four nights as it is! How can I sleep now?"
"Hey, Phil!" cried Milt, insinuatingly. "I'll fix this bird. Where's
the monkey wrench?"
It was a quarter to one o'clock before a familiar looking runabout
appeared in front of the MacDaniel Dormitory and the door popped open
to let a highly exasperated and greatly worried athletic figure out.
There was not a sign of another soul upon the campus, nor was there a
light visible save the flickering street lamps.
"Coast is clear!" whispered Milt. "Awfully sorry, old boy, but nobody
will be any the wiser. You sneak in to your room and...!"
"Hello, there!" sounded a voice. "Is that you, Speed?"
"Blue murder!" exclaimed an agonized fellow, under his breath, as he
cringed against the side of the car. "That's Coach now!"
"It can't be!" said Phil, punching Milt knowingly with his elbow.
"What would Coach be doing out this time of night?"
There were the sounds of footsteps approaching.
"Make a break for it!" advised Milt, hoarsely.
"I can't," moaned Speed. "I--I'm caught--cold!"
"Well!" addressed Coach Brock, as he got within real hailing distance.
"Is this the time for you to be turning in? Who are these chaps with
you?... Oh, yes--I see. Doran and Gleeson. Where have you been?"
"It's all our fault, Coach," Phil spoke up. "Milt and I took Speed
over to see the Rockne picture at Ashby and ... and our car broke down
on the way back."
"I've heard that story before," was Coach Brock's unfeeling reply.
"What did I tell you, Speed, about being in by ten o'clock?"
"But, sir ... I ... er ... it was unavoidable," stammered Medford's
star half-back. "I fully intended ..."
"Sorry, Speed!" cut short the Coach, severely. "Orders are orders.
I'd like to make an exception but this wouldn't be fair to the other
members of the squad. From now on you're under suspension and this act
removes you from the game on Saturday!"
"No, Coach, no!" pleaded Speed. "You can't keep me out ... not for
this! It's the first time I ever broke regulations and it wasn't
intentional...!"
"Then why were you trying to sneak in the house?" demanded Coach Brock.
"You didn't intend to report this infraction to me did you?"
"Well, er ... don't suppose I did," Speed was forced to confess. "I
was afraid maybe you wouldn't understand."
"Hmm! It's a good thing I worked late at the office tonight," was the
Coach's comment. "As it is, I understand only too perfectly. You'll
turn in your suit tomorrow!"
Medford campus was thrown in a turmoil the next day, which was Tuesday,
with the news of Speed Bartlett's suspension. The report was first
treated as a rumor but when a crestfallen Speed himself would not deny
it and when he did not appear on the field for practice, the awful
truth finally dawned.
"It's good-bye game now!" mourned Medford fans. "Did you hear what
Coach kicked Speed off the team for? Being out late! Can you fathom
that? And Speed had a good reason, too ... he was in a car that broke
down."
A wave of indignation swept the college that the star player should be
ruled out of the big game of the year on a technicality, but Coach
Brock, in issuing a brief statement, stood by his guns, declaring that
discipline was necessary and the owners of the car, on further
cross-examination, could not prove that anything was or had been wrong
with the car. It was natural that such an excuse would be offered when
the fellows were caught flat-footed. But none of the three, under
questioning, would tell where they had been after leaving the theatre
at Ashby.
The affect of Speed's removal on his fellow team members was to
eliminate any possible tendencies toward over-confidence. In its stead
a grim determination was born. Medford would have to make up for the
loss of its star by a greater fighting spirit.
Speed himself, as disappointed as he was, suddenly discovered that his
appetite had returned. Stomach muscles which had contracted under the
nervous anticipation of the coming conflict, now relaxed and set up a
cry for food to work upon. And, while Speed no longer reported to the
training table, it was observed by a spying Phil and Milt that he ate
abundantly but wisely.
"Coach sure knows his psychology," Milt said to Phil as they were
crossing the campus the day before the game. "All that was the matter
with Speed was a bad case of nerves...."
At the moment of this remark, the fellow in question was hurrying in an
attempt to overtake his two friends, and had just gotten within
earshot. Discovering that he was being talked about, Speed lagged
curiously behind.
"Speed's got sand all right," he overheard Phil say. "But he worries
too much before hand. You can imagine how bad it must have been for
the training table with Speed sitting there like a guy with a load of
lead in his stomach. The whole eleven's better off. It's a blow to
have Speed suspended but Medford'll take the field tomorrow with a
world of fight.
