[Illustration: "Smash and hammer; hammer and smash!"]
A Quarter-Back's Pluck
A Story of College Football
BY
LESTER CHADWICK
AUTHOR OF "THE RIVAL PITCHERS," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
BOOKS BY LESTER CHADWICK
=THE COLLEGE SPORTS SERIES=
12mo. Illustrated
THE RIVAL PITCHERS
A Story of College Baseball
A QUARTER-BACK'S PLUCK
A Story of College Football
(Other volumes in preparation)
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY NEW YORK
Copyright, 1910, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
A QUARTER-BACK'S PLUCK
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I MOVING DAY 1
II LANGRIDGE HAS A TUMBLE 10
III PHIL GETS BAD NEWS 20
IV FOOTBALL PRACTICE 31
V A CLASH 43
VI PROFESSOR TINES OBJECTS 52
VII THE FIRST LINE-UP 61
VIII LANGRIDGE AND GERHART PLOT 70
IX SOME GIRLS 77
X A BOTTLE OF LINIMENT 91
XI IN WHICH SOM EONE BECOMES A VICTIM 100
XII THE FIRST GAME 106
XIII SMASHING THE LINE 117
XIV "GIRLS ARE QUEER" 123
XV PHIL SAVES WALLOPS 131
XVI PHIL IS NERVOUS 138
XVII THE SOPHOMORES LOSE 144
XVIII A FIRE ALARM 155
XIX THE FRESHMEN DANCE 162
XX PHIL GETS A TELEGRAM 172
XXI STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 179
XXII A CHANGE IN SIGNALS 187
XXIII BATTERING BOXER HALL 195
XXIV GERHART HAS AN IDEA 210
XXV PHIL GIVES UP 217
XXVI SID IS BOGGED 224
XXVII WOES OF A NATURALIST 233
XXVIII TOM IS JEALOUS 239
XXIX A STRANGE DISCOVERY 246
XXX A BITTER ENEMY 254
XXXI "IT'S TOO LATE TO BACK OUT!" 260
XXXII TOM GETS A TIP 265
XXXIII "LINE UP!" 273
XXXIV THE GAME 280
XXXV VICTORY--CONCLUSION 287
A QUARTER-BACK'S PLUCK
CHAPTER I
MOVING DAY
Phil Clinton looked critically at the rickety old sofa. Then he glanced
at his chum, Tom Parsons. Next he lifted, very cautiously, one end of
the antiquated piece of furniture. The sofa bent in the middle, much as
does a ship with a broken keel.
"It--it looks like a mighty risky job to move it, Tom," said Phil. "It's
broken right through the center."
"I guess it is," admitted Tom sorrowfully. Then he lifted the head of
the sofa, and warned by an ominous creaking, he lowered it gently to the
floor of the college room which he and his chum, Sid Henderson, were
about to leave, with the assistance of Phil Clinton to help them move.
"Poor old sofa," went on Tom. "You've had a hard life. I'm afraid your
days are numbered."
"But you're not going to leave it here, for some measly freshman to lie
on, are you, Tom?" asked Phil anxiously.
"Not much!" was the quick response.
"Nor the old chair?"
"Nope!"
"Nor the alarm clock?"
"Never! Even if it doesn't keep time, and goes off in the middle of the
night. No, Phil, we'll take 'em along to our new room. But, for the life
of me, I don't see how we're going to move that sofa. It will collapse
if we lift both ends at once."
"I suppose so, but we've got to take it, even if we move it in sections,
Tom."
"Of course, only I don't see----"
"I have it!" cried Phil suddenly. "I know how to do it!"
"How?"
"Splice it."
"Splice it? What do you think it is--a rope ladder? You must be in love,
or getting over the measles."
"No, I mean just what I say. We'll splice it. You wait. I'll go down
cellar, and get some pieces of board from the janitor. Also a hammer and
some nails. We'll save the old sofa yet, Tom."
"All right, go ahead. More power to ye, as Bricktop Molloy would say. I
wonder if he's coming back this term?"
"Yep. Post graduate course, I hear. He wouldn't miss the football team
for anything. Well, you hold down things here until I come back. If the
new freshmen who are to occupy this room come along, tell 'em we'll be
moved by noon."
"I doubt it; but go ahead. I'll try to be comfortable until your return,
dearest," and with a mocking smile Tom Parsons sank down into an easy
chair that threatened to collapse under his substantial bulk. From the
faded cushions a cloud of dust arose, and set Tom to sneezing so hard
that the old chair creaked and rattled, as if it would fall apart.
"Easy! Easy there, old chap!" exclaimed the tall, good-looking lad, as
he peered on either side of the seat. "Don't go back on me now. You'll
soon have a change of climate, and maybe that will be good for your old
bones."
He settled back, stuck his feet out before him, and gazed about the
room. It was a very much dismantled apartment. In the center was piled
a collection of baseball bats, tennis racquets, boxing gloves, foils,
catching gloves, a football, some running trousers, a couple of
sweaters, and a nondescript collection of books. There were also a
couple of trunks, while, flanking the pile, was the old sofa and the arm
chair. On top of all the alarm clock was ticking comfortably away, as
happy as though moving from one college dormitory to another was a most
matter-of-fact proceeding. The hands pointed to one o'clock, when it
was, as Tom ascertained by looking at his watch, barely nine; but a
little thing like that did not seem to give the clock any concern.
