INTO THE FRAY
"Oh, you make me sick," came in another voice, lower-toned but angry,
the voice of Bill's older brother, Frank. "Do you think I'm going to
have a kid like you bossing me? The crowd's all right. They make a
lot of noise, that's all, and all the old crabs in town take turns in
picking on them."
As Garry backed out on the porch and was pulling the door shut behind
him he heard Bill say:
"That sounds just like Sandy Podder or Lent Stewart. You can think I'm
a crab all you like, Frank, but I'm telling you that if you don't leave
that bunch alone they'll get you in Dutch some day. That's as sure as
my name's Bill Sherwood."
Garry, once outside, pressed his finger on the bell button.
Bill himself answered the ring a moment later, his face wearing an
angry frown.
"Hello!" he said, his face clearing as he saw Garry. "Why didn't you
come right in? I left the door open on purpose."
Garry did not tell Bill that he had overheard part of the conversation
between him and Frank. But he thought of it a good deal during the day
and wished there were some way in which he might add his warning to
Bill's.
Ugly rumors of dirty work about Mooney's poolroom had been circulating
ever since the trouble over Mr. Podder's three thousand dollars that
had so mysteriously disappeared while in Sandy Podder's possession.
Garry's father was a lawyer, and Garry had heard at the home table of
many things unknown to his mates. A movement was taking form among the
better citizens of the town to have the poolroom wiped out as a public
nuisance. Garry felt with Bill that if Frank did not break with the
fast crowd that hung out at the resort he might soon find himself in
trouble, involved in some ugly scandal that might prove a bad blot on
his reputation.
However, in the days that followed Garry had a great deal to think
about besides Frank Sherwood's recklessness.
For football was in the air and engrossed all the time of the players
that could be spared from their studies.
On the day after the appointments for the two teams had been made, the
boys met in the gymnasium to don the suits they had brought with them,
eager for the feel of the gridiron under their feet and the pigskin in
their hands.
Coach Garwin was there, eyes alert and keen behind their half-closed
lids.
He assigned each boy a locker and directed them curtly to get into
their togs as soon as possible.
"That guy means business to-day," said Rooster to Garry, as he pulled
on his cleated shoes. "He'll make us work for our positions even on the
scrubs, let me tell you."
"And past reputations won't cut any ice with him," affirmed Nick.
"It matters not what once you were, it's what you are to-day," chanted
Ted.
"Well, we weren't so bad last year, and we ought to be better now,"
remarked Garry.
"To hear us tell it, yes," declared Nick. "But Coach Garwin's the
doctor now, and he may take a different view of the case."
Out on the gridiron in the crisp air and the bright sunshine the boys
found that Coach Garwin was a hard taskmaster. But they liked him and
worked beneath his forceful driving as they never had worked before.
"We'll have practice in punting, blocking, passing, and tackling
to-day," he announced. "Also we'll have a short scrimmage between the
two teams. But we'll postpone the real games until we've warmed to our
work a bit more. Now then, you fellows, I want you to show your stuff."
The boys went to work with a will. Under Mr. Garwin's direction they
broke up into groups of three and four, some blocking, some tackling,
others trying to place kick and punt.
The coach watched their work with a critical eye and caustic tongue. He
abused them far more liberally than he praised and for that reason the
boys worked like mad to get even the crumbs of his approbation.
Bill Sherwood was one of the first to be rasped by the rough edge of Al
Garwin's tongue.
Bill, while endeavoring with another boy to tackle a runner, made a
great leap for the flying knees, only to fall flat on his face in the
dust as the runner dodged. The miss was by only a fraction of an inch,
but still it was a miss.
The coach's scorn was scathing.
"That's one of the best examples of tackling I ever saw," he remarked,
as Bill picked himself up, red and sheepish. "Suppose that had been a
member of an opposing team legging it for the goal! You'd have let him
get by, wouldn't you, Sherwood? You'd have lost the game perhaps for
your team. Tackling! That's a joke. You've got to do better than that."
Bill's face became scarlet. His hands clenched at his sides. He was
fighting mad.
"My foot slipped," he said in self-defense. "I'd have got him if it
hadn't."
"Maybe," replied the coach, his keen eyes mercilessly raking Bill's
dusty figure, "with a couple of men to help you. Ploughing up the
gridiron never saved a goal yet."
