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RIGHT GUARD GRANT
* * * * * *
THE FOOTBALL ELEVEN BOOKS
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
LEFT END EDWARDS
LEFT TACKLE THAYER
LEFT GUARD GILBERT
CENTER RUSH ROWLAND
FULL-BACK FOSTER
QUARTER-BACK BATES
LEFT HALF HARMON
RIGHT END EMERSON
RIGHT GUARD GRANT
* * * * * *
[Illustration: Then it was that Leonard had his great moment]
RIGHT GUARD GRANT
by
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
Author of
Left End Edwards,
Full-Back Foster,
Right End Emerson, etc.
Illustrated by Leslie Crump
[Illustration]
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers New York
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1923,
By Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.
Printed in the U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I CAPTAIN AND COACH 1
II TWO IN A TAXI 12
III ENTER MR. ELDRED CHICHESTER STAPLES 25
IV LEONARD GETS PROMOTION 35
V THE BOY ON THE PORCH 49
VI THE SEASON BEGINS 61
VII JUST ONE OF THE SUBS 74
VIII A STRANGE RESEMBLANCE 91
IX LEONARD MAKES A TACKLE 102
X THE SECOND TEAM COMES OVER 111
XI ALTON SEEKS REVENGE 122
XII VICTORY HARD WON 137
XIII AN EVENING CALL 147
XIV MR. CADE MAKES AN ENTRY 159
XV A TIP FROM MCGRATH 171
XVI FIRST TRICK TO THE ENEMY 187
XVII SLIM RETREATS 198
XVIII LEONARD COMES TO THE PARTY 208
XIX NOT ELIGIBLE 219
XX RIGHT GUARD GRANT 233
XXI RENNEKER EXPLAINS 245
XXII BEFORE THE BATTLE 260
XXIII “FIFTY-FIFTY!” 276
ILLUSTRATIONS
Then it was that Leonard had his great moment _Frontispiece_
PAGE
There was another half-hour for each squad with the
tackling dummies 62
“That wouldn’t be playing the game,” he answered 210
On the same play he got one more 282
RIGHT GUARD GRANT
CHAPTER I
CAPTAIN AND COACH
Although the store had reopened for business only that morning several
customers had already been in and out, and when the doorway was
again darkened momentarily Russell Emerson looked up from his task
of marking football trousers with merely perfunctory interest. Then,
however, since the advancing figure, silhouetted flatly against the hot
September sunlight of the wide-open door, looked familiar, he eased his
long legs over the edge of the counter and strode to meet it.
“Hello, Cap!” greeted the visitor. The voice was unmistakable, and, now
that the speaker had left the sunlight glare behind him, so too was the
perspiring countenance.
“Mr. Cade!” exclaimed Russell. “Mighty glad to see you, sir. When did
you get in?”
Coach Cade lifted himself to the counter and fanned himself with a
faded straw hat. “About two hours ago. Unpacked, had a bath and here I
am. By jove, Emerson, but it’s hot!”
“Is it?”
“‘Is it?’” mimicked the other. “Don’t you know it is?” Then he laughed.
“Guess I was a fool to get out of that bath tub, but I wanted to have
a chat with you, and I’m due at Doctor McPherson’s this evening.” He
stopped fanning his reddened face and tossed his hat atop a pile of
brown canvas trousers beside him. “Johnny” Cade was short of stature,
large-faced and broad in a compact way. In age he was still under
thirty. He had a pleasantly mild voice that was at startling variance
with his square, fighting chin, his sharp eyes and the mop of very
black and bristle-like hair that always reminded Russell of a shoe
brush. The mild voice continued after a moment, while the sharp eyes
roamed up and down the premises. “Got things fixed up here pretty
nicely,” he observed commendingly. “Looks as businesslike as any
sporting goods store I know. Branched out, too, haven’t you?” He nodded
across to where three bicycles, brave in blue-and-tan and red-and-white
enamel, leaned.
“Yes,” answered Russell. “We thought we might try those. They’re just
samples. ‘Stick’ hasn’t recovered from the shock of my daring yet.”
Russell laughed softly. “Stick’s nothing if not conservative, you
know.”
“Stick? Oh, yes, that’s Patterson, your partner here.” Mr. Cade’s
glance swept the spaces back of the counters.
“He’s over at the express office trying to trace some goods that ought
to have shown up three days ago,” explained Russell. “How have you been
this summer, sir?”
“Me? Oh, fine. Been working pretty hard, though.” The coach’s mind
seemed not to be on his words, however, and he added: “Say, that
blue-and-yellow wheel over there is certainly a corker. We didn’t have
them as fine as that when I was a kid.” He got down and walked across
to examine the bicycle. Russell followed.
