earthly good.”
“I heard him say that!” grated Don; “and he meant me, too!”
“He may have meant you for one, but I am the other.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, I took pains to get near enough to overhear some things he was
saying to Sterndale after you left the field. They didn’t see me, but I
heard this sneak Renwood say outright that he thought the eleven could
be strengthened by filling my place with somebody else. I felt like
punching his head then and there, but I just kept still and didn’t let
anybody know what I had heard.”
“I couldn’t have kept still.”
“That’s where you’re foolish. He said I smoke too many cigarettes. Just
as if that had anything to do with my playing! What rot! And he even
declared that I lack nerve, so that I would weaken in a hard game.”
At another time Don Scott might have realized that he had entertained
similar convictions regarding Leon, but just now he exclaimed:
“And you never did a thing? Why, I’d walked out to him and showed him
if I lacked nerve!”
“And got chucked off the team for your pains. But I’ll show him! I’m
going to stay on the team, and I’ll bet ten dollars Mr. Dolph Renwood
will get kicked off.”
Don looked at his companion with new interest.
“How do you propose to bring that about?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t know just now, but I’ll do it. I have an idea that
Renwood doesn’t care a snap whether Rockspur beats Highland or not.”
“Then, why is he coaching the team?”
“Just to show off what he knows. I tell you, Don, if you and I stand
together, we can floor that fellow.”
“But I’m out of it; I’m no longer on the team.”
“I am, and I’ll report to you anything that may be of interest. I’m
going to lay some snares to trip Mr. Renwood, and I may need your help.
If I do, can I count on you?”
“I don’t know,” was the doubtful answer. “It makes a difference what
you are going to do.”
“I’ll let you know about that later,” said Bentley, rising. “I want you
to know that I’m your friend, and I sympathize with you in this affair.
We’ll stand by each other to the end. Here is my hand on it, Scott.
We’ll make a compact against Dolph Renwood, and we’ll throw him down,
too. Shake!”
He held out his right hand, the first two fingers of which were stained
a sickly yellow.
Don hesitated, something within him revolting against forming a compact
with a fellow so unscrupulous and crafty; but, for all that he would
not confess as much even to himself, he desired sympathy and friendship
from some one, and Leon seemed to be the only one to whom he could turn.
“Come,” cried Bentley; “I’ll stick by you through thick and thin, old
man, and you will come out on top, too. You’ll find me the best friend
you ever had, Don.”
The best friend! Never had he known what it was to have a real boy
friend, and now he felt that it would be churlish of him to refuse the
proffered friendship of this lad whose hand was extended to him in his
time of trouble. It was true there were many things about Leon that he
did not admire, but was there not about himself many things that almost
any other lad might dislike? In such a time as this he must not be too
particular.
Don took Bentley’s hand, but something like a shiver ran over him when
he felt Leon’s cold fingers rest in his hot palm. On the instant he was
almost sorry that he had formed such a compact, but he fancied it was
too late to withdraw. The die was cast, and he could not retreat then.
CHAPTER VI.
WORDS OF WISDOM.
When Bentley had departed, Don entered the house, intending to go
directly to his own room and change his clothes, after taking a bath.
He had reached the foot of the stairs when his father called to him
from his office, the door of which was standing open.
Don paused, a sudden thought assailing him and giving him a shock.
He remembered now that his father had returned shortly before the
appearance of Leon and, without doubt, he had been in his office at the
time the two boys were forming their compact beneath the apple-tree. If
so, he had overheard all that passed between them, as, earlier in the
day, he overheard his son’s talk with Danny Chatterton, in which case
he must be aware that Don had given way to a burst of anger, for all of
the promise to try to restrain and govern his temper.
But that was not all. Despite himself, Don could not help feeling that
there was something censurable, almost reprehensible, in his compact
with Leon Bentley, formed for the purpose of working injury to a lad
whom they hated. For this reason, his face flushed and he was seized by
a sudden dread of his father’s kindly yet searching eyes.
“Don!” again called that voice.
“Yes, father,” he answered.
“Come here a minute. I wish to speak with you.”
The boy felt like running away, but he summoned his courage and entered
the room which served Dr. Scott as an office.
The gentleman was sitting at his desk close by the window, which was
screened and curtained.
“Sit down,” said the doctor, motioning toward a chair.
“I’ll stand, if you please, father,” said Don. “I am in my football
suit, which I wish to change as soon as possible, for I’m rather
sweaty.”
“Then you changed your mind about not playing on the eleven? I’m glad
you did so, for I like to see my son interested in the honest and manly
sports which interest other boys of the village.”
Don was silent.
“Football is a rather vigorous game, to say the least,” smiled Dr.
Scott, gently. “Some say it is rough and brutal, but, if played
strictly according to the present rules, it is hardly brutal, and it
develops in the player alertness, decision, resolution and courage,
qualities of paramount value to every man who would rise in the world
above the common level of humanity.”
But for the dread of what he anticipated was to follow, Don himself
might have smiled, thinking as he did how few fathers regarded thus
favorably the game in question.
“I have taken pains to investigate this matter,” the doctor went on,
“for I have noted the outcry against football coming from various
quarters, and I wished to determine if it is a game suitable for my
son. Baseball meets my hearty approval, although a clean, healthy sport
like that may be carried to excess, and even amateur players should be
properly trained and hardened so that no evil effects may follow the
exertions of the game, which call for sharp runs, straining, jumping,
and so forth. In baseball it occasionally happens that a player is
severely or seriously injured, but the timid lad who avoids the game
because of this is pretty sure to lack courage to fight the battle of
life to a successful consummation.”
The waiting lad wondered that his father should say all this, for it
had been understood between them that baseball was a game in which Don
might indulge to his full inclination, as long as he did not permit it
to interfere with his studies or other duties.
“Having taken pains to investigate the records in regard to football,”
continued the doctor, “I have found that there are a large number of
accidents in connection with the game, but I have also found that these
accidents and injuries generally fall to the lot of the untrained and
unprepared. A race horse cannot be kept in running condition unless he
receives proper grooming, diet and exercise. Every day it must be ‘let
out’ for speed, but judgment must be used to work it up to a proper
condition for the great test of the race, when every nerve must be
strained in order to win. Almost any horse could be ruined by putting
it into a single race without proper training. Yet some young men are
foolish enough to fancy they can go into a game of football without
preparation and exert themselves with impunity to their very utmost,
running, kicking, pushing and tackling. Every boy or man who does such
a thing takes his life in his hands. If he is not killed, he stands
a good chance to be injured for life. And it is these unprepared and
foolish persons who receive the most of the injuries. Some lads should
never play football, being physically unfitted for such a game; but,
with proper training and preparation in all cases, I believe accidents
and injuries may be diminished one-half, at least.
“Now, my son, I am telling you this because I have observed that you
are inclined to be careless. You are impulsive, and you would not
hesitate to take part in a match game of football utterly without
proper training and preparation. Not only that, but, having taken part
in practice that exerts you and covers your body with perspiration,
you are careless of your health. As soon as possible after leaving
the field, you should have removed your clothes, which were damp with
perspiration, taken a bath and a rub-down and donned dry clothes.
Instead of that, you lay down on the ground out there beneath that
apple-tree, where you spent considerable time talking to another boy.”
“But, father,” said Don, seeking an excuse to get away, “you are
keeping me from my bath now.”
“If you are to take cold this time, the injury is done already. I
chose to talk to you right now, while the matter was on my mind. Had
I put it off, I might have forgotten all about it. With proper care,
Don, there is little danger that you will take cold, even though you
exercise, practice and play football in any and all kinds of weather.
It is neglect after such efforts that works the injury. In the future
I wish you to be careful, just as I wish you to go ahead and take an
active interest in making the Rockspur Eleven a strong country team. If
possible, I shall take pains to witness one or two of the games, and I
hope to see you doing your level best on the team.”
It was on Don’s lips to tell his father that he was no longer a member
of the Rockspur Eleven, but, seeing the doctor scrutinizing him closely
and realizing that he must make an explanation in regard to his
withdrawal from the team, which meant a full confession concerning his
loss of temper on the field, he hesitated and was silent.
Apparently, Dr. Scott had paused to give his son a chance to speak if
he wished, and there was something like a look of disappointment on his
fine face when Don failed to say anything. At least, Don fancied that
his father looked disappointed.
“In order to become a successful football player, Don,” said the
doctor, breaking his silence when he saw the boy did not intend
to speak, “you must receive instructions from those who know more
about the game than you do, and you must take pains to follow the
instructions as fully and faithfully as possible. A good soldier obeys
his commander implicitly, without question or rebellion. A good
football player should be as obedient as a good soldier. On the field,
in practice and in play, you must let yourself be governed by your
superiors, even though at times you find it necessity to hold yourself
hard to keep from rebelling or from doing things the way you, yourself,
fancy they should be done. No successful organization ever existed that
did not have a commander who was obeyed, and the best commanders are
those who have themselves learned well the lesson of exact and faithful
obedience. If you ever expect or hope to rule others, my son, first
learn the lesson of obedience and learn to rule your own disposition.”
Don’s face was flushed now, for, although his father had not referred
to it directly, he felt that the open window had betrayed the exact
condition of affairs. The doctor had chosen this indirect method of
reproving his son for permitting himself to be ruled by his anger.
“That’s all I have to say,” concluded Dr. Scott, “with the exception of
one thing: Shun evil companions. Better no friends than the friendship
of the bad and vicious. Any boy who seeks revenge on another in a
secret, underhand manner is vicious, and his companionship will prove
degrading. Now get your bath, my boy, and change your clothes.”
Don was relieved to escape from his father’s presence, for his cheeks
were burning and his ears tingling.
CHAPTER VII.
A BATTLE IN A HEART.
“Hang it!” muttered Don, when he was alone in his room; “I didn’t want
him to know. I’d have given anything rather than have him know, and I’m
sure he does know, from what he said at the end.”
The bath-room was just outside his door, and he had started the water
running into the porcelain tub. In a savage manner he began to strip
off his football suit.
“He won’t see me playing on the Rockspur Eleven this year,” he said,
harshly. “I’m done with that crowd, the whole of them!”
This caused him to think of Leon Bentley and his compact with the
fellow, and he realized that he was not “done” with one member of the
village eleven, at least.
“I rather father would have known about anything else!” he murmured,
his cheeks burning again. “I was a fool to have anything to do with
Bentley, and I’m beginning to think I’d better withdraw from that
compact, even though it is backing out of an agreement. I hate Renwood,
but I don’t care about getting revenge on him in a sneaking way.”
He stripped off his damp underclothes and hung them up to dry, after
which he took a towel from a drawer in the dressing-case and started
for the bath-room, which he was able to reach with almost a single step
from his door.
The water in the tub was cool, almost cold, but he plunged in without
hesitation. The bath was followed by an energetic rub-down with
the rough towel, bringing a glow to his entire body and giving him
a feeling of warmth, freshness and vigor. A mirror showed him a
handsomely-formed lad, like the figure of a youthful athlete cut from
pink marble.
Don returned to his room and dressed, thinking all the while of his
father’s words, which had impressed him deeply.
“It’s all right to talk about obeying one’s commander,” he said to
himself, “but Renwood is not my commander. Sterndale is manager and
captain of the eleven. Now, if it had been Sterndale----”
He paused, assailed by the thought that, under aggravating
circumstances of a similar nature, he might have rebelled against
Sterndale. Besides that, in a certain sense, Renwood was his superior
on the eleven, having been accepted as the regular coach of the team.
“Oh, of course I’m all to blame!” he half snarled, as he plunged into a
fresh shirt. “Everybody will say so, even my own father.”
But he softened again, realizing that, even though his father must have
come to understand the truth from the conversation overheard outside
his window, he had not uttered a single word of open reproach.
“At least,” whispered the boy, softly, “he is my friend, and I must try
hard to please him. He has done enough for me, so that I must do what I
can for him.”
How few boys feel this way toward their fathers! The fact that Don
Scott could think such a thing at such a time proved his heart was
right, for all of his headstrong disposition and violent temper.
In his soul Don knew he had been hasty in his actions, though he tried
to convince himself that he had done nothing wrong. However, esteeming
his father as he did, he felt that it was his duty to make a sacrifice,
even though it might be necessary to humble himself to a certain extent
in order to do so.
“I’ll go to him and tell him everything,” he decided. “He will think
better of me if I do, for it is almost certain that he heard enough
of my talk with Bentley to let him know what has happened. As I kept
silent when he gave me an opportunity to tell him, he’ll think I did
not attempt to keep my promise to try to control my temper, and I’ll
seem like a sneak in seeking to hide the truth from him.”
Any healthy-minded boy dreads being thought a “sneak,” and regards such
an appellation as almost the greatest possible slur that can be cast
upon him; so it was not strange that, imagining as he did, that his
father might think such a thing of him, Don should wish to set himself
right.
“I’ll go straight to him as soon as I’m dressed,” he resolved, hastily
getting into his clothes.
He stood before the glass and carefully knotted a dark-red four-in-hand
necktie, which was his favorite, having been presented to him by his
aunt, sister to his father, who was housekeeper in the Scott home, and
who had tried to be a mother to the doctor’s son since the death of
Mrs. Scott, which took place when Don was a little more than a year old.
Having knotted the tie with care and thrust a small gold pin through
the knot, he buttoned on his cuffs, donned his coat and vest, and was
ready to go downstairs.
At the door he paused, overcome for the moment by the thought of
facing his father and making the confession, and there he stood some
little time, forming in his mind the speech he would make. It required
considerable courage on his part to keep from backing out and giving up
his resolution then and there, but he would not permit himself to yield
to such weakness; and so, with renewed determination, he left his room
and lightly descended the carpeted stairs.
At the door of his father’s office he paused, for the doctor was
standing in the waning light that came from the curtained window,
gazing earnestly upon a gold-framed miniature which he held in his
hand. The boy could not see his father’s face, but, having seen that
miniature before, he knew it was the picture of his dead mother.
As Don halted in irresolution, a sigh and a half-smothered sob came
from his father, who raised the miniature to his lips, murmuring:
“Mary, Mary, you forgave me at last, but I’ve never forgiven myself!
But for my act of anger I might have you with me now. Heaven grant his
temper may bring no such sorrow to our son!”
As quietly as possible, Don stole away and sought his aunt, a rather
stout, pleasant-faced woman, who was getting supper on the table.
“Goodness, Don!” she exclaimed pretending to be alarmed. “You came in
so still that you frightened me. It’s not your way to creep about like
that.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten you, Aunt Ella,” he said. “I came to tell
you that I am going out.”
“Not now? Why, it’s just supper time, and I’ll have everything ready in
a few minutes.”
“I don’t want anything; I couldn’t eat.”
“Land! land! What in the world is the matter with you? You’re a
healthy, growing boy, and you generally have an appetite.”
“I haven’t any to-night, aunt. I couldn’t eat anything; it would choke
me!”
“Something is the matter! Don, you’re sick!” She was alarmed in a
moment. “I’ll call your father.”
“Don’t aunt,” interposed Don, stopping her. “I’m not sick--truly I’m
not.”
“Then what ails ye?”
“Nothing, only--I’ve lost my appetite. Perhaps if I go for a long walk,
the exercise may give me an appetite.”
“Haven’t you had any exercise to-day? I saw the boys going to the ball
ground to play football. Didn’t you go?”
“Yes.”
“And still you say you haven’t any appetite! Now, I know there’s
something the matter with you. Won’t you tell your old aunt all about
it, Don? You know I’m interested, and----”
“It’s nothing--noting at all!” declared the boy, somewhat impatiently.
“I just don’t want any supper, that’s all, and I want you to tell
father I’ve gone out for a walk.”
“Don’t you think you ought to tell him yourself before you go?”
“No; he’s busy now. I’ve just come from his office, but I didn’t go
in when I saw he was busy. You tell him, aunt. Perhaps I’ll have an
appetite when I come back. Now, that’s a good aunt! Don’t get any queer
notions into your head, for I’m all right, only I don’t feel like
eating.”
He suddenly caught her in his arms and kissed her. Then he was gone,
leaving her standing there with clasped hands. She listened till the
sound of a closing door told her he had left the house.
“Just like his father!” she murmured, softly. “Just as his father used
to be, but Lyman has changed greatly since he lost Mary. Will he never
forget?”
Then she continued the preparations for supper.
Don walked swiftly away from the house, fearing his aunt might
immediately tell his father, who would call him back. On reaching the
sidewalk, he paused for a moment, glancing down the street toward the
little square in the heart of the village. He saw two youths cross the
square, passing the little fountain. They were Sterndale and Renwood,
and he turned his back toward the square, hurrying up the hill.
He was grasped by a feverish desire to be all alone and walk, walk,
walk; so he kept on up Academy Hill, passing the white building beneath
the trees. When he reached the fenced-about football field, he turned
to the right and took the road that led toward Wolf’s Head Point.
He took off his hat to let the cool wind from the open sea fan his hot
forehead as he strode along. All the while his thoughts were busy, and
within his soul a battle was taking place.
The point was reached. He passed the home of the light-keeper, but,
instead of approaching the light-house, which towered in a white column
on the extremity of the point, he turned to the left and mounted to the
ragged top of a mass of ledges, where he found a seat, with the rising
tide murmuring and swirling amid the crevices and crannies below him.
Sunset’s after-glow glinted the waves, but afar on the bosom of the sea
lay a purple haze that seemed to blend with sea and sky and connect
both; and out of the purple sea-mist loomed a white-winged vessel,
headed for Rockspur Harbor, which it could not reach before darkness
fell. Away toward the ledges by the harbor mouth some gulls skimmed
the waves, uttering harsh and melancholy cries. Overhead a few vapory
clouds were tinted with pink and edged with burnished gold.
Don gave little heed to his surroundings as he sat there in the ledge,
staring down at the restless water that ran green and foamy over the
broken rocks, but the expression on his mobile face indicated that the
battle within him was waxing fiercer.
He had long known that the death of his mother had cast a great shadow
on his father’s life, but never till this day had he suspected that Dr.
Scott held himself in any respect responsible for the loss of his wife.
Don had discovered that his mother’s miniature, painted on ivory, was
constantly carried near his father’s heart. More than once he had,
without being observed, seen his father gazing sadly and lovingly at
that picture; but on this last occasion the doctor’s murmured words,
unintended for his ears, had given him an inkling of the truth of the
great sorrow that had fallen upon his father.
Some act of the doctor, done in a moment of anger, had, as he firmly
believed, hastened or brought about the death of his wife. For this
angry deed he had never forgiven himself, and now he was filled with
foreboding and distress because he saw his son had inherited his
ungovernable temper and because he feared the end to which it might
lead.
“I have no right to cause my father so much pain,” thought Don,
self-reproachfully. “He’s always been kind to me. I--I don’t know about
my mother, for he never told me. I don’t suppose he could bring himself
to talk about it. I must do something to relieve him--something to
assure him that I am trying to govern my temper and master myself. But,
oh, it is hard to humble myself before that fellow Renwood! How can I
do it?”
The struggle within him continued while the light died slowly in the
western sky, the pink and gold left the clouds dull and lead-colored,
and the blue haze deepened into darkness.
“I’ll do it!” he finally exclaimed, rising to his feet. “For father’s
sake, I’ll go to Sterndale and say I’m sorry. I’ll even ask Renwood’s
pardon, if I must; but that will be worse than swallowing red-hot iron!”
Darkness had fallen, but from the light-house on the point a light
shone forth to guide the belated vessel lost to view on the bosom of
the night-encompassed sea.
In the heart of the boy another light glimmered weakly, seeking to
burst into a bright flame that should guide in the right course his
passion-shrouded soul.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE CLUB-ROOM.
Nearly all the members of the newly-formed Rockspur Athletic Club, of
which Dick Sterndale was the president and ruling spirit, had gathered
in their recently-rented rooms in the loft of a two-story-and-a-half
wooden building next to the post-office.
The upper floor of the building had been partitioned off into two
rooms for some purpose, one being a small and the other a large room.
The walls were ceiled up with plain boards, and the rafters of the
sloping roof remained unhidden from view; but to the village boys it
seemed an admirable place to meet their requirements for a gymnasium
and club-room, having been obtained for them through the energies of
Sterndale, who had organized the club and raised the needed funds.
It had long been Sterndale’s ambition to form in Rockspur an amateur
athletic club and build a club-house that should be appointed to meet
the requirements of such an organization. It had seemed like a wild
and foolish dream, but still he clung to it; and now, for the first
time, he was revealing his desire in this line to his companions, who
listened attentively and with growing enthusiasm.
“By jingoes! that’s great!” cried Jotham Sprout, when Dick had
finished. “I’d never thought of that myself. Fellers, let’s go ahead
and build that club-house.”
“Yes, let’s!” grunted Thad Boland, who was lolling in a lazy position
on a wooden bench against the partition. “It won’t cost more than two
or three thousand dollars, and we’re all millionaires, so that’ll be a
mere nothing to us.”
“I didn’t think about what it would cost,” admitted Bubble, with a
crestfallen air. “But of course it wouldn’t be as much as that.”
“Such a club-house as Sterndale has been talking about would cost
twenty-five hundred dollars, at least,” put in Rob Linton. “It’s no use
to think of such a thing.”
“Bub-bub-bub-but it’s a pup-pup-pup-perfectly lovely
dud-dud-dud-dream!” sighed Danny Chatterton, opening his eyes and
slowly looking around. “I just hu-hate to wake up.”
“Go to sleep again,” advised Walter Mayfair. “You’ll never be missed.”
“It’s a splendid plan,” came, with enthusiasm, from Dolph Renwood, who
was sitting on a rough table, the edge of which he was notching with
his jack-knife. “It’s a pity it can’t be carried out, and I’m not so
sure but it can be.”
“HOW?” shouted all the others, as one person.
“If we could get the leading citizens of the town interested, they
might contribute to a fund to----”
“Contribute to your Aunt Hannah!” grunted Thad Boland, derisively. “I
don’t think you know much about the leading citizens of this town, Mr.
Renwood.”
“But you must have some rich men who are public-spirited and can
afford to help along such a worthy move? Now, there is Mr. Tuttle, for
instance. They say he has dead loads of money.”
“Old Tut-Tut-Tuttle!” exploded Chatterton, contemptuously. “Why, he
lul-lul-lul-let his own bub-bub-brother die on the pup-pup-poor-farm!
He’s mum-mean enough to sus-skin a louse for its hide and taller!”
“Well, there is Eben Snood,” ventured Dolph. “He pretends to take great
interest in the welfare and advancement of the town.”
“Snood is worse than Tuttle,” asserted Rob Linton. “Before he will let
go of a cent he’ll squeeze it so hard that it looks as if it had been
run over by a railroad train.”
“I don’t think,” said Sterndale, “that we can expect any assistance
from the people of the village till we show that we are in earnest by
starting the fund ourselves.”
“Hey?” gasped Old Lightning. “Well, I’ve got seven cents and a
fish-hook that I’ll contribute, if you’re going to take up a
collection.”
“We’ll not begin by taking up a collection,” Dick declared.
“Then hu-how can we begin?” asked Danny, earnestly.
“By saving the money we take at the gate when we play football,
baseball, or anything of that sort; by getting up athletic contests
that will call out paying crowds to witness the sport; and by holding
a series of entertainments in the Town Hall this winter. In that way
we might be able to obtain the beginning of a fund that would in time
become large enough for us to accomplish our purpose and build a
club-house.”
“It’s too long to wait, b’ys,” murmured Dennis Murphy. “Av we raised
the money thot way, we moight get it in toime to build an ould men’s
home fer some av us, an’ we’d be lucky at thot.”
“That’s right,” nodded Leon Bentley. “I believe in getting some benefit
from the money as we receive it, and I’m in for using it up. I want to
spend my share.”
“We haven’t heard from you, Smith,” said Sterndale, addressing a
grave-looking lad, who had been listening without speaking. “What do
you think?”
“I think it is a great scheme, if it can be carried out,” answered John
Smith. “I believe we should talk this over and investigate it fully. It
does seem rather visionary now, but it may be practical.”
“I tell you I don’t take any stock in it!” exclaimed Bentley, rather
pettishly. “We can’t hold an organization together long enough to carry
out the scheme. Why, just see how this Don Scott affair has broken
us up already. We don’t know where to get a good man to fill Scott’s
place. Something else may come up later, and the eleven and the club
may disband.”
“Dud-don’t be forever cuc-cuc-croaking, Bent!” exclaimed Chatterton.
“You’re always expecting something bub-bad to happen.”
Ford, the deaf-mute, was the only member of the party who had not
expressed an opinion of some sort. He sat there among them, looking on,
his eyes bright and keen, apparently enjoying their society, if not
their conversation.
Renwood flipped his jack-knife, causing it to strike, point first and
stand up in the soft wood table.
“If other men of the place would take an interest,” he said, “I believe
I could interest my father.”
“By George! that’s a handsome knife, old man!” Bentley observed,
reaching over and taking it. “Pearl-handled and four-bladed. Got your
initials on the handle, too. I’d like to have a knife like that. How
much did it cost?”
“I don’t know. Father gave it to me.”
“Well, my old man wouldn’t think of giving me a knife like that. He
thinks any kind of an old toad-sticker is good enough for a boy.”
Bentley seemed to regard the handsome knife with longing eyes, then he
placed it on the table again beside Dolph.
“This Scott affair is unfortunate, to say the least,” admitted
Sterndale; “but I have no idea that it will cause the breaking up of
the eleven. He is only one man.”
“Mr. Renwood seems to think there are other men on the team who had
better get off, or who will be fired off,” said Bentley.
“How do you know I think so?” asked Dolph, quickly.
“Why, haven’t you said as much?”
“No. I may have said that some were not much good, but I said nothing
about their getting off or being fired off. If anybody is fired, it
will be his own fault.”
“Of course it was nobody’s fault but Scott’s that he got off the team?”
“Surely not. He’s a hot-headed fellow, and he needs to be kept in his
place. He’s had his own way all his life, and he’s spoiled. He insulted
me, the coach of the team, on the field, and I should have demanded
an apology if he had remained on the eleven. He made it plain that it
would be impossible for him and me to pull together on the same team,
and I’m sure we shall get along just as well without him.”
There was a quick step outside the door, and Don Scott himself came
into the room. The lowering expression on his dark face told that he
had overheard Renwood’s words, and his flashing eyes indicated that
again he was aroused. Fixing his eyes on Dolph, he walked straight up
to the table on which the city lad was seated.
“You are right, Renwood,” he said, in a voice that quivered from the
tensity of his feelings, “you and I could never pull together on the
same team. That is settled at last for all time, and I now give notice
that I will withdraw from both the eleven and this club. Just as long
as you are a member of either I shall stay out.”
Don Scott had come there to say something entirely different, but
again that day his passions were aroused, as he had overheard Dolph’s
final speech.
“I presume you are at liberty to withdraw if you like,” said Renwood.
Don turned to the captain of the eleven.
“You may choose between us, Sterndale!” he cried. “I belong in
Rockspur, I am one of the village fellows, and this chap is an
outsider. I don’t believe he really cares a rap whether Rockspur has a
winning team or not. He simply likes to show off what he knows, or what
he pretends to know. If he took a notion, I’ll bet he’d throw a game to
Highland in a minute, and I----”
Renwood sprang down from the table and seemed on the point of striking
the insulting speaker; but, with a curl of his scornful lips, Don
folded his arms, saying:
“Strike! You are safe, for you know I can’t hit you back, having
promised your sister that I would not fight with you. Strike!”
Dolph’s fist fell at his side.
“Take back your promise!” he panted. “I demand it! You have insulted
me, and you must give me satisfaction!”
With a show of contempt, Don half-turned his back on the quivering city
youth.
“I’ve had my say,” he declared. “You may take your time to think it
over, Sterndale.”
Then he walked out of the room, and they heard him descend the stairs.
For some moments all in the room seemed to remain motionless and
breathless. Dennis Murphy broke the silence.
“D’yer moind now, thot b’y is a hot birrud!” he said.
“I couldn’t hit him!” grated Dolph, still shaking. “He took refuge
behind his promise to my sister. But he’ll have to face me! I’ll force
him to do it!”
Then came comments and remarks from all quarters, and it was some time
after Scott’s departure before the boys cooled down. As he resumed his
position on the table, Renwood discovered that his knife was missing.
“What’s become of my knife?” he asked. “It was here on the table.”
“Didn’t you put it into your pocket?” asked Bentley.
Dolph shook his head. “No; I left it lying on the table. Scott came in
just a moment after you put it back there.”
However, he felt through his pockets, but did not find it. Then the
boys searched for the knife, looking under the table and into all sorts
of corners. Again Renwood searched his pockets, turning them wrongside
out one by one, but with no better success than before.
The knife was not found.
CHAPTER IX.
A STRUGGLE IN THE DARK.
Straight from Wolf’s Head Point to the club-rooms Don Scott had come,
with a determination to have a talk with Sterndale, express his regret
at what had happened that day on the football field and apologize
to Renwood, if absolutely necessary. This he was resolved to do for
his father’s sake, not wishing to cause the doctor further worry and
distress on his account.
By chance he had arrived at the club-room just in time to hear Renwood
denounce him as hot-headed and declare they could not both get along on
the eleven.
Don left the place in no enviable frame of mind, at once turning his
face toward home.
“It’s no use for me to try!” he muttered, furiously. “I can’t have
anything to do with that fellow, even for father’s sake. I did think I
would, though it was a bitter pill to swallow, but I give it up now.
To-morrow I’ll tell father everything, and I don’t see how he can blame
me very much.”
When he reached home, he found his aunt had something on the table for
him to eat, and she urged him to sit down. The doctor had been called
out on a critical case, not a little to Don’s relief, for the boy
feared his father might question him.
Don did not wish to eat anything even then, but his aunt was
persistent, and he sat down to please her.
“What can be the matter with you, Don?” the good woman asked, watching
him closely. “You’re awful pale, and your hand shakes. I’m afraid
you’re going to be sick.”
He forced a laugh, difficult though it was to do so, and did his best
to reassure her, though he could not fully allay her anxiety. It was
with no small difficulty that he compelled himself to eat anything, for
anger had robbed him entirely of his appetite.
As soon as he could get away, he hurried up to his room, where he paced
the floor for a time, thinking unpleasant thoughts and muttering to
himself.
“I said I was done with the whole of them,” he grated, “and now I’ll
stick by it. Of course I know Sterndale will stand by Renwood. Oh,
they’re a fine set!”
He opened the closet door and dragged out his football suit.
“This belongs to the club,” he said, “for it was paid for out of the
general funds. I won’t keep it another hour. My clothes are in the
dressing-room under the grand-stand, but I have a key to the lock. I’ll
take this old suit back and get my own clothes.”
He made a bundle of the football suit, and, with it under his arm,
slipped downstairs and out of the house.
Hurrying up the street, he climbed Academy Hill once more that day. The
night was quite dark, for the moon had not yet risen. It was rather
cool, too; but the boy minded this not, for his blood was running
swiftly in his body.
Reaching the ball ground, he opened the gate and entered. With
noiseless steps, he advanced toward the grand-stand. As he approached
it, he suddenly stopped, fancying he heard a strange sound. After a
moment, however, he advanced to the door of the dressing-room.
To his surprise, the door was standing wide open. He paused again,
wondering at this, for it was a rule to keep the door locked.
“A piece of carelessness!” he thought. “Somebody ought to be shot for
it! Why, there’s plenty of stuff here that might be stolen. Somebody
might have taken my clothes.”
He was startled by the thought. Perhaps somebody had been there and
carried away his clothes, leaving the door standing open. With a little
cry of dismay, he sprang into the dressing-room, intending to light a
match and look about.
In the darkness he collided violently against a human form, which
caused him to reel backward.
Some one was in the dressing-room!
Don heard a smothered exclamation, and then the unknown attempted to
dart past him and escape by the open door.
Quick as thought, Don dropped the football suit and clutched at the
unseen figure, crying:
“Hold on! What are you doing in here?”
He grasped the other, who made a desperate effort to jerk away, but Don
held fast, and directly a fearful struggle took place in the darkness
of the dressing-room.
Finding that the sole object of the unknown seemed to be to break away
and escape, Don was convinced that the fellow had been doing something
crooked.
“Let go!” was panted, in a hoarse tone of voice.
“I guess not!” returned Don. “Just keep still, will you!”
But the other would not keep still, and Don felt for his throat,
grating:
“Then I’ll have to choke you till you do keep still!”
But he could not secure the hold he desired, for his antagonist fought
him off. At last, getting a grasp about the fellow’s body, Don tripped
and threw him heavily, coming down upon him with crushing violence.
Apparently the fall had stunned the unknown for the moment, at least,
as he lay quite still. Noting this, Don rose to his knees and felt in
his pockets for a match, which he intended to light.
“We’ll soon see who you are, my fine fellow,” he thought, “and we’ll
learn what sort of a game you were playing all by your lonesome.”
He was breathing heavily from his exertions and his hands shook
somewhat, for the encounter in the dark with a mysterious antagonist
had been decidedly trying to his nerves.
To his great disappointment, he failed to find a match in his pockets.
As he was wondering what he could do, the unknown made a sudden spring
and tried to fling him off.
“No, you don’t!” hissed Don, again grappling with the fellow. “I’m not
done with you!”
The struggle was resumed with greater fury than before, for the
mysterious visitor to the dressing-room seemed perfectly frantic in his
desire to break from Scott’s grasp and make his escape. They squirmed
and twisted and thrashed about on the floor, both panting heavily.
