Left Guard Gilbert Part 9

COACHING THE TACKLES

THE ride back was far less exciting. Mr. Brady drove the big car leisurely and conversed with Clint, who had succeeded to the seat of honour in front. Mr. Brady, it appeared, had a poultry farm some distance on the other side of Brimfield. He seemed a trifle surprised and pained when he discovered that Clint had never heard of the Cedar Ridge Poultry Farm, and at once issued an invitation to visit it.

"You come over some time and I'll show you some stock that'll open your eyes. Bring your friends along. Tell the conductor on the trolley where you want to go and he'll set you down right at my gate. You can't miss it, though, anyhow, for I've got nearly a quarter of a mile of houses there. Silver Campines are my specialty. Raise a few White Wyandottes, too. You wouldn't think to look at me that the doctors came mighty near giving me up ten or eleven years ago, eh? Did, though. That was just after I finished college. They said the only thing would save me was hiking out to Colorado or Arizona or New Mexico. Some said one place and some said another. Seeing that they couldn't decide, I settled the question myself. Came out here, bought ten acres of land--I've got nearly forty now--and lived in a tent one Summer while my house was building. Doctors said it wouldn't do, but I fooled them. Slept out of doors every night, worked like a slave fourteen hours a day and put on flesh right from the start. I'm not what you'd call fat now, I guess, but you ought to have seen me then! An old chap I had putting up my first chicken house told me he could work me in nicely for a roosting pole! Went back to one of the doctors three years ago and had him look me over. He had to admit that I was a pretty healthy specimen. You could see that he was downright peeved about it, though!" Mr. Brady chuckled.

"Then I settled the matter to my own satisfaction by taking out some life insurance. When I got my policy I stopped worrying about my health.

You drop over some afternoon and let me show you how to live like a white man and make a little money, too. There's no life like it, and I wouldn't go back to the city if they gave me the Ritz-Carlton to live in!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Finally, Don was unceremoniously yanked up and through]

Clint responded that he and the others would like very much to visit Cedar Ridge some day, but that just now they were all pretty busy in the afternoons with football. That struck a responsive chord and Mr.

Brady harked back to his school and college days when he, too, had fondled the pigskin. "I wasn't much of a player, though," he acknowledged. "I was sort of tall and puny-looking and not very strong.

Still, I did get into my school team in my senior year and played on my freshman team in college. The next year I had to give it up, though. I'd like to come over some day and see you fellows play. I've always been intending to. I haven't seen a real smas.h.i.+ng football game for years.

That's funny, too, for I can remember the time when I used to think that if I could get on my 'varsity eleven I'd die happy." He laughed as he swept the searchlights around a corner. "A man's ambitions change, don't they? Now what I want to do is to raise the champion egg producer. I'm going to do it, too, before long."

And Clint quite believed it. Any man, he told himself, who could take command of a situation as Mr. Brady had that evening, and who could make enough money in the poultry business to own a three-thousand dollar automobile was capable of anything!

When they approached the town Mr. Brady swung off to the left, explaining that he would take the boys up to the school. There was a moment of silence and then Clint protested weakly. "Shucks," was the reply, "it won't take five minutes longer, and after the way you fellows have worked tonight you don't deserve to have to walk home!"

"Well, then--then I guess you'd better let us out at the corner," said Tim. "We'd hate to wake up the masters, Mr. Brady."

"Oh, that's it, eh?" Mr. Brady laughed loudly. "Stayed out too late, have you?"

"I'm afraid we have, sir," said Clint. "We're supposed to be in hall before ten and it's long after that now. If you'll let us out at the corner of the grounds we can sort of sneak around back and maybe get in without being seen. Faculty's beastly strict about outstaying leave."

The car crossed the railroad track and presently pulled up quietly in the gloom of the trees along the road and the four boys noiselessly descended, shook hands, promised to pay a visit some day to Cedar Ridge and stole off to the right through the darkness. A moment later the tiny red light of the automobile vanished from sight. Tim called a halt at the wall. "You'd better bunk out with us tonight, Clint," he whispered.

"We'll beat it around back of the gym and get in the shadows of the buildings. Say, Don, you're sure we left that window unlatched?"

"Of course we did! It hasn't been closed for a week."

"Then forward, my brave comrades! If anyone sees us we'd better scatter and hide out for awhile."

They climbed over a stone wall and made their way through a grove adjoining the school grounds, keeping close to the boundary fence. It was as dark as pitch in the woods and every now and then one or another would walk into a tree or fall over a root. Don's teeth were chattering like castanets, for the night had grown cooler and a little breeze was blowing from the west, and his clothing was still far from dry. They crept past the back of the Cottage very cautiously, for there were lights upstairs and down, and breathed easier when the black bulk of the gymnasium loomed before them and they could crawl over the fence and drop back into school ground. From the corner of the gymnasium to Billings was a long distance, and looked just now longer than it ever had before. Also, in spite of the fact that there was no moon, the night was surprisingly light and Tim scowled disapprovingly at the stars as they paused for an instant at the corner of the building to get their breaths.

"Keep low," advised Tim, "and make for Torrence. Then we'll stay close to the walls of the buildings. You want to see if there's a window open in Torrence, Clint?"

"No, I'll stay with you fellows. I'd probably walk into a chair or a table and someone would take me for a burglar."

