"BANG!" WENT THE PISTOL AND SIX LEGS AND SIX ARMS BEGAN TO WORK LIKE PISTONS.—[Page 151]

FRANK ARMSTRONG
AT QUEENS

By MATTHEW M. COLTON

Author of

"Frank Armstrong at College," "Frank Armstrong's
Vacation," "Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker,"
"Frank Armstrong, Captain of the Nine,"
"Frank Armstrong's Second Term."

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Printed in U. S. A.

Copyright, 1911,
BY
HURST & COMPANY

MADE IN U. S. A.

CONTENTS

Frank Armstrong at Queen's.

CHAPTER I.FRANK ENCOUNTERS A BULLY.

"Can you tell me how to get to Warren Hall, please?"

The question was addressed by a slender youth of fourteen to a group of lads lolling on the grass at the foot of a great elm in the yard of Queen's School.

"Well, I guess the best way would be to walk, unless you have an automobile," was the flippant answer of a freckle-faced and aggressive member of the group, who, lying with his hands under his head, gazed up at the questioner with an impish grin. The rest of the crowd laughed loudly at the sally.

"I mean," said the newcomer, visibly embarrassed with this unkindly reception, "in which direction is Warren Hall?"

"Follow your nose and your two big toes, kid, and you'll get there all right," was the rude response from the self-appointed guide, and at this several of the recumbent youths rolled around on the ground with laughter. It was great, this exhibition of wit. Chip Dixon considered himself brighter than the morning sun, and through a certain strength of his own held sway over his satellites, some of whom were with him this particular afternoon.

The boy asking for information, at the second rebuff looked the speaker coolly in the eye. His embarrassment had gone now, and in its place came a look of disdain. He threw his head back.

"I asked for Warren Hall because I'm going there, and I'm not sure which one it is, but this smart fellow," indicating Chip, "doesn't have sense enough to answer a straight question. Can anyone tell me?" He cast his eye around the group. A look of amazement that a new boy should dare to cross words with this rough and ready fire-eater, spread over the faces of several of them, and a titter ran around, for Chip was not over well liked in the school.

Before anyone had time to answer, Chip himself sprang to his feet with clenched fists. He liked to say sharp things, but like many others, young and old, he could not stand his own medicine, and the titter angered him no less than the cool looking boy who had drawn it forth.

"Smart, am I?" he yelled, rushing up to the newcomer. "I'll show you whether I'm smart or not," and he pushed his face up close to that of the new boy, who held his ground bravely in the rush of the fellow who evidently meant fight. In an instant the two were surrounded.

"Ow! ow!" yelled Chip, just at the moment he appeared to be ready to land his fist on the unoffending boy, "ow! ow! I'll kill you for that," and he grabbed one of his feet and danced around on the other in agony. The heavy suit case, which the newcomer carried had been dropped on the toes of Chip's thin pumps, and must have hurt cruelly. And it looked as if it had been dropped intentionally.

"I'll pay you for that, you fresh kid," and Chip made another rush.

"Cheese it, Chip, here's Parks. Cut it out."

Chip subsided quickly, assumed an air of easy indifference, and began to talk with those of his cronies nearest to him as if nothing had happened.

Mr. Robert Parks, the assistant master of the school, and a martinet for discipline, was swinging rapidly down the walk, unaware that anything out of the ordinary was taking place. He was a young man in appearance, perhaps not over thirty-five, but he had trained for the army, and showed it in his bearing. A railroad accident had deprived him of his left arm, and as army service was impossible for him, he took up the work of teaching. He nodded pleasantly to the boys as he approached them, and then stopped suddenly.

"Hello, Armstrong," he said with surprise, as he saw the strange lad standing there, "I was just going across to your room. Been talking with your father on the telephone and I promised him I'd see you settled all right. He said that he had been unable to come up with you, but described you so well I knew you at once. Glad you fell in with friends, though," added Mr. Parks, glancing around the circle of faces.

"They are not friends of mine. I was just asking for directions when you came up," answered Frank, for the new boy was none other than Frank Armstrong. He had made up his mind to enter Queen's in the fall term after all, and as his health was so robust owing to the great vacation he had had at Seawall and in the Everglades, his mother and father offered no objections, and so here he was faring forth alone.

"They have given you a room in Warren Hall, I believe, haven't they?" said Mr. Parks.

"Yes, sir; eighteen is the number."

"Alone?"

"No, a fellow named Gleason is with me, from New York State, I think. I don't know him."

"Well, come along," said Mr. Parks, and led the way in the direction of Frank's future domicile.

"So that's Frank Armstrong, is it?" growled Chip, still with his feathers ruffled from the setback he had received. "I've heard of him and he's what I call a pretty fresh guy. If old Parks hadn't showed up when he did I would have knocked a little freshness out of him."

"He wasn't as fresh as you were," broke in little Willie Patterson. "He asked a civil question and you began to be funny before any of us had time to answer. And, besides, it mightn't have been so easy to knock what you say is 'freshness' out of him. I notice he didn't back up much when you rushed him. Was the suit case heavy?" he added mockingly. Willie's diminutive size made him bold, and, besides, wasn't his sturdy but slow-witted room-mate, A. B. C. Sinclair, commonly called Alphabet, there to fight his battles for him in case his sharp tongue ran him into difficulties?

Dixon knew he was at a disadvantage, shut his jaws tight and said nothing, but if his look meant anything it meant that a heavy hand was to fall on Frank at the first opportunity.

"That's the fellow the papers have been talking about. Call him the 'great swimmer boy of Milton' because he got in a race with the champion Darnell down in Florida somewhere," sneered one of Chip's cronies, anxious to find favor in the eyes of his boss.

"Swimmer! My eye," grunted Chip. "I could tie one hand behind me and beat him out." Chip boasted of being something of a swimmer himself, and he could not believe that the slender boy, whom he had tried to jolly and later to scare, had the strength to swim against him. "If I get him in the water some time I'll drown him."

"I don't know about that," said Willie. "I think he's all right, and I'm going up to his room and tell him we are not all grouches like you are," and picking himself up he steered rapidly for Warren Hall to square matters with his own conscience. The bearing of the new boy had won him completely.

Without a hint of the storm of injured feelings left behind, and consequently unheeding, Mr. Parks walked rapidly with Frank across the school quadrangle to Warren, and shortly arrived at the quaint old doorway of the second entry.

"Warren was the first of the buildings of Queen's," said Mr. Parks as they trudged along. "It used to be the whole school when there were only about twenty-five boys. That was fifty years ago, but as the number of pupils increased these other buildings were added, and we have room now for a hundred and eighty boys altogether."

"Yes, I know the school has been growing. Father says it's the best in the state."

"Well, I think there are none better, even though our friends of the Warwick school up the river put on airs occasionally," said Mr. Parks.

"That's Russell Hall across the north end of the yard where the recitation rooms are," he continued, "and the school library and the social hall; and at the north end of Warren there, is the chapel. Just across from Warren is Honeywell where the school officers are. Doctor Hobart, the head of the school—you know him, of course—has his quarters in Warren. So you'll have to be on your best behavior." And Parks smiled down on the lad to whom he was much attracted.

They were now at the foot of the entry where was located No. 18. Mr. Parks plunged up the stairs and Frank followed at his heels, taking time to note the queer old crooked stairway, the newel post which was nothing more than a round block of wood carved with many initials, and the hand rail scarred with many a knife line where the ambitious initial cutters had dug deep to impress their fame on succeeding generations. The painted plaster of one side of the stairway was scrawled with initials, impromptu verses and rude sketches, caricatures evidently of school characters.

"Here we are," said Frank's guide, stopping before a door on the second landing. "Let's see if Gleason's in," and he tapped lightly. There was no response, and turning the knob he stepped within. Frank followed at his heels, and entered what was to be his new home for a number of months at least.

"Well, I wouldn't say Gleason was much of a hand at keeping things tidy," observed Mr. Parks. "Maybe you can help him. I wish you luck. If I can assist in any way, just call on me. I have an office in Russell Hall, ground floor, first entry, and my office hours are printed on a slip on the door. Come and see me when you get settled. Good day."

"Good day, sir, and thank you for your kindness," replied Frank, and the door shut.

Parks was right when he said Gleason was not a tidy housekeeper, for the place was in heaped up disorder. Evidently Gleason had not yet succeeded in settling himself. His clothes were scattered around the room, and mateless shoes bestrewed the floor. A laundry box lay tipped on the window seat with half its contents on the cushion and half on the floor, and the center table was filled with a promiscuous assortment of books, writing materials, a tennis racket, and several tennis balls reposing on a battered flannel cap. Out of this crazy jumble on the table, the drop light rose like a mushroom-topped lighthouse. The fine fireplace was piled full of crumpled papers.

Frank's own things had been tumbled into his bedroom, and there lay his first work of straightening things out. He was busily engaged in setting things in order when there came a tap on the outer door, and following the tap, without waiting on ceremony, a hand pushed it open. Frank turned and saw his visitor, noticing at once that it was one of the group he had encountered a little while before.

"You're Frank Armstrong," said the newcomer.

"That's my name."

"Well, my name's Patterson, Wee Willie they call me because I'm so big." The manner was friendly and genial.

Frank grinned. "Glad to see you," he said as Wee Willie stuck out his hand.

The visitor continued: "I happened to be in that bunch of fellows this afternoon, and I came up to apologize for Queen's, and to tell you that Chip Dixon made me sick. He didn't speak for the school when he cut into you this afternoon so heavy."

"Who is he?"

"He's in my class, a Junior, and belongs to the society that thinks it runs this school, but he's a big bluff, if anyone should ask you about it. He's got most of us scared to death because he's so handy with his tongue and his fist, but it tickled me to death to see you stand up to him this afternoon. Christopher is his name, but 'Chip' is a nickname they've given him."

"I couldn't do anything else, could I?"

"No, of course not, but it is going to put you in bad with Gamma Tau all right. They are awfully clannish."

"Do you belong?" asked Frank.

"No, they didn't think enough of me to give me a bid, but I don't care. I don't like the bunch they took from our class, and I would rather be outside looking in, than inside looking out. Gamma Tau used to be looked up to, but lately they have stopped giving the election for merit. It's all politics now, and the master, old Pop Eye Hobart, said he would abolish it if they didn't stop their monkeying and get down to first principles."

"Well, I'm sure I don't care whether I get an election or not, if it's that kind of a society. I'd rather stay out."

"The trouble is that the society runs the athletics of this school," continued the diminutive oracle, "and it's a hard job to make any team if you don't have the Gamma Tau pin. If you do have it, no matter how rank you may be, you're IT with a large capital I."

"Then that's what's the matter with your teams up here, is it?" queried Frank, who had kept an eye on Queen's school athletics for some time, and knew that victories were rarities.

"Hit it first time, right in the eye. We are punky to the state of rottenness, and we'll remain that way till the Gamma gets its head knocked off, and the best athletes in the school get a chance. As it is now, the best we have don't try.

"Well, I must be off," said Wee Willie, as he slid from the window seat. "I just wanted to tell you we're not all like Chip Dixon. He's a crab and walks backward and doesn't know it. Ta ta, see you later," and the Wee One swung himself out of the door and clattered down the stairs, leaving Frank to straighten out his effects as best he might, and puzzle on the first tangle of life at school in which he found himself.

CHAPTER II.AN AFTERNOON OF FOOTBALL.

Frank had succeeded, after some hard work, in getting order out of chaos, and was in the act of unpacking his suit case when there was a thundering clatter on the stairs, and Jimmy, followed more leisurely by Lewis, broke into the room without even the ceremony of knocking.

"Well, if it isn't my old eel from Seawall," shouted Jimmy boisterously. "We thought you were never coming."

"You certainly took your time," said Lewis. "You were only going to be a week late and here half the month is gone and half the football schedule's been played. Give an account of yourself."

"Well, you see, they weren't prepared to have me go till the winter term, and it takes father a long time to change his mind after he gets it made up to one thing. But mother and I got at him and proved to him that I was as fit as a race horse and there would be no more breaking down. So here I am."

"And about time, too. You're going out for the football team, I suppose," said Jimmy. "You see the school isn't a very big one, and everyone who is heavy enough takes a try at it. Even Lewis here is on the squad."

"Sure thing," nodded Lewis from the window seat. "I didn't intend to try for it, but the captain sent over one day and said it wouldn't be fair to the school if I hid all my talent under a bushel."

"Yes, and it's been hid under a sweater ever since. Lewis is a fine ornament to any sideline," said Jimmy.

"Are you on the team, Jimmy?"

"O, no. I'm just on the squad doing what they tell me to. I got a chance yesterday afternoon to play tackle, but I'm about as much at home playing up in the line as a tadpole in a haymow. The tackle opposite me played horse with me. And the coach glared at me savagely whenever the play went over me, and that was every time, I guess."

"Didn't he know you were a back?" asked Frank.

"I ventured to tell him that, but he told me in the most courteous fashion to shut up, and I shut."

"Don't you think you have a chance?"

"About as much chance as I have to be president, which, considering that there are somewhere about ten million possible candidates, is a problem that even Lewis could figure."

"Jimmy hasn't got a chance to make the team, Frank. I haven't been here but three weeks, and it's as plain as the nose on your face that if you haven't a Gamma pin on you, you might as well go way back and be comfortably seated. Tom Harding, the captain, is a Gamma, the manager is a Gamma, and I know for a fact that ten out of the eleven are in the same society."

"It's a regular open and shut game," added Jimmy.

"Isn't there another society here?" inquired Frank. "What's the matter with it?"

"Alpha Beta. It doesn't count," said Lewis contemptuously. "Gamma Tau is the oldest society, and has had things all its own way for some years. Then some of the fellows, about six years ago, got together and ran in Alpha Beta, and for a little while it made a good fight against its older rival. But as every one was trying for the Gamma, the Alpha got the second run of fellows until now it isn't an honor to belong to it, and the fellows who don't get Gamma turn the other down flat, preferring to have nothing."

"Seems like a chance for a third," observed Frank. "Wonder it hasn't been started."

"No one has the nerve to start it," said Lewis. "They growl and growl at the Gamma like nice little dogs, but they never bite."

"Gee whiz, it's nearly practice time," cried Jimmy. "We go out from four to five every day, and we've just time to make it. Stop your prinking, and come along. You can sit on the bleachers and see football as she is played by Lewis and me."

Frank, nothing loth, banged shut the suit case, and putting on his cap was soon scampering with the two friends toward the playground.

Queen's school playground was the gift of a wealthy graduate of the school who had kept his interest in the old place. Its equipment was most complete. The playground lay to the west of the line of school buildings,—gridiron, diamond, and boat-house, and beyond the latter the tennis courts, all models in themselves, and ample in size for the needs of the school for many years to come.

Nature had done her share in the first place with a tract of land almost as level as a floor and some thirty acres in extent, but the hand of man completed the job, and the playground was one of the show places of Queen's School. Its rather low level, as it bordered on the Wampaug river, insured a greenness of verdure no matter how dry the season. Trained ground keepers kept the place like a gentleman's garden. Stands which would accommodate several thousand people were ranged on both sides of the gridiron, and a much smaller but prettily covered stand gave ample room for spectators at the diamond. The boat-house was well furnished with canoes, pair oars and gigs, and even boasted a fine cedar eight-oared shell and a heavier eight called a barge. But Queen's rowing had declined in late years, and it had been some time since the shell held a victorious crew. Around the gridiron was the running track, a pretty and well kept cinder path on which the track meets of the school were held, and where every other year Queen's met Warwick in their annual struggle.

"Isn't she a beauty?" cried Jimmy, waving his hand with a proprietor's sense of ownership over the whole fair prospect, as the boys reached the crest of the little hill behind Warren Hall. The whole of the playground dotted with exercising boys lay open to their view.

It surely was a beauty; and Frank felt his heart swell with pride in the knowledge that he was now a part of it. What worlds there were to conquer here! Would he be able to win his place in these fields?

"I'll do my best," he whispered to himself.

"This is the gymnasium," said Lewis, pointing to a low structure between the gridiron and the diamond. "Let's make tracks. There's the coach now. You go right over to the bleachers, and we'll be dressed on the field in a few minutes. Practice will begin very soon."

They parted, and Frank went on alone. When he reached his seat, a score of fellows, who had dressed early, were tumbling around on the ground like so many kittens, falling on the ball which was being tossed to them by the coach, big Harry Horton, who at the same time belabored them with words.

"Fenton, you fall on that ball like a hippopotamus; what are you doing, playing leap-frog? That's not the way. Dive for it, and gather it in to you. Try again." Fenton tried again, but with no better success.

"Look,—this way!" And Horton rolled the ball along the ground, sprang after it like a cat, turning slightly sideways in the air, making a little pocket between knees and arms as he flew. When he fetched up, the ball was snugly tucked close to his body in a position which would make it perfectly safe from any attempts by fair or foul tactics.

Fenton was impressed and made another try, doing it a little better.

"Good, now, MacIntosh, make it sure. When you go for the ball don't go in such a great hurry. When you're in so big a hurry you don't know what you're doing; make it safe. Keep your head, even when you leave your feet." Horton had been a great player in his day on one of the big college teams, and had taken up the work of athletic director temporarily at Queen's, where he was greatly liked.

The squad was augmented by fifteen or twenty boys as this preliminary instruction was going on, and practice now began in earnest. Among those in the field, Jimmy took his place. Frank could see that he was skillful at falling on the ball, and that he handled himself like a cat. As he was laughing at some of the attempts of Lewis to corral the rolling ball, a voice alongside cried:

"Hello, Armstrong, why aren't you in the fray?" and turning, Frank saw approaching him Wee Willie Patterson.

"Don't mind if I sit down with you?" said the Wee One cordially.

"Mighty glad if you want to," returned Frank, who had taken a great liking to the diminutive but independent Patterson. "It was lonesome here alone."

"There's your friend of this afternoon, Mr. Chip Dixon, talking with Captain Harding. He's quarterback of the eleven, and a mighty good one at that. He can play the game if he can't do anything else. He pretty near runs the team, too, for Harding is not much more than a figurehead, even though he is a Senior.

"There she goes now. We're going to have a line-up, and a bit of a scrimmage, I guess."

"First and Second elevens," cried Horton from the field, and as they took their positions,—"now make this good. We are only going to have fifteen minutes of it. Second team's ball for the kick-off." Jimmy was not in either line-up, Frank noticed with regret, but thought that maybe he'd get in before the end.