Don’s fighting blood was aroused, as he had recovered from the startled
shock that assailed him when he discovered the intruder in the
dressing-room, and somehow he took almost a fierce joy in this savage
fight in the dark.
At last he found a grip on the throat of the unknown, determined to
choke the fellow into submission; but then his antagonist struck out
heavily, hitting Don’s shoulder with something that caused a twinge of
pain and produced a ripping sound.
Instantly Scott released the other’s throat and grasped his arm and
wrist, assailed by the conviction and fear that his foe was armed with
a dangerous weapon. Down to the hand of the unknown Don’s fingers
slipped, and there he found a knife securely clutched.
Then he knew the fellow had struck at him with the knife, which he had
felt in his shoulder!
Having made this alarming discovery, Don held fast to the hand that
gripped the knife, not daring to release it for a moment, as the fear
of being stabbed was on him. Up to the moment of finding the knife in
the hand of the unknown he had not fancied he was in deadly danger; but
now his blood was chilled by the horror of this struggle in the dark
with an antagonist desperate enough to use an open knife, and his every
energy was bent to the task of wresting the weapon from his foe.
In the midst of this fearful struggle the active brain of the boy
pictured a tragic ending for himself. He fancied that his antagonist
would wrest his knife-hand free and strike again and again with the
keen blade, plunging it to the hilt each time, which must soon bring
an end to the struggle. The night would pass, morning come, and then
the searchers would find the dead lad there in the blood-bespattered
dressing-room. His father and his aunt would grieve, but he wondered
how many others would care.
This grewsome fancy seemed to give him tremendous strength, for he
slowly forced the fingers of the other to unclasp from the handle of
the knife. Once his hand slipped and he felt the blade slash across his
fingers, but he did not pause to wonder how badly he was cut. Believing
he was now fighting for his life, he lost not a moment.
At last, with a fierce wrench, he forced the knife from the hand of
the unknown; but, having bent all his energies in this direction, he
had given no attention to the task of holding his foe so he could not
escape. With a sudden twist, the fellow flung Don off, then scrambled
up.
“Stop!” panted Don; but, giving no heed, the mysterious fellow darted
out through the open door and disappeared.
As soon as possible Don sprang up and followed him. Outside the door,
he halted in the darkness, looking to the right and to the left, but
seeing nothing of his foe.
“He’s run for the gate,” thought the boy, and he made a dash for the
exit from the field.
As he reached the gate, he heard a scrambling and knocking sound
against the boards of the fence at the farther side of the field,
following which, for a single moment, he fancied he saw a dark figure
rise to the top of the fence, being dimly discernible against the
sky. An instant later the figure was gone, and Don knew his unknown
antagonist had made good his escape.
But Don’s bleeding fingers held the knife he had wrested from his
mysterious foe.
CHAPTER X.
THE TELL-TALE KNIFE.
Filled with wonder and speculation over his unexpected and thrilling
adventure, Don returned to the dressing-room where the desperate
encounter had taken place. The knife he had closed and slipped into his
pocket, and he wound a handkerchief around his cut and bleeding fingers.
“I’d give something to know what this fellow was up to,” he muttered,
pausing outside the open door and shuddering as he thought of what
had lately taken place within that room. “He fought like the very Old
Scratch, but I don’t think he tried to strike me with the knife till I
got him down and choked him. Wish I had a match.”
But another search through his pockets failed to bring forth the
article he desired, and so, not without a slight shiver and drawing
back, he again stepped into the darkness of the dressing-room.
Knowing exactly where his clothes were hanging on a peg against the
wall, it was not difficult for him to find them. Having hurriedly
gathered them and flung them over his arm, he lost little time in
leaving the dressing-room, for he could not cast off the feeling that
he might again be attacked in the darkness of that place.
Outside he paused long enough to close the door, which fastened with a
spring lock, after which he walked swiftly from the inclosure, shutting
the gate behind him.
As he reached the road, he heard the sound of voices, causing him to
pause and listen, upon which he made the discovery that several persons
were approaching from the direction of the village. The voices sounded
natural, too, and he decided that, for some reason, a number of boys
were coming toward him.
Not wishing to be seen by them, he hurried across the road and crouched
behind a clump of bushes, which, together with the darkness, completely
hid him from view.
As the party approached, he recognized the voices and learned that it
was made up of Sterndale, Mayfair, Murphy and Chatterton. Listening to
their conversation, he heard Mayfair say:
“You’re right about this thing, Sterndale, and it was a good thought
of yours, for we can take care of the stuff at the club-rooms now, and
everything will be safe.”
“It’s mesilf that nivver left anything up here at all, at all,”
declared the voice of the Irish lad.
“And he was so bub-bub-blamed mad over it that there’s no
tut-tut-telling wh-what he might do,” stuttered Chatterton. “I
ru-ruther think you’ve got a right to tut-try somebody else in his
pup-pup-pup-position, Sterndale.”
“I’ve had my eye on Carter for some time,” the hidden lad plainly heard
the captain of the eleven declare. “He doesn’t mingle with our crowd
much, but he’s a strong, hearty fellow, and he may prove to be a good
man.”
They passed on and proceeded straight to the gate of the fenced-in
grounds. A moment later the sound of their voices told they had entered
by the gate and were within the grounds, upon which Don rose from his
place of concealment, reached the road and hastened toward home.
“They were talking about me!” he grated. “So they’re going to put
Harry Carter in my place! He’s a fellow who never seemed to take much
interest in baseball or anything else of the sort, yet they think he’ll
be as good a man as I am!”
From the disconnected and incomplete bit of conversation that had
reached his ears, he reasoned that the boys must have been speaking of
him; but just why they were visiting the ball ground at that hour was
a question he could not answer. He had permitted all the suspicion,
selfishness and jealousy of his nature to be aroused, and he fancied
his erstwhile companions were ready to do anything to “spite” him.
His nerves were far from steady, which was not at all strange, taking
into consideration the unexpected and violent struggle from which
he had recently emerged. The mystery of that encounter continued to
bewilder him, but he decided that the unknown must have been a common
thief who had entered the dressing-room for the purpose of securing
whatever plunder he could discover there.
Under any condition, Don thanked his lucky stars that he had escaped
with his life, for the fellow had been fierce in his final efforts to
strike with the open knife, having found the athletic boy was more
than a master for him. Up to that time it appeared that his sole desire
was to break from Don’s grasp and escape; but, on being thrown down and
choked, he had used the knife.
Don wondered when the unknown had drawn and opened the knife. It seemed
that the rascal had scarcely been given time to accomplish such an
action after Don’s entrance, for the boy had kept him busy, and he had
struggled madly to free himself and escape.
“I believe he had that open knife in his hand when I came in on him,”
Don finally decided.
So busy was he with his thoughts that he did not observe his
handkerchief had slipped from his wounded fingers. He was nearly home
when he made the discovery, finding his hand was wet and sticky with
blood.
“Let the old handkerchief go,” he muttered. “I’ll find out how much I’m
cut.”
He succeeded in entering the house quietly, and was hurrying up to his
room, when his father called to him:
“Is that you, Don?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
“I thought you were in bed.”
“I am just going to bed now, sir.”
“Good-night, my boy.”
“Good-night, father.”
He did not wish to stand before his father again that day, for he felt
that he could not carry out his determination to make a confession of
the truth, and a discovery of his injury might lead Dr. Scott to ask
him unpleasant questions.
In his room, he flung his clothes over the back of a chair, hurriedly
washed the blood from his hand, and examined his fingers, finding that
three of them had been cut, but not seriously.
“I can attend to them myself,” he said, and he proceeded to do so,
taking from a drawer an old handkerchief, which he tore into strips to
bind about the bleeding digits.
When this was done, Don took off his coat and discovered in the left
sleeve a long slit from the shoulder nearly to the elbow, made by the
knife of his antagonist that now lay in his pocket.
This wound in his shoulder proved to be scarcely more than a scratch,
and he easily attended to that with some strips of plaster.
“But he came near fixing that arm!” he exclaimed, picking up his coat
and looking at the slit in the sleeve. “Jupiter! Just see that! My best
coat, too! What can I tell Aunt Ella? It won’t do to tell her just how
it happened.”
Happening to glance at a mirror, he found his face was very pale
and that he still showed signs of agitation. He also noted that his
handsome red necktie was gone, having, without doubt, been torn off in
the encounter.
“I don’t want to lose that necktie,” he said. “I ought to go back, and
look for it.”
But at that moment he heard his father close and lock the front door,
and he knew the house was being shut up for the night.
“I’ll look for it in the morning,” he decided. “It isn’t likely I could
find it to-night, anyway.”
Having flung himself down on an easy-chair, he fell to thinking the
entire adventure over from start to finish, it being of a nature to
take his mind for the time from his trouble with Renwood. When he
had reviewed it up to the moment when he concealed himself behind
the bushes on the approach of four members of the village eleven, he
speculated again over the cause of their visit to the football field
at that hour of the night. Then he remembered that Mayfair had spoken
of their being able to take care of some “stuff” at the club-rooms,
and all at once it dawned on him that they were proceeding to the
dressing-room under the grand-stand with the intention of removing to
the club-rooms the paraphernalia and suits of the football team.
Then his face hardened, and he sprang to his feet as he thought of
Chatterton’s words.
“So they had an idea that, because I was angry, I might do some sneaky
thing!” he snarled, his eyes flashing. “I wonder what they thought I’d
do? Did they fancy I’d steal the football and suits? That little cub,
Chatterton, said I was so mad there was no telling what I’d do! I’d
like to wring his neck!”
The village stammerer might have been handled roughly had he been
within reach of Don Scott at that moment.
“I’d like to know what cause any one has to think such things of me?”
the doctor’s son muttered, walking up and down the room with quick,
nervous strides. “Even if I have a temper, I’ve never played the sneak,
and no one has a right to even suspect that I’ll begin now!”
For a time these outraged thoughts prevented his mind from reverting
again to the encounter with the unknown, but at length he came back
to that, and once more fell to wondering over the identity of his
mysterious antagonist. Then he thought of the captured knife, being
seized by a sudden hope that it might reveal to him what he wished to
know, or, at least, serve as a clew.
In a moment the knife was in his hand. It was covered with blood,
and this Don proceeded to wash away, wiping the knife dry with a
handkerchief.
“By Jupiter! it’s a beauty!” he exclaimed, regarding it with
admiration. “New, pearl-handled, four-bladed; don’t look as if it’d be
carried for a deadly weapon by a ruffian; looks more like a gentleman’s
knife. Hello! Here are the initials of the owner engraved on the plate
in the handle. What are they? ‘R. G. R.’ Now, what do they stand for?”
He was silent for a moment, staring at the handsome knife that lay in
his uninjured hand. Of a sudden, he panted:
“By my life, I have it! Those initials stand for Randolph Grant
Renwood, and this knife belongs to Dolph Renwood!”
Then, seemingly bewildered by this startling discovery, he sat down and
continued to stare at the tell-tale knife.
CHAPTER XI.
SIGNS OF GUILT.
It is stating the case tamely to say Don was bewildered, for that does
not at all express his state of mind. He was thunderstruck. Never till
the moment of the surprising discovery had he in any way connected his
desperate antagonist of the dressing-room with the lad whom he hated
with all the intensity of his passionate nature, and even now it did
not seem possible that the fellow who had fought him so furiously in
the darkness of that place could have been Renwood.
“If it was he, what was he doing there?” was the question Don asked
himself. “He must have been up to something crooked, else he would not
have been so fierce to get away; but what it means is more than I can
conceive.”
A long time the boy puzzled over the singular affair, without, however,
in the least satisfying himself concerning it. The knife that had
fallen into his possession in such a strange manner seemed to settle
the identity of his antagonist, but it did not betray Renwood’s reason
for secretly visiting the dressing-room under cover of darkness or
reveal why he had fought like a wolf to escape without being recognized.
“Anyhow, he tried to stab me,” muttered Don. “Is it possible he went
there to steal my clothes? Perhaps he did, and it may be that he
recognized me, even though I didn’t recognize him. That may be why he
fought so and tried to stab me.”
He was not satisfied with this explanation, and at last, tired of
speculating concerning it, he went to bed. After what he had passed
through, it was but natural that he should dream, nor was it strange
that his dreams were of sanguine encounters with the lad he so disliked.
Don slept late the following morning, which was the Sabbath; but he was
aroused at last by his aunt outside his door, who told him he would
have to make haste in order to get ready for church.
Of course, his first waking thoughts were of the unpleasant events of
the previous day and the startling adventure which had capped them all.
As he dressed the tell-tale knife lay on a table before him, and his
eyes often sought it, while his heart was filled with triumph because
he had, he fancied, wrested from his enemy’s hand this proof of his
identity.
Don gave his aunt no cause to complain about his appetite that morning,
for he ate heartily; but there was a flush in his dark cheeks and
his manner was strangely preoccupied, showing that his thoughts were
wandering. However, he was thoughtful enough to keep his injured hand
in his lap, so it did not attract attention.
The second bell was ringing when Don came down from his room to join
his father and aunt, who were waiting for him to accompany them to
church.
“Hello, Don!” exclaimed the doctor. “You have forgotten to put on your
best coat. That one doesn’t match your suit.”
Don was confused, for he had hoped his father or aunt would not notice
this, and he halted a bit as he said:
“I think I’ll wear this coat to-day, father.”
“Why should you? The other coat looks better.”
“I know, but----”
“But what?”
“I--I--my other coat is--I can’t wear it to-day,” blundered the lad.
“Can’t wear it? Why not? What is the matter?”
“I--I’ve torn it,” declared Don, feeling his face burning.
“Torn it? That’s too bad! How did it happen?”
“I caught the sleeve on a nail,” fabricated the desperate lad, thus for
the first time in his life telling-his father an outright falsehood.
“Oh, well,” smiled the doctor, thinking his son’s confusion rose
from his reluctance to confess that he had thus damaged his best
coat, “accidents will happen, my boy. We all meet such misfortunes
occasionally.”
Don felt mean enough, and he regretted that he had thought of trying to
hide the truth from his father, even though telling it might have led
to a complete confession of his utter failure in the attempt to master
his temper. His outraged conscience troubled and tortured him till he
imagined guilt and shame must be written on his face so that all could
see it and understand.
With this thought in his mind, he followed his father and aunt into the
church, his face flushed and his eyes downcast. As he was about to pass
through the second door, he distinctly heard these whispered words:
“There he is! Look at him!”
He lifted his eyes and saw a short distance away Dick Sterndale and
Dolph Renwood, both gazing straight at him.
Scott’s face had been red before, but now there was such a rush of
blood to his head that it actually turned purple. Involuntarily, he
half lifted his wounded hand which had wrested the betraying knife from
his antagonist, but the bandaged fingers were hidden by a glove, which
he had succeeded in wearing, for all the difficulty in drawing it on.
Then he passed on into the church, but with the desire strong upon him
to confront and accuse his foe then and there.
“He did it,” said Sterndale, grimly, when Don had vanished. “His face
gave him away.”
“I don’t like to think it of him even now,” Renwood declared, in a low
tone. “I don’t like the fellow, but I didn’t think he’d stoop to such a
dirty trick.”
“No more did I think so, but his nasty temper led him into it. He
betrayed his guilt plainly enough when he saw us.”
“What’ll you do?”
“Make him settle for the damage.”
“If he refuses--what then?”
“His father’ll have a chance to settle. Somebody must pay for last
night’s work.”
Then they followed Don into the church.
To the doctor’s son it seemed that the sermon was aimed directly at
him, and all through the discourse he sat with his cheeks alternately
flushing and paling, looking neither to the right nor left. The text,
taken from Revelations, was a body blow, causing the uncomfortable boy
to start when it fell on his ears: “All liars shall have their part
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” The preacher was
relentless in his denunciation of hypocrites and liars, so that Don was
relieved to escape from the church when it was all over.
When he found himself alone at home, he sought to salve his wounded
conscience and palliate his deception of his father by declaring to
himself that he was not to blame for a falsehood that had been forced
from him by such a combination of circumstances, and which he had told
in order to avert the pain and distress which the truth might bring
upon the doctor. The blame for this act he sought to shift upon his
enemy, who had driven him into such a strait.
Not that Don had never before perpetrated a deception or uttered
anything savoring of untruth, for, like the average boy, he was not
perfect in this respect, but, up to this time, his intercourse with his
father, whom he held in such deep affection, had been absolutely honest
and truthful, for which reason the falsehood was like a poisoned arrow
rankling in a wound.
“But I’ve got to keep it up, now that I’ve commenced it,” he told
himself.
And thus it was that the first false step led to others, as almost
unfailingly happens.
That afternoon Don sought to forget his troubles by reading, and for
the purpose he resorted to one of Trowbridge’s most thrilling books,
“Cudjo’s Cave.” Absorbed by the breathless flight of Penn, Virginia and
Cudjo through the burning forest, he failed for some time to hear the
whistled signal that came from beneath his window or the tiny pebbles
that clinked against the panes.
At last, however, having reached the hair-raising climax of the
chapter, where the fear-crazed horse, bearing the unknown rider,
plunges crashing into the depths of the dark ravine, he paused to take
a long breath and heard both the whistle and the rattle against the
window.
Looking out, he discovered Leon Bentley below. A moment later the
window was open and Leon was saying:
“Just going to give it up. Thought you must be asleep or dead. Come
down.”
“Come up,” invited Don. “Father is out and Aunt Ella is lying down.
I’ll let you in by the back door.”
His resolution to break with Bentley was forgotten, and, for the first
time, he admitted the disreputable fellow to his home and his room.
CHAPTER XII.
WHO DID IT?
“Say, this is comfortable,” remarked Leon, flinging himself upon the
easiest chair and elevating his polished russet shoes to the top of a
small table. “You’ve got a slick den here, though I don’t like your
pictures much, and I don’t see what you want of so many books. It’s
a bother to read books, and the pictures in my room are of the dead
game sort. Got ’em out of the sporting papers, you know. The walls are
pretty near covered by pictures of prize-fighters, fast trotters and
sporting men. Excuse me if I smoke. I’m dying for a whiff.”
Without further words, he pulled out a package and selected a
cigarette, which he coolly prepared and lighted. He was returning the
package to his pocket, when Don held out a hand, saying:
“I believe I’ll try one of those things just for fun.”
Bentley let his feet fall from the top of the table to the floor,
stared a moment at his companion, then handed over the cigarettes,
laughing:
“That came near knocking me out. You were so set against cigarettes
yesterday that----”
“You fancied I’d never change my mind. There is an old saying, ‘it’s
only a fool who never changes his mind.’”
Don lighted one of the cigarettes, while Leon watched him with a sly,
satisfied smile.
“You may not like the first one very much,” said the inveterate smoker,
“but you’ll find they’ll grow on ye, and you will like them more and
more, till, after a while, you won’t want to get along without them. I
tell you they are great stuff.”
With the lighting of that first cigarette, a reckless sensation of
indifference stole over Don, and he began to feel that, considering
the circumstances, he had not done anything worth worrying about in
deceiving his father and telling him a falsehood. In a few moments he
was telling himself that cigarettes truly were, as Leon had declared,
soothing to the nerves.
“They’re not so bad,” admitted Don; “but I’ll have to give this room a
good airing, so aunt will not smell the smoke.”
“And you better not smoke too much of the first one,” Leon warned,
craftily. “As you’re not used to ’em, it might make your head feel
queer. After a while, if you keep it up, you can smoke as many as you
like without noticing it at all. In fact, one or two will be just no
satisfaction; more of an aggravation.”
“How long had you been outside?” asked the doctor’s son.
“Ten minutes, anyhow. I wanted to have a talk with you. I’d come
over last night after leaving the club, but I thought you’d be abed.
I wanted to tell you about the nasty trick this fellow Renwood is
playing on me. I knew he had it in for me, and I tumbled in a minute
when Sterndale proposed giving Harry Carter a trial in the line. I
pinned him right down and asked him where he proposed trying Carter.
When he said right or left tackle I knew what that meant, for Linton is
solid as right tackle. If Carter shows up all right, I’m to be kicked
out, and Carter goes in as left tackle. Renwood is at the bottom of it,
the dirty cad!”
His companion’s words brought a feeling of surprise to Don Scott, who
immediately recalled the broken bit of conversation he had overheard
the previous evening as he crouched behind some bushes directly after
leaving the football field. Hearing Sterndale speaking at that time of
giving Carter a trial on the eleven, he had felt certain the new man
was to be given the position made vacant by his resignation from the
team; but now Bentley’s statement seemed to cast a new light on the
captain’s intention.
“Are you sure you’re right, Bent?” asked the doctor’s son, earnestly.
“Perhaps they’re not going to drop you; they may mean to give you
another position.”
“Not on your life! When I tumbled to the game, I just demanded to know
what Sterndale meant to do, and I forced him to declare himself.”
“How? What did he say?”
“Why, he said he’d keep me if Carter did not prove to be a better man.
As if he thought I’d stand that!”
“What did you do?”
“I told him just what I thought about it. I gave him a piece of my
mind, and don’t you forget it! I told him I was done with his old
football team the moment he dropped me off to give Carter or any other
fellow a trial in my position. I tell you, I was mad! Then I got out
and left them to do anything they liked. Now that you’re not going on
the team, Scott, I don’t believe I care a rap about playing with that
gang.”
Leon made this final declaration in a manner which seemed to indicate
that he regarded Don as his particular friend, for which reason, as Don
had been treated shabbily, he was more than willing to withdraw from
the eleven.
As he crouched behind the bushes near the football field, Don had
heard Chatterton speak of somebody as being angry enough to do almost
anything, and the listening lad then fancied the stammerer was
referring to him; but now it seemed possible that quite another person
had been the subject of the remark.
“I had a talk with Chatterton a while ago,” Leon went on, “and I
tried to pump him about Sterndale’s intention in regard to me, but he
pretended not to know what the fellow is going to do. But, say! he
told me something that pretty near took my wind. You can’t guess what
happened last night.”
“I won’t try to guess. What did happen?”
“Somebody went into the dressing-room under the grand-stand and raised
the dickens generally.”
Don felt his heart give a great jump, but he tried to assume an
appearance of calmness as he asked:
“Raised the dickens how? What did he do?”
“You know some of the fellows left their suits there, and the football
was left there, too?”
“Yes.”
“Well, somebody went in there and took a knife and slit the suits into
ribbons and slashed the football all to pieces.”
Don sprang to his feet with a cry, for Bentley’s words solved a mystery
that had puzzled him greatly, and now he knew why it was that the
fellow detected by him in the dressing-room had fought so fiercely to
escape without being recognized.
Leon stared in surprise at his companion, whose face flushed and paled
and who seemed to be shaking with excitement.
“Well, what’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“Who did it?” panted Don. “Does Chatterton know? Who was sneak enough
to do such a trick?”
“I asked Chat if he knew, and he winked and said they had found proofs
enough to hang the fellow who did the job.”
“What kind of proof?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. He said the chap must have cut himself, for there
was blood on the floor.”
Don wondered if his visitor had observed his bandaged fingers; but, if
so, Leon made no sign.
The doctor’s son walked to the window and looked out. Having opened the
window, he turned back, and there seemed to be a look of triumph on his
dark face.
“Bentley,” he said, “have you a suspicion who did that job?”
“Well, I’ve got a sneaking notion,” answered Leon, with a foxy smile,
as he lighted a fresh cigarette.
“Whom do you suspect?”
“I questioned Chatterton pretty closely,” declared Bentley, wagging his
head, “and I found out another fellow left the club-room directly after
I did. It is my opinion that he’s none too good to do such a trick, and
I’ll bet they’ll find it out.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“Somebody you and I love--I don’t think.”
“Renwood?”
“Sure thing.”
To Bentley’s surprise, his companion sat down, a sudden look of doubt
and perplexity dawning on his face and growing swiftly.
“What reason have you to think Renwood would do such a thing?”
questioned Don. “What could be his object?”
“I’ve heard something to-day that’s given me an idea. Renwood is
acquainted with Winston, the Harvard man, who is coaching Highland.”
“What of that?”
“I’ve thought all the time that Renwood didn’t care a snap whether
Rockspur won or not, and now I’ll bet my life he’s working to have us
lose to them.”
“But I fail to see his object,” declared Don. “Why should he want
Rockspur to lose?”
“That may come out later. If he is a particular friend of this Winston,
he may be playing into Winston’s hands. Perhaps Winston wants to win a
reputation as a coach; perhaps he’s expecting to bet money on the game;
perhaps a lot of things. Anyhow, I’ll bet my pile that Renwood and
Winston have it put up between them to down Rockspur.”
Don shook his head. A short time before he had been eager to believe
anything bad of Renwood; but, for all that, he was not satisfied with
Bentley’s explanation of Dolph’s reasons for invading the dressing-room
and destroying the football and suits.
“I can’t see how such a trick would do him any good,” averred the
logical Don. “If he wants to make a lot of flub players out of the
Rockspur crowd, so they will lose the game, I should think he could
find a better way to carry out his purpose. To me it seems that the
destruction of the suits and football was a piece of petty spite, and,
much as I’d like to, I can’t see any reason for such spite on the part
of Renwood.”
“Then you don’t think he did it?” asked Bentley, in a disappointed way.
Don’s eyes fell on something that lay upon the table, half concealed
by a magazine, and he suddenly sprang to his feet once more, snatching
up this object and crying:
“Yes, I believe he did the job, even though I can’t understand why, and
here in my hand is the proof against him!”
He displayed the handsome knife he had wrested from his antagonist of
the previous night.
At sight of that knife Leon Bentley gave a start and turned pale.
CHAPTER XIII.
DON ACCUSES RENWOOD.
Don could scarcely fail to observe his companion’s strange agitation
and pallor.
“Well, what’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed, wonderingly.
“That knife!” gasped Leon. “Where did you get it?”
He snatched it from Don’s hand and examined it closely, his fingers
trembling a little, while his whole manner betrayed both astonishment
and dismay.
“Have you ever seen that knife before?” questioned the dark-haired boy.
“I--I--why, I believe I have.”
“When? Where?”
“Why, I--er--saw it last night.”
“You did? Where?”
“In the club-room.”
“Who had it?” cried Don, clutching Bentley fiercely by the shoulder.
“Don’t!” begged the other lad, squirming and dropping his cigarette.
“Great Cæsar! you hurt! Your fingers feel like iron!”
“Who had that knife?” Don again demanded. “If you saw it in the
club-room, you must have seen it in the possession of some one. Who had
it?”
“Why, it--it’s Renwood’s knife.”
“How do you know? Did you see it in his possession?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, for I took it from him and examined it before all the
other fellows. I told him I’d like to have a knife like that, and then
I passed it back to him, and he took it. All the fellows saw me give it
back to him,” Leon concluded, impressively.
“That settles it!” grated the doctor’s son, his eyes flashing and his
face betraying triumphant satisfaction. “I’m glad they all saw this
knife in that fellow’s possession and that he claimed it as his own.
Even though I cannot understand his motive for doing the dirty job in
the dressing-room, there is no longer a doubt in my mind but he did it.”
Bentley drew a long breath, looked wonderfully relieved, and a bit of
color returned to his sallow cheeks. Had Don Scott been watching his
visitor closely, he must have wondered somewhat at his manner.
“But how that knife came into your possession is more than I can
understand,” said Leon, picking up his half-smoked cigarette and
looking at Don askance.
Then Scott told him the whole story of his adventure in the
dressing-room the night before, and the other listened attentively,
but with his eyes downcast, at times gnawing at his lips in a nervous
manner.
“That beats the world!” he muttered, when the story was finished.
“But I think it’s a mighty unlucky thing that you turned up there last
night, old man.”
“Unlucky?” cried Don. “How is that? Didn’t I catch the fellow right in
the act?”
“Yes; but it might have been better if you had not caught him.”
“I don’t understand. How could it have been better?”
“Well, he--er--perhaps he might have--left a--a clew--there in the
dressing-room,” faltered Leon, lamely. “He might have dropped the
knife, you know, and--er--forgotten it.”
“Not at all likely! If I hadn’t come on him just as I did, he’d done
the job and got away without leaving a trace. No one could have sworn
who did it, and any one else might have been suspected. Why, they might
have suspected me!”
“I don’t know but you’re right,” slowly admitted Bentley; “still,
something tells me it would have been better if you hadn’t run onto
him.”
“Why, you’re daffy!” laughed Don, his eyes gleaming. “I have the
fellow--have him foul!”
“What are you going to do?”
“Why, I’m going to expose him! I’m going to show him up to the boys!
I’ll show them what sort of a chap they have as coach for the eleven.”
“That’s all right,” said Bentley; “but what if they don’t believe your
story?”
“They’ll have to believe it! Here’s the knife, and here are my
fingers, cut in the struggle with him. More than that,” he went on,
striding quickly to the clothes-press, “here is my coat, with a slit
from the shoulder to the elbow, just as he made it when he tried to
stab me.”
He held up the coat, and the visitor regarded it with no small amount
of curiosity, whistling softly and observing:
“By gracious! he did come near carving you up.”
“I believe he knew me!” Don savagely declared. “He must have recognized
me.”
“Oh, no! it was so dark in there that a fellow couldn’t recognize any
one--at least, you said it was,” Leon hastily added.
“Still, I believe he knew me, and that was why he tried to cut me. I’ll
square the account with him! Wait till I show him up to-morrow!”
“Well, I hope you succeed,” said Bentley, sincere in that wish, at
least. “I think I’ll be going. Your old man might come home, and I have
a notion he doesn’t like me.”
Don did not object to the departure of his visitor, and, having lighted
another cigarette, Leon left, as he had entered, by the back door.
Don could scarcely wait for the following day, so eager was he to
denounce Renwood. He pictured to himself the sensation his revelation
would create, and in his mind he saw his enemy an outcast, scorned and
taunted and shunned by the village lads.
It was barely eight o’clock the following morning when Don passed the
fountain in the village square, being on his way to a grocery store to
take an order for his aunt before starting for school. As he came out
of the store, Dick Sterndale called to him from the opposite side of
the street:
“Come over here, Scott, I want to see you.”
“And you’re the very fellow I’m looking for,” said Don, promptly
crossing over.
“I want you to come to the club-room for a short time, Scott,” the
captain of the eleven grimly declared, regarding Don in anything but a
pleasant manner.
They climbed the stairs, Dick falling in behind.
“He means to give me a call-down for my talk to Renwood,” thought the
boy in advance, feeling in his pocket for the captured knife. “I’ll
make him change his tune in a hurry.”
Reaching the club-rooms, they found Mayfair and Chatterton there, both
of whom regarded Don coldly, not even nodding to him.
“Well, what do you want of me, Sterndale?” demanded the dark-haired
lad, ignoring the others.
“I have a few questions to ask you,” said Dick, ominously, closing the
door behind them; “and it’s best for you to tell the truth, too.”
“I am not in the habit of lying!” flared the doctor’s son, his face
turning crimson; “and I won’t take an insinuation of the sort from you
or anybody else, Dick Sterndale! You want to be careful!”
He was scowling fiercely, but the captain of the eleven, regardless of
his threatening manner, sharply asked:
“Where did you go directly after leaving this room last night, Scott?”
“I don’t know that it’s any of your business,” retorted Don, “but I
don’t mind telling you. I went home.”
“Did you remain there?”
A sudden sensation of danger assailed Don, and his eyes swiftly scanned
the faces of Sterndale and his companions. He discovered that he was
being regarded with cold scorn, and an intimation of their thoughts
fell upon him.
“Look here, Sterndale,” he said, quickly, turning to the captain, “if
you have anything to say to me, just say it at once, without beating
round the bush. What are you driving at?”
From behind the door the captain took down three football suits that
had been cut and slashed into ribbons, and he kicked out before Don the
remains of a football which had been destroyed in a similar manner.
“Do you know anything about this job?” asked Dick, sternly and
accusingly.
“Yes!”
They were somewhat surprised by Don’s answer, and Chatterton whispered
to Mayfair:
“Bub-bub-by Jinks! he’s gug-going to own up!”
“Oh, you do?” exclaimed Sterndale. “Well, what do you know about it?”
“I know who did it,” declared Don.
“No doubt about that,” muttered Mayfair.
“Who was it?” demanded Dick, watching Scott closely.
Just then footsteps sounded outside and the door opened.
“That fellow there!” rang out Don’s clear voice, as his finger was
pointed accusingly at Dolph Renwood, who stood in the doorway.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHARGE AND COUNTERCHARGE.
Don’s bold accusation astounded those who heard it, for it was wholly
unexpected. Renwood seemed amazed, Mayfair and Chatterton sprang to
their feet, and Sterndale uttered an exclamation.
“He’s the sneak who did the dirty work!” cried the doctor’s son. “He
can’t deny it! He slashed those suits and destroyed that football!”
“You’re a liar!” retorted Dolph, quick as a flash.
It was well that Sterndale was between them instantly, else Don might
have broken his promise to Renwood’s sister. Finding Dick there, he
restrained himself, laughed harshly and triumphantly, and said:
“That’s all right; I can afford to take it off you just now. In short
order I’ll show you up as both a liar and a sneak. You followed me from
this room last night, and you can’t deny that.”
“I don’t wish to deny it. What if I did?” said Dolph.
“From here you went directly to the dressing-room under the
grand-stand, where you used your handsome pearl-handled knife to slash
these suits and cut up the football. Why you did such a low, sneaking
trick is more than I can understand, unless you were possessed by the
Old Boy himself.”
Renwood laughed derisively.
“You have more gall than any fellow I ever saw!” he declared. “I
compliment you on your nerve, Mr. Scott!”
