Quarter-Back Bates

  CHAPTER VI

  DICK MAKES AN ENEMY

  That was on Friday. The next afternoon Parkinson played her first game,with Mapleton School. Mapleton had started the Parkinson schedule forseveral years, invariably providing just the amount of fight desired,and today was no exception to the established rule. Four ten-minuteperiods were played and Parkinson managed to run up seventeen points.It was a slow and uninteresting game from the spectators' standpoint,and the afternoon was scorchingly hot for the last of September. "Babe"Upton, who weighed well over a hundred and eighty and played centre,affirmed afterwards that he could feel himself melting away like acandle. Indeed, although none of the team was allowed to remain in thecontest for more than two periods, there were many who found it hardmedicine. Dick, who as a member of the squad was supposed to look onand learn, watched the game from the Parkinson bench and sweltereduncomplainingly for the better part of an hour and a half. Naturallyenough, his interest concentrated itself on Stone and, later, Cardin,the quarter-backs. He secretly thought that Cardin, with sufficientinstruction, could be developed into a better quarter than Gus Stone,for Cardin was a quick, gingery youngster who drove his team hard,while Stone, although more experienced and heavier, had a tendency togo to sleep on his feet, and the plays always dragged just when theyshould have been run off at top speed. A third candidate, a thin ramrodof a youth, was tried out for a few minutes just at the end of thegame. A neighbour told Dick that his name was Pryne, adding facetiouslythat it ought to be Prune. Pryne had scant opportunity to show whetherhe deserved the latter appellation, however.

  When Mapleton had gone away and the stands had practically emptied, themembers of the squad who had taken no part in the game were called outfor an hour's work. Coach Driscoll did not remain, and the job fell toHarry Warden, who because of a weak ankle had been out of his placeat left half on the team that afternoon. By some chance the runningof one of the three makeshift teams fell to Dick, and, with a few ofthe candidates who had failed to get placed on the squads following,he started off. The simplest sort of plays were being taught, straightline bucks and runs, outside ends and a rudimentary set of signals wasused. At first the men moved hardly faster than a walk. Then, havingpresumably learned their duties, they were allowed to trot. It seemedto Dick that he was burdened with the stupidest aggregation on thefield, and one of the backs, a shock-haired, long-nosed youth namedHalden, outdid them all. No matter how many times Halden was walkedthrough a play, the instant speed was called for he forgot all he hadlearned. Finally, after he had "gummed up" a simple two-man attack onleft guard for the third time, Dick's exasperation found voice.

  "You! Eight half! What good do you think you are? You're supposedto go in there and clear out that hole, and instead of that you letthe runner ahead of you and then walk all over his heels! Can't youunderstand that play? Don't you get the signal, or what's your trouble?"

  "I thought full-back went ahead," grumbled Halden.

  "You thought! Great guns, haven't you been through that play oftenenough? Come on, now! Try to get it right this time."

  Halden did get it right, but the effort so unnerved him that he stoppedas soon as he was clear of the line and the full-back ran into him.

  "All right as far you got," commented Dick, bitterly, "but there'ssupposed to be an opposing line in front of you, Halden. Keep on going!Here, we'll switch that play to the other side and you watch how it'sdone." This time the right half cleared the hole on his own side andthe full-back, ball hugged to his stomach, plunged after him. "Get it?"asked Dick of Halden.

  "Sure," growled the left half.

  "Well, try it then. All right! 7--15--18--7----"

  Halden started off much too soon, beating the signal by a yard, and atrickle of laughter arose from the squad. "Fine!" called Dick. "That'sgreat work, Halden! But it's usual to wait until the ball is snapped!Here, you drop out and let someone else in here for a while."

  "You're not running this," objected Halden, angrily.

  "I'm running this squad, and I don't intend to waste everyone's timetrying to drive a simple idea into that concrete dome of yours!" Dickturned to the followers. "Any of you fellows play half?" he asked.

  A volunteer stepped forward and Halden, muttering and angry, droppedback. It was at that instant that Dick noted the presence of Warden.If he had known the Varsity man was there, he might have been slower inassuming authority, but, having begun, he kept on with it. "All right.Left half, please. Now then, fellows, let's get going again. Mind thesignals!"