"And when Coach sends Speed into the game--maybe Medford spirit won't
rise sky high!" chuckled Milt. "Boy, I guess maybe we didn't play our
parts to perfection! We ought to get letters for this!"
Medford's star halfback stopped in his tracks and let his two friends
continue on their way, not realizing that he was anywhere near them.
He was burning with humiliation and resentment. So--this had all been
a put-up job! Coach Brock had enlisted the services of his two chums
to frame him ... to save his nerve for the big battle!
"I'll go to the Coach and tell him what I think of him!" was Speed's
first reaction.
But more sober thought decided Speed against this step. There was
truth in what Phil and Milt had said about him. He had been painfully
conscious of his feelings toward the coming game. Even now, since he
knew that Coach Brock intended reinstating him at the last moment, all
the old nervous symptoms had returned, worse than ever. There was that
heavy feeling in his stomach, the quickening of his pulse, the strained
sensation in his head....
"I guess I wasn't such a good influence around the fellows in this
condition," Speed reflected glumly. "But Coach put me off the team and
I'm going to stay off the team. I'll fix him--I'll leave town tonight
so he _can't_ get hold of me!"
Saturday morning found the campus of Medford alive with old grads and
loud-mouthed Hamilton rooters who told everyone who would listen, in no
uncertain terms, what their eleven was going to do to the home team.
"Too bad your star is out of the game!" Hamilton lamented. "You'll be
using that for an alibi--but we'd have beaten you either way!"
At noon, Coach Brock sent word by second team member, Kinky Doyle, that
Speed Bartlett was to report to him at once. The Varsity had just left
training table, having had an early lunch. In two hours they would be
dressing for the game.
"Hey, Coach!" cried an excited Kinky fifteen minutes later. "I've just
come from Speed's room. He's not there ... but I found this
note--addressed to you!"
Coach Brock took the note, wonderingly, opened it, and read:
To Coach Brock,
Medford College,
Medford.
Dear Sir:
Since I have been removed from the team, I couldn't bear to stay and
see the game, so I have left town.
Yours,
Speed.
"Great jumping Jehoshaphat!" swore Coach Brock, crumpling the paper.
"The boy's gone crazy! Get hold of Doran and Gleeson at once!"
"Yes, sir!" blinked a wondering Kinky Doyle, hurrying off.
With Phil and Milt delivered to him, post haste, Coach Brock took them
privately aside and showed them the note. Phil gasped and Milt
whistled.
"Where would Speed have gone?" demanded the coach.
"I haven't the slightest idea," replied Milt. "Have you, Phil?"
"There's four different directions," Phil answered. "And one's as good
as another!"
"Well, you've got to find him!" the Coach ordered. "You got him in
this mess!"
"_Us?_" mumbled Phil and Milt, all but overcome.
"Don't argue!" snapped the Coach. "Get out and hunt him up! If Speed
Bartlett doesn't play today, the game's as good as lost!"
"End of first half!" cried the radio announcer. "And what a game this
has been!... But Hamilton's great team is proving too much for Medford
today. They're out in front, two touchdowns, thirteen to nothing,
which just about indicates the difference in playing strength.
Medford's offensive hasn't been able to get going ... no doubt due to
the loss of their backfield star, Speed Bartlett... Stand by, folks,
we're to have a word now from Coach Brock of Medford...!"
There was a moment of prickling silence, then the sound of someone
clearing a husky throat.
"I hope you will pardon me, radio football fans, for this brief
intrusion," spoke Coach Brock. "But I am addressing this appeal to
Speed Bartlett with the hope that he may be within the reach of my
voice. I herewith apologize to him. Further ... er ... facts have
just come to light in regard to his violation of the rules and were he
here in Medford today he would be offered his place in the line-up. It
is self-evident that Medford needs him...!"
A certain young man, standing in front of a radio store in Ashby,
waited to hear no more. He rushed over to a taxi stand at the curb and
hailed a driver who had been listening in on the game.
"What'll you charge to take me to Medford?"
The taxi driver almost fell from his seat.
"That's a fifteen dollar ride, son!"
"Okay!" accepted Speed, "And there's an extra five in it for you if you
break all records getting there!"
"Have you got that much money?" asked the driver, incredulously.
"No," answered Speed, truthfully. "But Coach Brock has...!"
"Oh--be you Speed Bartlett?" exclaimed the driver, starting his car.