“It is good-looking, isn’t it? Better let me sell you one of those,
sir. Ought to come in mighty handy following the squads around the
field!”
Coach Cade grinned as he leaned the wheel back in its place with
evident regret. “Gee, I suppose I’d break my silly neck if I tried to
ride one of those things now. I haven’t been on one of them for ten
years. Sort of wish I were that much younger, though, and could run
around on that, Cap!”
“You’d pick it up quickly enough,” said Russell as he again perched
himself on the counter. “Riding a bicycle’s like skating, Mr. Cade: it
comes back to you.”
“Yes, I dare say,” replied the other dryly. “Much the same way, I
guess. Last time I tried to skate I nearly killed myself. What are you
trying to do? Get a new football coach here?”
Russell laughed. “Nothing like that, sir. What we need isn’t a new
coach, I guess, but a new team.”
“H’m, yes, that’s pretty near so. I was looking over the list this
morning on the train and, well--” He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“Looks like building from the ground up, eh?”
“Only three left who played against Kenly.”
“Three or four. Still, we have got some good material in sight, Cap.
I wouldn’t wonder if we had a team before the season’s over.” The
coach’s eyes twinkled, and Russell smiled in response. He had a very
nice smile, a smile that lighted the quiet brown eyes and deepened the
two creases leading from the corners of a firm mouth to the sides of
a short nose. Russell Emerson was eighteen, a senior at Alton Academy
this year and, as may have been surmised, captain of the football team.
“Seen any of the crowd lately?” asked the coach.
“No. I ran across ‘Slim’ once in August. He was on a sailboat trying to
get up the Hudson; he and three other chaps. I don’t think they ever
made it.”
“Just loafing, I suppose,” sighed the coach. “I dare say not one of
them has seen a football since spring practice ended.”
“Well, I don’t believe Slim had one with him,” chuckled Russell. “I
guess I ought to confess that I haven’t done very much practicing
myself, sir. I was working most of the time. Dad has a store, and he
rather looks to me to give him a hand in summer.”
“You don’t need practice the way some of the others do,” said Mr. Cade.
“Well, we’ll see. By the way, we’re getting that fellow Renneker, from
Castle City High.”
“Renneker? Gordon Renneker you mean?” asked Russell in surprise.
Mr. Cade nodded. “That’s the fellow. A corking good lineman, Cap. Made
the Eastern All-Scholastic last year and the year before that. Played
guard last season. If he’s half the papers say he is he ought to fill
in mighty well in Stimson’s place.”
“How did we happen to get him?” asked Russell interestedly.
“Oh, it’s all straight, if that’s what you’re hinting at,” was the
answer. “You know I don’t like ‘jumpers.’ They’re too plaguy hard to
handle, generally. Besides, there’s the ethics of the thing. No, we’re
getting Renneker honestly. Seems that he and Cravath are acquainted,
and Cravath went after him. Landed him, too, it seems. Cravath wrote
me in July that Renneker would be along this fall, and just to make
sure I dropped a line to Wharton, and Wharton wrote back that Renneker
had registered. So I guess it’s certain enough.”
“Well, that’s great,” said Russell. “I remember reading about Gordon
Renneker lots of times. If we have him on one side of Jim Newton and
Smedley on the other, sir, we’ll have a pretty good center trio for a
start.”
“Newton? Well, yes, perhaps. There’s Garrick, too, you know, Cap.”
“Of course, but I thought Jim--”
“He looks good, but I never like to place them until I’ve seen them
work, Emerson. Place them seriously I mean. Of course, you have to make
up a team on paper just to amuse yourself. Here’s one I set down this
morning. I’ll bet you, though, that there won’t be half of them where
I’ve got them now when the season’s three weeks old!”
Russell took the list and read it: “Gurley, Butler, Smedley, Garrick,
Renneker, Wilde, Emerson, Carpenter, Goodwin, Kendall, Greenwood.”
He smiled. “I see you’ve got me down, sir. You’re dead wrong in two
places, though.”
“Only two? Which two? Oh, yes, center. What other?”
“Well, I like ‘Red’ Reilly instead of, say, Kendall. And I’ll bet
you’ll see Slim playing one end or the other before long.”
Mr. Cade accepted the paper and tucked it away in a pocket again.
“Well, I said this was just for amusement,” he observed, untroubled.
“There may be some good material coming in that we haven’t heard of,
too. You never know where you’ll find a prize. Were any of last year’s
freshmen promising?”