"Bing." Away shot the ball from midfield driven by the sturdy toe of Duncan McLeod's foot. It settled in the arms of the First eleven's fullback, twenty-five yards down the field, and that individual came ripping back, tossing the Second's players over like nine-pins, until he had brought the ball back to midfield.

"Peaches, peaches," cried the spectators.

"Line-up, quick," yelled the coach who was acting as coach and referee as well. "You would have gone clear through," he said to the fullback, slapping him on the back as he dodged through behind to take his position at the other end of the line, "if you had used your arm as I told you. Remember it next time."

"Come, now, make it go," barked Dixon, "1—7—33."

There was a quick pass, and Hillard, the left half, had the ball, and with a good interference shot for the right end of the Second's line. The defensive tackle was nicely put out of the play, and the right half cut across and took care of the waiting end. Hillard was quickly past the line and bearing off well to out-distance the defensive half.

"Look at the fool," yelled Wee Willie, "he has left his interference behind him. Morton will nip him. What did I tell you! O, rot, look at that!" Hillard had indeed left his interference, disobeying orders, but he thought he was fast and agile enough to clear the quarterback of the Second team, who was waiting his coming on the 20-yard line, inching over toward the side lines so that the runner would have less ground in which to dodge.

In spite of his plan and his speed, Hillard could not avoid those eager arms of the quarter, and down he went in a whirling tackle. The ball flew from his grasp as he struck the ground, then it bounced crazily around, and finally nestled itself in the arms of Tompkins, the Second's left half who had come across to strengthen his quarter's defense.

Tompkins, seeing his opportunity, was away to the side of the field from which the play had come like the wind, every man Jack of the First eleven having been carried in the direction of Hillard. Before they could bring themselves to a halt, and turn on their tracks, Tompkins had gathered speed. Once a tackle got a hand on him, but he shook it off, and with a clear field carried the ball across the goal line, touched it down behind the posts, and sat there upon it, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

CHAPTER III.JIMMY GETS IN THE GAME.

"Now, they'll get it for fair," observed the Wee One as the coach went striding down the field, following the scattered members of the First eleven who jogged sulkily down to the goal; and get it they did.

"I'm ashamed of you, Hillard," burst out Horton. "You've been playing two years on this team, and you can't hang onto a ball yet. If any one crosses his fingers in front of you, you lose the ball. Go and sit down." Hillard turned and walked slowly toward the side of the field, with head hanging. He was a good back, but had the fatal habit of fumbling. He was so clever at dodging and so fast on his feet, however, that the coach, knowing well his failing, was still tempted to put him in the line-up,—and, besides, he belonged to the powerful Gamma Tau.

"Tucker, you take Hillard's place, and see if we can't do something. Here we are, only three weeks from our last game, and you are playing like a perfectly lovely eleven from the Mount Hope Female Seminary. Think a little about the game, and squeeze that ball, PLEASE."

The coach took the ball from Tompkins, and started up the field, the whole crowd of players straggling along behind him, the First eleven sour in face and heavy in step, the Second grinning broadly.

"There, now," said Horton, putting the ball down at midfield again with a good deal more force than was necessary. "Let's have some football. First eleven's ball. Make it go. You've got to carry it from here, don't kick it, carry it. Make it go," and he jumped out of the way as the two lines crashed together.

"That's something like it. Second down, two yards to go. Some more like that."

"Big Dutton carried it that time," said Patterson to Frank. "That big fellow with the light hair. He's the best plunger on the field, but he's something of a bonehead, and he can't remember the signals. Poor Horton has his own worries with him. There he goes again."

"First down," yelled Horton from the field. "That's going. Squeeze that ball, Dutton. Steady in the line there and keep on side. Wait till the ball is snapped, Burnham. Wait till the ball is snapped—there, what did I tell you?" as Burnham, the right tackle, anticipating the signal, plunged ahead. Little Hopkinson, quarter of the Second, had his hand up and was yelling for the penalty, which he got.

"Now, First team, you've got to make that loss up this time." Harding, the captain, stepped out of his place at guard, in the line, and conferred with Dixon a minute.

"It's going to be a long pass, I'll bet dollars to shoelaces," said the Wee One, as the lines settled down on their toes.

"22—16—34—146," shouted Dixon. There was a quick pass from center, and the quarter, turning half-way round, tucked the ball cleverly in the right half's pocketed arms as he went shooting past him. The half ran straight out, seemingly bent on turning in at the first possible moment. But this little ruse was only to draw the fire of the opponents who came charging at him. Then he stopped dead in his tracks, stepped backwards and threw the ball unerringly to the right end who had edged away out toward the side line at the proper time, entirely unnoticed by the Second backs who had been drawn over. The catch was clearly made, by Campbell, and he was away like a breeze, with no one near him. Hopkinson came up on him hard, a little too hard for safety, and he was easily sidestepped by the fleet-footed end who, though hard pressed, eluded all tackles and carried the ball over. It was a pretty piece of work, and the coach, for once, seemed to be satisfied.

"Now, that's what I call pretty football," exclaimed Frank. "I thought you said this team was no good."

"Well, it isn't," replied Patterson. "Once in a while they can pull a play like that off, but most of the time they make a grand fizzle out of it. They don't seem to have the spirit, somehow. I'll bet they'll flub-dub it yet."

"Good work, good work," said the coach as he took the ball again. "No time for goal-kicking now. First, see what you can do in carrying it through the line. What's the matter, Harper?"

This last remark was directed at the right half on the Second team, who was limping around, having got in the way of one of the First's linemen, and received a bad tumble in open field while chasing Campbell.

"My old ankle," replied Harper, walking around and wincing every time he touched his foot to the ground. "The one I hurt last week."

"Go and sit down. I'll attend to it after practice; loosen your shoe if it hurts. I want someone to take Harper's place," continued Horton, glancing up and down the row of boys sitting on the sideline. "Hey, you Freshman, what's-your-name," indicating Turner, "get in and play this half."

"Who is that going in?" inquired the Wee One, as Jimmy jumped up and ran onto the field. "Looks like a likely kid."

"He's a friend of mine, Jimmy Turner; he's a Freshman."

"He looks as strong as a bull. Does he know the game?"

"No, not very well, but he's crazy about it, and I'll bet he makes good."

Jimmy took his position, and the next instant he was on the bottom of a pile of bodies and arms and legs. Big Dutton had come through the line, and Jimmy met him with all his force, and stopped him. But there had been a gain. Again Dutton came ramming through. This time the guard and tackle had opened a hole in the Second's line five feet wide, and Dutton had time to get up some speed before he reached Jimmy, who waited for him. It was a bigger gain this time.

"Come on," yelled the coach, dashing around from behind the attacking eleven. "This Second line isn't doing its work at all. Here you," indicating Jimmy, "don't wait for that back to come through on you, play up to the line, you've got to throw him back. Now again!"

This time the play slammed through the opposite side of the line for three yards to a first down.

"That's more like it now," encouraged Horton. "Show this school that you are good for something. Come on, a few more will take it across!"

This time Dixon sent his catapult at Jimmy's territory. But although the line opened wide enough to admit two like Dutton, Jimmy was in the breach. He sprang hard and low, and carried Dutton's legs right out from under him. It is needless to say that the ball stopped right there.

"Second down, four to go," called out the coach, not before he had ducked around behind Jimmy and hit him a slap on the back, at the same time giving him an encouraging "Good work, Freshman."

Having respect for the strength of that side of the secondary defense, the play was directed at the other side of center, and when the pile was untangled, the ball lay only a yard from first down, and less than two yards from the goal line.

"Now," yelled Chip Dixon, "we have 'em where we want 'em. Make it go and hang onto the ball, 22—36—19——"

"It's coming through center," yelled little Hopkinson, "back-up, center——"

"Change signals," shouted Chip, and then began to reel off a signal which he meant to have the effect of spreading out the defense, but the acute quarter, now playing close in, whispered to his backs: "It's a fake, it's a fake, the play's coming through center. Look out, look out——"

And through center it came with a vengeance, Dutton carrying the ball, crashing and grinding past the guard and tackle who had not been deceived by the trick of changing signals.

"Keep your feet, keep your feet," yelled Horton, dancing around near the end of the line.

Just when it looked like a certainty that Dutton had cleared the line, the two backs of the Second team, reinforced by the ends who had come around to help, threw themselves at the big back. Jimmy was underneath, and the big fellow came crashing to the ground; with a twist and a wriggling half turn he struck hard right across the goal line, and the ball popped from beneath his arm into plain view. In an instant there was a scramble, everyone within distance diving for the sphere without regard to danger of broken heads.

"The First has scored," said Frank. "Jimmy couldn't stop him, I guess."

"I don't know about that," said the Wee One. "Depends on who has that ball. It's the First's—no, it isn't," as the coach began to dig down among the tangle of arms and legs and heads. "No, it's the Second's, it is, by gravy." For when Horton had finally succeeded in getting to the bottom of the heap, there lay Jimmy just across the goal line, and underneath him, tucked up securely between his arms and his chin, was the ball.

How Jimmy had recovered the ball, no one knew, but there it was; and Jimmy himself wasn't able to tell if he had been asked, for when the pile was untangled Jimmy lay still. Horton slapped him on the back. "There, that's enough, let go of it now; great work, Freshman——" but there was no response, and then Horton turned him over on his back.

"Get the water bottle, quick," he cried. "This youngster's knocked out." In a moment they stretched Jimmy on the ground, opened his jacket and bathed his face with the water which had been hurriedly brought from the sidelines. A thin trickle of blood ran down from his matted hair, just above his forehead.

"Send for Patsy, the trainer, quick," commanded Horton, and some lively sprinting followed to the other end of the field where that individual was working over the twisted ankle of Harper.

Patsy Duffy came in hot haste, with his handbag of bandages, but by the time he had arrived on the scene, Jimmy opened his eyes.

"He's coming to all right. By Jove, Freshman, it was a fine piece of work," said Horton, as he gently nursed the head of the injured boy. "You'll be all right in a minute. If I had ten more like you we'd have a football team. There, can you walk?" he asked, as Jimmy struggled to his feet and started dizzily.

When he saw that Jimmy had been hurt, Frank sprang from the stand and came down the field, and now, eager to help, he slipped his arm under that of Jimmy, and with one of the players helped to steady him as he walked around. Duffy had already put a bandage around Jimmy's head to stop the flow of blood.

"I'm all right," said Jimmy. "Don't bother yourself about me. Someone bumped me over the eye with his knee, I think."

"That's all for to-day," said the coach. "I've got a word to say to you at the gymnasium," and he led the way in that direction, the players trooping after him in silence.

"Sorry he didn't break his blooming neck," muttered Chip to Harding as they trailed along. "I see he is a friend of that young Armstrong's."

"This probably means," said Harding, "that Horton will want to have Turner play one of the backs of the First team."

"I'll fix that all right. I'll make Turner look like the father of all the fumblers if Horton puts him behind the line with me."

"How's that?"

"Never you mind, but just watch out. Hillard and Dutton are both in our crowd, and we don't want any Freshman muts on the team. But don't you worry, there won't be any. I have my own plan, and the less you know about it, the better, for you're the captain, and you don't want to be accused more than you can help of playing favorites. Let me take care of it, and I'll show you how to put this young Turner in the shade."

By this time the gymnasium had been reached. Horton stood just inside the door to the main dressing room, and when the last straggler had entered, he shut the door and turned around to face his pupils of the gridiron.

"I want to tell you, young gentlemen," he said in a very quiet voice, "that if you continue to play football as you are playing it now, I might as well quit the job. You haven't improved since that disgraceful defeat by the Milton High School three weeks ago. The material is here but you haven't as much spirit as a sick cat. You do not get together. Once in a while you show what you could do if you would get together. No team can get together and do anything unless it is a team, every one helping every one else, doing his own work and giving the other fellow a hand when he needs it. If you don't get this spirit, Warwick will show you up worse than they did a year ago. You know very well what the trouble is," (he referred to the Society domination of football interests), "and you know the remedy. Captain Harding, you've got to play the best men on your squad. I'm going to have a long practice to-morrow, and I want you all to report at 4 o'clock sharp. That's all, good day," and Horton turned on his heel and left the gymnasium.

CHAPTER IV.FRANK HAS A NEW NAME.

It was a gloomy lot of football players that took their shower that night. They dressed in silence. Horton was by no means a mild-spoken coach, yet his method was to get the best out of the players by persuasion and infinite care. But when he occasionally did open up, the words were all the sharper.

"Laid the hot shot into you fellows, didn't he?" said Patterson, sliding up to his classmate, Dixon, as they climbed the slope to the dormitories.

"Yes, Horton has had a grouch for the last two weeks and we can't please him. Better come out and try it yourself."

"You'd please him if you played the game," retorted the Wee One, who never lost a chance of sticking verbal pins into the quarterback. "I noticed a new back to-day, that young Turner fellow. He has Hillard beaten twenty ways for Sunday," he added. "Wouldn't be surprised if he made the team even at this late date."

"I didn't see him do anything wonderful," growled Chip. "Dutton went through him several times. I'll bet he'll be sore to-morrow where those old keen bones of the big fellow hit him. He's new and he probably put all he had into the practice to-day. To-morrow he'll be like putty."

"If I was a betting man," retorted the Wee One, "I'd lay you some good coin on it. He doesn't know much about it, but he has the stuff in him, and Horton will do the rest. I think he will play in the Warwick game, Chip."

"And I say he won't," burst out Chip savagely. "Hillard is worth two of him," and then seeing a sarcastic grin playing on the features of Patterson, he added, "I'll see that he don't play——" and then he stopped short, fearing he had said too much.

"O, is that so, Mr. Dixon, and when did they elect you captain and coach of this daisy eleven of ours?"

"O, dry up," was all the comment he could get from Chip who, having reached the yard by this time, turned abruptly and left his tormentor.

Jimmy, Frank and Lewis were a few rods behind, and the Wee One waited for them to come up. Frank had just been detailing the story of his arrival at the yard that afternoon and Dixon's exhibition of bad temper. Both Jimmy and Lewis were indignant, but Frank laughed about the incident. "It wasn't worth mentioning," he said, "but it shows you what kind of a chap your quarter is."

"I've been here only three weeks," said Jimmy, "and I've heard lots of things about him being a bully, particularly fond of playing on the smaller fellow. I guess he can't do much to me. I'm only a Freshman, but I'll give him a dig in the ribs if he tries any of his tricks on me."

The Wee One was waiting on the flagged walk in front of Warren Hall as the three boys came along.

"We'll be over in a minute and take you to grub," Jimmy was saying to Frank.

"All right," said Frank, "I'll be waiting for you and getting things in such shape that I can comfortably rest myself to-night. My room-mate Gleason's a fearful and wonderful housekeeper, judging from the looks of his effects up to date," and he turned into his entry.

"O, Armstrong, just a minute." Frank stopped and saw his new sophomore friend approaching at a leisurely roll with his hands shoved deep into his trousers' pockets.

"I say," volunteered the Wee One, "that young friend of yours, Turner, looks pretty good to me. But I want to give you a tip. If he plays that way he's sure to get a chance at the team. But for the good of the cause I'm just dropping you a weenty teenty hint. Tell him to keep his weather eye on Chip Dixon."

"Why?" said Frank, showing his surprise very plainly.

"Well, Chip doesn't want him and he'd take any means, fair or unfair, to put him in bad with the coach. It's just a tip from an old fellow. That's all," and the Wee One, having delivered himself of this advice, went whistling on his way.

"I don't see what Chip can do if Jimmy plays well enough to make the team. I can't see what Chip can do to keep him off," murmured Frank to himself as he trudged up the stairs. "But I'll pass along the friendly word of Little Willie, who seems to be a fine little chap and much bigger than his name."

Gleason was in his room this time, curled up on the window cushion, and he slowly unrolled himself as Frank pushed open the door.

"Hello, Armstrong," he said, "you're my wife, I guess."

"Your what?" asked Frank.

"My wife, my better half, my tried and trusty room-mate, for better or for worser."

"I'm all of that," said Frank, smiling in spite of himself at the voluble Gleason who wasn't the sort of chap he had pictured at all. From the tumbled state of the room, he had drawn his conclusion that Gleason would also be in a tumbled state, but here was an immaculate dandy.

Frank looked his room-mate over, and then his gaze involuntarily traveled around the room.

"Yes, I know," said Gleason grinning, "doesn't look right," as he saw that Frank was trying to adjust his notions anew. "You see I haven't time to keep both of us tidy, the room and me, so I put the time on myself and let the room go. I was never made for a housekeeper."

Gleason was very tall and very thin, and had thin, dark hair which he parted in the middle and combed straight back. His collar was of the white wings variety, very high, and encircled a long, lean neck, and his necktie was of the most positive and overpowering lavender. Patent leather pumps and socks to match his cravat, and a suit with a decidedly purple cast to it, completed his attire. Gleason had the appearance of being half divinity student, half gambler, and "the other half," as the Irishman said, "dude."

"Well, don't you like me, wifey?" asked Gleason quizzically, as Frank stood just inside the threshold eyeing this strange mixture of a boy. "Sorry if you don't, for it's going to be no end of a trouble. They're chock-a-block with flowering youth at this blessed institution, and if we fight one of us'll have to go into the cellar."

"O, we're going to get on all right," said Frank grinning, "but you're so different from what I had expected."

"Well, I might be worse. What are you going in for?"

"It will be study for a while for mine. I'm three weeks late. I'm too light for football this year, and I don't know much about it, but I'm going out for baseball in the spring. And maybe I will get a chance at the track meets. I can run a little. What do you go in for?"

"Me? O, I just sit round on the bleachers and take notes. I soak myself in records and they just ooze out of all my pores. Very handy young person to have around, Frank. Don't mind my familiarity, that's your handle—I saw it on your boxes. Good name for the family Bible, but kind of cold for school life. Haven't you got something warmer? They call me 'Codfish' because, forsooth, I came from up Cape Cod way. But the cod is a good fish properly treated, so I don't object. Haven't you something in the way of a name besides your Christian ticket?"

"No, just Frank."

"Well, it isn't right. It isn't cosey and homey enough. All right for the school catalogue, but too chilly for everyday use. What's your 'ponchong' as the French say, your big swipe, in other words?"