"Suffering cats, boy! Then I'm gonna turn this old bus into a flyin'
machine!"
"Good!" cried Speed, jumping in. "Oh--wait a second! I want to run in
this telegraph office!"
A messenger boy, twenty minutes later, with the third quarter about
four minutes under way, reached Coach Brock's side. The coach was
intent upon the game inasmuch as his team was being pushed once more
into the shadow of its own goal posts. Hardly realizing what he was
doing, he took the yellow envelope and thrust it in a side pocket.
"Hey, Coach!" cried a substitute, grabbing his mentor by the arm.
"That was a telegram!"
"Read it to me!" snapped Coach Brock, handing the wire over and not
taking his eyes off the field.
The sub slit the envelope open and gazed at the message in bewilderment.
"Why--why--this is funny!" he exclaimed. "There's no name signed or
anything--just one word...!"
"What is it?" asked the Coach. "Hold 'em out there! What's the matter
with you fellows? Gordon, go in for Ochs at left tackle!... What did
you say that one word was...?"
"The word is '_coming_'!" announced the substitute.
Coach Brock whirled, interest quickening, and seized the yellow piece
of paper.
"_Coming?_" he repeated. "Coming?... By George--this is from that
goofy Speed Bartlett!... Jerry, you go in for Maltby at right guard.
Get Pete to take a time-out and tell the team that Speed's on the way
here. Tell those guys to buck up! Speed'll be in the game now ...
he's due any minute!"
A second substitute raced out on the field and Coach Brock now
excitedly examined the telegraph blank.
"Ashby!" he groaned, as he saw the office from which the wire was sent.
"Twenty miles... He had ten minutes of the intermission minutes for
time-outs ... plus two minutes' for the third quarter plus another ten
to fifteen minutes for time-outs ... plus two minutes' intermission
between quarters ... how much does that make? Can he get here before
the game's over?... Why did that galoot have to go so far away?...
Come on, team--the old fight!"
News that their backfield star was due to appear any second proved a
tremendous bracer to a beaten team. Medford braced on her ten yard
line and held the mighty Hamilton for downs, then punted out of danger.
Medford did even more than this. As the third quarter drew to a close,
she drove deep into Hamilton territory on her first sustained offensive
of the day.
"Save the game for Speed!" became the slogan. "Put the old ball in
scoring position!"
But the fourth quarter got under way with no sign of Speed Bartlett and
Coach Brock was forced to wave a yellow slip of paper as proof that he
hadn't been pulling a ruse on his team.
"He's coming!" the coach megaphoned. "This wire says so!"
"He must be coming from Florida!" growled quarterback Pete Slade.
"Let's go, guys!... Maybe we can score without him!"
A taxi suddenly wheezed into the stadium, steam and water frothing from
the radiator, the cap of which had been blown off. A figure leaped
from the taxi before it had come to a stop and went racing toward the
Medford bench. A section of the Medford crowd recognized the figure
and set up a great hue and cry. The Medford team, hearing the
outburst, immediately called for "Time out!"
"Pay this man twenty bucks!" Speed panted, pointing to the taxi driver,
as Coach Brock embraced him, wildly. "How about my togs?"
"They're right here!" said the Coach. "Gather around him, you fellows.
He'll have to change on the field ... no time to chase to the locker
room!"
Clothes were fairly thrown at Medford's star halfback and willing hands
helped strip him while other willing hands, almost too willing, fairly
jerked on his moleskins. Meanwhile Coach Brock had shoved two ten
dollar bills in the taxi driver's hand, wrapped a blanket around him
and pushed him down on the bench alongside the substitutes.
"What's he doing this for?" asked the bewildered driver.
"Don't know," grinned the sub next him. "If he finds he needs you,
he'll probably send you into the game!"
The time-out period exhausted, Medford resumed play with third down and
eight to go on Hamilton's fifteen yard mark. But, so stimulating was
the knowledge that Speed Bartlett was actually on the field, Medford
opened up a hole which sent quarterback Pete Slade galloping through
for a first down!
And then the top of the stadium all but lifted as Speed dashed out on
the gridiron, buckling his belt. Team-mates greeted him like a long
lost brother and Medford went into a huddle. The stands were in an
uproar. Fullback Ned Turner went through for two yards to Hamilton's
five yard mark.