“How do you know he had such a thing as a pearl-handled knife?” asked
Sterndale.
“That knife slashed the sleeve of my best coat from shoulder to elbow,”
answered Don. “That knife cut these fingers,” and he displayed his
bandaged digits. “That knife is in my possession!”
With the final words, he took the knife from his pocket and held it up
before them all, causing every one of them to utter exclamations of
surprise.
“Let him deny that it is his knife if he can!” challenged the
dark-haired lad.
“I haven’t the least notion of denying it,” said Dolph, immediately.
“It is my knife, lost last Saturday night.”
“Yes, lost in the struggle with me in the dressing-room, where I caught
you just after you had finished your dirty work of cutting up the
football and the suits. I left this suit of clothes I am wearing there
Saturday afternoon, and I went up for it that night, after I was here
in this room. I caught you there, and you fought like a fiend to escape
without being recognized. When I had you down and was choking you into
submission, you tried to stab me with the knife, and you did cut my
shoulder a bit, but I got hold of your hand and took the knife from
you. Here it is, and it is proof that you are the fellow I found in the
dressing-room.”
Don seemed to fancy that he had fastened the deed on Renwood, and
his air was one of satisfied triumph; but he was surprised to observe
that Dolph showed neither confusion nor shame. Instead, the city youth
laughed again, saying:
“That’s a very clever fairy story, Scott, but you can’t make anybody
believe it.”
“Hardly,” agreed Mayfair. “It will not go down.”
“Not mum-much!” scoffed Chatterton.
“If you had not confessed being in the dressing-room Saturday night,”
said Sterndale, regarding Don with mingled anger and aversion, “we
had sufficient evidence to show you were there. We found this in the
dressing-room.” He held up to view Don’s favorite red necktie.
“And this just outside the gate to the field,” put in Mayfair,
displaying a blood-stained handkerchief. “It has your monogram on it,
Scott.”
“Both necktie and handkerchief are mine,” declared Don, without
hesitation. “The necktie was torn off in the struggle. I had the
handkerchief wrapped about my fingers, but lost it on the way home.”
“Sus-sus-slick yarn,” commented Danny, while the others, with the
exception of Sterndale, smiled scornfully.
Then, for the first time, Don realized that his words had fallen on
unbelieving ears and his attempt to expose the villainy of Renwood
was a complete failure. More than that, it was plain to him that
circumstantial evidence had convinced these fellows that he was the
dastardly sneak who had destroyed the football and ruined the suits.
For a moment he turned pale; then all the fury of his fiery nature
burst forth, and he raved against them like a person bereft of reason.
His eyes glared and a white froth formed on his lips, while he shook
all over. It seemed that in his senseless rage he would attack them
all, but he did not.
The boys were awed by the spectacle, though Sterndale remained grave
and firm, his face expressing no emotion.
“Fools!” snarled Don. “You’re blind! Think I tore off my own necktie
and left it behind so you might know I’d been there? How do you suppose
I came into possession of that fellow’s knife unless I obtained it just
as I’ve stated?”
“That was easy,” declared Renwood himself. “I had the knife Saturday
evening just before you entered this room, and I was sitting on that
table over there. The knife was beside me when you came in and walked
over to the table; when you left this room the knife was gone.”
“That’s right,” nodded Mayfair. “We all hunted for it and couldn’t find
it.”
“And now we nun-nun-know why we couldn’t fuf-fuf-find it,” asserted
Chatterton, wisely.
“So you think I stole it?” grated the dark-eyed lad, showing his white
teeth. “All right, think so, if you like! What do I care! You’re a lot
of fools, and you’ll find it out before you are done with Renwood. As
for him, he had better look out for me! I know he did the sneaking work
Saturday night, and I will prove it against him so there will be no
way for him to squirm out of it! Anyhow, I’ll fix him, and you may bet
your lives on that!”
Don flung the handsome pearl-handled knife on the floor and started
to walk from the room, Renwood having left the doorway free; but Dick
Sterndale blocked his passage, putting out a strong hand to stop him.
“Wait, Scott,” said the captain of the eleven, grimly. “When are you
going to pay for that football and those suits?”
The lips of the doctor’s son curled with scorn.
“When?” he cried. “Never!”
“Oh, yes, you will,” said Dick, quietly.
“If I do, I hope I may drop dead the next instant!” panted Don.
“If you do not,” warned the handsome fellow who blocked his path, “your
father will.”
“What do you mean? You----”
“If you refuse to pay, I shall go to your father, tell him the whole
story and demand payment from him.”
Don caught his breath, and it seemed that he would assault the captain
then and there; but Sterndale showed no wavering nor alarm, and the
attack did not come.
“Go ahead!” grated the dark-eyed lad. “Go to my father, if you like!
You can’t drive me that way to pay for damage I never did! I’ll die
before I’ll pay one cent!”
It was plain enough that he meant it then, but Dick said:
“Perhaps you will change your mind after you think it over. I’ll give
you till to-night. If you do not agree to pay by that time, I’ll call
on your father.”
He stepped aside, and the suspected youth walked to the door, where
he turned for a last desperate fling at his accusers. His hands were
clenched, his face flushed and his teeth showing as he looked back over
his shoulder.
“You’re a soft crowd!” he sneered, with curling lips. “If you were not,
you wouldn’t be ready to get down and crawl for a common city cad.
Because his father has some money and he is from Boston, you are ready
to take anything off him and believe any lie he tells. Oh, you make me
sick!”
Then he went out.
CHAPTER XV.
IN THE AUTUMN WOODS.
Don did not attend school that day, for he felt that he could not
study, and he wished to be alone. He set out toward the academy, it
is true, but kept on, paying no heed to the boys and girls who were
gathered in groups about the steps and grounds of the white school
building, passed the fenced-in football field, and struck off by a path
that led toward the picnic grove in the vicinity of High Bluff.
The fields were showing brown in spots, while here and there a tree was
tinted with crimson and gold, the gorgeous banners of advancing autumn.
The sky was blue and cloudless, the air clear and still, transmitting
distant sounds with a softened distinctness that was agreeable to the
ear, while over all seemed to hang the delightful, dreamy languor that
is typical of this season in the country.
Crickets were chirping merrily in the brown grass beside the path that
led the feet of the unhappy boy toward the picnic grove, but he heard
them not, for in his heart there was a tumult that drowned all other
sounds. From a farm-yard far across the unrippled harbor sounded the
crowing of a cock, mellowed by the distance, but the music of the sound
did not seem to reach Don’s ears.
In the heart of the grove he found a mossy bed, upon which he threw
himself, giving way to the bitterest reflections. He lay there while
the forenoon slipped away. Squirrels chattered in various parts of the
grove. A mischievous-looking little chipmunk perched on a stub a few
feet away and stared at the reclining lad, observing in an inquiring
manner: “Kuk? Kuk? Kuk?” A bluejay lighted on a branch high above him,
cocked its tufted head to one side, and shrilly screamed: “Wake up! Get
up! Wake up! Come on!” Then, as the lad stirred, he shot away like a
blue arrow from a bow, wildly shrieking: “Phe-phay! Phe-phay!”
These sights and sounds did not interrupt the tumultuous flow of the
boy’s thoughts, and he was not aroused till the whistles of the mills
far across the river told him that the noon hour had arrived. Then he
sprang to his feet and hurried from the grove, making great haste to
get back to the village.
There was no one in the vicinity of the academy to observe him as he
reached it and scudded past, but he found his aunt “sputtering” when he
reached home.
“Goodness sakes! where have you been?” she impatiently exclaimed. “The
other scholars went past twenty minutes ago, and I had dinner all ready
then. Everything will be stone-cold.”
“I--I staid behind,” said Don.
“What for?” she questioned, curiously. “Was it something about your
lessons that kept ye?”
And he answered: “Yes.” Having taken the first step by deceiving
his father and telling him a falsehood, he was surprised to find how
readily this untruth came from his lips.
The doctor ate dinner with them, but his mind seemed to be occupied, so
that he talked very little, which was decidedly to Don’s satisfaction.
Leon Bentley was loitering past the house when Don came out, and he
called:
“Hello, Scott, old man! Where were you this forenoon? Didn’t see you at
school.”
“Shut up, you idiot!” hissed Don, hurrying down the steps and out to
the sidewalk. “What do you want to come round shouting like that for?”
“Oh, ho!” grinned Leon. “I catch on! Don’t want your old man to know,
eh? Played hookey, did you?”
“I didn’t feel like going to school to-day, and so I’m not going.”
“Then you mean to stay out this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Well, say, I’m with you. Where’ll we go?”
Don was not at all pleased, for he did not desire Leon’s company; but
that made no difference to Leon, and, discovering his companion was
determined to hang on like a leech, the doctor’s son said:
“I’m going anywhere out of the village. I feel like getting off by
myself.”
“Then, say, let’s go over into the Powder Mill Woods. I’ll get my rifle
and we can have some fun popping at squirrels and birds. We might
strike some partridges. What do you say?”
“I’d as lief go there as anywhere, but I don’t care about tramping all
the way round by the road.”
“We’ll get a boat down by Nutt’s Wharf and row over. Let’s turn round
and go back for my rifle.”
“I’m not going back, for we’ll meet somebody on the way to the academy.”
“Then I tell you what, you just go straight to the wharf, and I’ll be
along as soon as I can get that rifle. Will you do that? Will you go to
the wharf and wait for me there?”
“Yes.”
There was something about Don’s manner of saying this that made Leon
suspicious, and he quickly demanded:
“Do you mean it? Will you really wait for me at the wharf?”
Instantly the dark-eyed lad blazed forth:
“What do you take me for? Do you think I’m a liar, same as all the
others think? Didn’t I say I’d be there?”
“Yes, but I----”
“Well, get your old rifle and come along! Hurry up about it, too!”
“All right,” breathed Leon, hastily. “I’ll hustle, you bet.”
He turned and ran down the street, while Don sullenly walked on, in
anything but a pleasant mood. At the first corner, he turned to the
left and made for the shore, considering himself lucky when he left
the main streets of the village without meeting any of the scholars
besides Bentley.
When Leon reached Nutt’s Wharf, he found Don sitting on one of the old
spiles, gazing moodily down into the water that was eddying round the
barnacle-encrusted timbers. Hearing Bentley approaching, Don looked up,
a frown still on his face.
“Well, where’s your rifle?” he asked. “Couldn’t you get it?”
“Sure thing,” grinned Leon, unbuttoning his coat and displaying a small
rifle with a detachable stock. “I kept it out of sight by tucking it
under there. Just as well, for I ran into some of the fellows, and they
would have asked questions if they’d seen it.”
“Now, where’s your boat?” demanded Scott.
“We’ll take Jeff Tyler’s old dory. I know where he hides the oars.”
“Did you ask Jeff for her?”
“What’s the use of asking?” chuckled Bentley. “I’ve used her more than
once, and I never asked yet.”
“Jeff might not like it if he knew.”
“What do we care? He’ll never know, for he’s at work over in
Lobsterville. Come on.”
Don followed Leon, who drew out the oars from their place of
concealment beneath some old timbers piled at one end of the wharf, and
then led the way round to the tagging, slimy steps that enabled them to
reach the dory. Don entered the boat first, Leon casting off the line
and springing in a moment later.
“We’d better not pull straight across,” said the doctor’s son. “There
goes the academy bell. We might be seen, so let’s pull up the shore to
Duffy’s Nose and keep under the land till after school begins.”
“All right,” said Leon. “Go ahead. I’ve got to take care of this rifle.”
He made a pretense of disposing of the rifle, while Don took the oars
and rowed away up the shore. Bentley lighted a cigarette and found a
comfortable position in the stern of the dory.
“This is great stuff,” he nodded, with satisfaction. “It’s a corking
day. A fellow’s a fool to mope away his time in school on such a day as
this. Say, you can’t guess what the fellows said about you because you
failed to show up this forenoon.”
“I don’t give a continental what they said!” snapped Don.
“They said you were afraid,” grinned Leon, exhaling a great breath of
thin, blue smoke. “You stirred up a dickens of a mess when you accused
Renwood of doing that job; but, say, didn’t he come back at you with
both feet! That must have jarred you some.”
Don had stopped rowing, and his face showed how his companion’s words
had aroused him.
“So they say I’m afraid?” he muttered, bitterly. “I didn’t think about
that. If I had thought---- But what do I care what they say!”
“Of course you don’t care, old man. I’m your friend, and I’ll stick by
you. If the whole town says you did that trick, I’ll never believe it.
I know better.”
Leon said this with such evident earnestness that the unfortunate youth
could not help feeling gratitude and showing it.
“Thank you, Bent,” he said, his voice being a trifle husky despite
himself. “I’m glad to hear you say that, anyhow. I won’t forget it,
either.”
“I don’t believe you are the kind to forget easily,” asserted the
crafty Leon. “It wouldn’t be like you to forget that I was the only one
to stand by you and believe in you when almost everybody turned against
you.”
“No, I do not forget easily, and I’ll not forget Dolph Renwood! My turn
will come, and I’ll soak him when it does! I suppose they were saying
all manner of nasty things about me?”
“Rather. They said you put up a big bluff, but Sterndale was sure you’d
come round and cave in before night.”
“He never made a bigger mistake in his life.”
“But he says he’s going to apply to your father for pay for the
football and suits if you don’t fork over. You don’t want him to do
that, do you?”
“I don’t want him to, but I’ll never pay to keep him from doing it.
Not in a million years! If he thinks I will, he’ll find he’s awfully
mistaken.”
Don was rowing again, and he pulled the boat up under the shelter of
the high promontory known as Duffy’s Nose, where they lingered till
they knew the afternoon session at the academy had begun. Then away
across the harbor the boat went, with Scott laboring at the oars and
Bentley lazily smoking in the stern. Into Crab Inlet they steered,
pulling up as far as the bridge across Powder Mill Creek. Having tied
the dory beneath the bridge, where it would remain hidden from view,
they set off on foot toward the Old Powder Mill.
Leon put his rifle together and loaded it, having brought along a
supply of cartridges, and began to look round for something to shoot.
“I wouldn’t mind taking a shot at a sheep or a cow, just for fun,” he
grinned. “It would be sport just to wing somebody’s old cow enough to
make her run and kick up.”
“I fail to see where the fun would come in,” growled Don.
At the Powder Mill Dam, where the water came rippling over in a shining
sheet, they lingered a while, and Bentley fired at a swimming fish, but
did not touch it. Don would have been content to remain there longer,
but his companion was eager to plunge into the woods and discover
something to shoot.
The chatter of a squirrel caused Leon to hurry forward eagerly. They
came in sight of the squirrel after a time, a handsome fellow, with
a large, bushy tail, and Bentley began shooting, while Don looked
on. After Leon had fired four times, the squirrel scampered off and
disappeared, quite unharmed.
“Well, I have my doubts about your being able to hit a cow unless you
put the muzzle of the rifle against her,” said Don.
Leon flushed, chagrined at his ill success.
“It’s a pretty good trick to hit a little object like a squirrel with
this kind of a rifle,” he declared. “I bet you can’t do it.”
“I don’t see the fun in shooting squirrels, anyway,” retorted Don.
“Oh, you don’t?” grinned Bentley, tauntingly. “That’s because you know
you can’t hit one. You don’t dare to try.”
He continued to talk in this manner till they came upon another
squirrel, when he held out the rifle and invited Don to show what he
could do.
“Get out!” retorted the dark-eyed lad. “I don’t want to shoot him. See
how handsome he looks, perched on that limb with his tail up over his
back.”
Leon sneered and scoffed, persisting that Don did not wish to shoot
because he knew he could not hit the squirrel, till, with an angry
exclamation, the doctor’s son caught the rifle from his companion’s
hand, took careful aim and fired.
From the limb an object dropped toward the ground, which it struck with
a sodden plump.
“You got him!” shouted Leon. “Why, you’re a crackajack!”
He ran forward, and Don followed slowly with the rifle, a strange look
on his face. There was a rustling beneath the tree, and Bentley made a
forward dive, crying:
“Great smoke! he’s trying to get away! You broke his back!”
The other boy stood still, his eyes following the crippled squirrel
that was trying to drag itself away to a place of concealment. Leon
headed off the wretched little creature and began poking it about with
a stick he had picked up.
“Stop that!” snarled Don, springing at his companion, with his eyes
blazing. “Why don’t you kill him? Can’t you see he’s suffering?”
Then he caught the stick from Leon’s hand and struck the squirrel
till the tiny animal lay motionless and dead at his feet. This done,
Don straightened up and stood staring down at the work of his hand,
his lips quivering queerly, while something seemed to swell up in his
throat and almost choke him.
“Hoop-la!” shouted the other lad. “You’re a mighty hunter and a dead
shot, but I’ll bet you a quarter you miss the next one you shoot at.”
“Take your old rifle!” palpitated Don, thrusting the weapon at Leon. “I
wouldn’t shoot at another one for fifty dollars!”
“Why, it’s sport!” laughed Leon. “That’s what we came over here for.”
“It’s not sport for me, and I didn’t come here for anything of the
kind. I’m going back to the dam.”
“Not now? Why, we’re going to hunt through the woods for partridges.”
“You may go where you like,” said Don, turning away. “When you get
ready to go home, you’ll find me down by the dam.”
His thin lips curling, Leon stared after Don, who talked swiftly away.
Bentley scornfully muttered:
“He’s got a soft spot about him, after all, or he’d not act that way
over a common squirrel.”
Alone by the dam, Don lingered in the sunshine, listening to the
plashing water and the rustling whispers of the wind amid the trees.
His face, that had been hard and angry, was sad and shaded with sincere
regret.
CHAPTER XVI.
TEMPTER AND TEMPTED.
“What kind of an excuse are you going to make for being absent from
school?” asked Leon, as they were pulling homeward across the harbor
late that afternoon.
“I don’t know,” answered Don, shortly.
“You’ll have to tell something.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you do same as I do?”
“How is that?”
“Why, I just write an excuse for myself and take it to old Alden. He
never knows the difference.”
“I should think he could tell your writing.”
“Not much! I imitate the old gent’s writing, and I bet it would fool
the old gent himself. Then I put his name to it, and everything is all
slick.”
“I can’t do that,” said Don.
“I might do it for yer, if I had a sample of your old man’s penmanship.
It would be dead easy.”
“I wouldn’t like to do anything like that.”
“It’s a blamed sight better than being pulled over the coals for
playing hookey, I tell you. Tell you what, I’ll come round this evening
and whistle out back of your house, and you can let me in, same as you
did yesterday. Then, if you want me to, and you can find something
your governor has written, I’ll fix you up an excuse.”
“You needn’t bother yourself. I shan’t want anything of the kind.”
“All right,” grinned Leon; “just as you say, old man. But don’t give me
away, so your dad will report that you were out with me.”
“Don’t be afraid of that.”
Down past Duffy’s Nose they slipped, creeping along the shore toward
Nutt’s Wharf, the oars clanking in the rowlocks. Seeing no one in the
vicinity of the wharf, they pulled up to the steps and made the dory
fast.
“Bring the oars,” directed Leon, as, with the rifle buttoned under his
coat, he sprang out and started up the steps.
“Come back and get the oars, if you want them,” came sharply from Don.
“I’ve done the rowing, and now you may take care of the old oars, or
they’ll stay in the boat.”
Leon came back and took them as Scott passed them out, observing:
“You’re in a jolly good temper! Any one ’d never suspect you’d been
playing hookey and having a good time.”
“Well, I haven’t been having a good time,” muttered the doctor’s son,
as he followed his companion up the steps.
He did not wait for Leon, but at once set off toward home. As he
reached the corner of Academy street, he met Sterndale, who was coming
down from the football field.
“One moment, Scott,” said Dick, stopping him. “I want to know if you
mean to pony up for that football and those suits.”
“If I do,” flared Don, his face flaming red, “I hope I’ll be struck by
lightning!”
“You’d better,” threatened the captain, grimly, “if you don’t want me
to go to your father at once.”
“Go to him, and be hanged! You can’t make me pay for damage I didn’t
do, Sterndale, and I didn’t do that piece of dirty work.”
Dick’s eyes seemed trying to read his thoughts, as if they would probe
his very soul. With indignation, scorn and defiance in his look, Don
met his gaze squarely.
“All right, Scott,” said the big fellow, after a few moments. “I did
hope you would be reasonable, and you’ll have no one but yourself to
blame if your father learns everything.”
Not a word in return for these did Don deign to speak, but again went
onward toward home, leaving Sterndale staring after him in mingled
anger and perplexity.
It was not necessary for Don to make excuses for arriving home late,
as he was in time for supper. He found his father in a particularly
agreeable humor, and he was forced to simulate good nature himself,
although it was a difficult and repugnant task.
“Well, my boy,” said the doctor, sipping his tea, “how have things gone
with you to-day?”
“Pretty well,” was the somewhat hesitating answer.
“He had to stay behind at noon on account of his studies,” put in Don’s
aunt. “That’s what made dinner late. I’m afraid he’s studying too hard,
Lyman.”
“Nonsense,” laughed Dr. Scott. “He likes outdoor sports too well to let
study do him any damage. He’s one of the shining lights of the great
Rockspur football team, and I expect he’ll make a record to be proud of
when the eleven meets Highland.”
Don’s eyes were fastened on his plate, and he felt his face beginning
to burn.
“They do say that football is an awful game, Lyman,” anxiously said
Aunt Ella. “And I’ve read in the papers about how many players get hurt
at it every year. Now, if Don should be killed----”
“There is not much danger of that,” assured the doctor, still laughing.
“He is training regularly, and he will be in good condition for the
game. A boy who studies hard in school should be permitted to balance
it up by good, healthy sport out of school, and there is seldom any
danger that he will hurt himself.”
“But it was different when we were young--it was different then,”
sighed the good woman, pouring another cup of tea. “Times have changed,
Lyman.”
“I think so,” nodded Don’s father, “for the better. Don didn’t miss a
day at school last term, and, unless he is ill, I do not expect him
to miss a day this term. Now, a lad who sticks to his studies like
that deserves to be indulged in his ambitions for athletic games that
will build up his body and strengthen him physically. If I find an
opportunity, I shall attend the first football game in Rockspur, and so
encourage the eleven by my presence.”
Don was feeling decidedly mean and wretched when he left the table.
Once during the conversation he had sought to summon courage to confess
about remaining out of school that day, but the talk flowed on and his
resolution weakened. The opportunity passed; after that he could not
bring himself to bluntly declare the truth.
“Anyhow, he’ll find out about it soon enough,” thought the miserable
lad. “Sterndale will come round and give the whole thing away.”
But the evening passed on and Sterndale did not appear. In his room,
after darkness had fallen, Don tried to read; but he found Henty dull,
Optic tame, Alger insipid, and not even that master of all writers for
youth, Trowbridge, could hold his attention and chain his restless mind.
At last he heard a sound that caused him to start up. It was a soft,
peculiar whistle beneath his window, and he knew Bentley had arrived.
For some moments Don stood irresolute, then, as the whistle was
repeated, he slipped down the back stairs and admitted Leon to the
house.
“Well,” said the visitor, bringing out cigarettes the moment they were
in Don’s room and the door was closed, “you’re dead lucky, old man, and
don’t you forget it.”
“Lucky?” sneered the doctor’s son, derisively. “Well, I’d like to know
how! I think I’m just about the unluckiest fellow on the face of the
earth.”
“I don’t suppose you know anything about it,” said Leon, having struck
a match and lighted a cigarette, “but Sterndale’s wilted.”
“Wilted? In what way?”
“He’s backed down; he ain’t going to tackle your old man to make him
pay for the football and suits.”
“How do you know?” gasped Don, in astonishment.
“Got it straight from Chatterton. I can always pump him. He says
Sterndale talked it over with the fellows. Most of them wanted to carry
the thing through, but Dick said no, and he agreed to pay the damage
himself. You know, he always has his own way, and so that settled it.”
Don drew a deep breath and sat down, feeling that some of the load had
been lifted from his shoulders.
“Have a smoke,” invited Leon, grinning. “It will soothe you.”
Don took a cigarette and lighted it.
For a long time the boys sat and chatted in low tones. Don told how his
father fancied he was still on the eleven, and how he had failed to
confess about playing hookey.
“I don’t know how you’re going to keep the old man from finding out
you’re not on the eleven,” said Leon, “but he needn’t know that you
hooked away from school. All you have to do is to get me some paper and
a sample of his writing. I’ll fix it. Just let me show you what I can
do. You don’t have to carry the excuse if you don’t want to, you know.”
So Don went softly down the carpeted front stairs, discovered his
father was not in his office, slipped in and took an old letter and
some paper from the open desk, and scudded noiselessly back to the room
where his tempter was smoking his fifth cigarette.
“Well, this is all right,” chuckled Bentley, as he prepared to write
at Don’s desk. “You’ve brought some of the doctor’s letter paper, with
his name and office hours printed at the top. Why, with that, and this
letter to copy from, I can write an excuse that would fool the greatest
handwriting expert in the country. I’ll have to practice a little and
get on to the style of your dad’s chirography.”
The doctor’s son watched Leon imitating the formation of the letters
and the general style of Dr. Scott’s handwriting, and then, after a
while, saw the visitor slowly and carefully write out on one of the
sheets of letter paper an excuse for Don’s absence from school signing
it with the doctor’s name.
“There,” said the youthful rascal, surveying with great pride his
handiwork. “I rather think that will do. Bad headache, stomach out of
order, feverish symptoms, thought it best to let you remain away from
school. Isn’t that a bird, old man?”
“It’s very clever,” admitted Don, “but you had better take care what
you do in this line. Your skill in imitating the writing of other
persons may get you into trouble some day.”
“Get out! I’m not a fool! Take that to old Alden to-morrow, and he’ll
accept it without a word. That’ll keep your old gent from finding out
anything now, and something may prevent him from taking in any of the
games, so he won’t know you’re not on the eleven. It’s best not to hurt
his feelings by telling him everything. I reckon I’d better be skipping
out.”
When Leon was gone, Don picked up the forged excuse and looked it over
critically.
“It would fool me, that’s certain,” he muttered. “The imitation of
father’s writing is perfect. But I can’t carry this to Professor Alden.”
He took hold of it, as if intending to tear it up, but hesitated,
paused, wavered, then laid it down on the desk.
The following day, he took it to school and gave it to the professor.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE TACKLING MACHINE.
Even without a football, Renwood succeeded in getting some profitable
practice out of the eleven. Early on Monday morning he went to
a certain carpenter’s shop in the village and placed before the
proprietor the plan of a somewhat novel arrangement, consisting of two
upright timbers, with guy-ropes and pullies and running lines.
“It’s rather out of my line to make anything of the sort,” said the
carpenter; “but I guess I can do it if I can git Enos Berry, the
sail-maker, to help me. He knows more about splicin’ ropes and riggin’
up tackle than anybody round here. If I had anything else to do, I
wouldn’t touch it, but I’ll see what can be done.”
“I want it all done by to-night,” said Dolph. “We must have it
to-night, and it must be set up on the field.”
“Well, I don’t agree to have anything to do with your dummy and weight.”
“I have those over home, and I’ll send for father to have them brought
here. I’ll come in at noon and see how you’re getting along. By that
time I ought to be able to show you just how to fix it so it will work.”
At noon he visited the shop and found the two men had progressed in
a most satisfactory way with the work, although they were a trifle
foggy in regard to the manner in which the machine was operated. Dolph
carefully and fully explained this to them, and gave them some final
instructions, departing in high spirits.
But, to his disappointment, when school was over that afternoon,
instead of finding the arrangement set up on the football field, as
he had hoped it would be, it was not completed, another complication
having arisen. So Renwood was not on hand when the boys gathered after
supper for such practice as they could obtain without a ball, and
Sterndale was obliged to do what he could unaided by the coach. This
sort of work was very unsatisfactory, and after a time the boys gave it
up and left the field, all of them wondering what had become of Dolph.
The field had not been deserted long when Renwood appeared upon it,
accompanied by the men he had employed, and there they labored till
nearly dark.
Almost all the members of the eleven were in the club-rooms when
Renwood appeared there.
“Come on, fellows!” he cried. “I have something to show you.”
“Where?” demanded several.
“What is it?” asked others.
“You’ll all find out if you follow me,” answered the coach,
mysteriously.
“Is it fur?” yawned Thad Boland, wearily.
“No, it isn’t fur that I’m going to show you,” laughed Renwood. “What
are you looking for--a bearskin coat?”
“I mean is it fur off,” explained Old Lightning. “’Cause I’m too tired
to walk fur.”
“You’re alwus tired,” asserted Jotham Sprout. “You was born that way.”
“Don’t try to be funny, Bubble,” advised Thad; “for when you try to be,
you ain’t funny at all. Sometimes, when you don’t mean to be, you’re
really funny.”
“Well, are you coming?” demanded Renwood. “If you want to see it
to-night you’ll have to hustle, or it will be too dark.”
“What is it?” was again asked.
“Something worth seeing,” was his mysterious assertion, which aroused
their curiosity, and he soon had them following him down the stairs,
even Old Lightning lumbering along grumblingly and wearily in the rear.
Straight to the field he led them, persistently refusing to enlighten
them on the way.
“You’ll find out what it is when you see it,” he said.
On the way they picked up Danny Chatterton, who had been talking with
Leon Bentley.
“Bent is sore as bub-bub-blazes,” declared Danny. “He says
Sus-Sterndale’s gettin’ to be an old wo-woman, for he lets
somebub-bub-body else ru-run the eleven and ch-changes his mind about
mum-making Scott’s father pup-pup-pup-pay for the fuf-football and
suits. He sus-says he’d ha-ha-had to pay if he’d done it, and he
thinks Sus-Sterndale ought to bub-bub-back up his threat to gug-go to
Scott’s fuf-father.”
“I wouldn’t have too much to say to that fellow, Chat,” advised Dick.
“You’ll be just as well off if you keep away from him.”
When the football field was reached, Renwood led them through the gate.
It was already quite dark, and rapidly getting darker.
“Look there!” he said, with an outward fling of his arm.
They looked, and what they saw caused some of them to utter
exclamations of astonishment, not unmingled with alarm. Before their
eyes, dimly seen through the gloom, something dangled in the air. And
that something very much resembled a human being, hung by the neck,
with its feet lifted just clear of the ground!
“Jupiter!” exclaimed Rob Linton.
“Pwhat is it, Oi dunno?” gasped Dennis Murphy.
“A mum-mum-mum-man!” fluttered Chatterton. “Hu-hung up by the nun-neck!
Oh, gug-ginger!” His teeth began to chatter and he backed away.
“It does look like a man,” admitted Water Mayfair.
Renwood burst out laughing, then suddenly ran forward, flung himself
at the dangling object, clutched it with his arms and came down to the
ground with it immediately.
“Fair tackle!” laughed Sterndale. “Boys, I know what it is. I’ve heard
of them. It’s a tackling machine.”
“You’ve hit it,” acknowledged Renwood, getting up, whereupon the
human-looking object that he had dragged down rose like a thing of
life and once more dangled upright in the air, bobbing slightly, as
if dancing on nothing. “I’ve had this put up so that I may teach you
fellows how to tackle correctly without getting you all bruised and
battered and sore in the last few days before the game.”
“Oi breathe again!” murmured Murphy, in great relief. “Oi wur about to
take to me heels an’ run fer it.”
“Run for it!” gurgled Jotham Sprout. “By smoke! I was just getting
ready to run the other way.”
The boys went forward and examined the tackling machine with great
interest. They found two upright timbers had been erected about twenty
feet apart, being connected by a strong rope from the top of one timber
to the top of the other, and held in place by guy-ropes attached to
stout pins that were driven into the ground. On the connecting rope
ran a pulley-truck with an iron hook that held another and smaller
block-pulley, through which passed the rope that suspended at one end
the dummy to be tackled and at the other end the weight that lifted
the dummy clear of the ground. This weight was arranged to drop just
low enough to lift the dummy to the proper distance and then stop.
When the dummy was tackled and brought down, the weight went up, the
rope running through the lower and smaller block. To the upper block a
second rope was made fast, running to small pulleys attached to the
upright timbers a few inches from the top, so that by pulling on either
end of this rope the dummy could be set in motion, drawn along swiftly,
stopped suddenly, and caused to retreat in opposite direction. The
dummy was a stout, heavy figure, made to represent a man dressed in a
padded football suit, but having neither arms nor feet.
All this was very interesting, and the boys poured out their questions
in single shots, scattering fires and volleys, so that it was not
possible for Dolph to immediately answer them; but he explained that
the dummy was one he had brought with him from Boston, having been
purchased for him by his father, and the machine in a general way
resembled the one invented by Captain Garret Cochran, of the Princeton
University Football Team.
Then they were eager to try it.
“Clear the road!” bellowed Jotham Sprout, bracing himself at a distance
of about twenty feet and pulling his cap down over his fat head. “I’m
going to show ye how to tackle the old thing. Just watch me do it.”
Renwood immediately caught hold of one end of the rope that drew the
dummy along, while the boys stood aside to witness the fat lad’s
tackle. Jotham charged furiously and flung himself at the dummy with
outstretched arms, but Dolph gave a sharp pull on the rope, and the
figure moved aside, so that Sprout clutched nothing but empty air, and
crashed to the ground like a fallen elephant, his breath being driven
from his body in a great grunt of astonishment.
The boys shouted with laughter, while Jotham sat up and stared in
disgust at the swaying dummy, wheezing:
“The blamed thing dodged!”
“Oh, Bubble!” shouted Mayfair. “It’s a wonder you didn’t burst when you
struck the ground. Ha! ha! ha!”