"Well, I do a little swimming now and then," said Frank. "How would Fish be?"

"Won't do. Can't have two members of the ichthyosaurus family in one room. Let's see. Eel—no, eel isn't good, he spends most of his time in the mud. Duck—no, the young ladies at the seminary'd be calling you ducky some day. I have it—web-foot, Web-foot Armstrong, how's that?"

"Sounds all right," said Frank, "kind of a paddler, eh?"

"An inspiration, my boy. Web-foot is your name from henceforth, to have and to hold until death do you part—Web-foot Armstrong, thus I christen thee."

A sound was heard on the stairs, and in another moment Jimmy and Lewis appeared at the open doorway. They were already acquainted with Gleason, and nodded to him.

"Welcome to our city," cried Gleason coming forward. "Are you acquainted with my young friend, Web-foot Armstrong? He is my steady for whom I've been waiting for three long weeks."

"It's a new name my room-mate has given me," explained Frank laughing. "He says Frank isn't homey enough."

"Web-foot suits him all right. He's a perfect water-dog, you know," said Jimmy. "One of the rising young swimmers of the generation and all that sort of thing; gave the champion a hard rub down in Florida."

"Ah, yes," said the Codfish, straddling. "I saw something about that; let's see, I have it somewhere—yes, here it is," as he began picking in a big envelope among a number of clippings—"here it is—'Champion Boy Swimmer of Milton hustles the Champion,' copied from the St. Augustine Record," and he began to read an exaggerated account of the affair in the Florida tank.

"That was going some," he concluded. "Darnell's record is 56 and 2-5 seconds for the hundred. He did that at the Olympics in Athens two years ago and repeated it in the New York Athletic Club last winter."

The Codfish reeled off the information with the certainty of knowledge.

"He knows every amateur record that was ever made, I think," Jimmy whispered to Frank, "and can tell you what the score of every league contest was since he was big enough to fall out of the cradle; and he is a great practical joker, so they say. You want to look out for his tricks."

"Stop filling us up on your records, Gleason," said Lewis. "I'm hungry as a bear. Let's fill up on something more substantial."

The boys raced down the stairs with a clatter and headed in the direction of Howard Hall beyond Russell. Howard was the old gymnasium which had been turned into a great dining hall, and there, amid the crash of crockery, Frank sat down to his first school meal, flanked by Jimmy and Lewis. Across the table was the irrepressible Codfish.

"We all mess together here, you see," said Jimmy, waving his hand abroad, "but the upper classes have that end of the hall to themselves. Noisy, isn't it, but you'll get used to it."

Frank nodded. He was taking in this part of his new life, with all his eyes and ears to the exclusion of his stomach. What would his mother think of this rumpus, he thought, and he smiled to himself.

"Hey, Skip, you there, don't hog all the butter, shoot it down here," called the Codfish. "You use as much grease as a six-cylinder transmission." And the butter dish came hurtling down from Skip Congdon, caroming against the pepper and salt dishes and knocking them off their pins.

CHAPTER V.CAPTURED BY THE ENEMY.

The meal was finally over. There was nothing of the home quiet in it at all. The Codfish well described it as "grab and guzzle and git."

Outside the early dusk had come and the lights of the dormitories twinkled out here and there to meet the moon which had just pushed her disk above the cloudless eastern horizon. The katydids kept up their ceaseless argument in the great elms overhead as Frank and Jimmy walked slowly arm in arm down the yard. Lewis had dashed off to his room to do some long over-due work on a recitation for the early morning hour.

From the other side of the yard came the sound of singing.

"That's the Glee Club tuning up," said Jimmy. "They sing out of doors until it gets too cold to be comfortable."

The song floated over to them beneath the dusky arbor of the elm trees:

Queen's School Days.

Come all you jolly Queen's boys

And harken to our song,

We'll tell you all our school joys,

We'll laugh both loud and long—

Chorus.

For we'll sing ha, ha,

And we'll yell RAH, RAH,

In a merry, merry roundelay.

A laugh and a smile,

We have them all the while

In our happy, happy Queen's school days.

When first I came to Queen's School,

Way back in sixty-eight,

O, wasn't I the green fool

In all this wide estate!

I was a verdant youngster,

As green as green as grass,

They stuffed my head with knowledge

All in the Freshman class.

A year went by so swiftly

On happy wings did soar,

And then the masters made me

A jolly Sophomore.

And next a learned Junior

My fate it came to be,

The Profs. they set me climbing

Straight up the Wisdom Tree.

And then at last a Senior

With dignity complete,

The Freshmen, Sophs. and Juniors

All kneeling at my feet.

But now the fun is over;

We draw a deep, deep sigh,

Farewell to life in clover,

Good-by old Queens, Good-by.

The boys came to a halt as they listened to the rollicking melody borne to their ears on the evening breeze. To Frank came the exquisite feeling of being a part of the school, and the song thrilled him out of all relation to its value as music.

"Great, isn't it?" and he looked up at the dark, gently swaying branches overhead and let his eye follow the long line of school buildings. "I was wondering only a little while ago," he said, "if it wouldn't be the best thing for me to go to work somewhere and give up school and college."

"Changed your mind about it so soon?"

"Yes, I guess I have. It's fine to be a part of a school like Queen's, and to meet all the fellows, and fight your little battles, and maybe win a few. I don't think I'll ever amount to much here, but I'm going to have a try at everything that comes my way."

"What did your father and mother say about your going to work?"

"O, mother didn't think much of it, but Dad, as usual, put it up to me. 'It's your own life, you know, and you've got to live it. If you want to go into business life now, I'll find you a good place to start, and if you want to take a few extra years broadening your education, there's Queen's ready to take you if you're ready for her.' And I'm glad I decided this way. It's going to be wonderful." He had forgotten the meeting with Dixon that afternoon, and the unhappy incident at his appearance on the scene. The black shadow of Gamma Tau which had fallen across his path did not trouble him.

Frank and Jimmy had traversed the length of the school walk down to the great iron gates at the Milton turnpike, and were returning up the yard. The group on the steps of Russell were still singing and were engaged at that particular moment with the closing chords of a popular tune. Then they broke out in a joyful and triumphant pean, the new football song, written by Arthur Stubbs, Jimmy informed Frank, "editor of the Mirror, which maybe you don't know is the great and buzzing school weekly. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?"

They both listened as the song rolled out on the night air, doggerel sure enough, but given life and character by the vigorous way it was flung out:

See our team come marching

Down the white-barred field,

Pushing back the foemen,

Queen's will never yield.

Charging fast and faster,

Warwick's on the run,

Disaster on disaster,

And Queen's has just begun.

Push them o'er the goal line,

Roll them in the mold,

Show them who's the master,

Raise the Blue and Gold.

Cheer the dusty victors

As they turn away,

Raise the shout to heaven,

Hurray, hurray, hurray——

"The last line is to be shouted in unison," explained Jimmy, "and it will make a great noise when the whole school gets into it."

The air was catchy, and Frank found himself humming as he walked along:

"Show them who's the master,

Raise the Blue and Gold."

"If I can't do anything else, Jimmy, I can help the team by singing."

"Well, I'm thinking that singing won't save this Queen's School football bunch when we meet Warwick."

"Is Warwick strong this year? I saw they had cleaned up Dean without much trouble, but haven't noticed much about them."

"Strong!" ejaculated Jimmy, "I guess they are. They've taken everyone they've played into camp this fall, and they boast that Queen's scalp will dangle at their belts as the last and the best of the series. Like the fellow in Danny Deever, 'I'm dreading wot I got to watch' two weeks from Saturday—that's the date of the bloody battle down there on the gridiron," and Jimmy jerked his thumb in the direction of the meadow.

In their promenade the boys had almost reached the second entry in Warren Hall when they noticed a group of perhaps half a dozen fellows, a short distance up the walk. As Frank and Jimmy came up to the entry this group got in motion and approached them, and as they passed, one of the group jostled Frank off the walk. "Keep out of the way, Freshmen," said a gruff voice, but in spite of the attempt to disguise it, both boys recognized it instantly.

"Chip Dixon," they exclaimed in a breath.

"Now what is he hanging around here for with that bunch of his cronies, I'd like to know," said Jimmy. "I wonder if he has a notion of hazing you. By Jove, I'll bet you a dollar that's it. They were waiting for you to grab you, but seeing me here they probably gave it up for the time at least. Let's walk on."

"Why would they give it up? You talk like a Senior, and if I haven't been sleeping like old Rip Van, you're nothing more than a Freshman yourself. My head isn't as hoary as yours by three weeks, that's all."

"O, no, I've been through the mill and they never haze a fellow twice. They gave me a jolly roast though, and that let's me out for the rest of my natural school life."

"What did they do to you?" inquired Frank, who had heard of such doings on the persons of unsuspecting and confiding youth. "I supposed that hazing had been stopped here completely. The Milton Gazette said that Doctor Hobart had ordered it stopped after they ducked that fellow in the river one night and he got his death from it."

"Yes; Dr. Hobart stopped hazing, and threatened to fire anyone he caught at it, but while that has stopped some of the worst of it maybe, it isn't dead by a long shot. They didn't do much to me, tied my hands and feet and rolled me down the hill over there, and gave me an egg shampoo and mussed me up considerable, but I came out of it all right. Dixon was in the gang that did for me, I think, but I'm not sure, because they were masked."

"Well, they're not going to haze me," said Frank, "if I see them first."

"Interference with your personal liberty resented, eh?"

"Yes, maybe. I wouldn't mind anybody but Dixon, and I certainly will not have such a galoot as he is mauling me around, if I have to fight the whole gang."

"Better not fight, Frank. Better take it good naturedly, and it will be over quick. If you resent, you're likely to get it harder."

"Well, if they really are out to haze me there's no help for it, but I'll have some fun, too," and he stretched out his arm and flexed his muscles. "Haven't been paddling canoes around the Florida Everglades for nothing, Jimmy."

Jimmy grinned. "Better come up to my room just the same; no use courting a ruction. If they are after you, they may come around and not finding you in, may give it up and forget about it. Come on."

"Hanged if I do," said Frank. "I don't believe there's anything to it. You, having had your medicine, are suspicious. If they want me they will find me."

By this time the two had retraced their steps to Frank's entry. All was quiet. The singers had ended their melodious efforts and moved off. Only now and then a single figure could be seen hurrying along under the tree arches. The moon, rising higher in the sky, sent her beams through the branches, and brought out every object in the yard distinctly. No plotters against the peace of No. 18 were to be seen anywhere.

"False alarm, old man," said Frank, as they stood there scanning the school yard. "All is quiet on the Potomac. So long, see you in the morning. Gleason must be visiting, for there's no light in the room."

"Maybe you're right, but, just the same, turn the key when you go into your room. So long, see you in the morning."

"So long," echoed Frank, and turned and entered the arching doorway.

Frank climbed the steps of the first flight three at a leap. He wasn't afraid of Dixon and his gang even if they were on the warpath. "It's great to be back at school," he thought, and as he took the last few steps leading to the second landing, he hummed to himself the lines he had heard the fellows singing:

"Show them who's the master,

Raise the Blue and Gold."

"What's the matter with this stairway,—no light; they must be stingy with their gas," said Frank aloud. "Since Gleason isn't back yet, I'll have a session with these duds of mine and get my room to rights. To-morrow I'll start on this sitting-room ruin. Where did I put those blooming matches?" he added to himself as he opened his room door and stepped inside. "O, yes, I remember, on the corner of the mantel," and he headed for that point in the darkness of the room. He stumbled over a chair which didn't seem to be where it ought to be, certainly it wasn't there when he went out, but he reached the mantel and began to fumble for the box which he distinctly remembered was there.

"There's Gleason's stein," he said half aloud, as his hand touched a gigantic creation with a pewter top that he had noticed that afternoon, "and there's the alarm clock. I'm getting hotter. The matches were near the clock, I remember now."

Frank stood still and stretched his arm out trying to find the end of the shelf. His fingers touched something which made him thrill and recoil. But in spite of his quickness he felt something grasp his wrist sharply. He tried to draw away, but the hand, for such it was, tightened its grip and another came to the assistance of the first. Instantly there was the shuffling of feet, and with a rush he was surrounded. He felt many hands laid upon him roughly and insistently.

Frank fought desperately, hitting, kicking and trying with all his strength to wrench himself free. By twisting his arm sharply he managed for a moment, to break the hold that someone had on him, and shot his fist sharply out into the darkness with all his force. It found a soft mark somewhere on someone's face, and hurt, too, as a grunt attested. But he was grasped still more firmly and had no more chance to fight.

In the scuffle in the dark which followed, chairs were knocked over, the table was bumped into, and Gleason's gorgeous shade fell with a crash to the table, and then trickled off to the floor in many pieces. But Frank's struggles were useless, for he was borne backwards to the floor and pressed down by superior weight. Finally he lay on the floor with his hands pinioned to his sides, and a weight of bodies across his legs. Not a word had been spoken in the struggle, but now a voice whispered: "Strike a match, some of you. This Indian hit me on the nose and I'm bleeding like a stuck pig. And that won't make it any easier for him," the voice added, vindictively.

There was a scratching sound and a light flared up. Frank looked up from the floor to see himself surrounded by half a dozen fellows masked and completely disguised. Coats were turned inside out, collars up and caps reversed, the better to conceal their identity. The mask itself covered the face from the middle of the forehead to the upper lip, and, simple though it was, made recognition almost impossible, particularly in the dim light from the low turned gas jet which the conspirators had set going.

Frank had been neatly trapped, and was helpless as a baby before the superior numbers. He was presently more helpless, for his hands were lashed behind him with a stout leather strap.

CHAPTER VI.HAZING AND THE WATER CURE.

Frank studied his enemies from his lowly position on the floor, but could not remember ever having seen any of them, a thing that was not strange, since his school life had only begun that afternoon. He noted with satisfaction that one of his assailants was at the other side of the room trying to stop a flow of blood from his nose, which seemed to be copious, judging from the stains on the handkerchief which had been vigorously applied.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" asked Frank at last, as his captors let him get on his feet. He was savage at himself for having been so easily caught.

"You'll see soon enough, Mr. Armstrong."

"No wonder," reflected Frank, "we were unable to see the bunch of hazers when they were snugly waiting in my own room, which they prepared by darkening with drawn curtains and shutting off the gas in the entry outside my door. No wonder the place was like midnight. It would have been better if I had taken Jimmy's advice."

"Come on," said the bloody-nosed one. Frank had a notion there was a familiar ring in it. It was like Dixon's voice and it wasn't. If it was Dixon's, he was trying hard to change the tone by talking down in his throat. "I'll watch that fellow," he thought. "If it's Dixon he'll give himself away."

At the word of command to move, two boys grabbed Frank, one by each arm, and another stepped behind him.

"Hold on," said one of them, "we've got to tie up his face or he'll be yelling for help, and that won't do." The words were hardly out of the speaker's mouth when Frank felt a muffler flung over his head and face. It was tied securely behind, effectually shutting out his vision and making it a difficult matter to raise an outcry. Then the march was continued.

"Sh-h-h—, someone's coming," said a voice just as they had reached the entry outside his own door, "quick, go up the stairs," and Frank felt himself headed for the floor above the one they were on. A door banged below, and someone began mounting the stairs.

"What in thunder's this light out for? Some youngster with a poor sense of humor." It was Gleason's voice, and he was scolding to himself because of the murderous blackness. He came climbing up the stairs, stopped at his door, pushed it open and entered.

"Quick," commanded the voice ahead of Frank. "Make a break for the bottom and see that Armstrong doesn't get a chance to speak."

In another instant the captors and captured retraced their steps, a hand being slipped over Frank's mouth in addition to the muffler, to make sure of his silence.

"Bring him around back of Warren," whispered one of the leaders, and in a minute they had cut through the dark passage at the south end of Warren. Frank could not even make a guess where they were headed for, as he was not yet well enough acquainted with the lay of the buildings. He felt himself going down a grassy decline, then through some shrubbery which caught at his clothes, and then again where the grass seemed short and the turf firm. It seemed like a lawn to him, but as he had been turned around two or three times, he had not the faintest notion after five minutes' travelling where he was.

"Where are you taking me?" he finally managed to mumble to the fellow who had a grip of him by the right arm.

"We're going to give you the stretching treatment, my son."

Frank was not acquainted with it. The voice went on:

"Don't you know that you committed a grievous sin, a very grievous sin, when you talked back this afternoon?" Frank said nothing. "You don't think you're guilty. Well, the highest court of justice in this school sat on your case to-night, condemned you, and turned you over to the executioners, and them's us."

"We are now on our way to the gallows," said a voice to his left in a sepulchral whisper.

Still no reply from Frank. He had made up his mind, since he was in their power, to take his medicine, no matter what it was.

The group tramped on in silence for several minutes, and then stopped abruptly.

"Here's the spot," said one.

"Got the rope?"

"Yes," and there was the sound of a coil of rope falling on the soft grass.

"Coffin ready?"

"Yes, all ready, waiting for the fresh guy that is to occupy it."

In spite of Frank's sturdy heart, a shiver ran down his spine. He felt as though he were in the grip of some horrible nightmare. Perhaps it was a dream after all. He pinched himself to see if he were awake. But the pinch made him wince, and the two fellows hanging onto his arms, one at each side, were too real to be any part of a dream. What could they be meaning to do to him? Of course, they wouldn't dare injure him, but——

"All ready," said a voice. "Prisoner, have you anything to say before you swing? No tongue, eh? Well, executioner, proceed."

There was a stir in the crowd, and Frank felt himself pushed forward into what he supposed was a circle. They wouldn't dare do it, he was saying to himself, but his nerve was sorely tried.

Suddenly there came the sound of someone running across the grass. "A pardon, a pardon for Frank Armstrong," said a new voice. "Hanging sentence commuted to the water cure and imprisonment for life!"

"Curses," growled the chief executioner. "Snatched from me grasp! We would have had him strung up in a minute. Why didn't you lose your way, Paul Revere?"

"Well, since we can't hang him, let's proceed to the water cure. Hurry it up," growled a voice, which in spite of an assumed gruffness put him strongly in mind of Dixon's.