There was nothing nervous about Speed Bartlett as he crouched in his
position, waiting to hear his signal called. He had been given so much
to think about on his wild ride from Ashby to Medford that the nerve
strain had left him. He was coldly calm and grimly determined,
obsessed with a desire to make up for lost time. An enthused Medford,
having taken a severe battering from Hamilton earlier in the game, now
tore into the enemy and made a slicing opening for her backfield star
who flashed through and over the line for a touchdown on his first play.
Phil and Milt, just entering the stadium after a fruitless search for
Speed, could not believe their eyes as they looked out on the gridiron.
"What's Coach been doing--kidding us?" they gasped. "Speed's been in
the game all the time!"
Greater cheers as Speed kicked goal for extra point and the scoreboard
changed to read: Hamilton, 13, Medford, 7.
"Six more minutes to play!" someone announced, hysterically. "Do it
again, Speed, old boy!"
Team members exchanged words with Speed as they lined up to kick off to
Hamilton.
"Boy, we thought you'd never get here!"
"So did I!" Speed grinned. "Been softening Hamilton up for me all this
time, eh? Well, let's get another touchdown!"
A worried Hamilton, receiving the kick-off, was downed on her
twenty-two yard mark. But three yards were gained on two tries and
Hamilton punted, desperately resolved to hold the touchdown lead to the
finish. It was Medford's ball on her own thirty-three yard line. But
Medford now was playing with a frenzy and yet with a precision which it
had not shown all season. Mixing line plays, end runs and lateral
passes, with Speed Bartlett being given the ball three-fourths of the
time, quarterback Pete Slade drove his warriors down to Hamilton's
twenty yard mark with two minutes remaining.
"Listen, fellows!" said Speed, in a huddle, "I saw a play in a movie
the other day ... one of Knute Rockne's ... and there's a weakness in
Hamilton's line ... right where this play's supposed to go. It's an
off-tackle smash ... and if the man with the ball gets through into the
open field it's almost impossible to stop him...!"
"Give us the dope!" ordered quarterback Slade. "We're entitled to one
more time-out!"
"Now what's Speed up to?" wondered Coach Brock, who, for the past five
minutes had been biting off fingernails at a rapid rate. "Looks to me
like he's been knocked goofy and is delivering the boys an oration!"
With the calling of time the team snapped back into position and a new
formation took shape before an astounded Coach's eyes. The ball was
passed and a hole was suddenly cracked open off left tackle. Through
this hole a dashing Speed disappeared and then, as suddenly, reappeared
in the face of Hamilton's surprised secondary defense. Two would-be
tacklers were shunted out of the way by vicious Medford interference
and Speed side-stepped another. The rest of the way to the goal line
was unmolested and he romped across for his second touchdown of the
quarter to tie the score at thirteen all!
"I never gave the boys that play," said Coach Brock. "But it's vaguely
familiar. I've seen it some place before!"
"That play was shown in the Rockne picture!" informed a substitute.
Coach Brock blinked a moment, then put a hand to his head, staggered
dizzily, and sat down. But he did not remain seated long for Speed
Bartlett coolly toed the ball between the uprights for the point that
sent Medford into the lead, fourteen to thirteen, just as the gun
banged for the game's end, in one of the greatest last quarter finishes
ever witnessed in the home stadium.
Phil and Milt were the first wild-eyed rooters to reach Medford's star
halfback as other supporters swarmed on the field with one idea in
mind--to tear down the goal posts. They hoisted a protesting Speed on
their shoulders and hurried him across the field toward the Medford
bench.
"Why carry me this way?" Speed shouted, looking down at them. "How
about your car--is it broken down again?"
Something in the way Speed said this caused Phil and Milt to glance up
suspiciously.
"How did you get wise?" Phil wanted to know.
"Never mind!" rejoined Speed. "Keep moving! Don't let this crowd
catch me ... and keep me away from Coach Brock!..."
"Why?" gasped Milt. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing!" said Speed, "except I haven't had anything but a malted milk
all day--and I'm darned hungry!"
"Can you beat that!" groaned Phil. "Hold up your side of him, Milt!
He's getting darned heavy!... Here we've sacrificed ourselves to save
this guy's nerves ... and then, in this last five minutes, we get all
upset ourselves! My stomach's tied up in such a knot that I couldn't
even digest a soda wafer."
"Don't mention stomach to me," said Milt. "I'm a nervous wreck!"