“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t see much of the youngsters.”
“Seen Tenney yet?”
“Yes, he blew in this morning. He’s going to make a good manager, I
think.”
“Hope so. Did he say anything about the schedule?”
“Yes, he said it was all fixed. Hillsport came around all right. I
don’t see what their kick was, anyway.”
“Wanted a later date because they held us to a tie last season,” said
the coach, smiling.
“Gee, any one could have tied us about the time we played Hillsport!
That was during that grand and glorious slump.”
“Grand and glorious indeed!” murmured the coach. “Let’s hope there’ll
never be another half so grand! Well, I’ll get along, I guess. By
the way--” Mr. Cade hesitated. Then: “I hope this store isn’t going
to interfere too much with football, Emerson. Mustn’t let it, eh?
Good captains are scarce, son, and I’d hate to see one spoiled
by--er--outside interests, so to speak. Don’t mind my mentioning it, do
you?”
“Not a mite, sir. You needn’t worry. I’m putting things in shape here
so that Stick can take the whole thing on his own shoulders. I’m not
going to have anything to do with this shop until we’ve licked Kenly
Hall.”
“Good stuff! See you to-morrow, then. Practice at three, Cap, no matter
what the weather’s like. I guess a lot of those summer loafers will
be the better for losing five or six pounds of fat! And about this
Renneker, Cap. If you run across him it might be a good idea to sort of
make yourself acquainted and--er--look after him a bit. You know what I
mean. Start him off with a good impression of us, and all that.”
Russell chuckled. “It’s a great thing to bring a reputation with you,
isn’t it?” he asked.
“Eh?” The coach smiled a trifle sheepishly. “Oh, well, I don’t care
what you do with him,” he declared. “Chuck him down the well if you
like. No reason why we should toady to him, and that’s a fact. I only
thought that--”
“Right-o!” laughed Russell. “Leave him to me, sir. Can’t sell you a
bicycle then?”
“Huh,” answered Mr. Cade, moving toward the door, “if you supply the
team with its outfits and stuff this fall I guess you won’t need to
sell me a bicycle to show a profit! See you to-morrow, Cap!”
In front of the store, under the gayly-hued escutcheon bearing the
legend: Sign of the Football, Mr. Cade paused to shake hands with
a tall, thin youth with curly brown hair above gray eyes, a rather
large nose and a broad mouth who, subsequent to the football coach’s
departure, entered the store hurriedly, announcing as he did so: “They
can’t find it, Rus! The blamed thing’s just plain vanished. What’ll we
do? Telegraph or what?”
“I’ll write them a letter,” replied Russell calmly. “I dare say the
stuff will show up to-morrow.”
“Sure,” agreed Stick Patterson sarcastically. “It’s been turning up
to-morrow for three days and it might as well go on turning-- What was
Johnny after?”
“Just wanted to talk over a few things. Give me a hand with this truck,
will you? I want to get in an hour’s practice before supper. Bring some
more tags along. Where’s the invoice? Can you see it?”
“Yes, and so could you if you weren’t sitting on it. My, but it’s hot
over in that office! I suppose Johnny wasn’t awfully enthused over the
outlook, eh?”
“No-o, but he brought some good news, Stick. Ever hear of Gordon
Renneker?”
“No, who’s he?”
“He’s a gentleman who played football last year down on Long Island
with the Castle City High School team. Won everything in sight, I
think.”
“Who did? Runniger?”
“The team did. Renneker played guard; right guard, I guess; and got
himself talked about like a moving picture hero. Some player, they say.
Anyway, he’s coming here this fall.”
“Oh, joy! I’ll bet you anything you like he’ll turn out a lemon, like
that chap Means, or whatever his name was, two years ago. Remember?
The school got all het up about him. He was the finest thing that ever
happened--until he’d been around here a couple of weeks. After that no
one ever heard of him. He didn’t even hold a job with the second!”
“I guess Renneker’s in a different class,” responded Russell. “They put
him down on the All-Scholastic last fall, anyway, Stick.”
“All right. Hope he turns out big. But I never saw one of these stars
yet that didn’t have something wrong with him. If he really could play,
why, he was feeble-minded. Or if he had all his brains working smooth
he had something else wrong with him. No stars in mine, thanks! Shove
the ink over here. How about dressing the windows? Want me to do it?”
“Sure. Want you to do everything there is to be done, beginning with
twelve o’clock midnight to-night. That’s the last. Pile them up and
let’s get out of here. It’s after five. If you’ll come over to the
field with me for an hour I’ll buy your supper, Stick. And the exercise
will do you good!”