Frank was seized again and they walked rapidly for several minutes in what seemed to him an opposite direction from which he had come the first part of the journey. Soon their footsteps sounded on wood, which echoed flatly to their tread. It seemed like a platform. And there was the faint sound of lapping water. Could it be the river? It was the river, and when the bandage slipped from his face he saw that they were standing on the boat-house float. The river ran past, dark and silent.

"Halt. Prisoner, attention!" commanded a voice, a new one to Frank.

"You can swim?"

"Yes."

"He's the wonderful boy champion of Milton," said a sneering voice.

"Stood the world's champion off on a ten-mile race," said one.

"Set new records from 12 inches to a foot," said another.

"And got the big head about it, and sassed our valiant quarterback."

How Frank hated the reporter who had printed the story about his swimming. He almost hated Burton for teaching and himself for learning how to swim. It seemed to be bringing him only trouble. He had done nothing to deserve it.

"We want a little exhibition, Mr. Champion Armstrong," said the voice again, which sounded more than ever like Chip's. "Strip."

"The water's too cold," said Frank, startled when he found it was their intention to put him into the river.

"Keep going when you are in. Who ever heard of a champion being afraid of cold water? Off with your clothes, and be quick about it. You've got a minute to shed them or in you go with them on."

Frank began reluctantly to undress, looking, out of the corner of his eye, at the dark surface of the river, silvery cold under the moon's rays. He watched for a possible avenue of escape, thinking that perhaps a bold dash might give him his liberty, but his captors formed a half circle about him, and the open side of the circle lay towards the black river.

Apparently there was nothing for it but to go in or be chucked in, and Frank chose the former. He slipped off his clothes, and put them in a pile on the float and turned toward the water.

"You've got to go across to the other side, Armstrong. If you renig we'll chuck your clothes in after you. And don't turn your head till you get there, or it will be worse for you."

Frank waited to hear no more, but sprang boldly out into the water. How the first touch of the cold water grabbed him! It was like a knife thrust, for the night was in the middle of October, and the coldness of the air had transferred itself to the surface. Below it was warmer, however, and he let his body sink to get the full benefit of the warmth, and struck out for the opposite shore, which was at this point perhaps seventy-five yards away. Soon the blood began to come back to his skin with a glow, and as he paddled away he thought it not so bad after all.

About midstream he slackened up a moment and looked back to the float, thinking perhaps he would be permitted to come back.

"Go on," commanded a voice, and seeing no help for it, Frank put down his head and dug for the opposite shore as fast as he could go. He reached the bank, which was gently shelving, in short order, pulled himself up and looked back.

The float was deserted, nor could a soul be seen anywhere, although the moon's rays lighted up the whole place as bright as day.

Even at that distance he could see his little pile of clothes by the side of the float. He heard the faint murmur of the river at his feet, and away off behind him in the marshes a big bullfrog singing his evening song with a chorus of deep-throated croakings.

"They've gone, unless they're planning some more trouble for me," said Frank, bitterly, to himself. "They must have ducked behind the boat-house and are now on the way back to the school in the shadow of the trees."

He pushed into the water, shivering, and set out for the float, which seemed a long distance away. The water slipped gurgling between his fingers as he drew his hands through on the stroke, giving him a creepy sensation. He felt that the denizens of the river were staring at him, this strange white body so queerly afloat at such a time of night. He shuddered and drove faster for the float, and felt a great relief when his hand touched the wooden edge.

Frank pulled himself up, and looked carefully around. His tormentors had disappeared as absolutely as if they had been swallowed up in the river, and everything was as still as death except the frog chorus in the marshes, and the occasional cheep of a cricket on the river bank. Lights twinkled in the windows of Warren, and as he listened, the school bell boomed out the hour of nine thirty.

"Gee, whiz, I'll be locked out if I don't hurry," he whispered to himself, and he plunged into his clothes with the greatest alacrity, his teeth chattering. How the clothes stuck to him and clasped his wet skin clammily! "Never knew till now how handy a towel is," he muttered. But he was finally clothed, and a brisk run up through the field put the blood in circulation.

When Frank reached his room, Gleason was preparing for bed.

"Well, my night owl, where have you been? Thought maybe you'd got homesick so soon and had started for the busy city of Milton," was Gleason's greeting. Then, seeing Frank's hair wet, he added: "Been giving the mermaids a serenade, eh?"

"Yes, just been having a bit of a swim," said Frank. "Good thing for a fellow at night, you know, makes him sleep well."

"Great Scott!" was all Gleason could say. "Swimming at this time of night in the river! Well, my eye, you are a funny one. Web-foot, you are for sure and all. Well, you can use the river, but I prefer the good old porcelain bathtub for mine after September first."

"Nothing like the outdoors swimming, you know," said Frank, "and at night you don't startle the surrounding scenery. I'm off for bed. Good night."

"Good night," called Gleason, who had also dived into his sleeping-room. "I say, what were you doing up here when I was gone? I found my lampshade busted when I came, chairs upset, curtains drawn tight and all that. Little rough-house, eh?"

"Yes, just a little rough-house to celebrate my arrival at Queen's."

"Oh," said Gleason, "I found a leather wristlet over by the mantel when I was picking up the debris. Maybe it belongs to one of your friends."

"Maybe it does; where is it?"

"On the table there; if you dig around you will find it."

Frank went quickly to the table where the wristlet lay in plain sight. He picked it up, examining it curiously. It was made of leather about two inches wide, with two small brass buckles which allowed the strap to be drawn up tightly. Such wristlets were often worn to strengthen and protect a weak wrist. He had noticed that afternoon that two of the football squad wore just such wristlets as these. Could it be one of them? He turned the leather over and over, and started as his eyes fell on the initials C. D. inked on the inside of one of the straps. "Chip Dixon, by goodness! I'll keep this for future use. It may come in handy more ways than one, Mr. Dixon."

CHAPTER VII.SCHOOL SPIRIT AND SCHOOL INFLUENCES.

Next morning Frank made the acquaintance of Dr. Hobart, principal of Queen's School. The Doctor had the reputation of being severe, a terror to wrong doers, but gentle enough withal when things went right. He was a mere wisp of a man, about sixty years old, not over five feet tall, and with a thin, narrow face and parchment-like skin. His shoulders were bowed a little, perhaps with his weight of learning, for Dr. Hobart was considered one of the best of preparatory school leaders. Indeed, his reputation went far and wide, and the excellence of his school brought him pupils from many parts of the country.

The Doctor's distinguishing feature was his eyes, or rather eye, for he only had one which nature gave him. His natural left eye had many years before been injured and removed. It was now replaced by one of glass, and the fixed and unwinking position of it when the Doctor was aroused bored straight through the soul of the culprit before him and came out the other side, or so it seemed to the unfortunate who faced him, accused of misdeeds. It would be a brazen youth, indeed, who could stand before that penetrating glance from under the shaggy brows.

Frank had heard a good deal about the Doctor, and it was with some trepidation that he approached the august presence in his quarters on the first floor, third entry of Warren.

"Old Glass-eye is a ring-snorter," Gleason had told him. "They say he dines off freshmen. I'm a brave man, but I was glad when he was through with me. I was so flim-fazzled when he turned that glass orb of his on me that I couldn't have told whether the amateur hundred-yard record had set at ten seconds or half an hour."

But the Doctor was in one of his most amiable moods when Frank was ushered into his presence.

"This is the late-comer, is it?" he inquired, gently.

Frank interpreted it as a criticism, and hurried to say:

"Yes, sir. But I couldn't very well help being late. I was away for my health, and my parents didn't really intend to have me go to school till after Christmas, but I made such good progress that they thought it best to get me in as early as possible, after all."

"H'm; and I suppose you wanted to come?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I like school, and I hope to go to college if I can keep up my work here and pass the examinations."

"So you're going to college. That's good. We can give you the training here; the rest of it depends on yourself. Where do you expect to go to college, my young friend?" and the Doctor brought his baleful eye to bear on Frank.

"York, sir."

"Very good, very good. You are going in for athletics, Mr. Armstrong?"

"Just a little, sir. Do you advise it?"

"Yes, Mr. Armstrong, I advise athletics—just a little, as you say. But one thing I insist upon, that whatever you go in for, it must be wholeheartedly. The great curse of the present time is the spirit of dabbling. Don't be a dabbler." And the glass eye transfixed his hearer. "Whatever you do, do well. When you are in the class-room, do what you have to do. Make your time count. When you study, study; when you play, play. If you go out on the athletic field, make the most of it, and if you go into any sport, carry it to the highest point of development you can consistent with the time you have to give it. Athletics are only another kind of education, and carried on in the right way they very powerfully supplement the work of the class-room. And, above all things, play fair. Play hard, but play fair. Win if you can, but be a gentleman in your winning, and in your defeat, if you meet defeat, as you will in school and out of it. You have the appearance of quality in your face. You have a chance here to show what you can do in the class-room and on the field. Whatever you do, make yourself felt. Make yourself respected, but also make yourself felt. Respect your schoolmates worthy of respect, and make them respect you by your uprightness.

"I did not mean to make this a lecture, my boy," added the Doctor, pleasantly, the bushy eyebrows drawing into a kindlier line. "I want to help set you straight on this school road, which is not so easy as it may appear to you. If you ever want advice, and you think I can help you, come to me without hesitation. I am not so black, maybe, as I'm painted," and the Doctor's right eye assumed a kindly twinkle. "And now," he continued, "go over to Mr. Parks, whom you will find in Russell, and he will give you an outline of your school work and assign your classes. Good morning."

"By Jove! he's a brick," said Frank, as he hurried across the yard. "I thought I was going to find a bear, and he was nothing more than a kindly human being with a whole reservoir of good advice."

Mr. Parks, the assistant master, inducted Frank into the school routine, and the boy's school life began that morning auspiciously. He felt that he had made a good friend in the Doctor, and he was bent on satisfying his demand as far as studies were concerned. As to how he would make his way with his schoolmates, was another matter, and he approached it with less of a feeling of certainty.

In the early afternoon of that day Frank made a call on his old friend Jimmy, who was industriously working up his history; but when Frank put his head in at the door, the history book was shut with a snap.

"Hello, Web-foot, how did you get along last night? No hazers, I hope."

"Got along finely," said Frank, "in spite of lots of excitement. Took a forced swim in the Wampaug last night, preceded by a young scrap in No. 18, and this morning I had a session with the Doctor, who gave me enough good advice to keep me straight in line through the whole school course."

"The dickens you say!" exclaimed Jimmy. "You don't mean to say that they got you after all?"

"They certainly did, got me good and hard. Started out to stretch my neck down on the meadows somewhere,—that was the sentence they said,—and then changed their minds, not being willing to sacrifice a budding young genius like myself, and gave me the water cure."

"The water cure?"

"Yes, the water cure, which consisted in making me swim the river, after nine o'clock, and back in my bare pelt."

Jimmy was indignant. "By George, that was tough. Who did it?"

"Oh, I don't know; half a dozen fellows were waiting for me in my room, dumped me on the floor, tied my hands, carried me off with a muffler around my face, and then, when I was half way across the Wampaug, skipped and left me."

"Was Chip Dixon in the gang that hazed you?"

"I couldn't tell. The fellows were all masked."

"It's a beastly shame," blurted out Jimmy. "It'll come out, see if it don't, and I wouldn't give a licked postage stamp for the chances of the fellows who did it, if it comes to the Doctor's ears. I've a notion to go out and play detective. To think that I was studying here quietly, and you were being ducked in the river not two hundred yards away!" And Jimmy jumped up and began to walk around the floor, threatening vengeance on the perpetrators of the outrage.

"Oh, don't you bother about it. It gave them lots of fun, and it didn't hurt me," said Frank. "The water sure was chilly when I struck it first, but the swim wasn't long. It made me sleep like a top. And perhaps some good may come out of it."

Jimmy continued to growl, but Frank laughed the incident away, and the talk turned on the afternoon's football practice which Horton had threatened would be a stiff one.

"Speaking of football," said Jimmy, "why don't you go out and do a little something for your newly adopted school?"

"Oh, I wouldn't be any good. I'd like to try it, all right. But I've got my work cut out for me, staying in school without mixing up in football this fall anyway. Maybe by the time hockey comes around I'll do some work if I'm standing well enough to escape the terrible eye of the Doctor. But for this fall at least I'll do most of my football work on the bleachers, and giving the right halfback of the eleven friendly advice."

"No luck like that for me. I guess I'm not much good and I don't stand well enough with the ruling powers. But maybe, bye-and-bye, I'll get a chance. In the meantime I'll keep pushing and learn all I can. Horton knows the game, doesn't he?"

"Yes, the way he spotted the bad play on both teams was a caution. He must have twenty pairs of eyes."

At this moment in the conversation Lewis strolled into the room. "I've decided," he announced with heavy dignity, "to cut out football. I've been getting on pretty well at it, and the coach doesn't want me to drop out now when I'm pretty sure of a place" (Jimmy and Frank exchanged winks), "but I feel my studies need my time. I think I'll go out for the Whitney Fellowship. So you fellows will have to get along without my society down on the gridiron."

"Bad, too bad," murmured Jimmy. "Such a chance, too, for the team, just now when you'd be put in at center. It would be a great thing for Milton, too, to have a representative on the great Queen's School eleven. It would be headlines for the papers. Sorry you can't give it the time."

"And speaking of time," said Frank, "isn't it about time you were getting under way for the gym? I think I see the gathering of the clans from here," he added, looking out of the window in the direction of the field.

"Wonder what Mr. Dixon will feel like when Lewis announces his intention of retiring from the squad," said Jimmy, with a wink, as he prepared to leave.

"And I wonder what Mr. Dixon will do to one James Turner," retorted Lewis.

"Oh, I guess he won't bother him very much," said Frank.

"Is that so? Well, you don't know that youngster as well as we do. You'll hear things about him when you've been here a little longer."

"I've heard some things and seen some others, and perhaps I know Mr. Dixon better than he thinks I do. And I'm not far wrong when I say that that young fellow will not bother Jimmy too much."

"Yes, you'll jump in and hand our lively young quarter a few straight digs in the ribs, I suppose."

"Maybe so, but he had better keep himself to himself."

"Oh, come on here, stop your scrapping. Come on and watch the emaciated Second, now that Lewis has left us, being smeared by the riotous First. Oh, I hate to think of it," cried Jimmy, dashing out of the door.

When the squad reported for practice at four o'clock sharp, Horton had on his business face and he lost no time in getting things moving. "I'm going to see if these two teams know anything about football at all. We've been dodging around here playing tag for a month. Now we've got to begin to play football. Let's have a little punting and see if you backs can hold the ball to-day."

The backs were divided into two squads, and two of the best punters were sent up to the middle of the field, with a center to snap the ball. Boston Wheeler—his Sunday name was Worthington, but Boston was handier, and better described him, as he came from that famous city known as "the Hub"—was punting the ball in long, lazy curves which carried thirty yards, and then dropped head first, much to the disgust of the racing backs.

"Mine," yelled Spud Dudley as with hands outstretched and neck craned he drove for one of Wheeler's high ones.

But he misjudged, as the ball dropped too straight for him and bounced around on the group. The wrath of the coach was drawn upon him instantly.

"What do you think you are catching, Dudley, a featherbed? Get under those high ones. They drop quick when they come spinning with the long axis parallel to the ground. Don't let them catch you napping. And haven't I told you to make a little pocket for the ball between your hands, which must be held closer together, and your chest? Then the ball can't get away from you. That's better, Freshman." This was directed to Jimmy, who took a low end-over-end punt from Dobson, the other punter, at top speed. "I don't know where that Freshman got it, but he has the right idea about catching punts," Horton added.

Punting practice went on for five minutes or so, and then, after a brief signal drill between the First and Second elevens, the coach called both teams to the middle of the field.

"Now, this is the last practice game before the Barrows game, and I want you to do your best. You can win easily if you will only forget about yourselves, and play for the team. Let's see you do it. Come on, every one into it," and the whistle spoke out shrilly for the beginning of the practice game.

CHAPTER VIII.QUEEN'S MEETS BARROWS AT FOOTBALL.

In spite of Horton's appeal for good playing, the sample of football that the First team gave was anything but encouraging. The coach was all over the field, exhorting his charges to their best efforts, but their best efforts fell very far short of what he wanted.

After the kick-off, the First had made some good gains through the Second's Line. Then Dutton missed his signals and lost a lot of ground. He stood dumbly with the ball in his hands while the opposing tackle came ripping through the line, seized him around the waist, and ran him ten yards back towards his own goal before Dutton could yell "down."

"Isn't that the limit of all things?" said the Wee One to Frank. They were sitting together on the bleachers with a bunch of other critics, passing judgment on the playing, good and bad, as they saw it enacted before them. The Wee One was a critic of no mean calibre. "Isn't that the limit of all things? If they could only perform an operation on the thing that Dutton calls his head and get some grey matter from a jackass and insert it, he might possibly remember some of the signals,—at least such little ones as 'straight through the line,' which is about all he's good for anyway."

"Guess Horton's going to have apoplexy now, isn't he?" inquired Frank, as he watched the coach striding about among the players, shaking his clinched fists. But Horton recovered himself, and commanded another scrimmage. This time the First pulled itself together, and under the urgings of the quarter and the vigorous coaching of Horton, tore through the Second for great gains. It was fast and furious, slang, bang, up-and-at-it-again football, and the Second was retreating down the field, doing its best to hold its ground, but being swept aside by the rushes of the giant Dutton.

It was first down on the Second's ten-yard line, and it looked like a touchdown. The First was about to take revenge for the rebuffs the Second eleven had been giving them for several days.

"Now," shrilled Chip at the top of his lungs, "put it over. 16—32—11."

"Hillard's signal for a tackle-shaving play," translated the Wee One, and Hillard was off like a shot for, say what you might about his uncertainty with the ball, he was extremely fast on his feet, and when he was able to hang onto the ball he could be depended on to make ground. But poor Hillard, whose star had been bright that afternoon, was in so great a hurry to start that he missed the more important matter of securing the ball firmly. It dropped to the ground. He made a step in its direction, but misfortune upon misfortune, kicked it with his foot and sent it rolling towards the end of the line where an alert end of the Second team pounced upon it.

The whistle in Horton's lips shrieked savagely, a signal to stop play. The First eleven gathered together stupidly, and scowled back savagely at the members of the Second, who stepped around elastically and grinned broadly.