"Come on, then. Haste to yon enfolding darkness!"

They "hasted," and a second or two after were creeping, doubled up lest their heads show above the darkened windows and arouse unwelcome curiosity, along the rear of Torrence. Then they raced across the s.p.a.ce dividing Torrence from Main Hall and repeated the proceedings until, finally, they were under the windows of Number 6 Billings. Both were open at the bottom and their doubts and tribulations were at an end.

Clint was a.s.sisted in first, Tom followed and then Tim and, finally, Don was unceremoniously yanked up and through.

"Eureka!" breathed Tim. "Can you make it to your room, Tom? If you don't want to risk it you can bunk out here on the window-seat or somewhere."

"You may have half of my bed," offered Don. But Tom was already removing his shoes.

"If Horace hears me," he whispered, "he's got better ears than I think he has. Good-night, fellows. We had a bully time, even if we didn't get that rarebit!"

Tim groaned hollowly. "There! Now you've gone and reminded me that I'm starved to death!"

"Shut up," warned Don. "Don't forget that Horace's bedroom is right there." He nodded toward the wall. "Beat it, Tom, and don't fall over your feet!"

The door opened soundlessly, closed again and Tom was gone. They listened, and, although the transom was slightly open, not a creak or a shuffle reached them. "He's all right," whispered Tim. "Me for bed, fellows. Want to come in with me, Clint, or will you luxuriate on the window-seat?"

"Window-seat, thanks. Got a coat or something?"

Tim pulled a comforter from the closet shelf and tossed it to him, and quietly and quickly they got out of their clothes and sought their couches. Ten minutes later three very healthy snores alone disturbed the silence of Number 6.

The next morning Clint joined the others and walked un.o.btrusively along the Row with them in the direction of Wendell and breakfast, but when he reached Torrence he quite as un.o.btrusively slipped through the doorway and sought his room to repair his appearance and relieve the anxiety of Amory Byrd. And that seemed to conclude the adventure for all hands, and Don, for one, was extremely thankful that they had escaped detection and the punishment which would have certainly followed. But that Sunday afternoon, while on his way to Torrence to recover a book which Leroy Draper had borrowed in the Spring and neglected to return, he fell in with Harry Walton and made the disconcerting discovery that he had congratulated himself too soon. Don had no particular liking for Walton, although he by no means held him in the disdain that Amy Byrd and some others did, and he was a little surprised when Harry fell into step beside him.

"Have a good time last night?" asked Harry with an ingratiating leer.

"Last night?" echoed Don vacantly. He remembered then that Lawton roomed in Number 20 Billings, directly above Number 6. "What about last night?"

Harry winked meaningly and chuckled. "Well, I guess there was a party, wasn't there? I noticed you got home sort of late."

"Did I? What makes you think that?"

"I happened to be looking out my window, Don. It was sort of hot and I wasn't sleepy. Who were the other fellows?"

"Other fellows? I guess you didn't see any others, Walton."

Harry's saturnine countenance again wreathed itself with a growing grin.

"Didn't, eh? All right. I probably imagined them."

"Maybe you were asleep and dreamed it," said Don gravely. "Guess you must have, Walton."

"Oh, I'm not going to talk, Don. You needn't be afraid of that."

"I'm not," responded the other drily. "Well, I'm going in here. So long, Walton."

"Bye, Don. I'm mum."

Don nodded and entered Torrence, but on the way upstairs he frowned disgustedly. He didn't believe for an instant that Walton would deliberately get them into trouble, but he might talk so much that the facts would eventually work around to one of the masters. Don wished that almost any fellow he knew save Walton had witnessed that entry by the window of Number 6. Later, when he returned from his visit to Roy Draper, without the book, by the way, since it had mysteriously disappeared, he recounted his conversation with Walton to Tim. Tim didn't let it bother him any, however.

"Harry won't give us away. Why should he? Besides, if he did he would know mighty well that I'd spoil his brunette beauty!"

"Well, he may tell it around and Horace or somebody'll hear it. That's all I'm worrying about."

"Don't worry, Donald. Keep a clear conscience and you'll never know what worry is. That's my philosophy."

Don smiled and dismissed the matter from consideration.

On Monday he had his first try at coaching the second team tackles and found that, after all, he got on fairly well. There were four candidates for the positions and two of them, Kirkwell and Merton, promised well.

Kirkwell, in fact, had already had a full season of experience on the second. Merton was a graduate from his last year's hall team. The other two, Brace and Goodhugh, were novices and had everything to learn, and it was with them that Don laboured the hardest. Monday's practice ended with a ten-minute scrimmage between two hastily selected teams, and Don, for the first time that fall, played in his old position of left guard. Merton, who opposed him, found that he still had much to learn.

On Tuesday, after a long and grilling tackling practice at the dummy, Coach Boutelle announced his line-up for the scrimmage against the first team, and Don was disappointed to find that Kirkwell and not he was down for left guard. The right guard position went to Merton. Don, with Mr.

Boutelle and a half-dozen of the more promising subst.i.tutes, followed their team about the field, Boots criticising and driving and Don breaking in with hurried instructions to the guards. The first team had no trouble in piling up four touchdowns that afternoon, even though three regulars were still out of the line-up. Between the short periods Don coached Kirkwell and Merton again, and Kirkwell, who was a decent chap but fancied himself a bit, was inclined to resent it.