“He! he! he!” mocked Jotham, sourly. “What made the hanged old thing do
that?”
“That’s what it’s for,” asserted Renwood. “What would it be good for
if it always hung still and let you tackle? A running man will dodge
you if he can, and the dummy is made to do the same thing. That is so
you’ll tackle quick and sure, and be on the watch for any move the
other fellow may try to make.”
“Well, it wasn’t fair that time, for I warn’t ready for it to jump like
that,” said Bubble, heavily rising to his feet.
“Try it again,” urged several.
“Excuse me!” Jotham protested. “I guess I’ll look on and see some of
the rest of ye try it.”
“Hurroo!” cried Dennis Murphy, prancing off and spitting on his hands.
“Oi’ll be afther havin’ a go at it, an’ let’s see thot bag av sawdust
dodge me.”
“All right,” said Renwood. “Go ahead, Murphy.”
Dennis made a dash at the dummy, expecting Dolph would give it another
pull in the same direction as before, but Sterndale had slipped up and
taken hold of the other end of the rope, and, at the critical moment,
the figure seemed to spring the other way. The result was that the
Irish youth miscalculated entirely and went down, but he came up from
the ground as if he had been thrown erect by springs.
“Howld on!” he ejaculated, whirling about and glaring at the object,
while the amused lads shouted again. “Is it backward ye dodge, Oi
dunno? Sure, ye’re a shlick crayther, av Oi ivver saw wan, but Oi’ll
down yez av it takes me all noight, so Ol will.”
He sprang at the dummy again, caught it waist high, and brought it down
immediately.
After this the boys took turns at it, having it drawn swiftly along and
running at an angle to head it off, pursuing it, meeting it, and coming
at it in various ways. Dolph showed them just how to tackle low and
effectively, and they would not stop till it was too dark for them to
practice on the machine with any success.
“Let every fellow get up here by seven o’clock to-morrow morning,”
said Sterndale, “and we’ll put in an hour on this machine. We ought to
get our new ball by to-morrow night, and so we’re not going to be hurt
much, as far as practice is concerned, by the destruction of the other
one.”
In high spirits, they left the field, laughing, joking and singing,
and the sentiment universally expressed was that a fellow who took so
much trouble and interest in coaching them was the right person for the
position.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TROUBLE ON THE TEAM.
“I did not see you practicing after school to-night with the other
boys, Don,” said Dr. Scott, two evenings later. “I happened to be
driving past the ground, and so I stopped at the gate and looked on a
few moments. I expected to see you in the midst of it. Where were you,
my son?”
“I--I was not feeling very well,” declared Don, as smoothly as he
could, although he knew his face had flushed, “and so I did not
practice to-night.”
“There!” exclaimed his aunt; “what did I tell you, Lyman! I knew there
was something the matter with him, as he hasn’t been acting at all
natural for the past few days. I’m afraid, brother, you will have cause
to regret permitting him to indulge indiscriminately in that rough and
dangerous game.”
“I hardly think there is any cause for alarm,” smiled the doctor. “Any
boy may have a turn at feeling indisposed in the midst of apple-time,
when every orchard is inviting him to gorge himself. You have not been
hurt in practice, have you, Don?”
“Oh, no, sir! not at all,” was the hasty answer.
“And you’re feeling all right now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me look at your tongue.”
Don shamefacedly showed his tongue.
“Slight coat on it,” commented his father. “Stomach a trifle disturbed.
I’ll give you something for that before you go to bed. You’ll be all
right in the morning. It wouldn’t do for you to fall ill now, with the
great game against Highland only four days ahead, would it, my boy?”
“Hardly,” said Don, intensely disgusted with himself.
“Let me see, what position are you to play?” asked the doctor, pursuing
the conversation, to the boy’s increasing discomfiture.
“Half-back,” answered Don.
“Then you must have considerable running and kicking to do, for I
believe that is one of the most important positions on the team. They
must think pretty well of you, Don, to give you such a prominent place
on the eleven.”
“Oh, yes, they think well of me!” murmured the uneasy youth, with
hidden bitterness.
“How is the team coming on in a general way?” persisted the man. “Do
you think it is improving with practice?”
“I hope so.”
“But you do not speak in a confident manner. You how, those Highlanders
make a hard crowd to beat.”
Don was silent.
“I presume this young Renwood, who is instructing the team, knows all
about the game?” said the doctor, causing his son to writhe inwardly.
“He thinks he does,” laughed Don, shortly and harshly.
“Well, he has played it some, and so he must be able to give you many
valuable points. Is he an agreeable sort of fellow?”
“Not much.”
“Don’t you like him?”
“No,” answered Don, speaking the truth this time, at least; “I do not
like him.”
“That’s unpleasant,” said Dr. Scott, noting with regret the dark look
on the boy’s face, “but you must not permit that to keep you from
doing your level best in practice and in the game. At times it is
necessary for us to put aside all personal likes and dislikes and join
heartily with friends or foes in working together for a result. The
boy who permits his personal feelings to rule his conduct in baseball
or football will never make the highest type of player, and there is
danger that he will not be very successful when he leaves school and
enters on a business or professional career, for he will be ruled by
prejudices and likings and not by sound common sense and reason. My
boy, I want you to promise me that, for all you may dislike one or more
of your associates on the eleven, you will join with the others in
doing your level best under every condition to win from your opponents.
Promise me this, Don.”
The youth choked a little and turned his eyes away. It was too late
now, he fancied, to reveal to his father the exact condition of
affairs, and so the deception must be continued at any cost of torture
to his outraged conscience. Far better would it have been had he nerved
himself to speak the truth without further subterfuge and falsehood.
“I’m sure you are the kind of a boy to think first of winning,
regardless of your personal feelings,” asserted the doctor, not,
however, without a shade of anxiety in his voice. “That being the case,
it is your express duty to do everything you can honestly and squarely
do to assist toward the desired result, even though it is necessary to
sacrifice yourself in order to aid an enemy on your own side to make
a successful play. I want you to promise that you will do so if the
occasion arises.”
“That’s easy,” thought Don, “for I shall not play, and so the occasion
will not arise.” And he gave the desired promise.
He took the medicine which his father gave him, as he could not easily
avoid doing so, and then retired to his own room, relieved and thankful
to escape. In the seclusion of his room, he seemed to turn in anger and
disgust on himself.
“Oh, you’re a pretty cheap creature, Don Scott!” he muttered, fiercely.
“You’re getting to be a slick liar! How long will you be able to keep
it up? What will he think of you when he finds out the whole truth?”
The following night, he remained away from home during the time the
eleven was practicing on the field, being forced to accept Bentley
for a companion. But Don found that by association he was learning to
tolerate Leon far easier than at first, for all that some traits and
actions of the fellow still jarred on his nerves. Misery loves company,
it is said, and both boys had once been members of the eleven, so they
sought a secluded spot where they could smoke and talk and pass the
time away till Don dared venture home.
Scott did not stop at one cigarette now; he smoked three, and would
have smoked more but that a certain unpleasant sensation warned him to
desist.
“You’re taking to ’em as a duck takes to water,” declared Leon,
encouragingly. “I rather guess you’ve found they’re good for what ails
yer.”
“Oh, they give a fellow something to do to pass away the time,” said
Don; “but I don’t care about them.”
“You will some time,” averred the other. “You’ll want them with you all
the time. But, say, they ain’t having such a slick old time since you
and I left the eleven.”
“What do you mean?” asked Don, quickly.
“Oh, they’re not getting along as well as they might. They’ve put Smith
in your place and Linton in mine, with Boland as right tackle. Murphy
couldn’t get along with Old Lightning near him.”
“Why, I thought Carter was going to take your place.”
“They found it wouldn’t work, for Old Lightning was too slow for end
work. Carter is filling Smith’s place on the end, but Renwood kicks
like a steer about Boland. Thad is getting sick of it, too, and it
wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he got out. Anyhow, all these changes
have made the right wing of the line awfully weak.”
“If Boland gets out, they’re up a tree!” exclaimed Don, with a feeling
of unjust triumph. “They haven’t a good substitute now, and it will
break them all up to lose Thad.”
“That’s right!” cried Bentley, gleefully. “They will be in the soup!
What will they do?”
“Give it up. What could they do now if a man should be hurt in a game?”
“They’ve been talking of taking one of the mill fellows along as a
substitute, but they don’t like to do it. There are a dozen fellows who
go to the academy and who might play, but they won’t have anything to
do with the game. They’ve got a scrub team from Lobsterville playing
with them for practice to-night. Perhaps they’ll get somebody out of
that.”
“Perhaps so, but I doubt it. Sterndale can blame himself for letting
Renwood boss things, if they do happen to get into a box.”
“One thing is certain,” said Leon, wagging his head; “they won’t get us
to help them out.”
“It isn’t likely they’ll want us,” muttered Don, bitterly.
And so they passed the time in talking of these things till the
doctor’s son dared venture homeward. On his way, he dropped into a
tobacco store and, in a very self-conscious, guilty manner, bought a
package of cigarettes, which he slipped into an inner pocket.
Bentley had spoken the truth in saying the eleven was not progressing
in a satisfactory manner. Renwood had worked hard to teach them, and
they had received instructions in punting, drop-kicking, place-kicking,
passing, tackling and interference; but when it came to working out
the various plays, Thad Boland could not be aroused to the absolute
necessity of quick and decisive action, and he bothered and hindered
the others in a provoking manner. Thad was large enough and heavy
enough to become a good man in the line, but it seemed doubtful if he
would get into action and make himself of the least consequence in
the game. Renwood scolded him and Sterndale coaxed him, but neither
scolding nor soft words brought the desired result.
That night in the game against the scrub team, which was made up of all
sorts and conditions of boys, there being sixteen in all, instead of
eleven, Thad utterly refused to earnestly exert himself, declaring it
was no use to “slash and tear ’round” in a fooling game of that sort,
nor could any kind of talk or influence affect him. As the regulars
failed to make an entirely satisfactory showing against the scrub, this
was most annoying and not a little disheartening.
After the game, Sterndale, Renwood, Smith and Murphy drew aside to talk
matters over.
“Of course we gave the scrub the advantage of numbers and the wind,”
said the coach, somewhat ruefully; “but that is no excuse for our
failure to score oftener.”
“The right end of the line is terribly weak,” confessed Sterndale, who
looked troubled. “Carter is a new man on the end, Boland is too lazy at
tackle, and Sprout is too fat as guard. We must make a change, Renwood.”
“It’s pretty late in the day to make a change now, but we may have to
do it. The team was far better as it stood originally, with Smith on
the end and Linton next to him; but you had to pull Smith back to half
to fill Scott’s place.”
“Perhaps I don’t fill it,” said the tall boy; “but you bet I’ll do my
level best.”
“You’re all right, John,” declared the captain of the eleven, laying
an arm across Smith’s shoulders with something like affectionate
familiarity. “You’re just as good a man as Scott was at half, but it
has weakened the line taking you off the end.”
And this was the same John Smith who had once been called the hoodoo
of the baseball nine, derisively nicknamed “Jonah,” and treated with
inconsideration or positive contempt by Richard Sterndale. Having
proved his worth, he was now held in esteem by the very ones who had
entertained nothing but scorn for him, and no more was the opprobrious
nickname applied to him.
Dennis Murphy beamed with satisfaction and pleasure. In the days of
Smith’s disgrace the Irish lad had been the only one of the village
boys to side with him and stand by him.
“Thot b’y’s all roight wheriver ye put him, Misthur Sterndale,” he
declared, loyally.
“Yes, Smith’s all right,” agreed Dolph, promptly; “but we weakened the
line by taking him off. If the Highlanders ever discovered just how
easy our right end is, they could raise hob with us by hammering at it
all the time--and they will discover it, sure as fate.”
Renwood appeared worried, and his manner impressed the others.
“What can we do?” asked the captain. “What would you advise, Dolph?”
“Bentley is a better man than Boland, if he will do his best. If we
could get him back into his old position as left tackle and put Linton
into Boland’s place, it would strengthen the right end some.”
Sterndale nodded. “Bentley is not a first-class man,” he said, “but he
would be an improvement on Boland. Then, if we could put Smith on the
end again, with Carter in Bubble’s position, we’d be all right as far
as the line is concerned.”
“But without a right half,” said Renwood. “Now, if Scott----”
“It’s no use to talk of him!” exclaimed Dick, quickly. “We don’t want
that kind of a fellow on the team. Isn’t that your opinion, Dolph?”
Renwood did not answer at once. He was aware that the others were
watching him closely and waiting with interest for him to express
himself on that point. At last, he slowly said:
“It would be better to play with almost anybody than to be badly beaten
just because there was one weak point in the team, you know. If Scott
didn’t have such a beastly temper----”
“That’s not the worst thing,” the captain grimly asserted. “A fellow
who will do what he did is too nasty to be on the team. And you seem to
forget that he tried to lay it on to you, Dolph.”
“No, I don’t forget; but I was thinking of the eleven, not of myself.”
“You’re altogether too generous, old man. But we won’t talk about
Scott; he’s out of the question. However, I’ll see Bentley and tell
him he can come back into his old place. That will set Linton over to
right tackle, which will strengthen that end of the line some. If it
had not been for Dummy and Murphy, who could not get along with Boland,
I should not have shifted Linton into Bentley’s place.”
“Are you sure Leon will come back?” asked John Smith. “You know he’s
friendly with Scott now, and he’s been saying all kinds of hard things
about you and the rest of us. Won’t he stick by Scott?”
“Stick by nothing!” exclaimed Dick, with a laugh. “I’ll get him back
on to the team easy enough. He isn’t the kind of a chap to stick by
anybody.”
“I’d think more of him if he was,” declared Renwood; “but I guess it’s
the best you can do, Captain Sterndale. Better get him back in a hurry,
if you’re going to get him at all, so he will have the advantage of
what little practice we get before Saturday.”
“I’ll have him up here for practice to-morrow morning,” promised Dick,
confidently.
And he kept his word.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE NET OF DECEPTION.
“Look here, Bentley, I want to see you,” called Don Scott, sharply, as
Leon was hurrying homeward from school the following noon.
Leon cast a backward glance over the shoulder and saw the doctor’s son
coming after him with swinging strides. The day was dark and lowering
and a storm was threatening, but Bentley saw indications of a swifter
and more violent storm in the face of the boy who was hastened to
overtake him, which made him feel like taking to his heels and seeking
shelter from the outbreak.
“I’m in a hurry,” he cried, half pausing and then quickening his steps
once more.
“I won’t bother you long,” was the assertion which failed to reassure
him in the slightest degree. “What I have to say to you I can say in
short order. Hold on!”
“He won’t dare to touch me,” thought Leon, seeking to quiet his own
fears, but not entirely succeeding. “I might as well let him blaze away
and have it over.”
He paused at a street corner and waited. A wet wind was slashing
viciously at the trees that lined the street, and a yellow leaf,
harbinger of the great flocks to follow, came fluttering like a wounded
bird to Bentley’s feet.
The pursuer came up with a few swift, firm steps and stopped,
regarding Leon with scorn and anger apparently unspeakable, so that
the vacillating fellow stared at the ground and weakly asked, forcing
himself with a painful effort to utter the words:
“Well, what do you want?”
“You’re a nice one, you are!” grated Don, with a motion that caused the
other to start back a bit and lift one hand, like an oft-beaten child
who expects a blow. “Oh, I’m not going to touch you, so don’t cringe
like a whipped cur!”
“What’s the matter with you?” Bentley snapped, trying to stiffen up and
put on a bold front. “If you have anything to say to me, why don’t you
say it?”
“I will. You’re a treacherous sneak! You’re a two-faced whelp! That
ought to be plain enough for you to understand.”
“Oh, come, Scott!” exclaimed Leon, changing his manner. “What reason
have you got to make such talk to me? What have I done?”
“You know what you’ve done! You pretended to be my friend, and yet----”
“I am your friend.”
“You’re nothing of the sort! I wouldn’t own you for a friend! You have
gone back on me!”
“I suppose I know what you’re driving at. You’re mad because I’ve gone
back onto the eleven.”
“After swearing over and over that you’d stick to me through thick and
thin! After vowing you’d never play on the team unless I did! I didn’t
ask for all those promises, but you made them.”
“And I meant to keep them when I made them, Scott----honest I did. But
Sterndale came and offered me my old position, and so----”
“You went back on your word and quit me.”
“No, I’ve not quit you; I’m still your friend.”
“Bah!” cried Don, scornfully.
“I am!” palpitated Leon, eager to convince his companion. “I’ll prove
it to you, too. You don’t think I went back because I want to help them
win, do you?”
The doctor’s son did not speak, and Bentley hastened to go on:
“Not on your life! That wasn’t my little game. I went back because I
can keep track of things better by standing in with the gang. I can
watch Dolph Renwood, and I may get a good chance to give him a dig that
will do him up. Can’t you see I’m liable to get a better chance at him
now? I haven’t forgotten that he got Sterndale to drop me, and I’ll pay
him back.”
“It’s a case of treachery on one side or the other,” declared Don. “If
you’re not lying to me, you’ve gone back to betray the team, and so
you’re a sneak, just the same.”
“Well, you beat anything!” gasped Leon, quite unable to understand the
other youth. “You want to see them get it in the neck because Renwood
is coaching them, and yet you turn up your nose at me when you think
there is a chance that I may be able to give them the throw-down. What
are you made of, anyhow?”
“I hope I’m made of different stuff than you are. I do want them to be
beaten, but I’m not on the eleven. If I were on it, no matter how I
felt, I’d have to do my best to help win. If you do anything else, you
will be a traitor and a sneak.”
Some color mounted to Bentley’s thin cheeks.
“You’re the funniest fellow on legs!” he exclaimed. “Of course I
wouldn’t do anything to down the team unless I could throw it all on
Renwood’s shoulders. I’m keeping my eyes open for a chance to show him
up dirty.”
Don was silent a moment, looking squarely at Leon with those dark,
piercing eyes.
“Thad Boland may be lazy,” he finally said; “but a lazy man is better
than a sneak and a traitor. Sterndale made a mistake when he took you
back, and I’d tell him so if I thought he’d pay any attention to me.”
“You’ll be sorry some time for this kind of talk, Scott!” snapped Leon,
in bewildered anger. “There come some girls, and I don’t want to talk
with you any longer.”
Don saw several girls coming down the street, Dora Deland and Zadia
Renwood among them, and he immediately said:
“I’m sure I don’t want to be seen talking with you, nor do I want
anything further to do with you. You can keep away from me in the
future. Understand?”
Without waiting for Leon to answer, he hastened onward toward home,
leaving Bentley to wait for the girls and force himself upon them as a
companion and escort, whether he was wanted or not.
That afternoon it rained. Don sat at his desk and listened to the dash
of the wind-driven cloud-tears against a near-by window. Sometimes he
studied, but oftener he was thinking of things far removed from books
and recitations. The rain had begun late in the day and was pretty
certain to continue, so there could be no practice for the Rockspur
Eleven that night.
“They’ve made another shift about since taking Bentley back,” thought
Don, “and every change disturbs them some. There’s little time now for
them to get used to the new line-up.”
It was not necessary for him to remain away from home on the pretense
of practicing that night, which gave him no small satisfaction. He
passed the evening reading.
The following day was bright and clear, and the eleven turned out for
morning practice on the field. At school Don fancied the members of the
team showed something like satisfaction, as if things had moved better.
Even Thad Boland seemed relieved and well pleased.
Saturday came, and as Don came down in the morning, he was greeted by
his father, who cheerfully cried:
“This is a fine day for the great game, my son--bright, sunny and
cool. Are you feeling in first-class trim for it?”
“I am feeling first rate,” was the answer.
“That’s good; but it seems to me that you are not looking as well as
usual. Perhaps regular practice, together with your studies, has taken
hold of you.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” the boy hastened to declare. “I’m feeling fine as
a fiddle.”
“Well, I’m glad of that, for you have a hard task before you to beat
Highland on its own ground. I suppose you’ll want an early dinner
to-day, as you always start away by noon when you are going to
Highland?”
“Yes; half-past eleven will be about right.”
“I did think of driving over to Highland this afternoon and taking a
look at the game,” said the doctor, causing Don’s heart to stop beating
for a moment; “but I find I shall be unable to do so.”
The boy breathed again, inwardly thanking fortune.
“I want you to do your best to-day, my son,” pursued his father; “and
remember to guard your temper and keep your head cool. Promise me that
you will not, under any provocation, permit your temper to master you
to-day, Don.”
The promise was given, and they sat down to breakfast, during which, to
the continued uneasiness of the youth, Dr. Scott persisted in talking
about football and asking unpleasant questions. Don was glad enough to
escape from the house under pretense of going to the field to put in
some morning practice.
To him it now seemed necessary to continue the deception as long as
he could, and it is even probable that he hoped his father might
never find out the truth, although this hardly appeared possible. In
the beginning, the deception had seemed a small matter and of little
consequence, but, having taken the first false step, he had been led
on till now the burden of the deceit seemed more than he could bear.
It was wearing on his nerves and blunting all his finer instincts of
honor, for Don was naturally an upright and straightforward youth, who,
despite his violent disposition, detested anything dishonorable.
Thus it came about that he remained away from home all the forenoon,
shunning and avoiding the other village boys, who shunned and avoided
him. When he came rushing home, it was at the last minute, apparently,
as if the exciting events of the day had caught and carried him away in
their clutches.
“Land of goodness!” cried his aunt, as he flung himself down at the
table. “Don’t tear the house to pieces!”
“I’m in a hurry,” he declared.
“Can’t you wait for your pa? The tea ain’t quite ready.”
“I can’t wait for anything, and I don’t want any tea.”
“But you must eat a good hearty dinner, for you’ll need it.”
“Strictly against orders,” he declared, helping himself to the mashed
potatoes and cold corned beef. “No man is permitted to overload his
stomach on the day of a game.”
He fell to eating without ceremony and was quite finished when his
father came in at the ringing of the bell.
“Hello! hello!” exclaimed the doctor. “Have you eaten? Why, you haven’t
been in the house five minutes. I heard you when you came in.”
“You’ll have to excuse me, father; I didn’t have time to wait for you.
I’m off.”
“Hold on! Aren’t you going to take your overcoat? It will be chilly
riding home to-night.”
“I came near forgetting it,” said Don, whose great anxiety was to
get out of the house before his father could ask any more questions.
“Good-by, Aunt Ella.” He kissed her and then dashed up the stairs,
leaving her standing by the table, with uplifted hands, while the
doctor sat down, laughing.
“Bless us! bless us!” breathed the good woman. “What are boys in these
days coming to? They actually go crazy over baseball, football and such
things. Now, in our day----”
“Boys played barn tag, three-old-cat, prisoner’s base and games of that
class; now they have something better, sister. There is more sense in
baseball, football, tennis, polo, basket-ball and other modern games.”
“Well, there may be,” sighed Aunt Ella, sitting down and preparing to
pour the tea; “but I’m sure there’s more danger, and Don gets so crazy
over them that I expect he’ll come home dead some day, or crippled for
life.”
Don was heard coming swiftly downstairs, taking three at a time.
“Good-by!” he shouted. “I’m off.”
“Good luck, my boy,” called the doctor. “Remember my advice. Take care
of yourself, and do your level best to help Rockspur win.”
The door slammed and Don was gone, but not to play football.
CHAPTER XX.
WHILE THE GAME WAS PLAYED.
On a jutting ledge far up the side of Ragged Mountain, where he could
overlook the village, harbor, open sea and hilly country to the
westward, a lonely boy sat astride a spur of the blue rock, gazing
downward at a dark object crawling steadily along the brown thread of
a road which led from the village, crooked about the shores of the
amethyst lake and wound into the distance that swallowed it from sight.
The boy was Don Scott, who had made feverish haste to get out of
Rockspur ahead of the football team, leaving his overcoat at the little
railroad station which he passed on the Lobsterville side. From the
station he had followed the railroad to the foot of the mountain, where
he found a dimly-defined path that led him, panting and toiling, upward
to the ledge on which he was now perched.
At his feet lay Lake Glenwood, seeming near enough for him to hurl a
pebble into it with no great effort, although he knew it was quite
half-a-mile from the foot of the mountain. His eyes had hastily
followed the road along the shore till they found, far beyond the
middle section of the lake and pursuing the stream that led off from
it, the dark object which he knew was the big buckboard carrying the
members of the Rockspur Eleven to Highland.
“There they go!” he panted. “Renwood is with them! Bentley is with
them! and I am here!”
He laughed bitterly, and then became silent as the wind seemed to bring
faintly to his ears the refrain of a familiar song often sung by the
boys on their way to a game or returning from a victorious contest.
He could not distinguish the words, but the indistinct sound of the
chorus, like a momentary murmur of the wind, was enough to cause those
words to flash across his mind.
“Singing!” he cried, fiercely “Don’t be so sure you’ll ‘win to-day.’
You can’t tell. Anyhow, I hope you won’t! I hope you’ll be beaten out
of your boots!”
He sat there and watched till the buckboard disappeared along with
the brown road that had run to a hiding place amid the woods and
hills. Even then he did not stir, but long after that he remained
on the ledge, yet without deriving any pleasure from the beauty of
the scene spread out before him in all the enchanting colors which a
river-threaded, lake-dotted, sea-edged landscape reveals beneath the
midday sun of early autumn.
At last he left the ledge and came slowly down the mountain. He did
not follow the path all the way to the foot of the descent, but
turned to the left, skirting the base of Round Stone Cliff, where
pleasure-seekers had sent great stones shooting and bounding down the
face of the steep declivity, thundering over the lower slope and
crashing into the tangled thickets below, tearing crooked paths through
the woods to the point where they were piled in confusion into a deep,
dark ravine.
What if some unseen person, knowing nothing of his presence below, were
to start a huge bowlder rolling from the top of the cliff as he made
his way along its base! He thought of that and laughed!
“Let ’em come!” he exclaimed. “I can dodge ’em!”
Nothing of the kind happened, however, which, without doubt, for all of
his confidence in his dodging ability, was fortunate for him.
Beyond the cliff, after forcing his way through dense and matted
thickets, he came out into the Boxberry Pasture, as it was called by
the boys. This was an elevated spot, where he could still look down on
the harbor and village. The pasture was a mass of stumps and rocks and
knolls, the latter being covered with interwoven vines, which gave to
his nostrils the smell of dried checkerberry, plumes of which showed
here and there in bright red patches.
Crossing the pasture, he descended to the road that led away to the
Powder Mill Woods, where he felt that he might be alone for the
afternoon. He hoped that he would not meet on the road any one who knew
him, and, to his satisfaction and relief, he did not.
The woods seemed dark and still when he first entered them, and a
feeling of loneliness beset him; yet there was a subtle something about
the peaceful stillness that soothed his troubled spirit with a gentle
suggestion of sadness that, strangely enough, gave him a sensation of
enjoyment.
Beneath his feet, where the trees were thick overhead, the ground was
damp and yielding, giving his footfall no sound, save when a twig
snapped with a muffled noise. The air that he breathed was sweet with
the odor of pine and balsam and damp earth. The sunshine did not glare
before his eyes, and the dense shadows added to the tranquillity he
sought.
So he wandered through the “dim aisles of the woods,” and after a time
he found they were not so lonely and deserted as they appeared. He
paused to watch a tiny black-hooded chickadee that was doing all kinds
of gymnastic tricks upon a bush, clinging to the side of a branch one
moment, hanging upside down the next, and constantly on the move, now
and then gleefully crying: “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee.” He sat on a damp
and rotting log and observed a red-headed woodpecker rat-tat-tatting
away at the trunk of an old dead tree and saw a squirrel skurrying
along the ground. And the hours slipped away with few disturbing
thoughts of the football game that was taking place in Highland.
When he was tired of wandering in the woods, he sought the favorite
spot by the Powder Mill Dam, where he lay on the ground or sat on the
rocks and watched a speckled trout in a placid pool below the dam. So
the afternoon passed, the sun dropped low, the shadows deepened and
night drew on.
In the dusk, he returned along the road that led toward the village,
the lights of which were beginning to gleam through the gloom across
the harbor. He did not wish to appear in the village before the members
of the eleven returned from Highland, and he knew they could not get
back till some time after dark.
Reaching the Highland road, he paused a while, fully satisfied that
neither players nor spectators from Rockspur had passed on the return
journey. He sat on an old stone wall and waited till two village boys
on bicycles, their lanterns making long white streaks of light on the
road before them, came along from the direction of Highland. Although
it was rather dark for him to make out who they were by the aid of his
eyes, he recognized them by their voices, as they were talking about
the game while they sped swiftly past toward the crest of Bloody Hill.
“Skinny Jones and Pug Andrews,” muttered Don, rising from the wall and
making for the road. “They’ve come in ahead of the others, for Skinny
is a scorcher. There’s time enough to get over the bridge before the
buckboard comes along.”
But, as he was hurrying down the hill, there was a rattle of carriage
wheels behind him. He looked back and saw a team come over the crest of
the hill.
“That isn’t the buckboard,” he said.
But it proved to be a carriage driven by no less a person than Dolph
Renwood, who was accompanied by his sister and Dora Deland. The light
from a window of the railroad station at the foot of the hill shone out
and fell full on Don, so those in the carriage recognized him.
“Oh, Mr. Scott!” cried a musical voice, “I’m so sorry we didn’t have
you with us! If you had been there, I truly believe we might have won
the game.”
Then the carriage clattered on, and Don turned in to the station to get
his overcoat. He knew now that Rockspur had lost, but somehow Zadia’s
words had seemed to rob him of the satisfaction he had expected to feel
over such a result.
“She spoke to me!” he murmured; “she spoke to me, for all that she was
with him!”
Obtaining the overcoat, he hastened down through Lobsterville to the
bridge, crossed the river, turned to the left and hurried past the
post-office on the corner, then made his way home by a back street.
Don dreaded to meet his father, for he knew Dr. Scott would question
him about the game. It was his intention to make a pretense of being
so disgusted over the result of the game that he did not wish to say
anything about it; but he wondered what he could do in case his father
pinned him down to tell the exact score.
Fortunately, his father was not at home, as he found after slipping
quietly into the house, and he learned from his aunt that the doctor
had been called to a neighboring town to consult over a critical case.
“He said he might not get home before eight or nine o’clock,” said
the thoughtful old soul, who had supper ready to put on the table.
“I s’pose you’re awful hungry? You didn’t get no legs nor arms broke
to-day, did you?”
“No, I didn’t get hurt at all.”
“Fortunate--fortunate, indeed! I didn’t know but you’d come home dead.”
Then, after a pause, “I s’pose you beat the Highlanders?”
“No; they beat us.”
“I declare!” cried Aunt Ella, sympathetically, stopping half way from
the kitchen door to the dining-room table, the teapot in one hand and a
plate of warm rolls in the other. “Now, that’s too bad! I’m real sorry!”
“And I’m real hungry. Just hustle on the grub, Aunt Ella, and see me
wreak havoc and destruction on it.”
“You don’t seem to feel half as bad about losing as I thought you
would,” said she, as she complied with his request. “It’s not like you,
for you used to feel awful cut up when you got beat at baseball.”
“Oh, well, we’ll even this up with Highland all right next game,”
asserted Don, sitting down to the table. “It’s no use crying over
spilled milk.”
“You never cry, but you do feel bad, and this is the first time I ever
saw you like this. I don’t understand it.”
Don came near laughing aloud, but repressed the inclination with an
effort. When he had satisfied his hunger he went up to his room. He
felt like going out to see if he could not find somebody to give him
the particulars of the game, but his pride caused him to decide not to
pursue such a course, as he did not wish any of his former companions
to think he would take that much interest in the affairs of the eleven.
Some boys in Don’s position would have sought the defeated players
for the purpose of jeering at them and deriding them, and it must be
confessed that Scott was strongly tempted to do so; but he decided that
it would cut them far more if he made a pretension of absolute and
utter indifference, and in this he was right. A person who can deport
himself with an air of indifference and unconcern toward those whom
he dislikes has not only won a victory over himself and his natural
inclinations to show scorn or hatred for his enemies, but he causes
those enemies to feel that he considers them of such small consequence
that he does not even take the trouble to become annoyed or offended at
them. In the long run, indifference is a keener weapon than open scorn
and hatred.
So Don remained at home, seeking to pass the evening as best he could.
Wishing to do some writing, and finding in his desk no pens to suit
him, he went down into his father’s office. Having lighted the hanging
lamp, he sat down at the doctor’s open desk, and there he was writing
busily some time later when a gentle tapping sounded on the window near
his elbow. Looking round, he saw the outlines of a face close to the
glass and recognized Leon Bentley, who was peering in at him with a
smirking grin of conciliation and friendliness.
CHAPTER XXI.
BENTLEY TELLS HOW IT HAPPENED.
Don’s first feeling was one of annoyance and anger, and he was about to
sharply command the fellow to go away when he suddenly changed his mind.
Leon could tell him all about the game, and there was nothing he then
desired to know quite as much as the full particulars of the contest
that had resulted in a victory for the Highlanders.
“I’ll let him in and find out all about it,” he decided, as Bentley
nodded and beckoned. Then he motioned for the boy outside to come round
to the front door, at which he admitted him a few moments later.
“Where’s the old gent?” asked Leon, with an assumed air of
carelessness. “I was slipping round to throw some pebbles up against
your window, in which I saw a light, when I happened to notice you in
here.”
“Father is out,” said Don, somewhat gruffly. “He won’t be back before
ten. Come into the office.”