"I wouldn't be in Hillard's place for a row of apple trees all in full bloom," ventured the Wee One. "Something's coming to him, all right. What did I tell you?" as Horton raised his voice so everyone could hear it:

"Hillard, you may go to the sideline. I've got to have some one who can keep his fingers around a ball. You've thrown away all the good work your team has done. I won't need you again for some time." Horton delivered his sentence in a calm voice, and then turned towards the sidelines where some of the substitutes were seated. "Where's that Freshman who played on the Second yesterday afternoon?" he said. "Hey, there, Turner, take Hillard's place. We'll see if you can hold the ball."

"Hurray!" cried Frank, jumping to his feet in excitement, "Jimmy's going to get his chance. That's great, and he's got it in spite of Mr. Dixon."

"And that will peeve Dixon," chuckled the Wee One. "There they go."

Jimmy was on the field in a flash, and his sweater was slung behind him as he ran.

"Now," said Horton, "I'm going to give you a chance here, and if you make good you may get in the game to-morrow. Your business is just now to follow your signal, and hold onto the ball. The signals are the same you have been playing under. Come on." And the whistle sounded. "Here, First eleven, take this ball again on the fifteen-yard line and try it."

On the very first play, Dixon gave the ball to Jimmy, who, following close behind his tackle, who opened a convenient door in the opposing line, went half the distance to the goal line.

"Good work!" shouted the coach.

Dutton on the next down sliced between tackle and guard, and got three yards and first down.

"I hope they don't put it up to Jimmy to make that four yards," said Frank, "it looks like a mile."

"Well, I'll bet Chip gives him the ball. He won't give him anything easy to do, and Chip would rather not score than let him cinch Hillard's place."

The Wee One was right, for the next instant Jimmy had the ball, and was ploughing into the line with his head down. Then he was lost in a heaving mass, but somehow slipped out of it, emerged free, and threw himself across the goal line. The First had scored. "Good work, Freshman," said the coach, but the quarterback turned and walked up the field sulkily.

For the rest of the afternoon's practice Jimmy fairly outdid himself. When he went into the line the ball seemed to be a part of him, and he rarely failed to make his distance. With his short, strong legs, thick neck and powerful back, he bored and squirmed through the smallest holes. On defence he was in every pile, and generally at the bottom of it.

"That boy has real football instinct," said Horton to Mr. Parks, who came down to the gridiron to look on. "He is green yet, but he is going to make a good one, you will see. He doesn't know anything about carrying the ball, yet he carries it, and he doesn't know anything about the science of tackling, but he stops his man. Where on earth he learned what he has, I don't know."

And Mr. Parks agreed that a new football player had come to town.

Practice finally ended. Horton's "That's enough for to-day," brought Frank scampering down from the stand to walk joyfully along beside his old playmate to the gymnasium.

"Knew you could do it, Jimmy," he said, as he trudged along with the perspiring hero of the afternoon, who was well hooded up in a blanket to keep the rather chilly October breeze off his overheated body. "It was great to see you." Frank's eyes fairly shone with pleasure. He took a greater pride in it than if it had been his own success.

"Glad I gave up the game," said Lewis, now in everyday clothes. "Two great football players in one room would have been more than Warren could have supported, eh Frank?" Frank was so happy that he would have agreed to anything that afternoon.

Barrows came down in great force the next afternoon, and the light blue of the Academy was flaunted everywhere on the yard of old Queen's. The followers of Barrows freely boasted a coming victory for their eleven, and, if truth must be told, the eleven was worthy of the confidence expressed. Barrows Academy drew from an older class of boys than did the Queen's School, many of its inmates on graduation going directly into business, for which it, in a measure, fitted them.

"Did you see those giants on the Barrows team?" quoth the Wee One, meeting Frank on his way to a geometry recitation. "They must have imported them from the foundry."

"It's a fact, they do look mountainous alongside some of our fellows," admitted Frank, "but we ought to know more football, we certainly have the best coach."

"The coach part of it is all right," said the Wee One, "and we know football, or, at least, ought to, but we don't seem to be able to get it out of our system."

The game was set for three o'clock, and long before that hour there was an exodus of the entire school, for class-room work on Saturdays closed at noon. The game was considered something of a test for Queen's, which had been playing very erratic ball all the year. There was a good deal of grumbling about the way that the Gamma was running things through its captain, Harding, and Chip Dixon, who seemed to have a powerful influence over Harding. A good many thought that the best players in the school were not having a fair trial, but as yet there had been no open revolt. Real rebellion against the rule of Gamma Tau still held off, but there were grumblings on the horizon which indicated a storm if things did not improve. And to-day was a chance for the crowd in control to show that they were playing the kind of ball expected from such a school as Queen's with such a coach as Horton.

Frank escorted Jimmy to the gymnasium that afternoon, where the teams were to dress for the fray, and the Freshman halfback was in a fever of excitement. Frank buzzed along with encouragement in every word.

"If I can only hang onto the ball," Jimmy would say, "but I had a notion yesterday two or three times that Dixon was trying to make it hard for me to get the pass. Once I nearly dropped it, and I was scared to death, for the coach was right alongside of me. My heart went as far down as my shin guards for sure."

"I'll watch him for any tricks like that," thought Frank, but to Jimmy he said never a word. It might only be Jimmy's imagination in his excitement.

"All I've got to say to you," said Horton to his charges when they were dressed and ready, "is to attend to business and play as a team, and think about what you are doing. These fellows are bigger than you, and you will have to outwit them. Use your heads and keep together. Now, skip."

In the first collision of the game, the big fellows from Barrows swept the lighter Queen's School back as though they were made of paper, and screams of delight rose from the stand where had gathered the hosts of Barrows. Down the field they went—five yards through tackle, ten yards around the end, five yards through center. Twice the attack had bowled Jimmy over after breaking down the line, and twice he had been able to stop the rush dead, without a gain. Once he had the joy of pushing the Barrows' halfback through the hole he came for at a loss of a yard.

"Look at Jimmy Turner, the Freshman," shouted the Wee One. "If they would all play like that kid we'd have a chance."

"What's Dutton doing,—Oh, what's he dreaming about? Missed his man. Did you ever see such a dope?"

"Turner got the Barrows' chap that time. Good for Jimmy."

"Hold 'em, Queen's, hold 'em."

But the Barrows' attack was not wonderfully varied, and little by little the advance was cut down as the Academy eleven began to approach the Queen's goal.

"Get together, get together, Queen's, and stop them," begged Captain Harding, and working like one, the boys responded to his cry.

It was third down on Queen's 12-yard line, with a yard to go, and the Barrows' backs held a consultation. The stands speculated as to whether they would try to carry it, or try a drop kick. For the latter piece of football, the aggressors were in a good position. But finally they elected to rush, and settled carefully down to position, balanced on their toes, and alert for the signal. If they could make their distance, it looked hopeless for Queen's, for the remaining yards to go for a touchdown would be easy, so the spectators figured.

The whistle shrieked, and the lines came together with a bang. Humphrey, the Barrows quarter, who had been playing a fine game and directing the team like a general, now made his first mistake. Thinking that the going was too hard through the line, he sent his fleetest halfback on a delayed pass out around right end. For a moment it looked as though he had made a master stroke. Campbell, the Queen's right end, was drawn in because he believed the play was to be made on the other side of the line, but Jimmy had interpreted correctly, too late, however, to warn Campbell. The Queen's tackle came through hard, and halted the Barrows' runner a minute, just long enough to let Jimmy get under way.

The Barrows' back ran behind an interference of the fullback, half and quarter, and it looked like a hopeless task to break this compact mass. Jimmy followed the interference out, crowding it back as well as he could, watching his chance. Suddenly he realized that the runner with the ball was outdistancing not only Jimmy himself, but his own interference. Jimmy felt that he could not handle them all, and he could not hope to get through the interference alone and get his hands on the runner. He did the only thing possible,—that is, he threw himself with unerring instinct against the knees of the interference, in a kind of side-dive. The effect was instantaneous. The interference was running so closely massed that there was no chance for them to dodge, and they went down over the Freshman's body in a tangle. The runner with the ball was so close that he, too, went sprawling, heels over head, and before he was able to get to his feet, big Boston Wheeler had pinned him down. It was Queen's ball.

How the Queen's stand did yell: "Turner, Turner, oh, you Turner!"

"Three cheers for Turner!"

"Rah, rah, rah, Turner, Turner, Turner!"

One might have thought there was only one man on the Queen's School eleven. At the cheers for Turner, although his halfback's action had probably saved the team from a score, Dixon's face took on a sour look. There was too much Turner in the game to suit him. It was a malicious eye he turned on Jimmy.

From this point, Queen's took up the march down the field, and steadily, as Barrows had come into Queen's territory, so steadily did the Queen's eleven fight their way back, and gradually it began to dawn on the partisans of Queen's School that they had a chance. Five yards here and five yards there brought the play quickly to the Academy's 20-yard line. A penalty for holding set them back, but on a pretty fake kick Dutton went straight through center to the five-yard line.

"Touchdown, touchdown," yelled the Queen's bleachers.

"Good old Queen's, we have got the Wheel-barrows where we want them."

"All over, but the shouting."

First down and on the enemy's five-yard line. It looked certain.

But there are many slips in football as well as in the everyday walks of life, for on the next play there was a fumble, and an indescribable scramble to recover it. And when the scramble was over, an Academy boy was found on top of the leather. A groan went up from the Queen's crowd. Down among the tumbled players two stood erect, one was Turner and the other Dixon, and the former had his fists clinched.

"Turner fumbled," said some one.

"Did you see what happened?" Frank cried, excitedly, to Patterson, with whom he was sitting.

"Don't you think I have any eyes?" said the Wee One, indignantly. "It was a dirty trick. He gave the signal and threw the ball at Jimmy's hands. Didn't give him a chance to get it. It was a deliberate trick, a contemptible trick," he added.

A few minutes later the half ended, and Queen's came to the sidelines. Horton was raging.

"Turner, you disappointed me. Right in the time we wanted you most, you failed us."

"It wasn't——" began Jimmy.

"I don't want any excuses," said Horton, sharply. "Hillard, go in at right half and finish the game there."

CHAPTER IX.WHAT CAME OF A FUMBLE.

Things went badly for Queen's in the second half of the game. Hillard was as brilliant and erratic as ever, and made several dashing runs around the ends, but he inevitably slipped up somewhere, and his unfortunate fumbling lost his team many more yards than he gained for it. Chip played like a demon, trying to justify himself in his own mind for the trick he had played Jimmy, the team and the school. He was in every interference and worked every instant to put Queen's in a position to score, but it was all to no avail. Chip was so intent on his work with the back field that he failed to hold the team together, and as the game went on the Queen's presented a less and less organized effort. Barrows slammed into them for big gains when the Academy had the ball, and at last solved all of the Queen's attacks so completely that the old school eleven was making no headway.

Finally, after an exchange of punts, Boston Wheeler, being obliged to kick against the wind, Barrows took up the march to Queen's goal from the latter's 35-yard line. Queen's line was tired physically from the pounding, and weak, for there was not enough stamina now to resist the bigger Academy fellows, who seemed to be growing stronger every minute. There was no Jimmy Turner now to drive his sturdy body fearlessly against the oncoming Barrowites.

"It's all over now," said the Wee One, "the team has lost what little fighting spirit it had at first. They will be buried out of sight with not even a leg to mark the graveyard."

Frank admitted that there was no help for it.

Horton walked up and down the sideline, shaking his head, unable to stop what was coming.

Soon the Barrows' catapult was rammed over the line for a touchdown. The angle was too difficult for the goal when the ball had been brought out, and Morton, who did the kicking, failed. From that point on, the game was a rout. Harding, having none of the qualities for leadership about him, could not hold his team together. He was useless in the emergency which was now upon the Queen's eleven. Chip tried to help by banging his men on the back, and crying desperately to "hold them, hold them, show your sand." But if they ever had any sand it had been scattered earlier in the game.

And how about the Freshman halfback who had been so unkindly thrown out of the game, and who sat watching this second half going against the Queen's School eleven? He was only a Freshman, but black despair was in his heart. He was only a Freshman, but he loved the old place, and he wanted to have the privilege of helping to put the school flag uppermost in all the contests in which she had a part. And to be so meanly tricked for no fault of his, and pitched off the field before the whole school was almost more than he could stand.

When the thing happened he was perfectly well aware how Chip had served him, and he sprang to his feet to settle the matter then and there with his fists, but after a tense moment his senses came back to him. Perhaps others had seen what had actually happened, and he would not have to bear the shame. But no one seemed to have noticed it. The coach evidently had not happened to see the incident, lynx-eyed though he was.

"He may have been looking aside at that moment," thought Jimmy, "and I mustn't blame him. I just looked like a dummy when he turned and saw the ball rolling around on the ground, and a hole big enough to drive an ox-cart through waiting for me. But I'll settle up with Dixon some day, and I hope it isn't far off." He ground the words out between his clinched teeth, and his look boded no good for Chip Dixon when the day of settlement should arrive.

What need is there to go into detail of that disastrous afternoon? Three times more did the jubilant Barrowites plough through Harding's demoralized eleven, and when the final whistle blew, the Queen's crowd saw the awful record on the board of 23 to nothing. It was the worst defeat that had ever come to Queen's at the hands of any but Warwick. It was a sting never to be forgotten, and only to be wiped out with reverse figures twice the size.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," said Gleason to Frank as the crowd slowly filed down off the stand, and the tired teams drew each into a knot and gave the yell for the opponents. "If it hadn't been for that rotten fumble of young Turner I think the Wheel-barrows wouldn't have gone home so full."

"It wasn't a fumble, Mr. Gleason," said the Wee One, "and if you thought it was you better run right along to the oculist and have him put his prettiest pair of specs on you!"

"Oh! p'raps it was a clever little piece of legerdemain then," grunted Gleason, but neither Frank nor the Wee One heard him. They were hotfooting it after Jimmy, who was tailing after the squad with his eyes on the ground and gloom in his heart.

Frank ran up behind him and slipped his arm around his shoulder. "We saw it, Jimmy," he said. "I didn't think he dare carry a grudge against you so far. But it lost him the game."

"I don't know," returned Jimmy. "They were too heavy for us." But there was a lightening of his spirits when he felt that the play was not entirely misunderstood. "Dixon made it hard for me to get the ball several times, but he always did it so cleverly that no one could see him. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it and been the victim of it as well. He got me out and his room-mate in."

"He got you out sure enough," said Frank. "I suspected he would swing something against you, and he was determined to get his room-mate in at any cost."

"Yes, and it cost him the game," said Patterson. "That's what you get for playing favorites. I'll bet the scrub could have put up a better argument against the Academy than the First eleven, the way it played to-day. Wonder what the coach will say to them?"

But the coach had little to say.

"Boys," he said, simply and without any venom in his words, "there's something wrong with you, and we'll try to find it next week. The way you played to-day, you haven't the ghost of a show to win your big game two weeks from now. You are a sore disappointment. I've done the best I could to show you how, but I can't go out there on the field and play your game for you."

It was quite evident from Jimmy's actions that he wanted to be let alone, so Frank and the Wee One slipped out of the gymnasium and headed for the school yard.

"Frank, what are we going to do about it? I don't want Queen's to lose to those farmers up the river, or I'd go to Horton with what I know and make a clean breast of it. That would certainly get Dixon fired from the team, but we'd be no better off, for in spite of what you may say about Chip, he's a peach of a quarter."

"Let's go to Dixon and tell him we know that Jimmy's failure to get the ball was due to him, and not to a stupid fumble, as it seems to have appeared to everyone else."

"We'll have our trouble for our pains I think, and I wouldn't be surprised if he fired us both out of his room, and shied a few boots, with feet in them, after us. Chip's got a bad temper, and he's not in a good humor just now."

"Let's try Harding. Even if he is a dummy, I don't think he'd stand for Dixon making a goat out of him and the rest of his team simply because he wants his room-mate and a brother Gamma to play."

"No use, Frank. Harding hasn't spunk enough. He's a pretty fair end, but he has no more business to be captain than I have to challenge for the heavyweight championship of the world. I'm afraid we can't do anything without busting up this whole eleven."

"What do you suppose the Doctor would do if it was proven to him that Chip threw the game away for a favorite?" asked Frank.

"Well, if I know anything about Old Glass-eye, I'd say he'd put a stop to the meteoric career of this football eleven of ours. And that's what I don't want to see. If we can only force Chip to drop his grudge against Turner, and get down to business, we might still have a fighting chance, but it's hopeless I'm afraid. The whole of Gamma Tau is behind him. And the worst of it is he's knocked poor Jimmy, and has done it so cleverly that even Horton thinks Jimmy's unreliable in a tight pinch, and if there's anything Horton won't forgive a man for, it is to fail when he is most needed. With no one strong enough to push his case and the captain and Dixon dead against him, there's not much more chance for Turner now."

Frank had been thinking hard, and now he stopped dead in his tracks.

"By Jove!" he said, "I think I know a way to force Chip Dixon to do as we want to have him. If he doesn't do it, there's a fair chance of his ending his career here. I hate to be mean, but when the other fellow is mean and will not let up, we've got to meet him with his own weapons."

"Well, fire away, young Sleuth; do you hold a deadly secret over his head? Out with it if you do."

Frank quickly gave the Wee One a description of the hazing, which was interrupted very frequently by Patterson with snorts of indignation.

"I'll bet Dixon was mixed up in that affair. If we only knew, we'd fix him."

"But supposing we did know?"

"We'd have him where the wool was short and the skin tender."

"Well, that's just it, for when I got back to the room that night Gleason had picked up a wristlet that Chip wore the first day I came here. I haven't seen a wristlet on him since. I looked particularly to-day, and he had none on."

"Any marks on the wristlet you found?" inquired the Wee One, eagerly, beginning to catch the drift of Frank's plan.

"Yes, 'C. D.' inked plainly on the inside of one of the small straps, and besides that I made a hunt in the grass near the boat-house the next morning, trying to trace out the way we went to the river, and accidentally came across the strap with which they tied my hands, and on that was printed Chip's full name. It looks like one of the straps which go around an extension grip. Here it is, and here's the leather wristlet."

"Jumping geewhillikins! Come to my arms, you Sherlock Holmes. We have Chip Dixon where we want him. This seems to be certain proof, and if we gave the story to Glass-eye, Chip wouldn't last long enough to pack his suit case. The old man is dead down on hazers since the accident we had here two years ago. He gives every new class a red-hot talk about it.