"Hey!" shouted a jubilant Coach Brock, who saw that a gathering crowd
was carrying the star of the game in triumph to the locker room. "Wait
for me, Speed!" Then, grinningly, he held up a yellow slip of paper
and signalled with it. "Don't you see--you boob--I--I'm _coming_!"...
THE BRIGHT TOKEN
"Here, take this--it's your token of good luck," she had said. That
was twenty years ago, when she was a wistful, dark-eyed slip of a girl
and he a wiry, sandy-haired bundle of nerves that football authorities
insisted on dubbing the best quarterback in Harvard history, a man who
would certainly be accorded All-American honors at the conclusion of
the season.
It was a bare hour before the game that he had met her in a secluded
spot in the shadow of the stands. A cold rain was falling which, most
every one admitted, made a Yale victory look overwhelmingly certain.
He could remember how the delicately traced fingers had clung to the
lapel of his sweater, and how, when he had started to take leave of her
for the locker room, she had restrained him.
The fingers had gone to her throat, had fumbled there an instant, and
had undone the slip of a crimson bow which had been caught at the
collar of her waist. Tinglingly he could recall how she had commanded
him to hold out his right wrist, how sheepish he had felt when she had
tied the bow about it--and yet how proud! He had kissed it then and
she had laughed, a laugh of nervous admiration, and patted him on the
arm. And he had gathered her into one last, impulsive embrace and
whispered, "My darling wife!"
Ah, that was twenty years ago! Twenty years! And yet memory made it
yesterday; for to-day Carrington R. Davies was going back--back to the
scene of it all--back to witness the annual clash with the Yale
Bulldogs, and to sit in the stands where he would be pointed out as one
of Harvard's greatest old-time football heroes.
Every year since his graduation, C. R. D. had gone back on the occasion
of the Yale game--gone either to Cambridge or New Haven--and he
intended to keep on doing it as many years as he was permitted to draw
breath.
As Davies took the train at the Grand Central Station, New York, he
glanced apprehensively at the gray sky overhead and hoped that the
weather man who had prophesied rain was wrong. Harvard would need a
dry field this year to stand an even chance at winning. Her back field
was light, fast, and shifty. It depended on a quick get-away and a
sure under-footing. Yale's eleven was solid, heavy from end to end,
with a stubborn defense that had allowed but two touchdowns so far that
season, and a pile-driving back field that moved slowly but surely
behind a battering forward wall. If it rained, Davies reflected,
Harvard's last vestige of hope was due to be trampled in the mud.
And yet twenty years before, almost to the day, with a driving rain
falling and Yale dangerously near Harvard's goal in the last quarter,
the game locked in a grim nothing-nothing tie, a bespattered,
sandy-haired youth with a crimson bow encircling his right wrist, had
scooped up a fumble at his very goal line and dodged and slipped
through the whole Eli team for a frenzied touchdown.
The final score of that heart-blasting contest had been five to
nothing, and the sensational length-of-the-field run had clinched for
the Harvard quarterback his right to All-American honors. The feat was
talked about yet, wherever Harvard men gathered who had witnessed the
spectacle of victory jerked from the grinning jaws of defeat. At the
Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street, New York, Carrington frequently
ran into brother alumni who said, "I remember you when----" and then he
was forced to listen to their versions of his crowning football
achievement.
Davies found solace in going over old times. The Harvard Club was his
haven of refuge. He was one of the best known men there. To enter the
dining room was to nod to men at practically every table. There was a
joy in feeling that he was among friends; in having his praises sung to
younger grads by those who had chummed with him in college; to have his
football prowess perpetuated by retelling.
It was nothing to C. R. D. that he was recognized also as one of the
leading architects in New York City. He had worked hard the past
twenty years, but perhaps it was not so much because he had yearned to
go forward as it was to keep him from thinking too much on certain
closed incidents of his life.
At times, like this morning, he found himself trying to piece together
what his father, Martin S. Davies, would have told him had he not died
with the words on his lips. It was only four years back. The elder
Davies had been stricken suddenly while Carrington was in the West, and
a wire had brought the son on the first train. He was told, on
arrival, that the father was desperately ill; that he had held to the
weakening thread of life and consciousness because of a strong-willed
desire to impart some vital information to his son.
However, when Carrington Davies had been led into the sick room, the
father, overcome with emotion, died from the shock, his fingers
clutching the arms of his son, his eyes set upon his son's face, and
the words: "Your wife--I--she's at----" trailing off into the darkness
with him.