  Of course when he called on right half to take the ball on a runoutside, tackle one or two made the mistake of supposing it was theunsuccessful play that was called for and acted accordingly, but thatwas to be expected. "I told you to mind signals," scolded Dick. "Don'ttry to guess what's coming. Listen to me!" When the goal line wasreached and they swung around for a trip back up the field, Dick sawthat Warden had taken himself off again and was somewhat relieved. Hehad more than half expected a calling-down for sending Halden out.Toward the end of the signal drill the squad worked fairly well,although Dick persisted in the belief that he had fallen heir to themost stupid bunch on the field. When dismissal came they trooped overto the benches to get sweaters, and as Dick pulled his on he heardHalden's voice at his shoulder.

  "Next time you bawl me out like that I'll hand you a punch on thenose," growled the half-back candidate. "You wouldn't have done it ifthat big fellow hadn't been there!"

  Dick's head emerged from his sweater and he viewed Halden coldly."Son," he said in as low a voice as the other's, "if you try any trickswith me I'll hurt you badly. And any time I'm playing quarter where youare and you don't show any more intelligence than you did today, you'regoing to get roasted. You make the most of that, Halden!"

  "You try it!" hissed the other like a villain in a melodrama. "Youthink you're somebody, don't you? Well, you'll get yours if you try tomake a goat of me!"

  "Oh, piffle!" said Dick disgustedly, elbowing away. "Keep your temperif you want to play football."

  "Yes, and I'll be playing football when you're kicked off," answeredthe other.

  Dick shrugged and went his way, Halden following gloweringly to thegymnasium. In the locker room, Harry Warden crossed over and seatedhimself beside Dick on the bench in front of his locker. "Say, Bates,"he began, "you've done that sort of thing before, haven't you?"

  "What sort of thing?" asked Dick, a twinkle in his eye. "Fired a fellowoff the squad without authority?"

  Warden's sober countenance showed the faintest ghost of a smile: orperhaps it was only the eyes that smiled. "I meant run off signals. Ithought you showed a good deal of familiarity with the job."

  "Why, yes, I've done it before, quite often. I've played three years,two of them on my high school team. We all had to take hold and coachat times, Warden. Our real coach couldn't give us a great deal of time.He worked in a hardware store, you see, and his boss didn't care agreat deal about football." Dick smiled. "We couldn't pay him anythingand he couldn't afford to lose his job."

  "What school was that?" asked Warden.

  "Leonardville, Pennsylvania, High." Dick watched to see if theinformation aroused recollection. It didn't. Evidently Fame didn'ttravel into New England.

  "You played quarter-back?" Dick nodded. "Hm." Warden rubbed a cheekreflectively. "What's your weight?"

  "One-fifty-one today."

  "You look lighter. That's your build, though. I liked the way youhandled that bunch of dubs today, Bates. Ever done much punting?"

  "Not very much. We had a full-back who was pretty nifty at that. I'vedone some drop-kicking, though."

  "Can you do two out of three from the thirty yards?"

  "Yes, if the angle isn't too wide."

  Warden got up. "I wouldn't be surprised, Bates, if Driscoll took youonto the first squad some day soon. Keep on the way you're going, willyou? Let's see if we can't prove him wrong. You know, Driscoll insiststhat you can't make a prep-school player from a high-school fellow. Hesays they
always know too much. Think it's that way with you?"

  Dick looked haughty for an instant. Then he smiled. "Why, I don'tbelieve so, Warden. That's a funny idea of his, though."

  "He says he's never had much success with high-school fellows," saidWarden thoughtfully. "I know what he means, too. Maybe you wouldn'tnotice it, Bates, but it's a fact that most chaps who show up here fromhigh schools have mighty good opinions of themselves. Half the timethey've been captains of their teams, you know, or crack half-backs orquarters, and they don't take kindly to new ways and hate being toldanything. I know two or three cases myself. By the way, you weren'tcaptain, were you?"

  "No." Dick didn't explain that he might have been had he remainedin Leonardville! "I would say, though, that it depended on thefellow, Warden, and not on the fact that he'd been playing with somehigh-school team."

  "Yes, maybe. Well, see you again, Bates. And, by the way, you did justright to drop that chap this afternoon. So long."

  When he had gone Dick sat and nursed one bare foot for severalminutes and wondered what Warden's interest portended. He felt rathercheered-up when he finally went on with dressing himself. Warden'sremark about Coach Corliss and the first squad sounded good to him.