Leon followed with a swaggering air, and Don closed the door when they
were in the room.
“So aunt won’t hear us talking,” he explained. “What do you want,
anyhow?”
“Oh, I just came round to tell you,” chuckled Leon, coolly
appropriating the office chair in front of the desk, where Don had
been sitting. “It would have done you good to see that game to-day. Oh,
my! but it was a slaughter!”
“Rockspur was beaten?” said Don, trying to repress a show of eagerness
and great interest, but betraying his exultant satisfaction in his
gleaming eyes.
“Beaten! I should guess yes. Rockspur wasn’t in it for a minute. It was
a walk-over for Highland.”
“What was the score?”
“Thirty-three to nine. How does that suit you? Isn’t that a beautiful
record for Sterndale’s champs? Oh, but Sterndale is sick!”
“What did you do?” demanded Scott, sharply. “Did you do anything
crooked to help lose the game?”
“Didn’t have to, my boy,” snickered Bentley. “It was a cinch for
Highland from the start, and you can bet I did my prettiest to make a
good record, for I knew the eyes of several fair maidens from Rockspur
were upon me. I made our only touchdown.”
“You did?” cried Don, with incredulous emphasis on the pronoun.
“Sure thing,” nodded Leon. “Oh, I’m one of the heroes of the day! We
didn’t get a goal off that touch, either. It was in the first half,
and the wind was against Sterndale when he kicked, so we got only four
points for the touch.”
“Then the other five must have been a goal kicked from the field?”
“It was. Sterndale found in the last half that he could not get the
ball nearer than the fifteen-yard line to save his soul, and so,
in order to make the score look somewhat more respectable, he took
chances on getting a goal from the field, and made it with as pretty a
drop-kick as ever you saw. But it was all chance,” Leon hastily added,
“for he failed once before that and once afterward. All of Renwood’s
coaching hasn’t shown him how to kick.”
“How did Highland make their points?”
“Oh, just piled ’em right up. They had a touchdown and goal in less
than three minutes after play began. They made four touchdowns in the
first half, but failed to get goals off two of them.”
“That was twenty of their thirty-three points. Then Rockspur must have
done better in the second half?”
“She did, rather,” nodded Leon. “Why, we even had to give Highland two
points by making a safety in order to hold the ball one time in the
first half. That gave them twenty-two points out of the thirty-three.”
“Then, in the second half, they made only eleven points to Rockspur’s
five.”
“But they had the advantage and they just fooled with us. They were
playing against the wind, too, same as we were in the first half. But,
you see, we couldn’t do anything, even though we had the wind with us.
Oh, this game has shown up Renwood’s coaching in great style!”
“What did Renwood do?”
“Nothing at all that helped us any. Why, he actually blocked Smith once
and spoiled a run that might have meant a touchdown. That was early in
the game, when we had the ball after Highland’s first goal. Of course,
it seemed like an accident that Renwood jumped square in front of
Smith, but I know it was nothing of the kind. After that, when Highland
had made a good lead, it wasn’t necessary for him to spoil any of our
plays, for he saw we weren’t in the game, anyhow.”
“Then you think it was his intention to throw the game, in case it was
close and he found an opportunity?”
“I don’t think anything about it, I know it!” declared Bentley, as he
produced a package of cigarettes and prepared to smoke.
“Hold on!” came sharply from Don; “you can’t do that in here.”
“Eh? Why not?”
“Father would smell the smoke. Put them up.”
“But I’m dying for a whiff.”
“You’ll have to die or go outside. I’m not fooling. I won’t have one of
those things lighted in here.”
So Leon was compelled to reluctantly abandon the intended smoke,
although he did so grumblingly.
“What makes you so positive that Renwood meant to throw the game?”
asked Don, with mingled eagerness and doubt. “He couldn’t do such a
thing all by himself.”
“Not unless it happened to be close and he found a good chance. But I
know that’s what he’d done, just the same.”
“How do you know it?”
“Oh, I have a way of keeping my eyes and ears open,” wisely asserted
Leon, piling his feet upon the doctor’s desk in the midst of the papers.
“Then you saw something?--you heard something?”
“I should say I did.”
It was impossible for Don to repress his eagerness. Leon’s
free-and-easy manner annoyed him, but he greatly wished to know just
what the fellow had seen and heard that made him so absolutely positive
of Renwood’s treachery.
Don forgot for the time, at least, that only a few days before he had
told Leon that he wished to have nothing further to do with a fellow
of his sort. Having again admitted the foxy young rascal to his home,
having apparently accepted him once more as a friend, his greatest
desire seemed to be to learn the full extent of the accusation Bentley
could make against Renwood.
Leon saw this. At first he had been somewhat surprised by Don’s
readiness to take him back on the old footing without a show of
continued resentment and anger, and he had anticipated that he would
have to whet Scott’s appetite by hinting at the queer things he could
tell him about the game at Highland. Already devoured by curiosity and
a longing to know the full particulars of the affair, Don had welcomed
Leon almost with open arms, and Bentley believed friendly relations
between them had been re-established.
“What did you see and hear?” breathed the doctor’s son. “Tell me all
about it.”
“Well, just as soon as we arrived in Highland, I left the others and
hustled right up to the field where we were to play. Renwood, with
his sister and Dora Deland, had passed us on the road, and he was in
Highland when we got there. I got to the field ahead of the others, and
there was Renwood talking with Winston, the Harvard man, who has been
coaching the Highlanders.”
“What of that?”
“They had their heads close together,” Bentley went on, “and they were
talking low. They didn’t see me, and I just walked past them, stepping
soft. I heard something.”
“Yes!” panted Don. “What did you hear?”
“I heard Winston say: ‘It means a heap to me if Highland wins, and you
don’t care a rap if Rockspur loses.’ Renwood answered: ‘Not a rap,’ and
he laughed.”
“The sneak! the traitor!” cried Don, springing to his feet. “Did you
hear anything more?”
“Yes. Winston said: ‘These country yokels of mine can’t kick much, and
the centre of the line is weak. Just get your captain to let the centre
alone. Keep him trying to go round the ends. Where is your weak point?’”
“Did Renwood tell him?” demanded Scott, clutching his companion
fiercely by the shoulder.
“Ouch!” exclaimed Leon, with a squirm. “I hurt that to-day! Don’t! Yes,
he told him all about it.”
“What did he tell?”
“He said: ‘Our right end is weak, and the backs can’t catch punts for a
cent. As you say your men can’t kick, you’ll have to keep hammering at
our right end.’”
“Is that all?” panted Don.
“Oh, Winston said: ‘Much obliged, old man; I won’t forget it.’ And
Renwood returned: ‘That’s all right; I haven’t forgotten what you did
for me once.’ That was all.”
“It was enough!” Don snarled, driving his clenched right fist into the
open palm of his left hand with a cracking smack. “I’m beginning to see
through that dirty dog Renwood! At first I didn’t understand why he
should do anything to damage the team with which he was playing, but
now it’s plain enough that Winston has done him some favor that he is
trying to return in this treacherous manner. And Sterndale thinks more
of him than of me! Did you tell Sterndale about this?”
“I tried to, but he wouldn’t hear a word against Renwood, and told me
I’d better keep still. I saw it was no use, and so I closed up.”
“He’s a fool!” raved Scott. “I’d like to tell him so!”
“That wouldn’t do any good. The only way to convince him is to show
Renwood up so he can’t get around it.”
“How can that be done?”
“I don’t know now,” admitted Leon; “but I may find a way.”
He had picked up Dr. Scott’s check-book and was coolly looking it over,
which, being in an excited condition, Don did not observe for some
time. When he did become aware what Leon was doing, after storming
about a while, he exclaimed:
“Put that down! What are you handling that for?”
“Oh, I just happened to pick it up by accident,” said the visitor,
tossing it back on the desk.
“Don’t be so free with your hands!” advised the doctor’s son.
“Don’t get so excited,” calmly retorted Leon, fishing into the
waste-paper basket and pulling out a sheet of paper on which there was
some writing. “Say, your old man’s scrawl is rather queer, ain’t it?
But I guess I hit his style all right in that note I faked up for you
to carry to old Alden, didn’t I?”
“That was all right,” admitted Don, shortly, not fancying the reference
to that matter; “but you won’t have to write any more for me.”
“You never can tell, my boy,” chirped Bentley. “Say, these are odd
pens your dad uses. I rather like them, and I think I’ll just take one
to try it.” Whereupon he calmly slipped one of the pens into his vest
pocket.
For some time the boys talked over the football game and Renwood’s
treachery, as charged by Bentley. Finally, Don said:
“You’d better be getting out, Bent; father’s liable to come pretty
soon.”
“Well, I don’t care about being seen by him,” grinned Leon. “I know he
doesn’t love me a great deal for some reason or other.”
He arose to go. Neither of the boys had heard the sound of wheels
outside, being absorbed in their talk about Renwood and the game, and
now both were startled by a footfall beyond the door.
“It’s aunt!” breathed Don.
But it was not. The door opened, and Dr. Scott stood before them.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE DOCTOR’S STORY.
The doctor was surprised, and a cloud came to his face as his eyes fell
on Leon Bentley.
“Hello!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing in here, Don?”
“Why--why,” stammered the boy questioned, “Leon happened over, and we
were just talking about the game, you know.”
“Yes,” hastily put in the uneasy visitor, “I was just telling him about
it.”
“Telling him about it?” repeated the doctor, while Don’s heart seemed
to jump into his throat and throb there. “Why, wasn’t he--I don’t
understand.”
“Leon means we were talking over the plays and trying to figure out
just why we lost the game to-day, father,” put in Don, with a warning
glance at Bentley.
“Oh, then you lost the game, did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s too bad; but you might have discussed it elsewhere than in my
private office. Was it necessary to bring your caller in here, my son?”
“No, but he--he just dropped in for a minute. I was writing a letter
here, and----”
“Very well,” said the doctor; “but you know I do not wish you to take
visitors into my private office. I have told you so before.”
The manner in which his father spoke these words brought a hot flush to
Don’s cheeks, but he bit his lip and kept silent. Bentley sidled toward
the door, saying:
“I guess I’ll be going.”
Don followed him to the front door and let him out. Outside, Leon
paused and snickered, observing:
“You’ll catch it! The old duffer’s hot under the collar, and he’ll give
you a raking down.”
“I’ll thank you not to call my father an old duffer!” flashed Don, in a
fierce whisper. “I had no business to take you in there, anyway.”
“I don’t see that it did any harm, but I wouldn’t be in your shoes for
a quarter.” Then Bentley scudded away and Don closed the door.
The boy was about to go upstairs when his father called for him to come
into the office, and he did so with reluctance; for, although he knew
the doctor would speak with calmness and deliberation, he dreaded none
the less what might be said to him.
“Sit down, my son,” said the doctor, who had taken off his overcoat and
was seated before his desk. “Are you on very friendly terms with that
Bentley boy?”
“Well--not very,” hesitated Don, feeling his face burning, while he
failed to meet the calm, steady eyes that were regarding him intently.
“Not very friendly, still you invited him into the house. My son, I do
not like that boy. I believe he is a bad boy. He dresses extravagantly,
though in poor taste, for all that his parents are poor. Yet he never
does any work to earn money with which to get his clothes, rings, pins
and trinkets. He wears his hat tipped far over one ear, loafs around
the corners, smokes cigarettes and talks slang. Not only that, but he
uses low and profane language. He has a treacherous face and shifty
eyes. Now, Don, I think such a boy is a very good person for you to
avoid, don’t you?”
Don did not know what to say, and so he remained silent, whereupon his
father spoke again:
“I want to speak to you of this matter at this time, my son, because I
believe it may in a great measure concern your future welfare. I wish
to impress upon you the importance of shunning evil companions, and,
at the same time, I will warn you again to guard your temper. I am not
going to preach a sermon, but I have decided to tell you a story. I
shall make it brief as possible, for it is a painful matter, of which I
do not like to think or talk.”
For a single moment the doctor lifted his hand to his bosom, where,
within an inner pocket, close to his heart, rested the gold-bound
miniature of Don’s mother. The boy knew his father had chosen this time
to unbosom himself in regard to an affair that doubtless had cast a
shadow over his life.
Despite his curiosity to know the truth of that affair, Don was ill at
ease and would have given much to escape for the time the revelation.
However, it was necessary for him to sit still and listen, and, with as
good grace as possible, he composed himself to do so.
“You, Don,” pursued Dr. Scott, lightly stroking his well-trimmed
iron-gray whiskers, “have the same thoughtless, impetuous, passionate
disposition that was mine in my youthful days. It did not seem possible
for me to control my temper, which led me into doing many things that I
afterward regretted; but little did I dream that, in a sudden outburst
of anger, I was destined to commit an act that would cause me long
years of unspeakable regret and sorrow.
“Your mother was a gentle woman, with a mild and loving disposition,
and I have often wondered if she would have married me had she
understood how thoroughly unreasonable I could be when I gave way to my
uncontrollable temper. But I loved her, Don, and I tried to make her
happy. I believe I did during the first years of our married life. It
was only by one rash act of mine that I brought sorrow to us both.
“She had a brother who was much younger than herself; in fact, a mere
boy when we were married. His name was Charlie, and he was a bright,
happy, jovial youngster, full of life and good nature. Shortly after
I married your mother, her father died, leaving Charlie an orphan and
almost homeless, his mother, your grandmother, having been dead some
years. He might have found a home with relatives in California, but I
offered him a home with me, for I had taken a strong fancy to the lad.
Of course this greatly pleased your mother, who set about the task of
bringing Charlie up in the proper manner.
“At that time I was a young physician, practicing my profession in
a small town in another State. I sent Charlie to school, and, as he
seemed unusually bright in his studies, I resolved to give him the very
best education possible. This matter I talked over with your mother,
and we decided that he should be advanced as rapidly as possible
without injury to himself and should finally be sent to one of the
leading colleges of the country.
“Your mother became deeply absorbed in this project, for she loved her
brother with all the depth of her tender nature, and she was ambitious
for his success in the world as a man of brains and education.
Unfortunately, there was in that town, small though it was, a fast set
of boys a little older than Charlie. They smoked and drank and gambled,
and they were proud to be known as the ‘sporty set.’ Charlie began to
associate with them, and I found it out. I was angry, and I talked to
him harshly. I know now that I did not in the right manner go about
showing him the error of his ways. I angered him, and, as a result,
instead of trusting me, he began to deceive me, associating without my
knowledge with the same set of bad boys. It did not seem to him that it
was very bad to smoke a little, to swear occasionally, to take a drink
now and then, or to play a game of penny poker, with a ten-cent limit.
He was only sixteen years old when he began to do these things.
“I said nothing to your mother about it, for I knew it would worry and
distress her, and, for some time, I fancied my talk to him had been
productive of good results. But I was wrong, for I finally learned
that he still associated with his bad companions, which made me more
angry than before. I did not tell his sister, but I threatened to turn
him out of doors. To my astonishment, he was defiant and told me to go
ahead and turn him out. It was with difficulty that I kept my hands off
him then, but I did so.
“After that he did not take so much pains to hide from me the fact that
he still preferred for companions the fast set of the little village.
He neglected his studies and would not attend school regularly. One
day I missed some money, and, in a towering rage, I accused Charlie of
taking it. Then, becoming angry, he called me a bad name, whereupon I
drove him from the house.
“This scene was witnessed by your mother, Don, who could not believe me
when I told her the truth regarding her brother. She was certain that I
must be mistaken, and she set about searching for the lost money. She
found it where I had dropped it at the bath-room door, and then, of
course, she was doubly certain that I was mistaken in regard to the
other charges I had made against Charlie.
“By that time I was ashamed and sorry, and I was willing to try to
rectify my mistake. I was also willing for her to continue to think her
brother too good to choose evil associates who smoked, swore, drank
and gambled. So I went to Charlie, told him I had found the money, and
asked him to forget. It was a difficult thing for me to do, but I did
it for love of your mother, my son.
“From that time on, however, Charlie disliked me more than ever. He
did not reform, and his gambling assumed a more serious nature. The
time came when he was in desperate straits for money. At this time he
was seventeen, being large for his years. Coming home unexpectedly one
day, I found him in my private office, with the safe door open. He was
stooping before the safe when I entered, but he sprang up and wheeled
about, and in his hand was some money he had taken from the safe.”
As the doctor paused, the listening boy noticed a quiver of the hand he
again lifted to stroke his beard. The expression on his fine face was
one of mingled pain and sorrow.
“I scarcely know what followed,” he resumed. “Of course I had caught
him in the act, and I called him a thief. He said I had called him that
before, and he was bound not to have the name without the game. Then I
sprang upon him in a perfect tempest of fury. As I said, he was large
and strong for his years, and he gave me a severe tussle for a few
moments, but I succeeded in getting him by the throat and throwing him.
As he fell his head struck against a sharp corner of the safe. When he
struck the floor, he lay there still and limp, the color going out of
his face. There was a shriek behind me, and I turned to see your mother
in the door, brought to the spot by the sounds of our struggle. She
sprang over and lifted the head of her brother, staining her hands and
her dress with his blood, for the corner of the safe had cut a gash in
the back of his head. I can never forget the terrible look she gave me.
‘You have murdered Charlie!’ she hoarsely cried, and then she swooned.”
Again the man stopped, deeply affected by the tragic picture painted
for him by memory as he told of this fateful encounter which had
brought upon him the sorrow of his life. For some moments he turned
about in his office chair and stared at the window, as if trying to
gaze out into the darkness, lifting to his face one hidden hand, while
the other shook as it reached out to rest upon his desk.
Don’s sympathies were stirred most profoundly, for he saw how much pain
it was costing his father to relate to him this story of which he had
never spoken. Unable to keep still, the boy impulsively cried:
“Don’t tell me any more, father! That is enough.”
Dr. Scott turned back from the window.
“There is not much more to tell,” he said, “so I will complete the
story now. I called assistance and sent for medical aid. Your mother
was taken to her room, where she lay unconscious so long that I feared
she might never recover. When at last she again came to herself, she
lay like one dazed until I entered the room, when she shrieked, covered
her face and would not look at me. In her condition, it was necessary
for me to leave her before she would become quiet. That night, my son,
you came into the world.”
“But Charlie,” palpitated Don, “was he--dead?”
“No; but he was seriously injured--how seriously could not be told
at the time. He slowly recovered his physical strength, but the blow
from the sharp point of the safe had clouded his mind and he was
insane--violently so at times. It was necessary that he should be
confined, for he was dangerous when violent, so he was placed in a
private asylum.
“Oh, my son! you can never know how much I regretted my outbreak of
anger that had caused me to attack him and bring this about! That is,
you can never know unless some rash act of your own shall bring an
equal sorrow upon you. I had everything possible done to make poor
Charlie comfortable.”
“But he was to blame--he was to blame for it all!” panted the listening
lad.
“I have tried to think so,” confessed the doctor, “but in my sober
moments of reason I found it impossible. Bad company led him into bad
ways, it is true; but I was not patient with him, and I did not talk
to him in the right spirit when I discovered that he was associating
with bad boys. I permitted my anger to govern me, and thus, instead of
influencing him to do better, I aroused in him anger and resentment
against me. When I did that, my power over him was gone, and I never
recovered it. It is thus, I believe, that in many cases parents lose
influence and power over their children. They give themselves over
to anger in attempting to reprimand their sons or daughters for
wrong-doing, and their unrestrained temper produces resentment and
anger, instead of regret and resolution to do better, in the ones whom
they reprimand. My son, guard your temper and keep it in subjection,
for to one of your fiery and unreasoning disposition it is your worst
enemy.”
“Mother,” murmured Don, “did--did she----”
“She recovered for the time, but the shock had shattered her health,
and she was never herself again. Even the sight of her aroused Charlie,
so that the manager of the asylum ceased, after a time, to permit
her to visit him. At sight of me he had convulsions. My practice was
ruined, and it became necessary for me to seek another field. Then, my
son, we came here, where we have remained ever since. Your mother grew
weaker and weaker day by day. I doctored her as best I could, seeking
the advice and assistance of the most skilled physicians obtainable;
but it was useless, for her ailment was not of the body, but of the
mind. She forgave me everything, but I lost her, Don, and I can never
forgive myself.”
Again the doctor turned his sad, handsome face away, and father and son
sat in silence, the only sound being the steady, solemn ticking of the
old-fashioned clock that stood outside in the hall. After some minutes,
the boy ventured to ask:
“Is Charlie still crazy?”
“No,” answered the doctor; “it was less than a year after the death of
your mother that a certain great surgeon operated upon him and restored
him to reason. Oh, how much would I have given had Mary lived till that
day!”
“Where is he now?”
“In California, whither he went immediately on regaining his reason and
liberty. I offered him a home as long as he wished to remain with me,
but he chose to go to California.
“This is all the story, my son, and, having completed it, I am not
going to moralize. Think it over. I hope it may serve to open your eyes
to the perils of keeping bad company, and I pray that it may teach you
to guard your temper.”
The doctor arose and held out his hand, as one man offers his hand to
another, upon which Don sprang forward impulsively, clasping it with
both of his own. The boy longed to express his sympathy in words,
but something choked him, and he gazed through a misty cloud at the
sadly handsome face of his father, while the pressure of their hands
alone spoke more directly to their hearts than aught words could have
expressed.
“Good-night, Don, my boy!”
“Good-night, father--good-night!”
Don turned from the room and ascended the stairs, while his father,
left alone, drew from that pocket near his heart the gold-bound
miniature, which, with a smothered sob, he lifted to his lips.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE DEFEATED ELEVEN.
Twelve boys of various ages and sizes, their faces expressing untold
disgust, sat around in the so-called “reading-room” of the Rockspur
Athletic Club. They were seated on the table, benches and chairs, and
a woe-be-gone, disheartened-appearing set of fellows they were. The
big Rochester kerosene lamp with a smoky chimney shed over them a
melancholy light that seemed quite befitting to their mood. Finally,
Sterndale looking around at his companions, and finding something
decidedly comical in their aspect, laughed aloud.
“Kill him!” cried Jotham Sprout.
“I don’t see anything to laugh at,” groaned Walter Mayfair.
“I’m too sus-sus-sore to laugh, anyway,” sighed Danny Chatterton.
“An’ Oi feel loike foightin’!” burst from Dennis Murphy.
“I’m so lame I can hardly draw my breath,” confessed Rob Linton. “I’m
lame from my head to my heels.”
“I have bruises and contusions and gashes all over me,” declared John
Smith.
“I raked my right arm from the wrist to the elbow when I made that
touchdown,” put in Leon Bentley, in a manner that called attention to
the accomplishment.
“That was the greatest fluke of the game,” said Sterndale. “It was a
streak of luck for the ball to roll right out of a scrimmage, in which
you were carefully taking no part, just so you could pick it up with a
clear field ahead of you and get over Highland’s line with it.”
“No fluke about it!” flared Leon. “No luck about it, either! I wasn’t
going into the thing pell-mell, like the rest of you fellows, and I had
my eyes open. That’s how it happened.”
“I noticed that you didn’t go into much of anything pell-mell,” yawned
Thad Boland, sleepily. “You kept out of danger.”
“Bah! What have you got to say about it? You wouldn’t know a good play
if you saw it, you big, lazy duffer!”
Thad pulled himself together somewhat and gave Leon a look.
“You better not get too gay with your mouth,” he drawled, “or I may
take a notion to shake you. It would be lots of trouble, but I can’t
swallow too much of your sass.”
Bentley did not care to arouse the lazy lad, for Boland had the
strength of a young giant, though it was on very rare occasions that he
saw fit to display it; so Leon lighted a fresh cigarette, contenting
himself by saying:
“You’re all jealous of me, but I don’t care.”
“Jealous of you!” came derisively from Rob Linton. “That would make a
cat laugh!”
“Well, what did you do in the game?” demanded Bent.
“Oh, I did something! Didn’t I tackle Dow and keep him from making a
touchdown?”
“But Hartford got one two minutes later.”
“The trouble with you, Bent,” said Rob, “is that you think you are the
only thing that ever happened.”
“The trouble with you,” retorted Leon, quickly, “is that you think you
are the whole menagerie.”
“Don’t sus-sus-see ha-how he can think so wh-when you’re round,”
chuckled Danny Chatterton. “He-he-his eyes must sus-sus-show him there
is another mum-mum-monkey in the show.”
Bentley did not relish the laughter that followed this, and he growled
and grumbled to himself, after which he smoked and sulked in silence.
“Ford hasn’t expressed his opinion of the game,” grinned Sprout, who
was chewing gum and eating peppermint candy at the same time, has fat
cheeks shaking as he wagged his jaws.
They looked at the mute, who seemed to understand on the instant what
had been said, and he made a gesture expressive of dejection and
disgust, slowly shaking his head.
“Misther Rinwood isn’t afther sayin’ a great dale,” observed Dennis
Murphy, a sly twinkle in his eyes.
Renwood was sitting astride a chair, his elbows on the back of it, his
chin resting on his hands. He grinned in a sickly manner, showing his
lips were battered and bruised, the under one being swelled till it
projected almost as far as his nose.
“My lips are too sore to make much talk,” he declared, rather thickly.
“And some of my teeth are so loose I’m afraid they’ll fall out when I
open my mouth.”
“Well, fellows,” said Sterndale, “we’re a sorry-looking crowd, but it’s
no use to mope over being defeated. That’s only one out of three with
Highland, and they took the first ball game last summer.”
“But they didn’t snow us under,” came quickly from Mayfair. “They
barely won by a fluke.”
“And I made the fluke,” acknowledged John Smith, smiling grimly at the
remembrance.
“But you saved us on the last game of the series by your great work in
the box,” Mayfair hastened to assert. “You made up for that first game,
old man.”
“And he did some splendid work in our game to-day,” said the captain of
the eleven. “If we’d all done as well as Smith, we might have won the
game.”
John flushed with pleasure, for such praise from Sterndale was most
agreeable. Leon Bentley looked through a cloud of blue smoke, his lips
curling scornfully, but he remained silent.
“That’s right, Sterndale,” agreed Dolph Renwood. “Smith was a perfect
whirlwind. Several times he did great work at interference, even
though he was playing back of the line. If he’d been in his old
position----”
Renwood stopped, and Harry Carter spoke up at once:
“I did the best I could, fellows. I know I made some bad blunders, but
I didn’t shirk, and----”
“You’re all right,” Dolph interrupted; “but you haven’t had the
practice, and you were given a hard position in the line. Now, if you
had been placed next to the end, with Smith on the end----”
“Are you digging at me?” asked Bentley, snappily. “I was playing next
to the end.”
“I am not digging at anybody,” calmly answered the quarter-back of the
team; “but I know we should have had Smith on that end.”
“There’s been too much shifting about,” said Leon. “You fellows took
in Boland and Carter, and then you tried Linton at right tackle till
you found Ford wouldn’t work beside Old Lightning. That made you shift
back, and finally you decided you couldn’t get along without me, after
all, which caused another change.”
“We’ve not had enough time for practice,” Sterndale asserted.
“You’ve had as much as Highland,” grinned Leon, lighting another
cigarette.
“No, not by a whole week.”
“That’s a lot!”
“It counts when all the practice a team gets is secured in two or
three weeks. College teams begin to practice months ahead.”
“And sometimes there are changes in the make-up of a college team one
day before a great game,” put in Renwood.
“I presume you know all about it,” purred Leon, with a sneer.
“Well, I know something about it. I’ve had a chance to see considerable
of Harvard’s training work, and some of the Harvard men are my friends.”
“For instance, Phil Winston, who is the Highland coach. I suppose he is
one of your friends.”
“I happen to know Winston,” confessed Dolph, “but that is all. We are
not friends.”
“Oh,” said Bentley, queerly, “I didn’t know but you were.” And the tone
and manner in which the words were spoken attracted attention.
Renwood gave Leon no further notice, but turned to the others, saying:
“I tell you what it is, fellows, we met with a big loss when Scott got
his back up and left the eleven. With that fellow in his old position
and Smith back on the end, I believe we might give Highland a hot game
a week from to-day.”
“It’s no use to talk about that,” said Sterndale, gloomily. “Scott
won’t come back.”
“That’s right,” nodded Leon. “I just saw him by accident a little
while ago, and he’s in high spirits because we got beaten. He says
he’ll never play again on any kind of a team with Renwood or Sterndale.”
“I’ve heard fuf-fellows make that kuk-kind of tut-talk before,” said
Chatterton, sprawling out on the top of the reading table.
“But he means it,” cried Bent. “When Scott gets his back up, he sticks
to a thing.”
“It’s too bad,” declared Renwood, tenderly touching his damaged lips.
“I don’t know of a man who can fill his place.”
“He’s changed his tune about Scott lately,” whispered Leon, giving
Jotham Sprout a nudge in the ribs with his elbow, upon which the fat
boy fell off the end of the bench and landed on the floor with a crash
that shook the building.
“Don’t you do that again!” gasped Bubble, sitting up and choking,
having swallowed his gum in the midst of the catastrophe. “I’d like to
know who you think you’re pushin’! I won’t set side of you no more!”
Then he proceeded to make himself comfortable on the floor.
“If you don’t want to ‘set’ beside me, you may ‘lay’ on the floor,”
grinned Bentley, looking around to see if anybody present took notice
of the pun.
“Egg-egg-eggs-actly,” cackled Chatterton. Then he quickly put up his
hands, crying: “Don’t sus-sus-shoot!”
“Somebody oughter hit you with a good, hard piece of iron,” slowly
declared Thad Boland. “You committed a crime.”
Sterndale stood up.
“We must do something, fellows,” he said. “There is no question about
that. Unless the team is strengthened greatly, Highland will have
another easy time when we meet them next Saturday. If they win that
game, it settles the series, and there’ll be no need to play the third
game.”
“If necessary,” said Redwood, “and if you fellows think it best, I’ll
go to Scott and see if I can’t get him to come back onto the team. I
should hate to do anything of the sort, but I’m willing to do ’most
anything that is honest so that we may win the next game.”
Leon Bentley groaned, softly and derisively.
“That sounds first rate,” he muttered, “but you can’t fool some people.”
The words were spoken loudly enough for some of the boys to understand
them, but Dolph, who was at the farther side of the room, did not catch
them distinctly.
“What’s that you say, Bentley?” he demanded, sharply.
“I say that sounds first rate, but you can’t get Scott if you go down
on your knees to him.”
“Perhaps that was what you said,” admitted Renwood; “but it didn’t
sound like it. I’m not going down on my knees to Scott, but I am going
to speak to him, no matter what he may do.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Renwood,” said Sterndale, scowling a little. “If
anybody says anything to that fellow, it is my place to do so. I have
not yet decided that I’d take him back onto the eleven if he came and
asked to play.”
“Of course you wouldn’t!” exclaimed Leon, promptly, showing
satisfaction. “The team is all right just as it is, if it gets the
right kind of practice work.”
“Perhaps you mean that I have not been giving it the right kind of
practice?” Dolph cried. “Perhaps you know more about coaching a team
than I do!”
“I didn’t say that, either,” grinned Bentley.
“You seldom say anything point-blank to a man’s face, but you insinuate
and insinuate, and you talk behind his back.”
“Look here, Mr. Renwood,” Leon angrily snapped, “I don’t fancy that!
I’ve always used you all right, and you have no reason for making that
kind of talk. I won’t stand any more of it, either.”
Renwood shrugged his shoulders and turned to Sterndale, with whom he
began to talk earnestly.
“Ginger!” cried Carter, starting up as the town clock in the Baptist
church tower began to strike. “It’s nine o’clock! I told mother I’d be
back before this. I’ve got some groceries to take home, and the stores
will be closed. Good-night, fellows.”
He was hurrying out when Bentley also arose and remarked that he was
going home, following Harry down the stairs. As Carter came out upon
the street, Leon overtook him and grasped his arm.
“Look here, Cart,” he said, “can’t you see through this little game?”
“What game?” asked the boy addressed, turning sharply and shaking off
the hand of his follower, whom he did not like. “What do you mean?”
“Why Renwood’s game, of course. It’s plain enough. He doesn’t want
Rockspur to win, for all that he makes the bluff that he does. He has
Sterndale on a string, and he’s the real manager and captain of the
eleven. It was through him that all the shifting about on the team has
come, and now he wants to make another shift. He’s sore because I made
that touchdown, so he’s going to try to push me off. He’ll try to get
Scott back into your place; then where will you be? He is going to keep
this thing up just so that the team will be unsettled all the time, and
that will fix us so that we’ll never win a game. Now, Carter, are you
going to stand it? That’s the question.”
Leon had tried to appear very earnest and sincere, but he made very
little impression on the listening youth.
“I don’t take any stock in that stuff, Bentley,” declared Harry,
promptly. “I know I’m not as good a man as Scott on the team, which
makes me willing to get off any time Sterndale wants to fill my place.”
“Yah!” snarled Leon, showing his yellow teeth. “You’re just like all
the rest; you’ll let Dick Sterndale wipe his feet all over you. I’m
sick of the whole crowd; but I’m just as good a man as anybody on that
team, and I’ll show Dolph Renwood up if he comes any sneaky business
to throw me down!”
Then, lighting a fresh cigarette, and hearing other boys descending the
stairs from the club-room, he hurried away, muttering to himself.
“Those nasty things he is smoking are turning his head,” said Carter,
to himself. “If he doesn’t stop using so many of them, he’ll go daffy,
for I can see that he’s getting worse and worse every day.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
FANNING THE FLAMES.