"To-night you and I will make a call on Mr. Dixon," added the Wee One, who had now thoroughly espoused the Freshman's cause, not only for that individual's sake, but for the sake of justice to the school. "I'll come over to-night after supper, and we will have a little session with our shifty quarterback, which, I think, will make him so gentle that he'll eat off our hand. So long, see you about half-past seven," and the Wee One tore off, but not before Frank had time to shout: "This is all between ourselves."

"Sure," returned the Wee One, "ourselves and Mr. Christopher."

CHAPTER X.FRANK SPRINGS A SURPRISE.

When Frank and the Wee One knocked on Dixon's door that night in the second entry, first floor of Russell Hall, it must be confessed that they were not as brave as they had felt themselves to be earlier in the evening when the plan of campaign had been decided. Frank felt that he had been at Queen's too short a time to be taking the high hand with the quarterback of the eleven, and he was uncertain as to how it would affect his standing in the school.

"I tell you, Willie, I wish there was some other way to get at this," Frank said as they cut across the broad walk under the elms.

"Have you some other plan under your bonnet?"

"No, that's the worst of it. I don't like the idea of being put in the position of forcing Jimmy on the eleven."

"Oh, what are you sticking at? If you don't do it the force will be on Jimmy to keep him off. It may be too late even now, for Jimmy had his chance, and to most of those who saw the game the indications were that he is not to be trusted with the ball in a tight place. We know better because we were suspicious of Chip and had a guess as to what he might be up to."

"All right," said Frank, "but just the same I wish we could get at it in a different way. Probably all on account of me, Jimmy will now get in bad with the Gamma crowd. I wish I hadn't come to school at all."

"Oh, come, if you are getting chills in your pedal extremities we will go back and put you to bed and warm you up with a hot water bottle. But if you are looking for victory, as Napoleon said, 'follow me into the breach.'"

"Don't you worry about my feet, Wee One, they're all right. I was thinking of Jimmy only; I want to help him, not hurt him."

By the time the boys had finished their discussion they had reached the entry.

"Do you know his room?" inquired Frank.

"Yes, second floor right," said the Wee One as he began to climb. "Rooms with Hillard, as you probably know. Hope Hillard isn't in. If he is it will make it harder to get to the subject, because Hillard would be displaced by Jimmy if he were found good enough to make the team. Here we are."

The Wee One's sturdy knock drew a loud response from within: "Come in." It was Chip's voice, and the tone did not sound pleasant.

Patterson pushed open the door and stalked into the room, as brave as a lion. Frank followed on his heels.

"Came to see you on a little business, Dixon," volunteered the Wee One, as he took a seat over by the fireplace.

"Indeed! You came at a bad time. I'm trying to get back work done."

"Sorry we disturb you, but it's important. This is my friend, Frank Armstrong."

Chip nodded curtly. "Yes, I've seen him before. He hasn't been here very long, has he? Quite an infant, so to speak," and a sneer played on his face.

"No, he hasn't been here very long, but he's going to stay a long while, and may grow up to quarterback of the School eleven or something like that, or make something better," retorted the Wee One, who now that the battle was in sight was rather enjoying the preliminary skirmishes.

"Well, what's your business?" said Chip, roughly. "I don't want to appear rude, but I've got a lot of work to do before I go to bed. Football takes most all a fellow's time just about now."

"It was about football that we came over to see you," said Frank, speaking now for the first time.

"Is that so? It's a little late to be going out for the squad," said Dixon, "and, besides that, I'm not the captain."

"I'm aware of that," retorted Frank, "and I'm not going out for the squad this year. We are interested in a fellow who is now on the squad."

"What do you think of Jimmy Turner, that young Freshman who has been showing up so well lately?" broke in the Wee One.

"He'll be good by-and-by, but he is punk now on handling the ball. It was his fumble to-day when we had a chance to score on Barrows that upset the team."

"It wasn't his fumble, and you know that as well as any one," and Freshman though he was, Frank looked the quarterback of the eleven straight in the eye. That individual had started back at the contradiction, but now recovered himself and, shutting up his fist, he took a step in Frank's direction.

"What do you mean, you little pup? Didn't Turner drop the ball? He could have scored easily if he'd had the gumption to hang onto it."

"He dropped the ball all right, but he dropped it because you didn't give him a chance to get it," said Frank, his fighting blood mounting to his cheeks.

For a moment it looked as if there was to be a scrap right on the spot. At the first accusation Chip rushed over to Frank with his eyes blazing and fists clinched. Frank held his ground, and he was reinforced in an instant by the Wee One, who jumped the moment Chip made his rush. Perhaps the consciousness that he was in the wrong and that the accusation was true withheld the blows that Chip appeared ready to rain upon his visitor.

"Come on, Dixon, let's talk it over," said the Wee One. "Put your bad temper in your pocket, and we will get down to business."

"All right, go ahead, but I don't want any one to come to my room and tell me that I chucked the game this afternoon."

"But supposing it was true."

Chip blazed out again. "I've a notion to chuck you both out of the room by the way of the window."

"That's neither hospitable nor kind. What we came here to find out is, are you willing to give young Turner a fair chance to make the eleven if he is good enough?" said the Wee One.

"What are you driving at, anyway? I'm neither the captain nor the coach."

"Of course you are not, fortunately, but you're the quarter, and as such you can make or break a halfback that is trying for a place on the team. At present your room-mate, Hillard, is playing at right half, and, naturally, since he is a fraternity brother of yours, you want him to stay there. And you don't want any one else, even though some one else might improve the eleven, to win his place. Isn't that so?"

Chip sat glowering at the speaker, but did not answer.

"All right. There's an old saying I've seen somewhere, and I guess it's true, that 'silence gives consent.' You admit what I've said?"

"I don't admit anything of the kind," snapped Chip. "Hillard is a better back than this fellow Turner will ever be."

"Since," went on the Wee One, as cool as a cucumber, and paying no attention to Chip's interruption, "since you agreed that what I say is true, I want to know if you will play square with Turner. Goodness knows this eleven has been messed up by you and your friends in Gamma Tau pretty badly, and if there's the smallest little bit of a chance to improve it, and let us have an opportunity to pull out the Warwick game, you ought to be willing for the sake of yourself, if not for the school, to drop the favorites."

Chip was showing evidences of the greatest difficulty to keep from bringing the matter then and there to blows. He was opening and shutting his hands and gritting his teeth. Finally he burst forth:

"I don't know what you duffers are here for, trying some kind of bullyragging on me. It's you fellows who are playing favorites, not me. Now I want you both to get out of this room and stay out. I'll play just whoever I wish on that eleven."

"Oh, so you are the captain, after all—I thought you said you weren't."

Chip could have bitten his tongue out for the admission, but it was too late now to change it, and, having made the statement, he went on: "I've got enough of a say to keep Turner on the side line. He's only a Freshman," he said contemptuously. "If he's good enough he can make the team some other year. He can't make it this one, not as long as I'm quarterback."

"Oh, very well, Mr. Dixon, if that's the way you feel about it there's no use in our staying here and keeping you from getting that lesson," said the Wee One, "but getting it will be a waste of time because you will not have a chance to use it. We only wanted a promise from you to let Turner alone, and not to hinder him in any development he may make. Since you are not willing, we have a little story for the Doctor in the morning. If he hears it, you might as well pack your pajamas, and buy your ticket for New York. Good night, Mr. Dixon," said the Wee One, making a sweeping bow. "Come on, Frank, it's no use, the quarterback has a severe case of astigmatism."

Frank rose and the two headed for the door. But Chip's curiosity was aroused. He followed them to the entry. "May I ask what you have that you think the Doctor will be interested to hear?"

"Oh, no," said the Wee One, "we don't want to take your time. It wouldn't help our case any. We must be hurrying along."

"But I insist on knowing," said Chip, following to the head of the stairs. "If you are going to tell the Doctor something about me I have a right to know. What is it?" Alarm began to show in his bearing.

"Well, if you are dying to know about it, it is just this. We have pretty good evidence that you were one of the bunch that hazed Frank here, the night he came to school."

Chip gave a sneering laugh. "Oh, that's it, is it? I guess you won't be able to prove that. And that's what you've been taking up my time for? You are a pretty pair of young sleuths, ha, ha, ha, ha!" Chip threw his head back and laughed long and noisily.

The Wee One waited till Chip had laughed himself out and then said, very quietly: "Well, maybe we can't prove it, and perhaps we were wasting your time and our own. Good night."

Chip stood grinning as the boys took a couple of steps down the stairs. Suddenly the Wee One stopped, put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out the leather wristlet. "Oh, by the way, Chip, is this yours?" he asked, holding it up so that Chip could see it plainly.

"Sure, it's mine," said Chip. "Where did you find it——" and there he stopped as a grin spread over the faces of the two boys who were watching him intently. "No, I guess it isn't, after all; it looked like one I lost," he added, seeing that he had made a slip.

"Well, I'm sure it is yours. There's a very pretty little bunch of initials inside, and they look remarkably like C. D. And how about this perfectly good little strap?" holding up the strap that Frank had picked up on the playground the morning after the hazing. "This has the legend 'C. Dixon' printed very plainly on it. You make very pretty letters, Chip. You will make a fortune as a painter of window signs when you grow up and finish your education." The Wee One's tone was smooth, but irritating, and Chip was ready to fight, but he saw at once that he was powerless, and he knew very well what the Doctor's attitude would be. The proof was before him.

"Come back into the room," he said, and when they were inside the door, "What do you want me to do?"

"All we want to have you do is to give Jimmy Turner a fair chance. If he is good enough to make the team we don't want you to put anything in his way," said Frank. "In return for this we agree to say nothing about the hazing."

"It's a bargain," said Chip. "Now give me the straps."

"Oh, dear, no," said the Wee One, "we will return those when the season is over. But for the present I think I'll hang onto them, thank you. Good night, Mr. Dixon." The Wee One put the emphasis a little on the Mister. Chip did not answer, but stood with his back towards them, looking out of the window.

"Well, I guess that will hold him for a while," said the Wee One as they left the building. "And now it is up to young Freshman Turner himself."

CHAPTER XI.A PROSPECTIVE PUPIL.

The Monday following the interview between Frank, the Wee One and Chip Dixon, found things moving very much better down at football practice. Horton turned up with a smiling face at the gymnasium that afternoon while the squad was dressing. "Boys," he said, "we are going to let bygones be bygones. You've been playing worse ball than you knew, and after that awful game on Saturday I thought we might as well all go over to the river and jump in. But that isn't the way to win out."

One of the boys, lacing a refractory shoe, grinned up at him. All had expected a heckling and were not prepared for this.

"But that isn't the way," he continued. "This is the last week we have, that is, the last week of hard work before our Warwick game, for we can't do much the next week which will count for anything. It will be just the polishing-off process. So I'm going to ask you if you will give me your whole attention. We are going out to make this season a success in spite of the up-and-down game we've been playing. Are you with me?"

There was a general murmur of agreement among all the fellows, and a few spoke out. "We will do our best, Mr. Horton," said big Boston Wheeler. "The trouble is that we don't seem to get together."

"That's just it," returned Horton, "you are never thinking about the team; it seems to be always about your individual selves, and no team ever amounted to much that was simply eleven men. The eleven men must work as one man to make gains and stop gains by the other fellow. When you work that way and have confidence in yourselves individually as well as in yourselves as a team, there's nothing can stop you. We have a chance yet to win our big game, a fighting chance if everyone will work with a will. Now, that's all I've got to say, the rest of it is up to you fellows."

It was with something a good deal like determination that the squad tramped out onto the gridiron that afternoon, and under the urgings of Horton, the First eleven gave the Second such a pummelling as it had never before received. Everything went with a rush. Jimmy was playing on the Second and putting every ounce he had into the work, but he was unable to stop the charges of Dutton, who came through the line like a bull.

Three times the First scored on the Second, and twice held the Second safely inside the 10-yard line. Horton was jubilant, and the practice ended with hope high in every one's heart. Tuesday's practice was even better, and the school, which had fallen away from the support of the eleven, began to take more than a listless interest in the progress of things on the gridiron. Jimmy was still on the Second, and taking most of the punishment from big Dutton. Hillard seemed to have taken on a new grip of the ball and was playing faultlessly. Jimmy had had only one chance at the position on the First, and while he was in this position Chip had lived up to the bargain.

"Wonder what's come over Dixon," said Jimmy to Frank that night, "he gave me that ball to-day as if it were the dearest possession he ever owned and was afraid I might break it. He was so careful he almost made it hard for me, but hard in a different way from the day the Barrows put it over us. No chance for a fumble there."

Frank and the Wee One exchanged winks.

"Oh, I guess Chip has had a change of heart," said the latter. "Reformed, maybe."

"He certainly has reformed as far as I'm concerned. I grew quite fond of him before the practice was over, although I know he doesn't like me."

"Whether he likes you or not makes no particular difference as long as he gives that ball to you right," said Frank.

"Oh, but his sweet disposition comes too late, for I'll not get another chance. Hillard is playing like a breeze, and he's certain to go in first. My only chance is for him to break a leg or his neck or something, then I might have a lick at it."

"But in the meantime you are learning the game. I saw Horton speaking to you the other day; what did he say?"

"Oh, he told me to keep at it, I might make the team in a year or two."

"Don't believe him," broke in Lewis. "Horton was asking for a little bit of advice from my room-mate." Lewis, since his retirement from the onerous duties of holding down the sideline, assumed the position of critic and cynic. "And that makes me think," Lewis continued, "I saw Horton talking to you the other day in the gymnasium, Frank. Was he asking you for advice, too?"

"Oh, just telling me that I ought to come out and get a little practice at the game myself. He said he thought I was too light this year, but that I might thicken up next year. He put me through a course of sprouts on what I knew and what I didn't know."

"Didn't take you long to tell him that latter section, I suppose," ventured the loquacious Lewis, "but please take warning from my case and recognize that even the most gifted coach sees only a small amount of the real talent." Lewis threw out his chest.

"Frank, did they tell you how Lewis distinguished himself the first day he was out?" said Jimmy.

"Well, that story ought not to be lost. Horton picked up a couple of elevens the first afternoon we were out, along about the end of the first week of practice. He had been showing us how to fall on the ball, which was where Lewis shone bright as the morning star. When the ball got loose and Lewis fell on it, it never got away, but it generally needed repairs, he fell on it so earnestly, and you know Lewis isn't a featherweight."

"This story is a chestnut, Frank," said Lewis. "Jimmy got it out of a book somewhere and retails it about me. He is giving himself more and more to unbridled fiction."

"Well," continued Jimmy, going on without seeming to notice the interruption from the hero of the story, "Lewis was placed as a halfback on one of these catch-as-catch-can teams. It was an impressive sight to see Lewis trying to run with that ball. About the time he had made up his mind which way to dodge, some one had him about the legs. Horton was good natured then and only laughed. But there was one thing that Lewis could do to the Queen's taste; as I told you, he could fall on that ball, and once, when it came popping out of the line, he dropped on it and saved the day for his side."

"See him swell up at this part of the story," said Frank.

"That particular afternoon," went on Jimmy, "in one of the scrimmages in which Lewis' team was on the defensive, one of the other backs came up to the line, but owing to the mix-up of the signals and a mix-up of players, some one lost his head-gear, and it rolled out on the side that Lewis was defending. He immediately fell on it while the runner recovered, swept over him and scored, and that was the last of Lewis as a real football player. He looked impressive after that coming onto the field, and I think once or twice Horton let him carry the balls, but they were the spare ones which were tied together with a string."

Lewis took the chaffing good-naturedly. "But wait until next year," he said. "I'm going out again and I'll try for center. My weight and fine build will strengthen up that weak spot I can tell you."

"Maybe we'll all be on the team next year," said Jimmy.

"And then it will be a mess, sure," said Frank.

As the boys were still joking about the possibilities of Lewis for center on the team of the following year, there came a knock at the door.

"Come in," yelled Lewis, "don't stop to knock."

It was a Western Union Telegraph messenger.

"A telegram for Frank Armstrong," he said. "Went to your room at No. 18, and the fellow over there said to pursue my diligent way thitherwards, and ask for one Frank Armstrong who might be in company of a fat boy with pink cheeks," Jimmy snickered, "and a brick top." It was now Lewis' turn to snicker.

Meantime Frank had taken the telegram and had broken the seal. He read it with the greatest surprise.

"Great Scott, fellows, listen to this:

"'New York, October 25. Frank Armstrong, Queen's School, Milton. David has decided to enter Queen's if possible. Will reach there Thursday. Signed, J. B. Powers.'"

"Can't get along without you. Overpowering magnetism and all that sort of thing," said Lewis.

"It's fine, isn't it?" said Frank. "The school is crowded, but if the Doctor has no objections I can take him over in No. 18 with me. There's barrels of room, and I'm sure Gleason wouldn't mind. He's a good old encyclopedia. He's busy just at present compiling records of the high jump since 1852."

"Why doesn't he go back to 1492," suggested Lewis. "Columbus was quite a little jumper himself."

"And there was the cow that jumped over the moon," said Jimmy; "tell him to get that record sure. The old bovine put them all in the shade."

"Come and tell him yourself," cried Frank, at the door. "I'm going over to see if we can't squeeze another couch in my sleeping den. It's not as big as the Grand Central, but if it can be managed, David is sure going to be with me."

"If the room is too small, why not try a trundle bed?" called out Lewis, but Frank was half way down the stairs and did not hear him.

Frank burst into No. 18 where Gleason was scratching away in his book of records. "Say, Gleason, got any objection to having another room-mate?"

"What, Web-foot, going to leave your old wife?" said Gleason, looking up in surprise.

"I don't mean that. The fellow I was down south with this summer has decided to come to Queen's, if he can get in. I know the dormitories are all crowded, and I'm willing to have him bunk in with me. He's a dandy chap. You'd like him."

"No objections from the Codfish," announced that individual. "We can set up a four-poster in the room here. It'll be very handy to hang our clothes on. We need more room here anyway," and he looked around at the disarray of clothes piled on chairs and tables and window seat. "Bring him in, sir, the more the merrier. Always room at the top," and Gleason returned to his scratching.

"It will not be necessary to put him in here. He can have half of my room," said Frank. "If the Doctor has no objection, it's settled. I had more room than I needed anyway."