"I don't need a couple," declared Bill. "That fellow wouldn't get away
from me another time! Give me another chance at him!"
Coach Garwin wheeled.
"Dittler," he called curtly to one of the regulars. "Take the ball and
start running from the forty-yard line. There's your chance, Sherwood.
Let's see you stop him."
Dittler picked up the ball with a grin and started off like a hound
slipped from the leash. Bill started to meet him with equal speed and
vigor. His blood was up. His resentment lashed him on toward the flying
figure. To reach him, tackle him, and bring him to earth was at that
moment the great object of his life.
Dittler was one of the best runners on the first team. The coach for
that very purpose had chosen him in order to test Bill's mettle.
Long and thin as a greyhound, Dittler was flying across the field in a
long, diagonal slant, trusting to his agility and his dodging powers to
evade the figure bearing down upon him.
The boys were shouting, the regulars urging Dittler on, the scrubs
yelling for Bill.
The eyes of Coach Garwin narrowed as the opponents neared each other.
Just as Bill was within a few feet of him, Dittler halted, swerved and
was off like a flash at another angle.
But Bill had sensed the strategy and himself had turned so that Dittler
found him right in his path.
Dittler dodged, squirmed, tried to run around his adversary. For a
moment it looked as though he would get past those outstretched arms.
"Get him, Bill! Get him!" cried Garry, wild with excitement.
"Come on, you Dittler!" came from the throats of the regulars.
With muscles as tense as whipcord, jaw set, the blood pounding in his
ears, Bill put all his strength in one magnificent leap. His arms
closed joyfully about the legs of his opponent. Tackler and tackled
came to the ground in a cloud of dust.
"Another Indian bit the dust!" crowed Rooster.
"I'll say that Bill is poor!" chuckled Ted.
Dittler, wiping the grime from his eyes, looked up grinningly at the
coach as he approached.
"This boy sure can tackle, coach," he said generously. "I thought a
house fell on me. You've sure got to hand it to him."
"So it seems," drawled Garwin. "You've redeemed yourself, Sherwood. Any
one who can bring Dittler to earth is good."
As a climax to the afternoon's practice, the coach lined the two teams
up against each other in a series of short scrimmages. In these, as was
to be expected, the regulars had the advantage, owing to their weight
and experience. But all the same the scrubs gave them plenty to do. It
was a hot, pell-mell, ding-dong fight. The regulars were out to show
that the coach was right when he picked them. The scrubs were equally
determined to show that the coach had made a mistake in not putting
them on the first team.
In this the scrubs did not quite succeed. But they did at least give
Al Garwin food for thought. Those sleepy-looking eyes of his missed
nothing that took place. Oftenest, perhaps, they were fixed on Garry
Grayson.
For that young man was nothing less than a wildcat that afternoon. He
fought for every advantage, was quick as a flash, as cold and hard as
steel. He was here, there, and everywhere, instilling his own fighting
spirit into his team. Twice he himself got through for what would have
been a sure touchdown in a regular game.
Tom Allison and Pete Maddern played finely. Ted, Rooster, Nick and Bill
gave a good account of themselves. But it was Garry who shone as the
bright particular star of the scrubs.
When at last Al Garwin called it a day's work the coach walked off the
field with a smile of satisfaction on his face, which, however, he was
careful to conceal from the boys.
"It looks as though I had two good teams instead of one," he mused.
In the gymnasium, as the boys shed their dusty togs, got under showers,
and slipped into their street clothes, there was a babble of excited
conversation between Garry and his friends.
"Old Hill Street didn't show up so badly this afternoon," chuckled Bill.
"That tackle of Dittler was a peach, Bill," observed Nick Danter.
"And the way Garry broke through their defense has given the regulars
something to think about. Gee, Garry, you just ran rings around those
fellows."
"Oh, I don't know," said Garry modestly. "I had some lucky breaks. But
one swallow doesn't make a drink, you know, and we may stub our toes
the next time out. We've just got to keep working like the mischief
all the time."
On their way home the boys passed Trompet Shrugg, who gave them a stiff
nod in response to their salutations and glanced disdainfully at the
football that Garry carried under his arm. Then the cold dislike in his
eyes shifted to Garry's face.
"He just loves you, Garry," chuckled Ted.
"Yes," grinned Garry, "as he loves poison ivy!"