Leon was waiting for Don at the first corner when the latter started
for school the following Monday morning. As usual, he was puffing
a cigarette. The sight of him angered Don, who would have hurried
straight on without speaking, but Bentley joined him, saying:
“I was watching for you, old man. Got something to tell you. I went
down to the club-room after your dad came in on us so jerky Saturday
night, and I found all the gang there, weeping over their defeat. It
would have done you good to see them. A big lot of cry-babies! They had
something to say about you, too.”
He had hurried on with his words, being shrewd enough to observe that
the doctor’s son was in no very agreeable mood, and, as he anticipated,
the final statement aroused Don’s curiosity, although an attempt was
made to conceal it.
“What do you suppose I care what they say about me!” growled the
dark-eyed lad, with a toss of his head. “They can say any old thing
they like.”
But he slackened his pace somewhat and did not try to shake off his
unwelcome companion.
“They were saying every old thing,” asserted Leon. “I tell you, they
gave you a raking down behind your back.”
“That didn’t hurt me any. I wasn’t on their old team, so they couldn’t
blame me for their defeat.”
“But they did, just the same.”
Don stopped short and looked at Bentley, his face growing hard.
“How the dickens could they do that?” he snapped.
“Why, they said you acted like a fool in getting your back up and
leaving the team. They said they were glad enough to get rid of you,
but they’d ought to have fired you in the first place. As it was, you
left at a bad time, making it necessary to shift the men around, so
there was no time to get the team back in shape, and, for that reason,
you were responsible for the loss of the game.”
Leon told this lie glibly and with a show of truthfulness that aroused
no suspicion in the mind of the hearer; but the falsehood did the work
Bentley wished it to do, and the black look deepened on the rather
handsome face of Don Scott, marring his good looks and making his
aspect repellent.
“Who said this, Bentley?” he demanded, harshly. “Was it that
treacherous snake, Renwood?”
“Sure thing,” nodded Leon. “He blames it all onto you, but he ain’t the
only one. The others agreed with him, and I told them what I thought of
it. I don’t often get right up and speak out in meeting,” the fellow
went on, “but I couldn’t keep still this time, so I said enough to get
them all mad at me. Now, I hear that they’re going to kick me out
again. What do you think of that, Don?”
“I think it serves you right for going back onto the team,” was the
unsympathetic answer.
“What? You say that after I stood up for you? Well, I never thought
such a thing of you, Scott!” Leon assumed an injured air, giving Don a
look of deep reproach.
“The trouble with you is that you’re altogether too shifty,” said the
doctor’s son. “When you do a thing, stick to it. But I’m not kicking at
you. I’d like to hit Renwood for wagging his mouth about me so much!”
“It’s what you ought to do. Of course he would deny it, but you know
what he is. Why, he even denied to you that he meant you when he said
there were some men on the team who were no earthly good, but he’s
laughed about it since, saying he didn’t think you’d tumble to yourself
so quickly.”
A sound of grating teeth came from Don’s mouth, delighting Leon with
the knowledge that he had reawakened to the full extent the hatred of
the dark-eyed youth for Dolph Renwood.
“There’ll come a day of settlement!” Scott panted.
“Now that he is sore on me, you can’t imagine what he proposes to do,”
snickered Bentley. “Why I have it straight that he’s going to come to
you and try to get you back onto the eleven, just so he can kick me
out.”
“Let him come!” cried Don. “That is what I want. I’ll tell him a few
things!”
They had proceeded up the hill till they were in sight of the white
academy, which showed through the trees of the grounds. Now, fully
satisfied with himself and what he had done, Bentley stopped, saying:
“Perhaps we’d better not go up together. The fellows have charged me
with carrying things to you, and they may suspect that I’ve put you
onto Renwood’s game. You go ahead.”
So Don walked on and Leon came up later. Knowing Bentley as he did, it
was rather surprising that the doctor’s son permitted himself to be
deceived by the fellow; but he was ready to believe almost anything bad
of Renwood, which, with his hatred and prejudice, blinded his sense of
perception.
Renwood had not arrived at the academy and did not appear till a few
moments before the beginning of the morning session, giving him no
opportunity to speak with Scott, in case he desired to do so. That
noon, however, the coach of the eleven was talking with Chatterton
beneath one of the large oaks near the entrance to the grounds, when
Don came through the gate. Perceiving Scott, Dolph immediately advanced
toward him, calling:
“I’d like to speak with you, Scott, if you’ll wait a minute. We can
talk here without being overheard by the fellows up by the steps.”
“I have nothing to say to you that I’m not willing anybody should
hear,” declared Don, holding himself in check, for Leon’s warning
had informed him what was coming, and he was glad of the opportunity
to again express himself to this fellow whom he hated with all the
intensity of his nature.
“Still, it’s better to talk the matter over out here away from the
others,” said Dolph, rather nervously, his manner seeming to betray to
the boy with the searching eyes a self-consciousness of guilt. “I am in
hopes we can come to an understanding.”
Don said nothing, but continued to watch Renwood’s face.
“There is something about me,” Dolph continued, seeming troubled to
find words to express himself, “that caused you to take a strong
dislike to me almost the first time you saw me. I knew it, for you are
not a chap to conceal your feelings. I have some pride and spirit of my
own, and I’m not the kind of a fellow to try to curry favor with those
who dislike me, for which reason I had very little to do with you till
the football team was organized, and I was selected as coach. Then it
became necessary for me to have some dealings with you. One thing I
want to claim right here is, that I never tried to injure you in any
way.”
There was curling scorn in the movement of Don’s lips, but he continued
silent, apparently waiting with some impatience for Renwood to finish.
Dolph saw and understood the expression on the face of his enemy, but
he pretended to take no note of it, hurrying on with scarcely a break:
“When Sterndale was making up the team, I suggested that you be
tried in the position you were given, one of the most prominent and
difficult places on an eleven. I had observed that you could run like
a deer, could dodge and handle yourself gracefully, and I fancied you
possessed, or could develop, other requirements that would make you
a first-class man at half. I made one mistake,” the coach confessed,
“for, in instructing the team, I did not take into consideration the
fact that you might be easily angered, so that you would quit the
eleven and refuse to come back. I don’t think I quite understood you in
that respect. Anyhow, you got mad with me, which has raised hob with
everything. I used you just exactly the same as I did others on the
team, but you seemed to think I had some spite against you. You were
wrong, Scott; I had nothing in the world against you.”
“By that,” said Don, with a sneer, “I presume you infer that I was
wholly to blame for everything that occurred? When you jumped on me and
made your insulting remarks to me before the eleven and the whole crowd
of spectators, I had no right to resent it! I should have curled up and
taken it, like a meaching cur! But I’m not that kind of a huckleberry!
I don’t belong to the whipped-cur breed, Mr. Dolph Renwood!”
“I made a mistake,” Dolph again acknowledged, still speaking calmly.
“You must remember that I belonged to a city team, and that team was
coached by a professional. You should have heard him talk to us!
Why, there wasn’t a man in the whole bunch that he didn’t give a
tongue-lashing. If I had begun to talk that way to the boys here----”
“You started in,” declared Don. “Just because a professional coach
could talk that way, you tried to show off by doing so; but you found
out it wouldn’t go in this town, and so you had to come down some.
That’s about the size of it.”
Renwood’s face had been pale, but now a sudden flush burned in his
cheeks, making it plain that Scott’s words and bearing were arousing
his pride and anger.
“Let’s not talk of that,” he cried, perceiving it would do no good. “We
were beaten at Highland, Saturday, and the eleven must be strengthened
somehow if we are to stand a show with them when they come here next
Saturday. If we had you back in your old position, I think there would
be a chance of making the team strong enough to meet those fellows.
I confess that I’m sorry I offended you. I’ll even apologize if you
demand it! I’ll do anything to make the team strong enough to beat
Highland.”
Don laughed harshly. “You don’t know me, Renwood,” he declared. “I have
said I was done with you, and I mean it. I’ve said I’d show you up as a
sneak and a traitor, and I meant that, too! I know you for just what
you are. You pretend that you are anxious to beat Highland. Bah! You’re
hand-and-glove with Phil Winston, the Highland coach. You owe him
favors, which you are trying to pay by throwing down Rockspur. I know
it! That strikes home, doesn’t it! Wait--keep still! I’m going to say
all I have to say to you right here and now. You must think me a soft
fool to come back onto the team with you after what I know about you!
You know that I know it, too! You know I know you slashed the suits and
cut up the football in the dressing-room under the grand-stand! Yet you
had the crust to face me and try to paste that onto me! As far as you
have been able you have hurt me, for the most of the boys are idiots
enough to believe I did that job. Now, you are sore on Bentley because
he happened to get a touchdown in the Highland game, and you want to
dump him off the team. You see that you must do something to hold your
grip with the boys and make them believe you are trying hard to put a
winning eleven on the field, and so you’ve planned to dump Bent and
make a bluff at doing something all at one lick. Renwood, you’re so
thin I can see through you like window-glass. Some day all the fellows
will see through you. I’ve told you just what I think of you, and you
can chew on it.”
Don was about to turn away, but, panting and pale, Dolph caught him by
the arm, huskily exclaiming:
“Stop! I’ve got something more to say to you! I see I’ve made a fool
of myself for nothing. I might have known you were unreasonable and
obstinate enough to keep the thing up. Talk about bluffing! You are
the champion! After stealing my knife right from under my nose in the
club-room, you saw a way to hurt me, as you fancied, and you went up
to the field and slashed the suits and cut up the football with that
knife, which you left there so that it would seem I did it. Then you
told a preposterous story about encountering me in the room and tried
to make the boys believe I attempted to stab you. I was willing to
overlook all that, not because I forgave you, but because I was anxious
for the good of the eleven; but now I want to tell you just what I
think, as you have pretended to tell me. You’re a miserable----”
“Dolph! Dolph!” cried a voice, and Zadia, having entered by the gate,
accompanied by other girls, rushed between the two panting lads, who
were about to fly at each other’s throats. Putting a hand against the
breast of each, she held them apart with all her strength, gasping:
“You shall not! You shall not! Stop this minute. Remember your promise
to me, Don Scott!”
Don did not draw back immediately, but at last he took his eyes, full
of intense rancor, from the face of Renwood and turned them upon
Dolph’s pretty, trembling, imploring sister. Swiftly he melted before
her entreating gaze, but he could not resist the impulse to hurl a
last savage shot at the fellow he hated.
“Some time, Renwood,” he said, “your sister will not be at hand to come
between us. Then look out for yourself!”
With which, he turned toward the academy.
CHAPTER XXV.
DON DECIDES TO PLAY.
Sterndale came down from the football field in a discouraged condition,
although he tried not to betray his feelings. He could see the boys had
lost confidence in themselves, with the exception of Bentley, who was
full of conceit and arrogance, seeming to regard himself as the only
player of consequence on the team.
On his way home, Dick almost ran against Don Scott. It was growing
dark, and something was the matter with the street lamp on that corner.
“Say, Scott, wait a minute!” exclaimed the captain of the nine,
catching hold of the other.
“I’m in a hurry,” muttered Don.
“Never mind; you can give me five minutes for old times’ sake. You
and I got along pretty well on the baseball team. We never had any
particular trouble, did we?”
“No.”
“Well, this trouble on the eleven is all nonsense.”
“Needn’t been any trouble only for that sneak Renwood, Sterndale.”
“I know how it was. See here, Scott, do you want to see Highland
get the best of us and crow over us just because you had a row with
Renwood?”
“No, but----”
“I know you don’t!” declared Dick, with a show of satisfaction. “I’ve
felt it all along! I was sure that, deep down in your heart, you wanted
us to win.”
“It’s only Renwood,” muttered Don, hesitatingly. “If you hadn’t had
him----”
“We had to, old man. We didn’t know beans about football, and he did.
We couldn’t afford to hire a coach, and he’s coached us for nothing.
There we were.”
“But he hasn’t tried to coach you to win. I know it! He’s standing in
with Winston, who is working for a rep. I have it straight, Sterndale.
The sooner you get rid of Renwood the better off the eleven will be.”
“I can’t think that. I want proof. Prove what you say and I’ll kick him
out on the jump.”
“If I bring a man who heard him talking with Winston--who heard enough
to learn there is an understanding between them?”
“If I’m satisfied the man isn’t lying, I’ll kick Renwood off the team,”
declared Dick.
Don realized on the instant that the captain would not believe Leon
Bentley, so it was useless to bring Bentley forward.
“But I don’t believe it, Scott,” the big leader of the village boys
went on. “You have misjudged Dolph Renwood. He feels as bad as anybody
over our defeat, and he’ll work hard to help us win, Saturday. But
there’s a weakness in our team. We want you back at half, and then we
can put Smith on the end of the line, where he was in the first place.
Can’t you let bygones be bygones, old man, and come back and help pull
us out of the hole? You can bet your life I’ll appreciate it if you do!
Now, don’t say you won’t, Don! I’ve favored you before now, and I’m
ready to do it again. Of course you’ll do this for me! I know you will!”
There was something almost irresistible in Sterndale’s manner, so that
Don found it nearly impossible to refuse his entreaty; but the doctor’s
son was not to be turned thus easily from his determination to keep off
the eleven as long as Renwood had anything to do with it, and he grimly
shook his head.
“I can’t do it,” he muttered, sullenly. “It’s no use to ask me.”
“Not even for me? Not even to save Rockspur from being defeated by
Highland?”
“Not even for anything!”
Dick was disappointed and nettled, but he held his anger in check,
though he betrayed his disappointment plainly enough. Almost always
the village boys were ready to obey his beck and call, and he found it
decidedly provoking to have Scott refuse in this case to come back onto
the eleven at his request.
“You’ll think better of it,” the captain said, not willing to give up
defeated. “I’m your friend; I’ve proved it, too.”
Dick did not say outright that he had proved it by not going to Don’s
father about the ruined suits and destroyed football, but his meaning
was plain enough, and Scott cried:
“You’re no friend of mine if you think I did that dirty piece of
business! That was one of Renwood’s tricks, as you’ll find out some
day.”
“I’m not saying you did it,” the captain instantly cut in. “I don’t
know who did it. I don’t want to think that either you or Renwood would
do a thing like that.”
“One of us did it, and it wasn’t me,” assented Don.
“Well, never mind that now. I want you back on the team, and you are
coming back. We can’t get along without you, Scott, old man! You can
save us from defeat. We can’t shift all over again, but we can put the
men back in their original positions, and we’ll beat the stuffing out
of Highland. I’m going to see you again about this, so think it over.
Remember, that I am asking this of you.”
Then he got hold of Don’s hand, shook it warmly, said something
pleasant, and they parted.
“I hated to refuse him,” muttered Don, who still felt the effect of
Dick’s influence and magnetism, “but I had to do it.”
He remained obstinate when Sterndale approached him again on the
following day, and there seemed little prospect that he would give in
and resume his old position on the eleven.
The boys practiced faithfully every day, regardless of weather; but
Scott kept away from the field and Bentley was well satisfied.
It was Thursday morning at breakfast that Dr. Scott, who was looking
over the little country newspaper published at Highland, suddenly
lowered the paper and, glancing keenly at Don, observed:
“How is this, my son? Didn’t you do anything worthy of note in the game
at Highland last Saturday?”
The boy nearly dropped the glass of milk he had been lifting to his
lips, for he instantly realized that his father had been reading an
account of the game.
“Why, no--I--that is--not much of anything,” he stammered.
“I see the _Register_ does not even mention your name,” smiled the
doctor. “It speaks of the plays of a number of men on both sides, but
nothing is said of a chap by the name of Scott.”
“Does it give the line-up of the two teams?” breathlessly questioned
Don, his heart standing still.
“No,” was the answer. “It seems to me a very careless piece of
reporting, and it’s plain the fellow who did it doesn’t know much about
football.”
The boy breathed again, but he still shook a little, feeling a clammy
perspiration on his face. He had kept up the deception so long that the
horror of the seemingly inevitable discovery was wearing on his nerves.
“Let me see,” said the doctor, still regarding Don closely; “what
position did you fill, my son?”
“I was right half-back,” came, rather faintly, from Don’s lips. Then he
took a swallow of milk and choked over it.
“But it says here that Smith, the right half-back of the Rockspurs,
took the ball round Highland’s end for a gain of twelve yards before
being tackled and brought to earth by Garrison, Highland’s left half.
What does that mean?”
“It’s another blunder of the reporter’s,” asserted Don, boldly. “He got
twisted somehow. Smith is on the right end of the line.”
“It’s too bad there could not have been a good report of the game,”
said the doctor. “I hope you fellows will do better next Saturday, for
I’m going to see that game if I can possibly get to it. You want to
remember that I’ll be watching you, and brace up, my boy. I suppose you
want to see the account of the game. There it is.”
He passed the paper over, but it was some moments before Don could read
a word, although he sat staring at the print, which ran together in a
confused mass. At last the boy’s brain cleared, and he slowly perused
the report of the game.
“That’s sloppy,” he commented, handing the paper back. “That reporter
ought to write up one more game of football and then go off somewhere
and die. He didn’t get half of it correct.”
As soon as possible, he left the table and the house.
“Ginger! I thought the jig was up!” he muttered, hastening away.
“It will be up next Saturday.” Then he halted, his hands thrust deep
into his pockets, his eyes fastened on the ground. “It’ll be all up,
unless----” There was another pause, and, all at once, as if relieved,
he cried: “I’ve got to do it, that’s all! If I do, he may never know
I’ve fooled him.”
Then he lost no time in finding Sterndale and informing him that he had
decided to play on the team in the game against Highland the following
Saturday.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PROOF AGAINST RENWOOD.
“What’s this I hear, Scott?” cried Leon Bentley, rushing up to him as
he appeared at the academy that noon. “They say you practiced with the
team this morning. I was away--went to see my aunt over at Freeport
last night, and didn’t get back in time for school this forenoon. They
lie about you, don’t they? You didn’t practice with the team, did you?”
“What if I did?” demanded Don.
“Why, hang it! you said you wouldn’t--you said nothing could induce you
to! You gave me fits for going back.”
“Well, you’re not the only fellow who has a privilege to change his
mind.”
“Then you have?” gasped Leon. “I never thought it of you! After all
Renwood’s said, too! You’ll be chumming with him next.”
Scott’s face grew dark. “Let up on that!” he grated. “I won’t take it
from you! I hate him just as much as I ever did!”
“Well, they’ll kick me off the team now,” said Bentley. “You’ve helped
him carry out his plan to do that, anyhow. I never thought it of you,”
he again declared, with unspeakable reproach. “Anyhow, I’ll bet my
money on Highland, and I’ve got some to bet, too.”
As he made this statement, Leon produced a roll of bills, which he
flourished before Don, grinning triumphantly. The doctor’s son was
surprised to see so much money in the possession of Bentley, but he
made no comment, not a little to Leon’s disappointment.
“Why don’t you ask me where I got it?” he demanded. “My aunt’s been
keeping it for me, to make me a present on my birthday that comes next
Tuesday. She was going to get me a suit of clothes, shoes, hat and full
rig with it, but I got the old lady to cough it up to me and let me buy
my own stuff. If I can catch any suckers, I’m going to bet the whole
pile on Highland.”
“And I hope you’ll lose it!” exclaimed Don.
“That’s nice!” sneered Leon. “But I won’t. Highland will have a snap,
same as she did before, and it won’t make any difference if you are on
the team.”
“It’s not Rockspur I’m sore on,” declared Don. “It’s only that cad,
Renwood.”
“And still you’re going to play with him.”
“I have a reason for that. You know my father doesn’t suspect I left
the team, and I don’t propose to let him know it. He’s going to see the
game, Saturday.”
Leon whistled. “Oh, that’s your little game! Well, I didn’t think you’d
go back, even for that. What do you care if he does find out?”
“I wouldn’t have my father know I lied to him for anything.”
“What if somebody told him?” grinned Bentley.
Don had the fellow by the collar in a moment. “Don’t you dare peach on
me!” he hissed. “If you do, I’ll give you the worst thrashing you ever
had.”
“Oh, I won’t say a word!” promised the frightened fellow. “Don’t choke!
Ain’t I your friend? What’s the matter with you?”
“That’s all right,” said Don, releasing his hold. “But you want to
remember what I said. If it gets to my father in any way, and I find
out who caused it, I’ll do just what I said.” Then he entered the
academy.
“Oh, yes, I’m your friend!” whispered Leon, glaring after Scott with a
sidelong look and showing his yellow teeth. “I’m your friend just as
long as it’s any advantage to be. I don’t like you. You’re too ready
with your threats to thrash somebody.”
That night Don practiced with the team again, and, as Leon had
expected, Carter was given the position of left tackle, Smith played in
his original position on the right end, and Bentley was left off the
eleven. Leon left the field in a huff, and the boys did better work
after he departed.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said Dennis Murphy, as Leon departed.
“Talk about yer hoodoos, begorra, he’s it.”
Don practiced with all the vim and vigor he could command, and during
the final brush with the scrub he particularly distinguished himself in
various ways.
When the boys left the field that night confidence had returned to
them in a great measure, and Sterndale praised them freely. There had
been nothing like a clash between Renwood and Scott, which had been
dreaded, and every one felt relieved.
Scott was invited to come round to the club-room that evening, but he
declined, saying it was necessary for him to study. However, he did
not do much studying, for, as he was alone in his room shortly after
reaching home, there came a signal he could not misunderstand. Some
small pebbles rattled against his window and a peculiar whistle sounded
below.
“Now, what the dickens does that fellow want?” muttered Don, half
resolved to pay no attention to the signal. Then, fearing his father
might discover Leon, he thrust up the window and called down, in a
guarded tone: “What are you prowling round here for?”
“I’ve got something to show you--something that you’ll like to see,”
replied the dusky form below. “Your old man’s gone out; I saw him go
five minutes ago. I have the absolute proof against Renwood.”
Don hesitated no longer, but hurried down to let Bentley in; and, a
few minutes later, the boys were together in Scott’s room, with the
window-shades tightly drawn.
“Now, where is your absolute proof?” demanded the doctor’s son,
eagerly. “I want to see it. How did you get hold of it?”
“It’s the tail end of a letter,” said Leon, “which I picked up under
Renwood’s desk, where he dropped it. I saw him drop it, too, and I
wondered if it amounted to anything. I hung round till he left after
school, and then I gobbled it. Here it is.”
He brought out a sheet of crumpled note-paper, on which there were
a few lines of writing in a clear, bold hand, and passed it to Don.
The page was numbered “3,” and the writing began in the middle of a
sentence. This was what Scott read:
“take no chances, so Highland must win again Saturday, and you must
tip me off to any particular weakness of the Rockspur team, as you
did before. I shall expect a letter from you Friday. Your friend,
P. W.”
“That’s it!” cried Don, exultantly--“that’s the proof! This is the last
of a letter to Renwood from Phil Winston, the Highland coach! Now, I
can show the fellow up to Dick Sterndale, for I’m going to take this
straight to him.”
“Hold on,” said Bentley, with a knowing grin. “You hadn’t better do
that.”
“Why not?”
“How are you going to satisfy Sterndale that the letter this came from
was sent to Renwood? Renwood’s name is not mentioned. He may simply
refuse to believe that fellow knows anything about it, and you’ll
simply balk yourself.”
“Well, what am I to do?” exclaimed the doctor’s son, after a moment
of silence. “Sterndale will have to believe it, that’s all. If he
doesn’t, he’s a bigger fool than I take him to be.”
“But we might just as well fix it so he can’t help believing, even if
he wanted to.”
“How can that be done?”
“Why, it’s dead easy. I’ve got some samples of Renwood’s handwriting
here, and I rather think I can get up a reply to that letter that will
fool anybody.”
“That would be forgery.”
“No more than the note you took to old Alden. Besides that, it would be
for a good purpose, so there wouldn’t be anything wrong in it. I tell
you, it’s the only way to do Renwood up good and solid.”
“What’ll you do with the letter after it’s written?”
“That’s where you come in. The fellows invited you down to the club
to-night. I want you to go down and drop the letter on the floor, where
it’ll be picked up by somebody besides Renwood. Whoever gets it will
have to read it to see what it is, which will give the whole thing
away. Will you do it?”
Don’s nature rebelled against such an act, and Leon saw he was wavering.
“Think what he’s done to you!” urged the tempter. “He’s covered you all
over with dirt. He’s made the fellows believe you slashed the suits and
destroyed the football. It’s your only chance to get even. Have you got
the nerve?”
“Yes!” grated Don. “Go ahead and fake up that letter. I’ll drop it
where it will fall into the hands of Sterndale himself.”
“Good!” laughed Bentley. “Mr. Dolph Renwood is as good as done for!
Bring on the paper, pen and ink, and watch your old side-partner do the
trick. The world is ours, and Renwood isn’t in it!”
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FORGERY DISCOVERED.
The second bell was ringing when Don entered the academy the following
morning. As he stepped through the doorway he felt a pull at his
sleeves and a well-known voice whispered in his ear:
“Well, did you do it, Scott?”
Bentley had been waiting for him, and Don saw the fellow’s face over
his shoulder.
“Yes,” he answered quickly, in a low tone. “I got a good chance last
night, for I waited with Sterndale till after the others were all gone
home, pretending I wanted to have a talk with him. Then, when he didn’t
see me, I dropped the letter just where Renwood had been sitting, and I
saw him pick it up.”
“Good!” chuckled Leon. “Something will drop on Mr. Renwood to-day! You
did a good job, old man.”
But Don had already begun to regret his action, having found time to
think it over soberly when his blood had cooled somewhat, and he was
not at all proud of what Bentley called “a good job.” His hatred for
Renwood had not abated in the least, but his conscience told him he
had made a false step. Had he by any honest means obtained possession
of a letter from Dolph to Phil Winston in which the Rockspur coach
betrayed to Winston the weak points of the Rockspur team, he would
have denounced the traitor openly before the members of the eleven,
backing up his charges with the letter. But, in a way that now seemed
sneaking and underhand, he had succeeded in causing the letter forged
by Bentley to fall into the hands of the captain of the team, and, even
though he had no doubt of Renwood’s guilt, he now saw that he would not
stand in a very favorable light were the whole matter made public. More
than that, he felt that he had, to a certain extent, placed himself in
Bentley’s power.
Leon, however, troubled by no such prickings of his conscience,
chuckled inwardly as he entered the school-room.
“If it’s found out that the letter ain’t genuine, nobody can lay it
onto me,” he thought. “I wasn’t around the old club-room to drop it
there.”
To the surprise of both Scott and Bentley, the forenoon passed without
any reference being made to the letter by Sterndale. The expected
exposure did not come, and Leon was greatly disappointed. He hurried
after and overtook Don as the doctor’s son was walking swiftly homeward.
“Are you sure Sterndale got hold of that letter?” asked the youthful
rascal.
“I saw him pick it up,” asserted Don.
“Did he read it?”
“He looked at it, started, and then quickly put it into his pocket.”
“Well, it’s mighty queer, that’s all,” said Leon. “Why didn’t he jump
on Renwood? He didn’t say a word--not a blessed word!”
“It is queer,” admitted Don; “but I think it’ll come out before
night. He may be waiting to jump on Renwood to-night when we go up to
practice.”
“Oh, I’ll be there!” sang Leon, as he skipped off at a corner on his
way home.
Arriving home, Don ran lightly up the stairs to his room, the door
of which he found standing slightly ajar. When he entered, he was
surprised and startled to see his father standing by a window with a
crumpled sheet of writing-paper in his hand. Instantly the boy felt
that some unusual thing had brought the doctor to that room just then,
and he halted, his face turning somewhat pale.
The doctor, likewise pale, regarded his son with searching eyes, making
Don feel that his very thoughts were bring scrutinized.
“My son,” said the physician, calmly, “how does it happen that I find
this half-written letter of mine in your waste-basket? I am sure I did
not place it there.”
It was some seconds before the abashed youth found his voice, which did
not sound quite natural when he finally spoke.
“I--I don’t know, father,” he said. “Let me see. Oh, yes! Why, I went
down to your desk for some writing-paper one evening, and that was
with the sheets when I brought them up here. I thought it didn’t amount
to anything, so I threw it into the waste-basket.”
The doctor still regarded his son steadfastly, causing the blood to
mantle Don’s cheeks, driving away the pallor and making his face very
red. He felt for the first time in his life that he was not believed
by his father, and the shame and humiliation of that feeling burned
like coals of fire within his swelling bosom. No greater punishment for
his wrong-doing, deception and falsehoods could have been inflicted
upon him than befell at that moment, when he realized that his father
doubted his statement and had lost confidence in him. In those few
moments he suffered more keenly than ever before in all his life.
The doctor stepped toward Don slowly, placed a hand gently on his
shoulder, and, in a low voice, said:
“My son, I am very sorry.”
Then he went out of the room and descended the stairs, leaving the
stricken lad standing there, his hands clenched, his teeth set, his
whole body trembling.
“He knows!” panted the miserable boy--“he has found out about the
forged excuse! The jig is up, and my father knows just what kind of a
wretched liar and two-faced hypocrite I am! Oh, I wish I were dead! I
wish I’d never been born.”
He walked the floor, his soul torn by the poignant anguish that he
had brought upon himself by his own false steps. Fancying he could
never again look his father in the face, he thought of running away, of
drowning himself, of doing anything to escape the mortification of the
ordeal.
Then came a sudden, fierce surge of anger. “Renwood is to blame for it
all!” he panted. “But for him I’d never done any of these things, for
I’d stayed on the eleven, and it would not have been necessary! Oh, how
I hate him! How I hate him!”
He made no attempt to reason calmly, therefore it was not possible for
him to see the unjustness of his position. His eyes were not yet fully
opened to his own moral weakness, nor had this exposure unveiled to him
all the pitfalls of the crooked road into which he had been led by his
ungoverned anger and by the craft of a bad companion.
As he was fuming about Renwood, he heard somebody leave the house.
Hurrying through the hall to the front of the house, he looked out
from a window in time to see his father pass through the front gate
and join a bearded man who had paused on the sidewalk to wait for him.
The bearded man was Simeon Drew, the deputy sheriff of the village of
Rockspur. The two men walked away toward the village, Dr. Scott talking
earnestly and Drew listening.
“Now, what does that mean?” wondered Don, beset by a sudden, vague
sense of peril. “I don’t understand why Sim Drew waited for father at
the gate, and I’d give a dollar to know what father is telling him.”
Having watched them till they disappeared from view, he hurried
downstairs, where dinner was waiting, and Aunt Ella was in a state of
flustered worriment.
“I can’t understand it,” declared the flushed woman. “Something has
happened that worries Lyman, and he hasn’t told me what it is. He
didn’t even wait to eat dinner, yet I’m sure he ain’t going to see a
patient.”
Don did not eat much himself, but, after swallowing a few mouthfuls, he
got away from the house, fearing his father might return and find him
there.
The boys were practicing in the academy yard when he arrived, nearly
all of the eleven having eaten with great haste and returned. He
joined them, but somehow his work lacked the dash and vim he had put
into it the previous night, his heart being gnawed by hatred for the
quarter-back of the eleven.
It was plain Sterndale had remained silent about the letter, for
Renwood continued to coach, apparently greatly in earnest, although Don
was satisfied that all his earnestness was false pretense.
Scott found an opportunity to say a word to Bentley before the
afternoon session began.
“A nice scrape you’ve got me into!” he guardedly snapped.
“Hey?” said Leon, showing his teeth. “What are you talking about?”
“About the forgery.”
“Forgery!” gasped the young rascal, his face turning yellowish-white.
“Why--what--what forgery? You don’t mean----”
“I mean that excuse to the professor. My father has found out about
that.”
“Oh!” said Leon, with a long breath of relief. “I thought you
meant--something else. I thought you meant--er--that letter.”
“No; but I wouldn’t be surprised if that came out, too. I wish I’d
never had anything to do with you!”
“But you did, and you’re just as deep in the mud as I am in the mire.
You can’t peach now without giving yourself away.” He grinned as he
said this, and, with an angry growl, Don hastened into the academy,
fully expecting to be called up before the professor and questioned
about the forged excuse.
To his surprise, nothing of the kind happened that afternoon. After
school he went directly to the football field with the others of
the team, where the usual amount of practice was obtained; but Don
continued to worry, which made it impossible for him to appear at
his best. Bentley kept away from the field, and still Dick Sterndale
remained silent about the letter that had been prepared for the undoing
of Renwood.
Puzzled, apprehensive, distressed, Don came down from the field and
encountered Simeon Drew, who seemed to be waiting for him. The boy’s
heart gave a heavy thump as the officer spoke to him.
“I won’t detain ye but jest a minute,” said Drew; “but I want to talk
with ye private. Jest come over here to Robinson’s barn.”
Don followed, feeling both dread and wonder. He could not understand
how the deputy sheriff might be concerned with the affair of the forged
excuse, yet he feared that somehow he had done something that brought
him beneath the ban of the law.
“Set down,” invited Drew, when they were in the barn, the door of which
stood wide open. “I want to ax ye a few questions.” He pointed to a
feed-box, while he picked up a stick, took out his knife and leisurely
planted himself in the most comfortable position possible for him to
assume upon a saw-horse, which he tipped down on its side.
Don remained standing. “What do you want of me?” he asked, nervously.
“I want to find out what you know about this here forgin’ business,”
explained Sim, beginning to whittle. “I’ve kinder figgered it out that
you know somethin’, an’ you might jest as well tell all ye know. It’ll
be the best thing to do.”
It had come at last, and the boy braced himself to meet the emergency.
“I’d like to know what you have to do with it, anyway,” he said.