"When's he coming?" inquired Gleason.

"The telegram I had says he's on the way and will be here Thursday."

"Is he a Web-foot, too?"

"No, David hasn't any feet to speak of. He walks with crutches and can't take part in athletics, but he's about the finest little chap you ever saw."

"Speaking of feet," said Gleason, "since you are not doing anything in football, why don't you go down to the track and do something there? You are a likely looking athlete, and you might be able to help old man Duffy win some points for Queen's. He needs candidates for every event. Nearly all the first string fellows graduated last year. Great chance for some young buck to distinguish himself."

"Why don't you go down and show him some speed yourself?"

"Me? Oh, I'd rather watch. You see I don't come of an athletic family. I'd rather set down what the other fellow does. Got to be some one to do that, you know."

The notion stuck in Frank's head. "I believe I'll do it," he said half to himself. "To-morrow I'll give myself up. I don't think anything will come of it, but I'd like to do something to help the school, and father has barred me out of football this year, but says I'll be hardened up enough if I stay out of it till next fall."

"You'll be hardened enough if you stay with me," said the Codfish, and Frank dived into his room, laughing.

CHAPTER XII.A TRY-OUT ON THE TRACK.

Track athletics at Queen's had not been in a very flourishing condition for some years prior to the opening of our story. The popular sports were baseball and football, and these took the pick of the fellows who had a desire to do some athletic work. Patsy Duffy, the trainer of all the teams, managed now and then to find some pretty good men in the sprints and short distance runs, and he had once sent a team of six down to the Interscholastic games at New Haven, which picked up eleven points in second and third places, and that, when you consider that the school had less than 200 boys to draw from, is not so bad as it might be.

But although Queen's was never in any great danger of winning the Interscholastics, the school was nevertheless nearly always represented by some one. Warwick was, in track athletics, as in every other of the sports, the natural rival of Queen's, and for the last two years had made away with the annual track contest by a good, wide margin of points. The trainer had gone over the incoming class pretty thoroughly for material and had not found much of it, so he was pleased when Frank stepped up to him at the track the next afternoon and said he would like to try for a place on the team.

"Where did you come from?" said Patsy.

"From the Milton High School, but I never did much there in the way of athletics, excepting to play a little baseball and football."

"Can you run or jump?"

"Don't think so."

"Can you sprint or hurdle?"

"Afraid not."

"Jump?"

"Can't even jump, to my knowledge. But I'm willing to try any of them."

"Well, this doesn't sound promising, but some of the best I've had knew nothing about it when they came here, and I've sent some of the best men they ever had to Yale and Harvard and Princeton. Ever hear of Tinker Howe, the great Yale half-miler? Yes; well, he was one of the men I trained. Came out here one day and at first couldn't run a half mile in three minutes. But he came along fast. And there was Winchester, the fellow who played tackle on Harvard last year, and who was one of the best shot-putters that ever went to Cambridge. He was one of our fellows, trained right in this little piece of ground."

"I don't believe I'll ever be like those fellows, but I want to try anything you think I'm fitted for."

"Well, suppose you run up to the gymnasium and get into some togs. Miggs, the rubber up there, will fit you out and if you like the work, and I like you, we'll fix you up with a regular suit. Hurry it up, and I'll have you jog around the track once or twice with Watkins here," indicating a young fellow who was prancing up and down the stretch with long, springy strides.

Frank was quickly equipped at the gymnasium with a jersey and a pair of misfit running trousers which Miggs had dug out somewhere for him. "I feel like a scarecrow," thought Frank, "but maybe after this performance to-day he will not consider my efforts worth much."

"Come on now," said Patsy, as Frank came trotting back to the track. "Let's try a few starts. You will run only fifteen steps or so. Don't suppose you know anything about starting, Armstrong?"

"No, I guess I don't."

"All right. On your marks, get set, GO." Frank, accustomed to the starting signal for swimming, went away like a shot and ran away from the half-miler, who was taking things more leisurely.

"I thought you said you didn't know anything about starting," said Patsy, as he and Watkins came back to where the trainer stood.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that I have done a little swimming racing, and we start about the same."

"So much the better. Some very good runners are spoiled because they can't start fast enough. When the pistol goes off you'd think they were going to take root. You don't seem to be bothered that way, but I'm afraid you haven't got stride enough for a long distance racer. Try it again."

The boys lined up and started at the word "Go," and again Frank started in excellent form; but this time Watkins was watching for him, and got off his marks with more speed than before, although, even then, Frank led him a step.

Patsy was smiling as they came back to him. "Did you ever run a hundred yards, Armstrong? No? Well, I'm going to try you at that now and see what you can do. You have the appearance of a sprinter, at least as far as the first twenty yards go. Do you think you can hold it at the pace you set out?"

"Don't know, but I'll try."

By this time a half dozen other runners, in their airy, abbreviated costumes, who had been trotting around the track or taking little dashing spurts, had gathered around to see the new boy tried out, and there was a good deal of interest manifest when Patsy said he would have the new boy try a hundred yards dash.

Just at that moment the Codfish strolled up. "Hello, wifey," he said as he saw Frank in running costume; "took my advice, didn't you? You look handsome, but are you any good?"

"We are just going to try to find out," said Patsy. "I'm going to run him a hundred yards. Will you go up and start him? I want to take his time. Here's a pistol. Collins, go along with Armstrong and pace him down the full distance, and bring him as fast as he can come." Collins was the best sprinter of Queen's, as Frank afterward learned.

At the sound of the pistol, Collins was off with a great burst of speed, but Frank, in spite of his lack of training, followed him closely for half the distance. Then the training of the practised sprinter began to tell and Frank dropped behind, but not so far behind but that Patsy's face wore a much pleased grin when he finished. Collins, who was a Junior and slated for the captaincy if Gamma Tau didn't undertake to knock things out of gear with politics, came back and patted him on the shoulder. "It was well run, Freshman," he said.

"What did he do it in?" said Gleason, coming up to Patsy when Frank, who was not in the best of condition for sprinting, was recovering his wind. Patsy held up the watch. Eleven and two-fifth seconds, it said.

"By Jove, that's good time for a kid, and his first trial, and not in condition, isn't it?"

"It's first rate," said Patsy. "He will be a good one or I miss my guess. He has a good build for a sprinter."

Meantime Frank was taking a turn around the back stretch, and when he came back, Patsy said: "Armstrong, that's enough for to-day." Frank was turning away when Patsy continued, "Don't go yet, I want to have you try a jump for me. We need a jumper badly, and you may be the fellow we are looking for. You said you never jumped?"

"No, only in fun, and the jumps were never measured."

"Well, come over here and try one or two, and we will see if you have any spring in your legs. Most natural sprinters have."

"You see," said Patsy as they reached the broad jump runway, "you get up your speed here and then strike this take-off board with whichever foot comes most convenient for you to jump from; lift yourself into the air and strike in that soft sawdust pit. The jump is measured from the face of the take-off to the point where you break the ground nearest to the take-off block. Do you get me?"

Frank nodded and walked down the runway, measuring carefully with his eye the distance he had to go.

"All ready," shouted Patsy; "come on!"

Frank took a run, gathering momentum as he came. He saw ahead of him the trainer and Codfish Gleason and a dozen boys watching his effort, and in spite of his best attempts he could not concentrate his mind on that take-off block. It seemed to lie somewhere in a fog, and he simply kept on running with the result that he dashed across it into the sawdust, which is put there to break the fall of the jumpers, tried to stop, and went headlong. He picked himself up, covered with sawdust, and much chagrined at his failure.

"I want to try that over again," he said. "I couldn't seem to see where that block was, and I missed it."

Patsy grinned. "The best of them do that sometimes. It's one of the hardest things in jumping. As you come up to the block, you want to concentrate your mind on that place. Arrange your steps so you will come to it on the foot you can best jump from, and come down on the block as hard as you can, bouncing off it, so to speak, and going as far up in the air as you can. The momentum you have gained in your run will carry you along. That's the idea of the broad jump. And don't get nervous." Patsy communicated this information to Frank as he walked along with him to the head of the runway.

"The take-off, the take-off, the take-off," was drumming through Frank's mind as he came rushing down for it. So determined was he not to overrun the block that he under-did it this time, and he "took-off" about 14 inches before he reached the block. But even in spite of this handicap, the measuring tape showed a jump of 15 feet 6 inches.

"O, but," said Frank, "you are not measuring from where I jumped."

"That's not the way we do it. We measure, as I told you, from the face of the block, so that as you jumped you really handicapped yourself 14 inches. It would have been a very good jump, indeed, if that 14 inches hadn't been wasted. The best jumpers contrive their run so as to hit the center of the block squarely with the ball of the jumping foot, the toe even projecting over the block. Try it once more, and try not to over or under-run the block, but to hit it squarely."

"I never knew there was so much to jumping," said Frank, as he walked back for his third trial. "But this time I'm going to get it if it takes a leg."

Fixing the block firmly in his mind as he had been told, and also the idea of carrying as high as possible into the air, Frank came rushing down the runway. This time he struck the take-off like a veteran, rose in the air and was carried along by his speed. As he was coming down he threw his feet out in front of him so as to get as much distance as possible, but when he struck he had more distance than he could hold and fell backwards. His heels had broken the ground at 16 feet 9½ inches, but in his efforts to keep from falling he had put his hand behind him, and from the block to the break made by his hand it was only a little over 15 feet.

Frank thought it hard lines not to get all he had actually jumped, but saw at once that the rule was right—that the first break in the ground from the face of the take-off was the only right thing to go by, although his actual jump had been in this case two feet farther.

"That's all for to-day," said Patsy, "you've had enough for the first day."

But Frank pleaded for one more try to see if he could not get it right—the very last—and Patsy relented.

And this time Frank did get it right. He came carefully up to the block, got a good raise and carry, and held his footing when he struck the ground. The tape measure, held by the Codfish and Patsy, showed 16 feet 3 2-5 inches, a remarkable jump, indeed, for an unpractised schoolboy.

"To-morrow at 2 o'clock I want to see you here, and we'll do a little more work. Your showing to-day is all right. Maybe I can make something out of you," said Patsy, and when Frank had trotted off in the direction of the gymnasium he said to Gleason: "There's the right sort of a chap. Doesn't know much about it, but willing to try, and crazy to make good at whatever he tries. I'll make something out of him, see if I don't. The fall trials come off a week from to-day, but I'll bet in spite of the short time he has had to work, he'll make some of the older ones hustle to keep ahead of him. I don't know yet about his sprinting, but he certainly can jump like a deer."

CHAPTER XIII.LEARNING TO RUN THE HUNDRED.

Frank was at the gymnasium at 2 o'clock the next afternoon, garbed in a running rig that the Codfish had given him.

"How did you come to have running clothes with you?" asked Frank, surprised when the Codfish produced from the recesses of his trunk a neat blue jersey and a pair of spotless running trousers.

"My fond papa said he thought I ought to take some exercise when he sent me up here. He told me he was a peach of a runner in his school days, and talked so much about the way he walloped every one in sight on the track that I got kind of ambitious, and let mother put these things in."

"Why don't you go out for running yourself? You ought to make a runner," and Frank gazed admiringly at the long legs which Gleason had spread out on the window seat, the lower parts of them dressed in gorgeous green socks.

"Oh, I don't like to fatigue myself. If I run I grow weary, and if I'm weary I must rest, and I'd much rather rest without being weary first. Don't feel backward about taking the duds, old chappie, because your Uncle Dudley will never put them on. If they had something like a 15-yard dash I might get out and make a record or two myself, but since the shortest distance is a hundred yards and the longest is a mile, I guess I'll put my spare time in some other way."

"And how about your father's ambitions for you?"

"Oh, dad won't mind. I don't believe he was much of a runner anyway. He just lets his imagination carry him away."

So Frank became the possessor of a fine outfit, and wore it that afternoon with considerable pride. Patsy nodded pleasantly as he came onto the track. "See you're on time," he said. "Now jog around the track very easily two or three times just to get limbered up, and then we will have a few starts with Collins and you. Felt sore this morning, did you?"

"Legs pained me when I woke up this morning. Dreamed that I fell out of an aeroplane."

"It's the jumping," said Patsy. "I've known fellows when they began to jump to be so sore they'd have to walk with a cane. But you'll soon be over that."

"I sincerely trust so; it's no fun."

Patsy was like the manager of a three-ring circus, as any track trainer, who knows what he is there for and who is worth his salt, ought to be. He had a word of caution to the long-distance runner to run flat-footed and save himself for the sprint, if sprint he must at the end of his race; to the pole-vaulter he reiterated the oft-repeated injunction that to get over the bar when it was 10 feet up meant to pull up with the arms and not altogether a spring from the legs; to the hurdler he gave a minute of his valuable attention, indicating where his take-off for the barrier was too near or too far away, and if he lost too much time in the flight.

"If you're going to hurdle on this track you've got to get down to the track and run on it and not try to sail through the air." And even when he wasn't giving direct coaching, Patsy was making mental notes for use later on when they would be of more value to the coached.

Frank had jogged around several times when Patsy hailed him on one of his trips, and said: "Now I want you and Collins and Herring"—that was the other sprinter in the school, a second string man to Collins—"to come up to the start of the hundred. We will do a little work."

The little work consisted in getting down at the starting line, balancing delicately on the balls of the feet—the one just on the starting line and the other about fourteen inches behind—with the tips of the fingers resting lightly on the ground, and at the sound of the pistol, shooting forward from that position without the delay of a thousandth part of an eye-wink.

On the first trial Frank made a sorry mess of it. The crouching sprinter's start was new to him. He had started the day before from a straight standing position, but when he got to the crouching attitude—pictures of which he had seen many times, and as many times wondered how runners could possibly start from such an awkward position—he found it necessary to come to an upright position before he could get under way. Both Collins and Herring gained a stride on him at the very start, and a stride is a lot in a hundred yard race.

"See here, Armstrong," said Patsy. "The sprinter, that is the fellow who runs the short distance, hasn't time to start off easy. From the shot he must be moving forward. Now you come straight up. Watch me," and Patsy dropped down to the racing position, and shot away from it with an astonishing swiftness that made Frank open his eyes. Patsy in his time had been one of the best runners, and knew to a nicety just how to do the trick.

"Come on, now again, and remember that you shoot out and not up," and Patsy held the pistol over his head. "Get ready, set——" but Frank in his eagerness felt that the pistol shot was coming, and dashed off only to recover in a moment, and return shame-facedly to the mark.

"That would cost you a yard, Armstrong, if it had been an actual race you were running. But we'll not penalize you this time. Now again."

Little by little Frank began to get the science of starting. Patsy showed him the why and wherefore of hole-digging so that the starter would get a better grip with his feet. In a dozen or more starts Frank showed improvement steadily, and was overjoyed at the praise of the trainer.

"You are doing well, Armstrong," said Patsy; "keep it up. Now take a little rest while I see what these high jumpers are doing. They look from here as if they were playing leap-frog. Those fellows never will learn to turn right when they get in the air," and he hurried off to correct some faults his keen eye had detected even from that distance. While he was gone the boys pranced around and took a couple of starts by themselves.

"Have you run much?" inquired Herring, who was a Junior and had worked hard for what he got. He was not especially well built for sprinting, being a little too stocky and short-legged, but what he lacked in form he made up in determination. He had almost reached his limit in development and never could be a first-rater.

"No," said Frank, "I've never run before; this is my first offence."

"Gee whiz, you'll soon have me lashed to the mast. If you can hold the gait you strike at the start clear through to the finish, I'll be third string right off the reel. Here's Patsy back to give us our trial on the hundred."

"Now, boys," said Patsy, "this is the last for you to-day. I want you to run this hundred through as fast as you can. Collins, you take the pole; Herring, you next; and you, Armstrong, have the outside. No crowding. And, Armstrong, don't forget what I told you; don't lose time getting up—the finish isn't up in the air, it's down the track a hundred yards. On your marks!——" The three stepped into the little holes they had dug for their feet. "Get set!——" They crouched and touched the tips of their fingers to the ground, leaning well forward, necks craned and eyes straight ahead.

"Bang!" went the pistol, and six legs and six arms began to work like pistons. Frank had somehow remembered his instructions and got a better start even than Herring. He tore along ahead of that runner who was making a desperate effort to reach him. Collins was running freely on the pole, a half stride in advance. For half the distance the order remained the same, but then Frank's lack of training and lack of experience began to tell, and Herring reached him. At the 80 yards he was running breast to breast with Herring, but that individual's bandy but powerful legs and better wind carried him ahead from that point. Collins finished first, Herring second, and Frank a good third.

"Well run," shouted a hearty voice from the side of the course as the three runners pulled up just beyond the finish line; and Frank, looking up, saw Colonel Powers and David at the side of the track. He ran over and shook hands, overjoyed to see them. "Thought you weren't coming till Thursday," said Frank, "and this is only Wednesday."

"Well, you see," returned the Colonel, "David couldn't stand it any longer. We came up to Milton last night intending to go down to Eagle Island to-day to look after the house, but David persuaded me to come out here instead, and so here we are. But I didn't know you were a runner as well as a swimmer."

"O, I'm a pretty poor apology for a runner. Maybe I'll be able to run some day and win a point for the school."

"Well, judging by the way you were coming down the stretch with those two fellows, you would be able to put the Powers family to shame, eh, David?"

"Frank can do anything he undertakes as well as the next one," said David, "and I think if he starts out to run he can do it and win. Don't you remember the race down at St. Augustine, father?"

"Track work is over for the day," said Frank; "come along to the gym while I get into my everyday clothes, and we'll go up to the room; or, if you would like to, we'll go over and see the football practice. David, you remember Jimmy, don't you? Well, he is a candidate for halfback on the school eleven, and in spite of his being a Freshman, I think he'll make it."

"Jimmy was the owner of the Foam that sunk in the foam, was he not?" inquired the Colonel. "I remember how plucky he was when we picked him out of the water. You all were, for that matter."

"And Lewis Russell is here, too, in the same class with us; they entered at the first of the term, and I came in three weeks late."

"Is Lewis on the eleven, too?" inquired David.

"No; Lewis' football sun set very early in his career, and now he sits on the bleachers the same as I do, and watches the other fellows get talked to by the coach.

"How does it come, David, that you changed your mind about school? I thought you were going to study with a tutor the same as last year," said Frank.