"I do hope Phil can rig up some scheme so we can move the sofa,"
murmured the occupant of the easy chair. "That's like part of ourselves
now. It will make the new room seem more like home. I wonder where Sid
can be? This is more of his moving than it is Phil's, but Sid always
manages to get out of hard work. Phil is anxious to room with us, I
guess."
Tom Parsons stretched his legs out a little farther, and let his gaze
once more roam about the room. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, as
his eye caught sight of something on the wall.
"Came near forgetting that," he said as he arose, amid another cloud of
dust from the chair, and removed from a spot on the wall, behind the
door, the picture of a pretty girl. "I never put that there," he went
on, as he wiped the dust from the photograph, and turned it over to look
at the name written on the back--Madge Tyler. "Sid must have done that
for a joke. He thought I'd forget it, and leave it for some freshy to
make fun of. Not much! I got ahead of you that time, Sid, my boy. Queer
how he doesn't like girls," added Tom, with the air of an expert. "Well,
probably it's just as well he doesn't take too much to Madge, for----"
But Tom's musings, which were getting rather sentimental, were
interrupted by the entrance of Phil Clinton. Phil had under one arm some
boards, while in one hand he carried a hammer, and in the other some
nails.
"Just the cheese," he announced. "Now we'll have this thing fixed up in
jig time. Hasn't Sid Henderson showed up?"
"No. I guess he's over to the new room. He took his books and left some
time ago. Maybe he's studying."
"Not much!" exclaimed Phil. "I wish he'd come and help move. Some of
this stuff is his."
"Most of it is. I'm glad you're going to help, or I'd never have the
courage to shift. Well, let's get the sofa fixed. I doubt if we can make
it hold together, though."
"Yes, we can. I'll show you."
Phil went to work in earnest. He was an athletic-looking chap, of
generous size, and one of the best runners at Randall College. He was
one of Tom Parson's particular chums, the other being Sidney Henderson.
Tom and Sid, of whom more will be told presently, had roomed together
during their freshman year at Randall, and Phil's apartment was not far
away. Toward the close of the term the three boys were much together,
Phil spending more time in the room of Tom and Sid than he did in his
own. In this way he became very much attached to the old chair and sofa,
which formed two of the choicest possessions of the lads.
With the opening of the new term, when the freshmen had become more or
less dignified sophomores, Phil had proposed that he and his two chums
shift to a large room in the west dormitory, where the majority of the
sophomores and juniors lived. His plan was enthusiastically adopted by
Sid and Tom, and, as soon as they had arrived at college, ready for the
beginning of the term, moving day had been instituted. But Sid, after
helping Tom get their possessions in a pile in the middle of the room
they were about to leave, had disappeared, and Phil, enthusiastic about
getting his two best friends into an apartment with him, had come over
to aid Tom.
"Now, you see," went on Phil, "I'll nail this board along the front edge
of the sofa--so."
"But don't you think, old chap--and I know you'll excuse my mentioning
it," said Tom--"don't you think that it rather spoils, well, we'll say
the artistic beauty of it?"
"Artistic fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Phil. "Of course it does! But it's
the only way to hold it together."
"One could, I suppose, put a sort of drapery--flounce, I believe, is
the proper word--over it," went on Tom. "That would hide the unsightly
board."
"I don't care whether it's hid or not!" exclaimed Phil. "But if you
don't get down here and help hold this end, while I nail the other, I
know what's going to happen."
"What?" asked Tom, as he carefully put in his pocket the photograph of
the pretty girl.
"Well, you'll have a mob of howling freshmen in here, and there won't be
any sofa left."
"Perish the thought!" cried Tom, and then he set to work in earnest
helping Phil.
"Now a board on the back," said the amateur carpenter, and for a few
minutes he hammered vigorously.
"It's a regular anvil chorus," remarked Tom.
"Here, no knocking!" exclaimed his chum. "Now let's see if it's stiff
enough."
Anxiously he raised one end of the sofa. There was no sagging in the
middle this time.
"It's like putting a new keel on a ship!" cried the inventor of the
scheme gaily. "A few more nails, and it will do. Do you think the chair
will stand shifting?"
"Oh, yes. That's like the 'one-horse shay'--it'll hold together until it
flies apart by spontaneous combustion. You needn't worry about that."
Phil proceeded to drive a few more nails in the boards he had attached
to the front and back of the sofa. Then he got up to admire his work.
"I call that pretty good, Tom; don't you?" he asked.
The two chums drew back to the farther side of the room to get the
effect.
"Yes, I guess with a ruffle or two, a little insertion, and a bit of old
lace, it will hide the fractured places, Phil. It's a pity----"
"Here, what are you scoundrels doing to my old sofa?" exclaimed a voice.
"Vandals! How dare you spoil that antique?" and another lad entered the
room. "Say, why didn't you put new legs on it, insert new springs, and
cover it over while you were about it?" he asked sarcastically.
"Because, you old fossil, we _had_ to put those boards on," said Tom.
"Where have you been, Sid? Phil and I were getting ready to move without
you."
"Oh, I've been cleaning out the new room we're going into. The juniors
who were there last term must have tried to raise vegetables in it,
judging by the amount of dirt I found. But it's all right now."
"Good! Now if you'll catch hold here, we'll move the old sofa first. The
rest will be easy."
Sid Henderson grasped the head of the couch, while Tom took the foot.
Phil acted as general manager, and steadied it on the side.
"Easy now, easy boys," he cautioned, as they moved toward the door
leading to the hall.