“Me?” cried Sim, looking up from his whittling. “Well, I guess, b’ Jim,
I’ve gut somethin’ to do with it! I’m an officer of the law, an’ I’m
goin’ to ’rest the forger.”
“Why you can’t arrest him for that little thing!”
“Can’t? Well, you don’t know much about law! It’s a State’s prison
offense.”
Don gasped, but he quickly decided that the man was trying to frighten
him, and he forced a laugh, which, however, sounded faint and unnatural.
“Get out!” he said. “I know better! It’s something for my father to
settle with Professor Alden, and you don’t have anything to do with it.”
“Hey? Well, by Jing! I’d like to know what Professor Alden has ter do
with it! It don’t consarn him nohow.”
“Why, the excuse was given to him.”
“The what? What be you talkin’ about? I don’t know northin’ about no
excuse.”
“You don’t?” cried the astonished boy. “Then what are you talking
about?”
“About that check for twenty-five dollars with your father’s name
forged onto it,” answered the deputy sheriff.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
BREAKING THE FETTERS.
Don actually staggered, and for some moments he was unable to speak a
word. To the deputy sheriff the boy’s agitation seemed a confession
that he knew all about the matter in question, and so Drew said:
“The hull business has come out, ye see, so you might jest as well tell
the truth about it. Of course your father’ll pertect you, but the other
feller that passed the check over to Freeport will hev to smart.”
“Why, I don’t know anything about a forged check!” exclaimed Don, in a
flutter. “That’s the honest truth, Mr. Drew.”
“Oh, come!” drawled the man. “It ain’t no use to try to squiggle
round it. The check come back to the bank to-day, an’ your father
was straightenin’ out his accounts this forenoon, so he gut holt of
it right off. Reuben Gray, over to Freeport, tuck it, and he sent it
over here by Jeff Lander to git it cashed at the bank, as Jeff was
comin’ over on business. It was jest a happenstance that your father
diskivered it so soon.”
Now Don understood why his father had looked on him with such sad
reproach after discovering the crumpled letter in his waste-basket, and
the boy was horrified by the knowledge that the doctor suspected him of
participating in such a crime. He realized, also, that all this had
come about through his association with an evil companion, against whom
his father had warned him.
Being entirely innocent in regard to the forged check, Don became both
vehement and indignant in his protestations. It was useless for Simeon
Drew to try to coax or frighten a confession from him, and the deputy
sheriff finally gave over the attempt in disgust.
“It would hev bin better for ye if you’d jest told everything ye knowed
about it,” the man declared; “but, anyhow, I’ll hev the other feller
nabbed before night.”
As Don continued on his way home, his brain in a whirl over the affair,
the whole truth came to him like a flash of light. He recalled the
fact that on the evening after the football game at Highland, while he
was talking with Bentley in his father’s office, he had caught Leon
examining Dr. Scott’s check-book and had angrily ordered the fellow to
let it alone.
“He tore a blank check from it then!” palpitated Don. “He is the
forger! He could imitate father’s writing, for he faked up that excuse
for me. He went to Freeport, Thursday, and when he came home he had
lots of money, which he said his aunt had given him for a birthday
present.”
Everything seemed plain enough in a moment, and he understood why it
was suspected that he had known something about the affair. Immediately
he resolved to face Bentley in the matter and force the fellow to
exonorate him. He hurried straight to Leon’s home, but Mrs. Bentley,
a pale-faced, worried-appearing woman, announced that her son had not
appeared since school that afternoon.
As Don was departing he found himself again confronted by Simeon Drew,
who had followed him without his knowledge. The officer looked at him
in a stern, accusing manner that was also full of triumph.
“I kinder jedged you’d hurry to tell t’other feller all about it,” he
said. “Now, you kin see you might as well own up.”
“I’ll never own up to a thing I did not do!” cried Don. “You can’t
make me, either! If Leon Bentley says I had anything to do with that
business, he lies!”
“All right,” grinned the man. “He’ll hev a chanct to tell his story
purty soon. You better go hum and keep still.”
Don went home, fully resolved to find his father and make a full
confession of everything. Unfortunately, Dr. Scott was not there,
having been called on a very serious case, and it was possible that he
might not return until late at night.
Restless and excited, his face flushing and paling by turns, Don found
himself unable to eat much supper, which convinced his aunt that a
serious illness threatened him.
“It’s that dreadful football,” she asserted, positively. “You’re all
worked up over it. I knew it would make you sick, and I told Lyman so.
There’s no sense in you’re staving yourself to pieces morning, noon and
night the way you’ve been doing for the last three weeks.”
Don might have told her everything then, but it was hard enough to have
to tell it to his father, and he thought it useless to distress his
aunt over a matter she could not remedy. After supper he went out into
the village and tried to find Bentley, but it was a long time before
he met any one who could give him any information concerning the young
rascal.
The doctor’s son was not dull, even though he had been deceived by the
crafty Leon, and, in thinking the whole matter over, he was assailed
by a doubt concerning the genuineness of the portion of a letter that
Bentley claimed to have found beneath Renwood’s desk.
“That may have been a forgery, too,” thought Don. “How do I know? I
wish I’d never agreed to do that other business of dropping the letter
to Winston where Sterndale could find it. Oh, I’ve got myself into a
pretty mess, and all because I had anything to do with Bentley. But
Renwood is back of it all! He started it! He is to blame!”
Always he came round to this mental assertion, but now, for the first
time, he found it was not at all satisfying to himself. He was struck
by the thought that in this manner he was trying to shift the blame for
his own weakness on to the shoulders of another, which made him feel
mean and small and more wretched than ever.
Then he thought of his father’s story and of Charlie, who had been
ruined by associating with evil companions, suddenly feeling that the
similarity of his position to that of Charlie when first accused of
stealing was something startling. Charlie had associated with bad boys,
but he had not actually stolen when first charged with theft. Don’s
father had been taught a lesson by that terrible experience, and his
lips had not harshly charged his son with participating in the crime of
forgery, but his eyes had spoken quite as distinctly as words.
“But I’ll not be like Charlie!” the tortured boy mentally cried. “I see
my mistake now, and I’ll have no more to do with Leon Bentley.”
He felt in a pocket of his coat and found a half-consumed package of
cigarettes, which he took out and flung away. Leon’s father and mother
were respectable, hard-working, honest people, and it now began to seem
to Don that somehow all the degraded qualities of the son had developed
under the brain-weakening, conscience-deadening, manhood-destroying
thrall of that opium-tainted creation of evil, the paper-covered
cigarette. Don wondered now that he had ever been tempted to smoke one
of the vile-smelling things, and wondered still more that, having found
neither satisfaction nor pleasure in the first one, he had persisted
in their use; but he was thankful in his heart that the dreadful habit
had not fixed itself firmly upon him, though he tried to assure himself
that he would have broken it at any cost of self-denial and distress.
His heart, however, declared to him that one of his passionate,
impulsive disposition, one who could not control his fiery temper,
would surely have found it hard to break clear from a habit with such
power to fasten itself on its victims and bind them with chains soft as
silk and strong as iron.
With the casting away of those cigarettes a feeling of partial relief
came to him, for it seemed that he had broken the unsuspected bond that
somehow connected him with the unscrupulous fellow he now despised.
As he was wandering about the streets, thinking of this thing and
hoping to run across Bentley, he met Danny Chatterton, who seemed
flushed, excited and in a great hurry.
“Hello, Scott!” called Chatterton, seeing him. “Have you heard the
nun-nun-nun-news?”
“What news?” asked Don.
“Abub-bub-about Bentley.”
Don started. “No. What is it?”
“He’s sus-skipped out.”
“Skipped out? You mean----”
“He’s run away. I don’t nun-nun-know what he’s done, but it’s
sus-something cuc-cuc-crooked, and he’s run for it. He sus-stole
Sus-Skinny Jones’ bicycle and run away on that. Sim Drew has tut-took a
tut-team and put after him. I’m going to the cuc-cuc-cuc-club to tell
the bub-boys. Come on.”
But Don declined to accompany the little fellow, and Danny skipped
away to carry the news to the boys at the club.
Scott turned toward home, for there was no longer any chance that he
would meet Leon on the street that night. His father was still away.
Till nearly ten o’clock he sat up and waited, still determined to
confess everything; but the doctor did not return, and at last Don
crept to bed to spend a wretched night--the night before the football
game.
CHAPTER XXIX.
ON THE GRIDIRON.
The day, the afternoon, the hour of the game had arrived. Not even at
the deciding game for the baseball championship between Highland and
Rockspur had a larger crowd gathered to witness the struggle on the
field. The sun was shining, but there was a strong, cool wind from
the west, and the air was as invigorating as a delightful tonic. The
exhilaration of the atmosphere and the occasion had entered into the
hearts of the assembled throng, which buzzed with expectancy, ready
to laugh, to shout, to cheer, to go wild with enthusiasm over some
brilliant play or plucky stand of the favorites in the game.
Ropes had been stretched to hold the crowd back, but they were surged
against till they threatened to give way. It was amazing to see in
that small country village such a great concourse of people gathered
to witness a game of football between two bands of smooth-faced,
clear-eyed, clean-limbed lads. Fathers and brothers and sisters were
there, to say nothing of many mothers, who had been unable to remain
away and who had come to see their favorite sons struggle like youthful
gladiators with the sons of other mothers, equally affectionate, but
lacking the courage to witness the rush, the clash, the shock and
tumult of battle in which these lads would hurl themselves at one
another like human catapults.
Highland apparently had sent over nearly all its boys and girls between
twelve and twenty to cheer its eleven. They had gathered in a compact
body on the bleachers to the left of the grand-stand, and already they
were singing a song of victory, which some rhymester had composed to
the tune of “Marching Through Georgia.” They were prepared for the
occasion with megaphones and crimson pennants and unlimited confidence
in the ability of their boys to win from Rockspur on the home ground of
the latter team.
On the opposite side had collected the adherents and supporters of
the Rockspur Eleven, but, although they were in the majority, they
could not drown the noise made by the visitors. Everybody seemed
good-natured, and there was bantering and bandying of words.
The grand-stand and much of the standing room to the ropes was filled
with older persons, who, however, seemed scarcely less excited and
eager than the boys and girls, and who joked with each other and
anxiously discussed the possibilities of the game.
The field lay stretched before them like a white-ribbed skeleton, the
goal-posts rising at either end. It was in splendid condition, and all
were certain that a battle royal must take place there that day.
Suddenly a new sound arose, and then, as onto the field trotted eleven
shaggy-headed lads, togged in their football suits, dirt-stained,
mud-bespattered garments of victory, there was a great upheaval to the
left of the grand-stand, and the mass of fresh-faced, youthful humanity
broke into a wildly swaying surge of crimson, while the Highland cheer
sounded short and sharp and clear, like the barking of hundreds of
wolves on a still winter’s night.
“’Rah! ’rah! ’rah! Here we are! High-land, my land! ’Rah! ’rah! ’rah!”
Instantly this was drowned by another sound, deeper, intenser, more
like thunder, as the Rockspur Eleven quickly followed their antagonists
onto the chalk-marked gridiron. There was another upheaval, mightier
than the first, and the blue-and-white was waving here in a dense
mass, there in streaks, yonder in spots, but all round the field. The
Rockspur cheer of greeting was like rolling thunder, the rattle of
musketry, the starward hiss of red rockets and the boom of cannon.
“Boo, bum, burr! Rick, rock, spur! Rockspur--s-s-s-ss! Rockspur--boom!
Rockspur!”
How the blood tingled! How one thrilled to the very finger tips!
Carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, staid, middle-aged men
forgot themselves and their dignity, and when they realized what they
were doing, found they were swinging their hats and yelling at the
top of their voices, the sound being swallowed up and drowned in the
general uproar. Youth, incarnate, never-dying, all-powerful, imbued
by conscious vigor and power, invested with confidence and courage
unshattered by the buffets of Time; youth, the little-prized, the
fleeting, the sadly-regretted, the vainly-sought; youth, the beautiful
and glorious--it was there, and the great crowd offered homage to it.
In the lull that followed after some moments of tumult, a white-haired
citizen of Rockspur, who had passed the three-score mark, flourished
his cane in the air and shrilly cried:
“Them’s our boys, an’ they kin beat at football jest the same as they
beat at baseball, an’ don’t you fergit it!”
This caused a burst of laughter, and somebody shouted:
“Hooray for Uncle Ike! He always stands by the boys! Give him a rouser,
fellows! Ready--let ’er go!”
They did “let ’er go,” and the cheer for the old man must have warmed
his heart--that rare old heart that had never forgotten its youth,
and thus, with advancing years, had found its owner a place in the
affections of the generations that followed him. In acknowledgment of
the tribute he bowed, with uncovered head, and some dust, or the sun,
or something got into his eyes, causing him to brush his hand across
them while he laughed.
Youth once lost may never be regained; but youth firmly planted in the
heart may remain there, though the body wither beneath the blighting
touch of age.
In their heavily-padded suits the boys looked stout and stocky. A ball
being tossed in among them, they began to chase it about and fall on it
as a sort of warming-up.
Don Scott was there, looking rather pale, his dark hair and eyes
accentuating the whiteness of his face. His worriment and a restless
night had told on him, and his manner seemed full of lassitude!
Don had not made a confession to his father. With the passing of the
weary night also passed his strength and determination to reveal
everything and seek forgiveness. He told himself that he was blameless
in the thing of which he was suspected, and time would prove him so;
therefore, it might simply add to his father’s belief in his guilt if
he told him then of his deceptions and falsehoods. He resolved to wait
until it was plainly proven that he was in no way concerned with the
forgery of the check, promising himself that he would then make a clean
breast of everything.
So, as much as possible, he avoided his father, which was not
difficult, the doctor being very busy that Saturday forenoon. Don had
expected that Bentley would be reported in custody that morning, but,
to his surprise and dissatisfaction, nothing had been heard of either
Leon or the deputy sheriff since one left the village hotly pursued by
the other the night before.
As Don paused on the field, adjusting his belt, his eyes roved over
the great throng of people who were roaring a greeting to the young
gladiators of the gridiron. While flags, hats and hands were waving
it was almost impossible to recognize anybody in the crowd, but when
the commotion subsided somewhat, he saw two girls in the midst of the
Rockspur Academy delegation on the blue-and-white bleachers, and one of
them seemed looking straight at him. Their eyes met; she smiled; she
waved her flag in his direction.
“That can’t be for me!” thought Don, with a little color coming to his
cheeks. “Zadia Renwood would not do that for me.”
But then he saw the other girl glance toward him, toss her head and say
something in a spiteful manner to her companion, which caused Zadia to
shake her head and blush. Then he knew that Dora Deland also fancied
Zadia had waved to him.
The cheering broke out again after Uncle Ike’s little speech, and Don
looked about for his father. In time he found the doctor, who was
watching his son steadily. The doctor smiled a bit and waved his hand,
but Don seemed to feel reproach in the smile and it hurt him.
“But I’ll do my best,” he muttered. “Perhaps I may be able to make him
proud of me some way.”
The excitement was still great when the two captains drew aside with
the referee, who sent a coin fluttering into the air.
“Heads,” said Walker, the Highland captain, and the Goddess of Liberty
looked up at him from the ground.
“Your choice,” smiled Sterndale, as the referee picked up the piece of
silver.
The wind was now blowing quite strongly from the west, and the Highland
captain immediately selected the west goal to defend, giving the ball
to Rockspur. The pigskin was placed on the spot in the exact centre of
the field, and the two teams lined up amid another uproar of cheering
and all kinds of noises.
There was a sudden lull. Those two lines of youthful tigers were
gathering themselves for the clash, crouching a bit, leaning forward,
teeth set, muscles taut. Sterndale eyed the ball critically, settled
himself carefully, went at it and smashed it down the field against the
wind with a beautiful kick.
With the plunk of Sterndale’s foot against the leather, which sailed
into the air in a long graceful curve, the uproar broke forth again.
The game was on.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE FIRST HALF.
Stubby Fisher, the Highland quarter-back, was under that ball, and he
caught it cleanly, passed it instantly to Walker, who, like Sterndale,
was playing full back, and Walker smashed the oval with such furious
force that Sterndale was compelled to try to take it on the run, the
result being a muff. The Highlanders came surging down like a flood
from a broken dam, but Don Scott was on hand, and he fell on the ball,
while Jack Powell, Highland’s left tackle, leaped upon him like a
panther. The ball was down on Rockspur’s thirty-yard line, but the home
team had it, and there was great cheering from the bleachers on both
sides.
“Clever, Scott--clever!” said Sterndale, approvingly, as the men
untangled. “The right man in the right place.”
The players lined up quickly, Chatterton preparing to snap the ball
back. They crouched close together, facing each other, each Highlander
watching his man, each Rockspurite ready to do his part in handling
the ball or in the work of interference. It was a thrilling spectacle,
and again the uproar lulled somewhat, so that Sterndale was heard
distinctly giving the signals.
There was a sudden, quick movement. Chatterton snapped to Renwood,
who fumbled and lost the ball; Highland’s left guard, Hartford, came
through on the jump, got it, but--also fumbled. Renwood redeemed
himself by recovering the oval almost before the spectators could
realize he had lost it, and it went to Scott, who tried Powell and made
two yards.
This was football! It was electrifying in its swift changes. The groan
caused by Renwood’s fumble had barely reached the lips of the Rockspur
spectators when it changed to a shout of joy on seeing him immediately
recover the pigskin and carry out the captain’s signaled directions.
But two yards was not a gain worth mentioning, and Scott had found
Powell there to stay. He felt like immediately making another try at
the fellow, but Sterndale decided otherwise.
“Good boy, Renwood!” breathed the captain. “Saved yourself prettily.
It’s all right.”
But Dolph shook his head, evidently little pleased with himself. Again
the crouching men were waiting, and Dick fell back. As the signal came,
the ball went flying back to the big captain, who punted; but it was an
inferior kick, and Garrison, left half for Highland, caught the leather
in the middle of the field, where he was downed in a flash by John
Smith.
Highland began the attack, but it was quickly over, for Garrison lost
the ball on his first plunge into Rockspur’s line, having been sent
across against Ford, the deaf-mute, who seemed rooted in the ground
like an iron post, and Murphy came down on the yellow oval like a load
of rocks, with six men on top of him.
In this savage business Rockspur made no delays. This time Mayfair
was given a trial, and, aided by his interferers, smashed hard into
Highland’s centre, but was beaten off. Immediately he went at the
visitors’ right tackle, but two yards was the best he could do, and the
second down left Rockspur with three yards to gain.
Sterndale was given a meaning look by Renwood, who received a nod,
and then Dick called the signal for a double-pass. A moment later
the ball was snapped back, sent to Scott, and Don started across for
Highland’s right end. As he shot by Dolph he returned the ball to the
quarter-back, and Renwood darted toward the visitors’ left wing.
The trick was not successful, however; in fact, it was disastrous, for
Jack Powell came through the interference like a leaping greyhound,
tackled Dolph and actually carried him back for a loss of ten yards,
which gave the ball to Highland.
How they shouted from the crimson bleachers! They roared forth their
cheer, ending with Powell’s name; and the Rockspur crowd was silenced
for the moment.
Don had successfully performed his part of the work in the double-pass,
but he was assailed by a suspicion that Renwood, knowing what
was coming, had managed to signal the play to Highland and had
deliberately permitted himself to be carried backward for a loss.
“Some of his treachery!” thought Scott, giving the quarter-back a black
look. “I can’t understand why Sterndale didn’t do anything about that
letter. The fellow will throw this game--if he can.”
There was little time for such thoughts as these in the rush and whirl
of the game, and every Rockspur man was eager to know what the enemy
would try to do. They soon found out, for Garrison was sent through
clean to the home team’s forty-yard line before being held and forced
to take a down.
“Hold ’em here!” panted Sterndale. “Don’t let them cut any deeper into
our pasture!”
The defenders of the blue-and-white responded nobly. The line was like
a stone wall when Morse, Highland’s right half, was driven against
it. Only two yards were gained on a try at the home team’s centre by
Walker, and the oval was down again. The same trick being repeated, a
yard was lost, upon which the ball went to Rockspur on downs.
Now the blue-and-white bleachers took a turn at cheering, hoping to
give the home boys encouragement and vim. The flags waved and the
megaphones blared.
The rival gladiators were facing each other near the centre of the
field, though on Rockspur’s territory. It had been sharp work, but
nothing of a sensational nature had taken place thus far. Sensations
were to follow, however.
Rockspur had discovered that Highland’s centre was strong enough to
stop the plays that had been aimed against it, and so the ball was
flashed back to Sterndale, who punted beautifully, sending the pigskin
into the grasp of Garrison; but the Highland left half was downed
almost in his tracks by John Smith, and the referee’s whistle sounded.
Then the referee declared Highland had been off side when this play
began, whereupon the visitors suffered a loss of ten yards, and the
ball was carried back.
“Smith, you’re a corker!” Sterndale found time to say, and the tall boy
who had once been called a hoodoo blushed in confusion.
Thus far the Rockspur boys had played with a savage determination that
astonished the Highlanders, who, remembering the last game, counted
on an easy victory; and now the home team began an attack that proved
positively irresistible.
The ball was given to Scott, and, with it hugged tight, he lowered his
head and bowled the terrible Powell over, making four yards. Right on
top of this, he made one yard through Hartford and Davis, who were
playing strong as left guard and centre.
Sterndale showed his fine white teeth in an approving way, and the
signal that followed told his men he would make a try on the right
end of the enemy’s line. The ball came flying back to him, and he
smashed his magnificent body into Sawyer and Dickens, right guard and
right tackle, gaining six yards and setting the entire gathering of
spectators to yelling like wild Indians at a war dance.
There was hardly a lull, and now came the first hair-raising play of
the game, and Don Scott was in it. Everything indicated that Sterndale
rather foolishly contemplated a kick, so Highland braced for that kind
of a play. It was a clever piece of strategy to fool the visitors that
way, for Scott was given a third opportunity to show what he could
do, and, with his head encased in some sort of helmet, which he had
adjusted unseen, he took the ball and dashed off toward Highland’s
right end. Ahead of him ran a wall of interferers, blocking off the
Highland tacklers with the skill of veterans. With the line broken
through, Scott still sped on. The backs were hurled aside, and yet he
did not stop. Then it was seen that he would have an almost clear run
to the enemy’s goal line, and every man and woman and child rose up and
shrieked; but the cries from the crimson bleachers were those of alarm
and horror.
Walker got past Renwood in some way and made a headlong flying tackle
at the runner, but he missed, though his hands touched Don. Then it
seemed that Highland’s last hope of preventing a touchdown had been
lost.
The ten-yard line was reached, when from somewhere Davis bobbed up at
the very heels of the runner. He got one hand on Don’s arm, and the
desperate lad with the ball could not fling him off, though he tried.
That hand went down as the other came forward, and both fastened like
hooks upon Rockspur’s right half-back, dragging, him to earth exactly
one yard from Highland’s goal line.
For some moments it was impossible to hear anything. A mighty cheer
greeted this splendid tackle, but the Rockspur spectators were mad
with excitement, even though the run had not resulted in a touchdown.
Nothing could quiet them, even though Sterndale made the request that
they keep still.
“I told ye our boys could do it!” Uncle Ike screamed; but his words
were not heard by three persons, so great was the uproar.
Highland prepared to make the most desperate sort of resistance, while
Rockspur was equally determined to succeed, being overflowing with
courage at this moment. The lines formed, panting, crouching, ready.
With a quick movement, Scott was hurled like a battering ram against
the enemy’s centre. When the ball was forced down on the hold, it was
just one foot from Highland’s goal line.
“Nun-next time we gug-go over, boys!” panted Chatterton, who found it
impossible to keep still.
But he was mistaken, for not a fraction of an inch could they gain when
Don once more was flung against the visitors’ barrier. It was like
trying to butt a hole through a wall of granite.
There was a brief pause. Sterndale seemed to hesitate, and then----
They were at it again. A surprise play had been attempted, for the ball
had been snapped to Morse and then passed to Renwood, who got it firmly
under his arm and went slamming into the Highlanders. This was their
last chance. They must put the ball over or lose it. And so, with the
aid of a revolving formation, Dolph was jammed across the line, Don
Scott being ahead of him and pulling him by the collar.
Rockspur had made a touchdown, and the members of the eleven were
leaping and hugging each other, while down across the field rolled
the reverberant, roaring, booming yell of victory from the side where
fluttered and flaunted one great mass of blue-and-white.
But, despite all he had done, Don Scott’s heart was sore. His was the
gallant run that placed success within the grasp of his team, but the
lad he hated with all his heart had, on the third try, been given the
ball and literally rammed over the line. The touchdown was Renwood’s,
but Don was certain he could have made it just as well with the aid
of that revolving formation, and he felt that he had been robbed of a
right that belonged to him.
However, despite the fact that he had been assailed by this feeling,
the moment he heard the signal for Renwood to advance the ball he
did his level best to put Dolph over the line, and Dolph afterward
confessed that, more than anything else, it was Scott’s terrific surge
at his collar that dragged him across.
The ball had been carried over at the southwest corner of the field,
and Sterndale punted it out with a beautiful kick, Renwood catching it
directly in front of the goal-posts.
Then came the try for a goal. Having made the touchdown, Renwood was
permitted to hold the ball. He stretched himself on the ground, with
his right side toward the goal-posts, while the boys lined out even
with his body, but slightly behind the dirt-stained pigskin. Dolph
held the ball with his left hand undermost, his elbow resting on the
ground and his hand lifted a trifle. The fingers of his right hand
steadied the ball on its upper side, and then, with the utmost care,
as if handling something intensely delicate and breakable, he lowered
his hand to the ground, flattening it out, guarding against letting
the ball touch the ground, which would have given Highland liberty to
charge.
Sterndale sighted along the seam of the ball, which was uppermost. He
drew back his right arm and advanced his left, his fists clenched.
A second later, he went leaping at it, his heavy toe caught it fair
and handsomely, and the anxious hush that had fallen on the field was
broken by a roar when the oval sailed, twisting and whirling over the
cross-bar and between the goal-posts, which made the score six to
nothing in favor of the home team.
The crowd felt like rushing onto the field and hugging the boys, and
it was difficult for two men wearing badges to hold it back. As both
sides returned to the centre of the field, Don looked round for his
father and found the doctor watching him with an expression of great
satisfaction and pride, while Zadia Renwood waved her flag and laughed
in his direction.
But the game was not over; not even the first half was over, and
there was to be a most surprising turn about in a very few moments.
The Highland boys were not “quitters,” and every man wore a ferocious
look when they lined up with the ball at the centre of the field. The
captain had been saying something to some of the men, and the visitors
were ready to give the over-confident home team a hustle during the
remainder of the first period.
When everything was ready, Walker kicked off, and again those
twenty-two men were leaping at each other’s throats like famished
wolves. The fortunes of war varied till, by a splendid round-the-end
run, Garrison took the oval well into Rockspur’s territory, being
brought to the earth by Sterndale himself. Then Walker booted the
pigskin straight into Renwood’s clutch; but Dolph fumbled, and Dow,
Highland’s left end, fell on the ball like a carload of steel rails.
Again it seemed to Scott that Renwood was playing into the hands of the
enemy.
However, though this advantage had been gained, though the crimson
bleachers were shrieking like mad, though they tried their best men
against Rockspur’s line, the boys from the hills could not get another
foot. Three times they were held and beaten off, and the ball went to
the home team on downs, which brought a roar of satisfaction from the
blue-and-white and caused the crimson to groan.
“Get into ’em! get into ’em!” grated Sterndale, just loud enough for
his men to hear. “We must do it!”
Five seconds later, the ball was sent to Scott, who, with teeth set,
neck-cords strained, eyes bulging, went across and round Highland’s
right end for a gain of seventeen yards. There he was forced out of
bounds, and the ball was brought in and put down for a scrimmage, out
of which another advance was made, which gave the Rockspur spectators
still greater opportunity to breathe freely.
“It’s no use!” squealed Uncle Ike, waving his crooked cane. “They jest
can’t do it! Our boys won’t hev it!”
It was too soon to crow, however, as the blue-and-white admirers
quickly found out. Highland took a “brace,” and the fiercest hammering
failed to give the necessary gain, so the visitors again obtained the
ball.
Then a kicking duel took place, in which Walker got the best of
Sterndale at the end, though it was nip and tuck at first. The visitors
having the advantage of the wind, Walker made the most of it. At the
conclusion of this volleying, Renwood was downed with the ball in
his grasp on Rockspur’s ten-yard line, and once more the fighting was
uncomfortably near the goal-posts of the home team.
The Highland rushers were desperate, and they tore through Rockspur’s
interference with a fierceness that could not be resisted. It was
impossible to make a gain by a hard drive at Highland’s centre, and,
fearing to lose the ball there, Sterndale punted.
It was an unfortunate kick, for the ball flew low and Powell jumped
in front of it. It struck him on the chest and bounded back over
Rockspur’s goal line. There was a mad scramble, from the midst of which
Stubby Fisher wiggled out like a slippery eel, and a moment later was
sprawling spider-fashion on the ball.
Then a wild yell of triumph went up to the blue sky from the crimson
bleachers, for the ball was down behind the home team’s line and Fisher
had it. The players themselves seemed dazed for a moment, and the faces
of the Rockspur lads were full of dismay.
There was no delay. The ball was not punted out, but Fisher brought it
straight on to the field from the spot where the touchdown had been
secured, although that made it necessary to try from a difficult angle.
The men lined up, and the stocky little Highland quarter-back squared
himself for a try at the goal.
A sudden hush, a quick twinkling of Fisher’s short legs, a desperate
kick, and away flew the yellow egg. Seconds before it reached the
posts, as it seemed, the crowd saw it was a miss, and a mingled yell
of satisfaction and shout of dismay arose.
The ball fell to the ground, leaving the score 6 to 4 in favor of the
home team.
“It’s all right, fellows,” breathed Sterndale. “They’ll never overtake
us now.”
It was his manner of trying to give confidence to his men.
When all was ready, he kicked off, driving straight to Fisher, who
passed the leather quickly to Garrison. Highland’s left half-back was
somewhat flustered, and he kicked the ball out of bounds at Rockspur’s
thirty-yard line. Scott had it, and he announced an intention of
bringing it in ten yards for a scrimmage.
Rockspur now endeavored to smash a road up the field by a series
of furious plunges, making ten yards in this manner; but there the
Highland line became rooted, and Sterndale was forced to punt. Murphy
came to the fore again by nailing Morse on Highland’s forty-yard line.
But Highland had the ball. Apparently Walker was getting ready to punt,
and that was what Rockspur expected. Then it was that the visitors gave
the home team a dose of its own medicine by surprising them with a
sudden rush through centre that carried the leather down the field to
Rockspur’s thirty-five-yard line. Right there the rush stopped and two
mad lunges failed to gain a single foot.
Then Walker gave the signal for Garrison to try for a goal from the
field, knowing that the first half must terminate in a very short time.
The Rockspur men saw what their opponents contemplated, and some of
them laughed outright over the folly of an attempt to drop-kick a goal
from such a distance. Every man of the rushers prepared to try to go
through and down Garrison the moment the ball was snapped, while the
Highlanders braced themselves to hold the enemy in check long enough
for Phil to make a fair try of it.
Again a hush, and then a quick movement and a clash. The ball flew to
Highland’s left half-back, who took it with the utmost coolness, poised
it carefully, dropped it, and the moment it rose from the ground kicked
it with all the force and accuracy he could command. Then some of those
panting tigers came through and slammed him to the earth, but they were
too late.
Away sailed the pigskin, turning over and over, rising higher and
higher, a beautiful kick. There was a craning of necks and an upturning
of white, anxious faces.
“It’s over!”
Over it was, fairly and beautifully. Barely had it touched the ground
when the referee’s whistle told the first half was ended, and Highland
had a lead of three points, the score being 6 to 9.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE SECOND HALF.
Under the grand-stand the perspiring, blood-stained, dirt-bedaubed
young heroes were being rubbed down by their admiring friends, while
outside the Highland crowd sang pæans of victory.
“We’ll win this game, fellows, just as true as we play the next half to
win,” said Sterndale, undaunted.
He never seemed to lose courage, but some of those tired fellows hung
their heads.
“They can out-kick us,” muttered Rob Linton.
“Well, if we’ve found our weakness there, we must avoid kicking,” said
the captain, guarding his words so none of the Highlanders would hear.
“Perhaps they don’t know how weak we are.”
“Don’t fool yourself,” grated Scott, flashing a look in the direction
of Renwood. “They were informed of all our weak points before they came
to Rockspur to-day.”
“How do you know that?” demanded Dick, putting peculiar emphasis on the
“you.”
Don realized that this was something he could not explain, and so he
muttered:
“Never mind. I know a thing or two, and I’ve caught on to some things
in this game that ought to be plain enough to you, Sterndale, if you
are not stone-blind.”
“You’re all wrong, Scott, and you’ll find it out,” said Dick,
positively. “The sooner you get over that feeling the better it will be
for you and the team.”
Scott flushed. “Do you mean to hint that I haven’t done my level best?”
he harshly demanded.
“Not a bit of it,” Dick instantly answered. “I don’t know where we
would have been without you. And I’ve given you chances enough, too.”
“But you gave the ball to Renwood on the third try when the touchdown
was made--and that after my run.”
“It was a trick to bother Highland some. Besides that, you were tired,
and I had sent you against them twice.”
“Tired! Bah! I was over the line ahead of Renwood, and----”
“I don’t believe I’d got over at all if you hadn’t yanked me across,”
broke in the voice of Renwood himself, who had overheard Don’s words by
accident. “I was stuck fast when you gave that surge and seemed to pull
me right through Hartford. The entire credit of that touchdown belongs
to you, Scott.”
This was so frank and honest that Don was silenced for a moment, but he
finally muttered:
“Well, I didn’t get it.”
There the matter dropped for a time, the men receiving notice to get
onto the field again, the ten minutes of rest being over; but Don had
not changed his mind in the least.
The two teams were given tumultuous greetings by their respective
admirers, and, as they lined up for the concluding half, it was
observed that Rockspur had not substituted a man, while three new
players appeared for Highland, being Pell at right guard, Hardoak at
right tackle and McCord at right half-back. It was plainly an attempt
to strengthen the right wing of the visiting eleven.
“Now, git in, boys--git in an’ win!” cried old Uncle Ike. “Jest show
’em the kind of stuff you’re made of!”
It was Highland’s kick-off, and Walker drove the ball to Mayfair, who
attempted to run with it, but was downed by Pell and Johnson on the
home team’s thirty-five-yard line. The referee, however, announcing
that Hardoak was off side, the ball was called back, Highland losing
five yards as a penalty. Therefore, it was from the visitors’
fifty-yard line that Walker made his second kick, which Carter caught.
Once more the game was on in all its fury, and the tide of battle ebbed
and flowed with heart-breaking irregularity.
Garrison was full of confidence, having been petted and congratulated
and complimented, and seven minutes after the second half began he made
another try to drop-kick a goal from the field. This time, however,
not being favored by the wind, he missed the goal-posts by two yards,
though he came near enough to give Rockspur something of a scare.
Sterndale had been nettled by the ineffective kicking of his team, and,
now, with the wind favoring him, he punted out in a manner calculated
to show what he could do. It was the longest kick of the day, for the
ball actually came down on Highland’s thirty-yard line. One of the
visitors would have gathered it in, but he was checked by cooler heads,
and the leather was permitted to roll on over the goal line for a
touchback, which counted for nothing.
Highland suddenly seemed to realize that facing the wind meant
different kind of playing, whereupon a time-killing game was
inaugurated right away. It was not long before Sterndale saw through
this, and he resolved to give the enemy such hot work that they would
find time-killing would not do.
As soon as the ball again came into the possession of the home team,
Dick sent Mayfair against the new men in the right wing of the Highland
line to try the mettle of those substitutes. The interference was poor,
and Rockspur’s left half-back was blocked without a gain. Again this
play was tried, but the result was the same, and Sterndale was forced
to kick.
For a second time the big captain of the Rockspur Eleven booted out a
distance annihilator, and for a second time Highland permitted the ball
to roll across the goal line, which was foxy and scientific defense,
showing that the coaching of Winston had borne excellent fruit. Only a
small number of the spectators appreciated the quality of the playing
they were witnessing, but the Harvard coach saw it with satisfaction
that he was unable to express.
With the resumption of play, Walker kicked from his kick-out line,
but the oval went out of bounds and Powell crashed into Ford, who
was trying to pick the ball up. The mute was stretched out for a few
seconds, but he quickly recovered and resumed his place, a grim look of
mingled pain and courage on his face.
“They’re trying to knock us out,” thought Don. “If they can cripple us,
they’ll have the advantage, and they know it.”
This made him intensely angry, and his dark eyes glowed with a
dangerous fire. He had hoped that Rockspur would be able to give
Highland a severe drubbing, for all of the supposed treachery of
Renwood, but that hope was growing fainter as the minutes passed and
the home team gained no decided advantage in the second half. All
through the game Powell had shown himself to be the most dangerous man
to encounter in the line of the visiting team, and now Don fancied the
fellow was using his brute strength in an endeavor to put some of the
Rockspur players out of the game.
With this idea firmly planted in his head, Scott aimed for Powell in
the very next scrimmage. When the energetic Highlander attempted to
shoulder him aside, Scott lost his temper completely and struck Powell
a heavy blow on the neck.
Instantly the whistle of the keen-eyed referee sounded, and, as a
penalty for this foul, Rockspur was put back a distance of ten yards,
with an equal advance for the visitors.
“Don’t do a thing like that again, old man!” exclaimed Sterndale. “We
can’t afford it. Hold steady.”
“But don’t you see what that fellow is trying?” palpitated Don, who
already was ashamed of his angry action. “He’s doing his best to
cripple some of our men.”
“Then let him do the fouling,” returned the captain. “We can’t afford
such business.”
There was no time for further words. Scott was deeply humiliated,
for he knew he had, in a burst of ungoverned anger, done something
that seemed to brand him as a ruffian. And this had happened after he
was beginning to congratulate himself on his ability to control his
passions when he resolutely set about doing so, for was he not playing
football on the same eleven with the one fellow he hated more than all
others in the world--had he not done his level best to drag that fellow
into the glory of a touchdown?
Now, all in a moment, he realized that very little credit was due him
for holding in check his hatred toward Renwood. The scales dropped from
his eyes, and he saw it was to avoid humiliation and shame before his
father that he was on the team, not because he had resolved to restrain
the animosity for Renwood that had leaped to life within him. Of course
his father had seen that wretched blow at Powell, and Don dared not
look in his direction. He hung his head and was most crestfallen in
appearance.
Before he knew it the Highlanders were smashing through Rockspur’s
right wing, Powell was upon him, and then he was trampled down as the
whirling mass of humanity swept on like a twisting tornado. When this
storm had passed, a human figure was seen prostrate and motionless on
the torn and trampled turf.
“Scott’s down! He’s hurt! Stop the game!”
Cries of alarm went up, the whistle sounded, and several men bent over
Don.
“Give him air! Where is a doctor?”
Then Dr. Scott hurried onto the field and knelt by his son, lifting
Don’s head to his knee. The boy’s eyes opened and he gasped painfully,
seeming dazed for a moment.
“Where are you hurt, Don?” asked the doctor, in a steady voice.
“Hurt? I’m not hur---- It’s my side--and head!”
The injured lad had tried to start up, but a sharp pain caught him
in his side and his head went round and round, while a black shadow
dropped like a curtain before his eyes. Blood trickled from his
nostrils, his father wiping it away.
“It’s a shame!” grated Sterndale, through his clenched teeth. “Scott’s
strengthened the weak spot on the team and made the best record of
anybody to-day. With him out, we’re beaten!”
These words were spoken low into the ears of Mayfair and intended for
no other, but they pierced that black curtain and reached the dazed
brain of the boy on the ground, arousing all his wonderful will-power
and bringing him back from the brink of unconsciousness.
“I’m not knocked out!” he whispered. “Give me some water! I’ll play
this game out if I die for it!”
Water was placed to his lips, his face was wet with it, and then he
got up, with his father’s arm about him. The breathless spectators saw
him push that arm off and step away, staggering a bit, but gathering
himself and growing steadier. Then, after a last moment of hesitation,
the doctor turned away and the players prepared to resume the game.
The Rockspur yell came over the field, with Scott’s name exploding at
the end like a huge firecracker. It was a sound to stir the blood, and
it seemed to restore the right half-back of the home team to complete
strength.
Then the game was resumed. Don caught a look of satisfaction from
Powell, and he knew the Highland left tackle felt that he had evened
the score.
The pluck of Scott gave Rockspur new life, the onslaught of the
visitors being checked. But time was flying, and, as yet, no
opportunity had arrived for the home team to make the coveted score.
Highland was fighting beautifully to hold her own till the time was up.
There were many swift changes, but most of the struggle took place near
the middle of the field, and the hopes of the Rockspur spectators
fell lower and lower as the second half waned and drew near a close.
With every sharp play by the visitors the bleachers to the left of the
grand-stand heaved with crimson and shrieked with joy. The bleachers
on the other side tried to keep it up, but a note of doubt and failing
confidence had crept into the cheering. Old Uncle Ike, however,
remained undaunted, declaring over and over that, “Our boys will git
there yit.”
“It’s a shame!” fluttered Dora Deland; “but I felt sure we’d lose when
I heard they’d taken Don Scott back. Just see how he lost ten yards for
us by striking that Highland fellow!”
“As it happened, that made no difference,” said Zadia Renwood,
immediately. “I think you are unjust to Don Scott. He has played
splendidly.”
“What has he done? He hasn’t made a touchdown. Dolph did that.”
“After Don Scott’s run had made it possible. Rockspur owes to Scott the
points it has made.”
“You’re just the queerest girl, Zade!” exclaimed Dora. “You know Don
Scott hates your brother.”
“Is that a good reason why I should be unjust to him? Look! look! He
downed that Highland fellow that time!”
Don had been waiting for the opportunity, and, with the ball tucked
under his arm, he shot out from the midst of the interference, lowered
his head and bowled Powell over handsomely. He made a gain of ten
yards before being stopped by Walker.
After that, Scott felt a little better, for he had shown that
Highland’s left tackle was vulnerable.
In the next scrimmage Jotham Sprout was put out of the game with an
injured back, and it was necessary to fill his place with Thad Boland.
Boland had the brawn to stop the gap in the line, but his slowness was
well known to Highland, and they tried to take advantage of it, which
brought the brunt of the battle on the right wing of the home team and
gave Scott all he could do.
With only five minuses of play remaining, neither side had scored in
the second half, and there seemed no prospect that a further score
would be made.
“It’s no use,” said some of the Rockspur spectators. “We can beat those
chaps at baseball, but they are too much for us in this kind of a game.”
Highland had the ball, and was playing to hold it as long as possible.
Don saw this, and he fairly ached in his desire to get hold of the
leather. The ball was down for a scrimmage, and he pressed up into
the line between Linton and Boland. He heard the signal and fancied
he understood it. Then Davis snapped back to Fisher, and Highland’s
quarter-back attempted a long pass to Powell, who had dropped slightly
behind the line for the ball.
The play was balked, for right through between Hartford and Dow shot
a pantherish figure, and the oval did not reach Powell’s clutch. Don
Scott had intercepted the pass, and he went by Garrison like an
express train overdue and trying to make up time. But the hopes of the
Rockspur spectators were dashed when he was brought down by Walker on
Highland’s forty-yard line. It seemed that the last chance ended right
there.
“Oh, you can’t do it, you know!” sang the visitors on the bleachers.
Sterndale lost not a second. He tried to get Scott round Highland’s
end, but no gain was made. Next he gave the ball to Mayfair and smashed
into the enemy’s centre, getting five yards.
Once more the Highlanders became rooted. It was impossible to jar them.
Already some of the visiting spectators were pressing toward the gate,
regarding the game as won by their team, for but one minute of play
remained. Having given up hope, not a few of the Rockspurites were
leaving the grounds, unwilling to remain and witness the rejoicing of
the victorious Highlanders.
“The boys did well,” they were saying, “but they were outclassed.”
Then there was a hush. Something was going to happen. What could it be?
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE FINISH AND THE BLOW.
What was up? The Highland spectators watched the men on the field with
languid interest, regarding the game as safely won. Somebody declared
it was “all over but the shouting.” The one who said this already was
so hoarse from shouting that his voice sounded like the croaking of a
huge frog. The blue-and-white was down; the crimson was aloft.
Don Scott, his breast heaving from recent exertions, was seen to poise
himself securely on his pins, while Renwood crouched just behind
Chatterton, who dallied with the ball between his feet.
“They’re going to try a drop-kick from the field,” laughed somebody on
the Highland bleachers. “It’s the last gasp of the dying calf.”
Flip went the ball, but Renwood handled it awkwardly in his excitement
and made a poor pass to Scott. Don, however, for all of his fiery
nature, now seemed calm as an old-fashioned clock, and he gathered in
the quarterback’s pass, deliberately turning and poising the leather
while the Highland rushers were fighting madly to tear their way to him.
The great egg dropped, struck, and then was lifted with a clean,
swinging kick. It flew over the hands outstretched to stop it,
carrying with it the fortunes of this remarkable game. The hush
suddenly became intense as all eyes followed the oval, which went
straight and true as a cannon ball between the goal-posts and over the
cross-bar. When it struck the ground pandemonium broke loose, for this
beautiful kick in the last minute of the game had given Rockspur five
more points and placed them ahead, the score being 11 to 9.
The game was won, and Dick Sterndale gathered Don Scott in his arms and
hugged him with a bear-hug, while the mad crowd bellowed and thundered
and the bleachers to the right of the grand-stand became a heaving sea
of blue-and-white billows.
But there could be no delay, for thirty seconds of play remained, and
the ball was brought back to centre for Highland to kick-off. With
tears in his eyes, Lee Walker kicked the ball in a half-hearted manner.
It was captured by Mayfair, and then the whistle sounded and the end
had come.
Onto the field poured the roaring crowd, while the players caught Scott
up to their shoulders and bore him aloft, cheering and singing. Such
handshaking, such hugs, such dances of joy! Everybody tried to reach
the hero of the day. It was remarkable how two girls made their way
through that swaying, seething mass of humanity, but they did so, and
when Don was lowered for a moment he discovered Zadia Renwood clasping
both his hands and congratulating him. His face burned like fire, and
he found himself unable to utter a word in response.
Although they felt bad over losing the game at the last moment, the
Highland players congratulated the victors, ending with a promise to
beat them in the third and concluding game of the series.
Then there was more cheering, more handshaking and demonstrations of
joy, and the boys finally found their way to the dressing-room beneath
the grand-stand, where scores of admirers were ready to rub them down.
Among the Rockspur players was but one man who did not seem bubbling
with satisfaction and happiness. Scott observed that Renwood did not
seem elated, and his heart swelled with mingled anger and satisfaction,
as he fancied the fellow had been completely balked in his treacherous
designs.
In the midst of the chatter of voices somebody announced that Leon
Bentley had been captured by Sim Drew, brought back under arrest and
confined in the village lock-up.
This information re-awoke Don to his own troubles and reminded him that
his father had not appeared to congratulate him after the game was
over. Immediately he decided that the doctor, receiving information
of the arrest of Bentley, had at once left the field to interview the
captured rascal. This being true, it seemed certain that he still
suspected his son and had hastened to learn from Leon’s lips if his
suspicions were well founded.
“He might have waited a little!” the boy mentally cried. “But I suppose
he thought we had lost the game anyway, so he failed to see the finish.
I’m sorry. He’ll get the whole thing out of Bentley; but, unless, the
fellow lies, no matter what else he learns, he’ll find out I had no
part in the forgery of that check.”
The possibility that, to partly shield himself, thinking the doctor
could not be so severe if Don should be implicated, Leon might assert
that Don was associated with him in the check business startled and
appalled Scott.
“He won’t dare!” he panted, half aloud. “If he does----”
“What ails you, old man?” asked Sterndale. “One’d never dream by the
look on your face that you won the game for us to-day. You took that
pass splendidly, and----”
“Saved me the disgrace of making a foozle at the critical moment,” said
Renwood, coming up with half his clothes on. “I owe you thanks, Scott.”
“You owe me nothing!” Don blazed, instantly. “I rather fancy you would
have felt more like thanking me if I had fumbled your pass.”
Dolph turned pale and stared hard at the lad who had won the game.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Do you insinuate that I----”
“I insinuate nothing,” interrupted Don, hotly; “but I think what I
like. We didn’t lose the game to-day, Renwood, for all of the traitor
on the team.”
There could be no misunderstanding his meaning. Dolph’s voice shook as
he said:
“You are insinuating, and I want to tell you now that if you mean to
cast that slander on me, you lie!”
Don was on his feet, and he had fallen back against the board wall of
the dressing-room. His right hand gripped something that was standing
there, and then the demon of uncontrollable anger possessed and
mastered him.
The next moment, with a stick of wood, he struck Renwood to the floor!
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE CONFESSION.
All alone, his face drawn and white, moving like one in a trance, the
hero of the football game went down the hill. It seemed strange that
he was not in the midst of a throng of admirers, all eager to be near
him and bask in the sunlight of his glory. It seemed strange that not
one of his late companions on the field accompanied him. But it seemed
stranger still that his eyes were full of despair and his appearance
was that of one who had met crushing and overwhelming defeat.
He had met defeat in his soul, and he knew it; but out of that defeat
was to come the great victory of his life.
He had seen the victim of his cowardly blow carried away in the arms of
horrified friends, his eyes closed, his face ghastly, one arm dangling
limply. The dreadful picture was before him now, and it sickened his
soul.
He knew Sterndale had stopped him outside the dressing-room, but had
stood off without touching him, as if afraid of contamination--the same
Sterndale who had hugged him a short time before in the presence of
all the players and the great crowd of spectators. In a dull way, he
had heard the captain tell him what a contemptible person he was, and
he had felt that every word was true. He had not denied it when Dick
accused him of dropping the forged letter that was meant to destroy
Renwood’s reputation with the members of the eleven. He made no sign
when Sterndale declared he had seen through the wretched trick from the
first, and would have kicked him off the team but for the disruption
another change must have brought about. When the captain had finished,
Don turned away, without a word in his own defense.
A groan came from Don’s blue lips as he thought of his father’s story
and warning, which he had utterly disregarded, to his complete downfall
and disgrace. His heart was wrung with anguish at the thought that he
had brought another great sorrow upon that father who had suffered so
much, and with that he began to think of others more than himself.
Renwood--ah! that was the worst! Just then he would have given his life
to undo that passionate act.
“You’re the feller I’m lookin’ fer.”
Simeon Drew’s hand dropped on the boy’s shoulder. Don looked at the
man, who had overtaken him as he reached the front gate of his home.
“You have come to arrest me?” said the miserable lad, huskily. “All
right; I’m ready to go.”
“I ain’t come to ’rest ye,” denied the officer. “I thought you said you
was innercent?”
“I did it.”
“Well, by Halifax!” gasped Drew. “An’ Bentley said he was the one.”
“Bentley?” muttered Don, staring at the man, uncomprehendingly. “Why,
he wasn’t there! I struck the blow.”
“I dunno what you’re drivin’ at,” admitted the puzzled deputy; “but I
do know that Bentley wants to see ye an’ hev a talk with ye. He begged
me to hunt ye up. I’ll take ye in to see him.”
The boy’s head cleared a bit, but he accompanied Drew without further
words, and soon he was standing before Leon Bentley, who, wild-eyed
and fear-shaken, paced the narrow confines of his prison, smoking a
cigarette.
“I’m glad you came, Don!” cried Leon, trying to catch his hand. “I was
afraid you wouldn’t!”
The doctor’s son refused to permit his hand to be taken.
“What do you want?” he coldly asked.
“Don’t look like that!” Leon whimpered. “We’ve been friends, and I’ve
tried to do you some good turns.”
“You have done me the greatest possible harm, but I am willing to
forget and try to forgive if you tell nothing but the truth now.”
“Oh, I’ll tell the truth!” cried the nerveless prisoner; “but you must
help me. Promise that you will help me!”
“How?”
“With your father. I think I can fix it about the bicycle, if I can get
your father to go easy with me. I’m sorry, and I’ll try to do better.
Please help me with your old man, Don!”
“If I promise to try, you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but
the truth?”
“Yes! yes!”
“I’ll do all I can, then. I have been accused of knowing something
about that forged check.”
“You didn’t, Don--you didn’t know a thing about it!” declared Leon,
instantly. “I hooked it from your governor’s check-book the night I
came over to tell you about the game at Highland. I had the doctor’s
writing down fine from practicing on that excuse business, and I forged
the check. Then I didn’t dare to get it cashed here, so I took it over
to Freeport, where I bought some stuff and got a man to take the check
and give me the difference in money. He must have got nervous about it
afterward, or he’d never hurried it back here the way he did.”
Don did not even look at Simeon Drew, who was leaning against the door,
wagging his jaws over a chew of tobacco and listening to every word
that passed between the boys. He was certain now that the suspicion of
this crime would be lifted from him, but there was yet another thing
about which he wished to know the truth.
“How about that remnant of a letter you claimed you picked up from
beneath Renwood’s desk?” he asked.
“Why, what does that have to do with this business?”
“You have promised to tell me the truth in everything,” said Don,
grimly. “If you do not--if you hold back or lie about a single thing,
I’ll not speak one word to help you! Was that remnant of a letter
genuine?”
“No,” admitted the young scamp, trying to force a grin; “I faked that
up.”
Don steadied himself on his feet, feeling that the ground on which he
had fancied he stood securely was dropping from beneath him bit by bit.
“And you led me into the dirty trick of dropping that letter for
Sterndale!” he finally said, harshly. “You wished somehow to get me
concerned in your low business!”
“But you hated Renwood just as much as I did!” cried Leon. “It was to
down him.”
“And failed. Sterndale tumbled to the trick. Is that all you can tell?
Is there nothing more?”
“That’s all.”
The manner in which Leon uttered those two words convinced Don that it
was not all, and he instantly said:
“If you hold back anything, you want to remember that I will not help
you. The truth is bound to come out, and so you may as well confess the
whole business. Is that all?”
“Yes, it is--all except one thing.”
“What is that?”
“It’s about the cutting up of those suits and that football.”
Don steadied himself again, feeling his last foothold crumbling, and
his voice almost failed him as he asked:
“What about that? Speak out, fellow!”
“It--it was a mistake, Don,” faltered Bentley, keeping his eyes
downturned. “You see, it was this way: Just before you dropped into the
club that night, Renwood had his knife out. It was on the table when
you had that little jaw with him, and I took it, thinking he wouldn’t
notice it was gone. He did notice it after you went out, and we all
hunted for it, but, of course, we didn’t find it. Later, when they
proposed to give Carter a try on the team, I got mad, for I saw I’d be
dropped if Carter got on. I told them what I thought and got out. Then
I wanted to do something to get even with somebody, and I knew Renwood
was the one who was trying to bounce me. I remembered how you thought
he was a traitor, and an idea struck me. I went up to the dressing-room
under the grand-stand and slashed up the suits and the football with
Renwood’s knife, which I meant to leave right there, hoping he’d be
suspected; but, just as I finished the job, somebody came right in by
the door and bumped against me. I couldn’t see who it was in the dark,
and I tried to jump and scoot. The other fellow grabbed me, and we had
it. You bet I didn’t want to be caught in that job, so I fought for all
I was worth; but the other fellow was too much for me, and he had me
down and was choking me to death when I struck at him with the knife.
I didn’t know it was you, Don--truly I didn’t! I thought I was being
killed. You know the rest; you know how you got the knife and I managed
to slip away. That’s the whole truth, Don, and now you must help me,
just as you promised you would.”
The listening lad sat down weakly on a box, feeling that he had been
robbed of everything. He beheld himself in the true light at last, and
the spectacle was so repulsive that he shuddered and grew cold. When he
lifted his eyes, Bentley cowered beneath the terrible look he received.
“Don’t!” he whimpered once more--“don’t look at me that way! I’ve told
you the truth, and now you must help me! Think of the terrible scrape
I’m in!”
“You!” cried Don, rising and flinging the other off, so that he reeled
up against the wall, his cigarette flying from his fingers. “The
terrible scrape you are in! Why, I have killed Renwood!”
Then he went out, Bentley’s prayers and pleadings falling on ears that
were deaf.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
REPENTANCE AND VICTORY.
It was some time after dark that, having till then wandered aimlessly
about by himself, Don Scott turned in at the gate of his home, passed
up the gravel walk and entered the front door. His heart felt like a
stone within him, without life even to give a fluttering start when he
found himself face to face with his father, who seemed to be waiting in
the hall.
“My son!” cried the doctor, catching him by the arm, “where have you
been? When I came home, I expected to find you here to tell me all
about it.”
“Oh, I can’t tell you!” groaned Don. “I can’t think about it! How you
must loathe me!”
The doctor was astounded. “My boy, my boy!” he exclaimed; “what do you
mean? It is you who must shrink from me, for I have heard how Leon
Bentley has confessed, clearing you of everything. I can never forgive
myself for permitting a suspicion of your possible guilt to creep into
my mind. And they say you won the game to-day by a wonderful kick after
I was suddenly called to attend a patient. I’m sorry I could not have
been there, but I’m proud of you, my son--proud of you!”
Don choked, beginning to tremble in every limb. He suffered then such
anguish and remorse as seldom comes to a person more than once in a
lifetime.
“You don’t know, father,” he said, hoarsely; “you haven’t heard----”
“They told me all about it,” insisted the doctor. “And you had genuine
grit to get up and continue playing after you were stunned. Do you feel
your injury much now?”
It was not an injury to his body that was giving the boy such exquisite
pain; it was a far deeper wound.
“Oh, I don’t care for that!” he cried, despair in his voice and manner.
“Then you should be happy,” declared his father, wondering and
perplexed over the boy’s appearance. “You were not hurt as badly as
young Renwood. Why, they had to take him home in a carriage. I met them
on the road, and they had me attend him. It was a bad knock on the
head, and might have caused concussion of the brain, but he came round
all right, and he’ll be well as ever in a day or two.”
The strength went out of Don’s legs, and he dropped heavily on the hall
seat. Up to that moment, he had thought Dolph Renwood’s blood was on
his hands.
“Father!” he panted, “is it--is it--true? Are you sure I didn’t kill
him?”
“Of course it is true; he is not seriously injured. But what are you
saying? Do you mean----”
“I struck him after the game was over. That was what ailed him.”
“And they never told me a word! Struck him, Don--with what?”
“A baseball bat,” whispered the unfortunate lad. “Oh, I’m a bad, wicked
boy! I’m not fit to be your son! I wish I’d never been born!”
Then he burst into tears, which, more than anything else, were
compelled by the relief in learning that he had not the crime of
homicide on his soul, and he was shaken by a perfect tempest of emotion.
The doctor lifted his remorseful son and led the boy into his private
office, closing the door behind them. And there in the seclusion of
that room Don unbosomed himself fully, holding nothing back, and found
relief and consolation and forgiveness.
“I know I was all wrong; I see it now,” said Don, when he had ended.
“Father, what can I do?”
“You must go to Renwood, confess everything as you have confessed to
me, humble yourself and ask his forgiveness. That is the least you can
do. In this there is one good feature, at least; Bentley’s story will
prove to the other boys that they were wrong in believing you destroyed
the football and the suits. Will you go to see Renwood, my son?”
“I’ll go, father--I’ll do anything! And as long as I live I’ll never
forget the lesson. I was to blame for everything!”
“You were to blame in letting your temper get the best of you, but you
were led into wrong-doing by your bad companion. Now you can see the
danger in associating with such a fellow.”
“I’m going to see Renwood to-night--now!” cried Don, springing up. “I
can’t sleep unless I see him!”
“Go, my boy; I think he will be in condition to see you. Go!”
Father and son walked to the front door together, the arm of the former
across the shoulders of the latter. Then the boy went out into the
darkness and hurried away.
Don feared he would not be admitted to see Dolph, but his fears were
groundless. There was some delay, and he waited anxiously in the hall;
then the maid came and conducted him to Renwood’s room.
Dolph was there, reclining on a Morris chair, wrapped in a
dressing-gown. He was pale, and there was a bandage about his head. He
looked at his visitor in speechless inquiry, while Don stood with his
head bowed and his face flushed with shame.
Renwood was the first to speak. “I’m glad you’ve come,” he said, “for
I’m aching to tell you just what I think of you; but I declare I didn’t
think you’d have the crust to show yourself here!”
His voice was full of the scorn and contempt which the persistent
injustice of his enemy had aroused to its fullest extent. The other
lad shrank a bit, lifting one hand.
“That’s right!” he hoarsely exclaimed; “you can’t say anything too mean
about me, call me what you like! I deserve it all--and more!”
Renwood was astonished by this altered attitude of his enemy, but
fancied it was fear of reprisal that had brought the boy who dealt
the blow hurrying to see him. However, before he could say anything
further, Don went on:
“I thought I was right in hating you, for I had been led to believe
you a sneak and a traitor. I have a nasty temper that it has been
impossible for me to govern in the past, but I’ll master it in the
future--or die! You have every reason to hate and despise me; but you
cannot hate and despise me more than I hate and despise myself. I
thought I had killed you, and I suffered just what I merited. But even
then I did not know what a miserable wretch I was till I went to see
Bentley in the lock-up and heard his confession.”
Renwood’s wonder was growing, for this humility and repentance were so
genuine that his doubts were dying.
“Bentley,” he muttered. “They said he had been arrested.”
“Yes, and I want you to hear just what he told me. Will you listen?”
“Go ahead.”
Then, as well as he could in his excited condition, Don told of the
confession Leon had made; and a change came over the face of the
injured lad who listened, for Dolph began to see how this repentant boy
who stood before him had been misled by his own passions and by the
deceptions of an unscrupulous and rascally companion. Don did not spare
himself in the least, and he did not try to shoulder all the blame onto
Bentley. When he told of the forged letter, he was astounded to find
that Dolph knew absolutely nothing about it. Fearing to bring further
discord into the team, Sterndale had told Renwood nothing of that
letter.
Some moments after this, on her way downstairs, Zadia Renwood passed
the door of her brother’s room. That door was ajar, so that, glancing
in, she saw two boys standing face to face, the one with his head
bandaged having both hands on the shoulders of the other, and she heard
her brother saying:
“It was a misunderstanding and a mistake, Scott, that’s all. It’s all
right now, and I think we’ll know each other better in the future.
Let’s forget it.”
When Don Scott came down from Dolph’s room, his face wore a look of
relief that was almost happiness. He found Renwood’s sister in the
hall, and she let him out.
“I’m so glad!” she said, giving him a happy smile; “I’m so glad you and
Dolph are to be friends now. I’m sure you’ll like each other.”
Alone in the night, Don halted, took off his hat and lifted his
throbbing forehead to the cool wind that came off the open sea roaring
along the Eastern Shore. The sky was heavily overcast with clouds, but,
as he looked upward, they broke and parted in one place, and through
the rift he saw a calm, pure white star.
* * * * *
The following is quoted from the Highland _Register_, published eleven
days later:
“The third and final football game of the series between Highland and
Rockspur was played last Saturday before a great crowd of spectators
in Highland, and the boys from the coast won by a score of 17 to 12.
It was a fast and furious battle from start to finish, the youngsters
on both sides fighting as if for their very lives and displaying at
times such vim, dash and courage that the witnesses were aroused to
the greatest enthusiasm and cheered themselves hoarse. Of course, it
is greatly regretted that our boys lost after being trained by such a
thoroughly experienced and capable coach as Mr. Winston; but Rockspur
also had a first-class coach in young Renwood, who played quarter-back
on the team, and the improvement of the visitors since their first
appearance here this season was something remarkable. Still, it may be
justly claimed that luck had much to do with the result of the game,
for it was Garrison’s fumble within four minutes of the close of the
game that gave Rockspur the ball and enabled the visitors to obtain the
final touchdown and goal that cooked Highland’s goose. At the time
this accident happened Highland was in the lead, the score standing 12
to 11.
“The first half was a battle of giants. Several times it seemed that
one side or the other must make a touchdown, but something happened to
prevent anything of the kind taking place, and it was a case of taking
a desperate chance after the second down, when Scott tried a drop-kick
for a goal from the twenty-five-yard line. He made it beautifully, and
the half ended with the points 5 to 0 in favor of the enemy.
“In the second half Highland put some new men on the field, and one of
the substitutes, Hardoak, soon found an opportunity to show his mettle
by going round Rockspur’s left end for a touchdown that resulted in a
goal, giving the home team a lead of one point, 6 to 5. But this simply
seemed to awaken eleven tigers from Rockspur, and the way they tore
great holes in the right wing of the Highland line was heartrending
to witness. Whenever he was given the ball to advance, Scott seemed a
perfect demon of fury, and once he actually made fourteen yards with
half the home team apparently riding on his back and shoulders. He was
finally crushed to the earth by sheer weight of numbers, but even then
he managed to squirm along for a foot or two before they could pin him
fast. And he finally slammed himself over the line for a touchdown that
netted a goal and gave his team the lead once more, 11 to 6.
“At this stage the game was most exciting, for Walker was begging his
men to take a brace and win out, and every fellow responded nobly. In
a kicking battle Highland got the advantage, and the ball was held in
Rockspur’s territory. Then, after several minutes of varying fortune,
Morse found a hole between Ford and Carter and got over the goal line
of the visitors for another touchdown, from which Walker kicked the
handsomest and most difficult goal of the day. That gave Highland
12 points and Rockspur had 11. Not a great margin, but the game was
drawing toward the end, and it seemed enough.
“Our boys fought for time, but Sterndale’s men pushed the battle with
a sort of mad fury that it was hard to withstand. When the ball came
into Highland’s possession she endeavored to retain it till the finish
of the game, and there was but four more minutes of play when Garrison
fumbled in a scrimmage and Renwood captured the ball and wiggled out
of the squirming knot of players. He got a fair start, but even then
he could not have made a goal without the assistance of Scott, who was
the only interferer that ran with him. Powell had been doing masterly
work in the way of tackling, but Scott bowled Jack over and saved
Rockspur’s quarter-back from being brought to the turf. Walker came
next, and somehow Scott had recovered from the collision with Powell
enough to be on hand and block Lee quite as effectively. Then the two
men went down a clear field, with all the others stringing after them
like a pack of hounds and the Rockspur spectators roaring like mad.
Pell had great speed, and it seemed that he was going to overtake the
runner for a tackle, but somehow Scott looked over his shoulder and got
the range of the pursuer. When Pell leaped Scott sprang sidelong before
him, and it was Scott that the tackler brought down, while Renwood ran
on and crossed Highland’s goal line with the ball. From that a goal was
kicked, with the final result as stated above; but it is to the amazing
interference of Scott more than to the run of Renwood that Rockspur
must give the glory for winning the game.”
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.
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