"The trouble was," said Colonel Powers, "that David, who has been a pretty quiet fellow all his life, got a taste of companionship this summer on the yacht, and when he went back to his tutor, old Mr. Melcher, he found the work drier than ever. So he wanted to know if he couldn't come along to Queen's with you."

"Yes," said David for himself. "Before I met you I didn't think I'd go to school at all, but last summer changed me somehow. I saw what a good time Burton had, and when I thought of you over here making lots of friends and taking part in things, I wanted to come along."

"Yes, and it happens," said the Colonel, "that Doctor Hobart is a personal friend of mine, and it was easily arranged that David come here, though it is nearly the end of October and half the first term gone. The only difficulty about it seems to be, for I have just had a talk with the Doctor, in getting the right kind of a room for him; they are crowded to the limit here."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that the room part of it is all arranged. He's going to bunk in with me. The night I got your telegram I put it up to Gleason, my room-mate, and he had no objections. The place is not big, but plenty big enough for us two."

David beamed with joy, and the Colonel expressed his pleasure that the boys were to be together again. "David needs companionship to bring him out of himself," he said, "and it is possible that David may be a help to you, Frank."

That night the Colonel and David sat down to table in the school dining hall together with Frank and Jimmy and Lewis, and when dinner was over they strolled under the great elms of the school yard and listened to the Glee Club singing on the steps of Russell Hall. To David it was like fairy-land.

CHAPTER XIV.A MYSTERIOUS APPEARANCE.

David saw his first football practice the next afternoon and enjoyed the spectacle of Jimmy zipping through the line or spilling the fellow with the ball when he happened to be playing on the defensive. Dixon was living up to the part of the contract forced upon him by Frank and the Wee One, and made no further obstacle for Jimmy when the coach occasionally put him over in the backfield on the First eleven. But Chip bore the Freshman halfback no very deep affection. He was, however, becoming more and more impressed with the belief that Jimmy was the genuine material and that he was pretty nearly necessary to the welfare of his eleven. Hillard generally took precedence, that is, he went in at first, but Jimmy would get in awhile toward the end of practice.

During the week, practice had been very satisfactory, by far the best of the season, and when on Saturday the school eleven scored 12 to 4 against the Milldale High School eleven, hope began to run high in the school that perhaps after all Queen's might pull out that Warwick game, which was now only a week off.

Friday night there was a mass-meeting under the elms in the yard, and Horton, Mr. Parks and a graduate of the school of some forty years before—a Mr. Walbridge—were the speakers. They stood on the steps of Russell and torches lighted up the scene. There had been a torchlight parade up and down the walks of the school, and the procession finally halted in front of the wide steps of Russell Hall where the speakers were in readiness.

"We are going out next Saturday for a victory, boys," said Horton. "We have been down in the mouth all the season because factions have been pulling us one way and another, but that is all over now. You played good football this afternoon, but you'll have to play better next Saturday for those fellows up the river are going to give you the battle of your lives. But if you will forget all your disagreements and get together, and then stay together, we'll show them yet."

"You bet we will," sang out a voice from the rear, as Horton retired. "Three cheers for Horton."

Harding, the captain of the eleven, wakened from his lethargy by the enthusiasm, jumped out in front of the bunch of boys and cried: "Now a long one for Mr. Horton, get into it," and they did with a vim and a snap which made Horton's eyes brighten.

"Rackety wow, rackety wow, rackety wow, Horton, Horton, Horton."

The rumpus stirred the katydids in their leafy bowers overhead and they were loudly affirming and denying when Mr. Parks gave the boys a word of encouragement. Mr. Parks was followed by the elderly graduate of the school, who told them of football when he was at Queen's.

"We hadn't a quarter of the number of boys to choose from in my day," he said, "and I don't think we were any bigger, but we worked together and played together and ate together, and when we went out on the field to play our games we were so completely together that the team moved like one man. And if you will look over the records of those old days, you'll find that Queen's didn't lose many games.

"It's the same on the football field as it is in the daily walks of life. To be successful, I mean to have the right kind of success, you've got to play fair and hard and keep thinking. If some one slams into you, I know the feeling is to retaliate, for that's human nature; but when you're tempted to do that, just think that while you're slugging the fellow who slammed into you unnecessarily, your opponent may be getting past you, for you can't do two things at once. I remember a fellow in my own class; they called him 'Biff Scott.' He used to play center, and when he could keep his temper he was a wonder. But a hard jolt always made him mad, and then he was a very poor center. In our big game with Warwick, for our big game was with Warwick just the same as yours is now, the Warwick center knew of Scott's weak point, so he teased him into forgetting what he was there for, and they put play after play right over him and actually won the game because he fought and didn't play.

"I'm of the opinion," the old graduate continued, "that what Mr. Horton says is right, that if you give up these little dissensions, get together and stay together, you may yet make this football season something to be proud of. I, for one, believe you can and will do it. That's all."

Again the school yell ripped out sharply and was echoed back by the walls of Warren just across the way. Cheers were given for the team, the coaches, the captain, and a crashing one for Queen's School. Then the torches were swung over shoulders again, and the procession took up its course, the tramp of many feet following the marching melody of the school—

Tramp, tramp, tramp, old Queen's is marching,

Marching onward to the fray.

Can't you hear our ringing cheer,

Rising loud and high and clear,

Queen's will fight and win the victory to-day.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the team is marching,

Onward down the field they go.

They're the best in all the land,

They've the heart, the brain, the sand,

And the courage high to conquer every foe.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the battle's raging,

Cheer the victors loud and long.

They will raise the Blue and Gold

Where it waved in days of old.

Then a cheer, my boys, and join us in our song.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, old Queen's victorious,

Ever valiant in the fray.

And we'll give a rousing cheer

For the team that knows no fear.

Then for Queen's, my boys, hurray, hurray, hurray!

When it was all over Frank and Jimmy and Lewis climbed the stairs to No. 18 and found David where they had left him.

"It was like fairy-land," cried David, as Jimmy and Frank came in. "Looking down from here it was like a long fire-snake twisting and turning up and down the walks."

"How about the cheering?" asked Jimmy.

"It sounded wonderful coming up through the branches. I'm so glad I came up after all. I had made up my mind not to go to school because I felt I would be in the way," and he looked down at his twisted and misshapen limbs, and there was a tremor in his voice. "But just the same, I'm glad I came. I can't take part in all the fun, but it will be good to see it from the window."

"Go along with you," said Frank, going over to David and slipping his arm around his shoulder. "In a little while you'll be taking your part just the same as any of us, and you won't have to watch from the window as you say."

"What could I do?" wailed David.

"There are lots of things you can do. Maybe you can write for the Mirror."

"That, we'd have you know, is the sparkling weekly of Queen's," broke in Jimmy.

"Yes," said Frank; "you might stamp your name forever on the history of Queen's athletics by writing a good football song, and who knows but they might erect a monument to your memory, because we're a little shy on good songs."

"I've been thinking of trying myself," said Lewis, "now that I've given football up for more serious things."

"Because football's given you up, you mean," slung in Jimmy, "for better things!"

"But I can never do anything in athletics like you fellows," said David wistfully. "It would be such fun."

"I'm not so sure you can't do any athletics," said Frank. "To-night I happened to meet Patsy, he's our trainer, you know, and instructor in the gym as well. I told him about you and he said you might go into the gym, and if you develop strength in your arms there are lots of things you could do."

"What, for instance?" inquired David, brightening up at the possibility of taking part in any of the sports which he had thought all closed to him forever.

"Well, Patsy said there was the gymnastic work, parallel bars, horizontal bars, flying rings and rope climbing. The champion of the school gets a big 'Q' on a white sweater just the same as the football fellows. And he said you might make a good coxswain of the crew. Lots of things for you to do, so cheer up."

"I'll see about it right away. I've always been strong in my arms and hands, probably because of these things," indicating the crutches. "You see my poor legs are not very heavy," and he caught the arms of the chair in which he was sitting, and raised himself with the greatest of ease, swinging his body clear of the seat and swaying backwards and forwards.

"I say," said Jimmy, "wouldn't it be great if David got his 'Q' before any of us?"

"Guess there's no real danger of my being burdened with a 'Q' for a while," said David laughing. "But I'll train up and be ready for it if a 'Q' should be flying around looking for some pleasant place to nest."

"We're all looking that way and would be most willing to offer a nest to this much-desired but elusive letter. Jimmy is the most likely of us if he doesn't break his neck before the Warwick game," said Frank.

"Come on, Fatty," cried Jimmy, after the boys had chatted for a half hour. "We must be going to our model apartment up the road, and let these old cronies get to bed. I've got to keep good hours, you know."

"Speaking of beds, you see how I've fixed my room," said Frank, leading the way to the chamber. "We got them to put another couch in here alongside of mine, right by the window. From here we can look out and see you fellows laboring any fine afternoon. The football field is right over there," added Frank, pointing. He broke off short. "Gee whiz," he cried suddenly, "what's that?" The others crowded up close to the window and looked in the direction indicated by Frank's finger.

The moon was shining brightly, the stars twinkled brilliantly, and the trees and the football stands threw dense black shadows on the grass which at that distance looked like a pall of black velvet. But what caught and held their attention was in the middle distance between themselves and the silvery line of the river, where a white shrouded figure moved rapidly along. It looked like a woman dressed completely in white, but the garments hung from the head rather than from the shoulders, and seemed to flow out behind.

"It's a ghost," whispered Lewis, his scalp beginning to stretch with the rising hairs. The boys watched the thing intently. It did not seem to walk but rather to glide along about five or six feet from the ground. Suddenly it turned from its course parallel to the river, and started to come in the direction of the dormitory. It came on and on until within perhaps a hundred yards of the foot of the slightly higher ground on which the dormitories were built, and then swung away off in the direction of the football stands and disappeared as suddenly as it had come, while they stood watching with fascinated eyes.

Frank was the first to recover himself.

"Well, if that doesn't beat the Dutch," he said, turning a puzzled face to his companions. Lewis was positively blue with fear.

"I thought the thing was coming right up the bank," he said.

"Yes, you grabbed me as if you had been a drowning man and I had been a straw," said Jimmy.

"You did some grabbing yourself," retorted Lewis, beginning to recover himself now that the apparition had gone.

"Well, I'll admit the blooming thing did startle me, all right. Must have been a shadow," said Frank. "The moon plays funny tricks with shadows at night."

"It wasn't a shadow," remarked David, "because I distinctly saw a black shadow following the thing, whatever it was; and if it had been a shadow it certainly wouldn't have cast a shadow, would it?"

The boys stood at the window for half an hour looking for another visitation of the spook or ghost, or whatever it was, but the field appeared to be deserted. There was only the moonlight on the grass, the black shadows and the katydids calling mournfully to each other the old, old refrain. Then Lewis and Jimmy made their departure, the former keeping very close to Jimmy as they headed for their own room. Unconsciously they quickened their steps and occasionally looked fearfully over their shoulders, and on reaching their entry made a break for their room, three steps at a leap.

A little while after Jimmy and Lewis had made their hasty exit to the other end of Warren Hall, Gleason came sauntering up the stairs, and into the room.

"This is our new room-mate, David Powers," said Frank. David and Gleason shook hands.

"Glad to see you," said the Codfish. "Hope you and Web-foot won't get lost in that big room of yours—what's the matter with the both of you?—you look as if you had seen a ghost."

"That's just what we did do."

"Get out, where?"

"Right down there on the meadow."

"Go to bed and have a little sleep, and you'll get over it all right. You're studying too hard."

"I saw it too," chimed David. "There were four of us and we saw it plain as day."

"What was it, the headless horseman or the slaughtering ghost of the Barrows' football team? Did it walk or skate?"

"No, we're telling you the straight goods on this. Jimmy, Lewis, David and I saw it, and watched it for five minutes. It disappeared down by the river bank. It didn't walk on the ground at all, but seemed to be floating through air."

"Poor fellow, poor fellow," said the Codfish mournfully. "We'll get a doctor in the morning. That algebra has gone to his brain."

"Well, you can believe it or not," said Frank. "We saw it sure enough. It came apparently from the river, and seemed to go back to it down there by the football field."

"By Jove," said the Codfish, after a moment's reflection. "One of the fellows at this school was drowned in the river just a little below the bath-house float three or four years ago, and they recovered his body down there by the football stand. I wonder—— I wish I'd been here."

And Frank and David and Jimmy and Lewis also wondered, and the latter, when he was ready for dreamland took a long, long look out onto the silent playground. "Gee," he said to himself, "and I thought of going down there to-night, it looked so pretty in the moonlight. What do you suppose it could have been?" He took the precaution of closing the window tight that night, leaving only those windows on the yard side of the rooms open. That night he dreamed that a headless woman dressed all in white stood beside his bed, and offered him her head which she had tucked nicely away under her arm, and when he looked at it more closely, he saw it was a football and not a head at all.

CHAPTER XV.FRANK WINS HONORS ON THE TRACK.

David very quickly dropped into the school life, just as Frank had done. The two room-mates were always together. David was eager to see everything, and every day found him, after the school work was done, down at the track or the gridiron. He also found time to get acquainted with the muscle building apparatus in the gymnasium. A certain small amount of gymnastic work was required at Queen's, but David had determined to take up some specialty. From the nature of his infirmity those things which could be done with the arms and body were, of course, the only things open to him. Patsy's assistant in the gymnasium, Harry Buehler, took him under his wing, and set him at tasks which would help to develop his arm and shoulder muscles.

"Do you think there's any chance for me to do anything for the school?" inquired David, shortly after he began his work.

"Why, certainly there is. One of the best athletes we had here three or four years ago was a chap named Bascom. He had bad legs, but the way he could handle himself on the horizontal bar was a caution. He set the record here, too, for rope-climbing. I don't think it will be broken for some time to come."

David made a mental note that if he could develop, he would take a whack at that record, whatever it was. In the meantime he was content to do the simple athletic tasks which were set for him. Frank, who was not much for gymnastic work, preferring the outdoor athletics, came down to see David one day, and found that youngster lying on the mat and raising dumbbells at arm's length.

"Great Scott," he said, "where did you get all that strength? I don't believe I could do that so easily."

David grinned. "Perhaps the explanation is that the strength I haven't got in my legs goes to my arms. I can lift heavier ones than that. Look," and he seized a 25-pound bell and swung it up and down.

Frank was amazed. "I didn't think you had such strength. What will you be when you work a while under Buehler? I'll certainly not get into a fight with you. I'd have no chance at all."

"I guess we will not fight right away," returned David. "But I say, you are in the track games to-morrow, are you not? I noticed a bulletin tacked up on the door giving the entries. Does football stop the afternoon of the games? I see some of the players' names there."

"Yes, they give the pigskin warriors a day off, and some of them take part. The games are chiefly to give Patsy a line on what there is in the incoming class. In order to make it interesting as a contest, every one takes part, the 'Q' men as well as the new men."

"You're going to try the hundred and the broad jump, I see."

"Yes, Patsy says I may be good at one or the other if I live long enough. But I haven't much hopes of myself. I'm too green."

"I'll bet you will make the best of them all," said David enthusiastically.

"Oh, come now, David, no taffy here. It's bad enough for a fellow who can do something to have a swelled head, but when a fellow can't do anything at all, it's fatal. So don't try to puff me. I won't stay and listen or I may get the big-head microbe. See you later. Don't strain yourself with those big weights. I'm responsible to your dad for your well-being. Ta, ta."

At four o'clock the next afternoon there was a sprinkling of Queen's boys, the non-athletic fellows, down on the stands, to see what the new class was likely to do for the school in the way of track athletics. Queen's had been down in the dumps in this particular line of sport for several years, and it had become almost a habit to lose to Warwick. There was always pretty good material available for the weight events, but for some singular reason no sprinters headed Queen's way. It had become noised about that a new sprinter in the person of Frank Armstrong had been turned up by Patsy, and every one wanted to see just how fast he was.

The first race to be run was the quarter in which there were seven starters. Queen's track was a quarter-mile, and the runners were to start at the middle of the back stretch, and finish down the straightaway. This gave them only one turn, and it was supposed to be easier on that account. Hillard was scratch man on this event. The new men were given various handicaps—that is, Patsy set them at points from 10 to 20 yards further along, so as to even up their speed with that of Hillard, who had won the event the year before from the best that Warwick had to offer.

"Nothing in that bunch," said a Senior as he looked the fellows over; "they're not strong enough. Look at that skinny Freshman with 20 yards handicap. I'll bet he'll die half way down the stretch."

The little chap he referred to was a slender boy of fourteen, light haired almost to whiteness, and very spindly in his shanks. He had come from some little town in the western part of the state, and was so insignificant looking that no one paid much attention to him in the fall practice. Even Patsy's eye failed to note him. His name was Brown—Tommy Brown.

After Patsy had put all his runners on their marks, he gave the usual preparatory signal for starting, and the pistol snapped. There was a rush of spectators for the end of the straightaway where the runners were to finish. Hillard, sure of himself, and moving rapidly, soon began to overhaul the inexperienced Freshmen. One by one he passed them, and as he swung into the straightaway with half the distance gone, only two were ahead of him. One of these was the fellow who had run second to Hillard the year before, and the other was Brown, the skinny one.

"Look at that toothpick coming," rose a cry from the watchers. He certainly was "coming" like a locomotive, his thin legs flying and his arms working like flails. A hundred yards from the finish Hillard caught Peckham, but the little whitehead was still legging it ten yards in front of him. And now Hillard settled down to do his best. Slowly he came up on Tommy Brown while the school yelled its applause, but those thin, flying shanks still continued to move with unbroken rhythm, and despite Hillard's greatest efforts he could not overhaul the Freshman who, with a great burst of speed, broke the tape six feet ahead of the champion. Immediately there was a babel of voices.

"Hurray for Skinny!"

"New world-beater come to town."

"Hurray for the Freshman!"

"Hard luck, Hillard, old boy."

Patsy who had made a short cut from the start of the quarter to the finish, and got there just in time to see the Freshman's great effort, hurried after him on the way to the gymnasium, and whispered a word of praise in his ear. Coming back he displayed a stop watch whose hand pointed to 55 3-5 seconds.

"And that's going some for a kid," he said. "I'll make something of him before he gets through at Queen's." And Patsy kept his word, for Tommy Brown not only won points for his school, but when he went to college—— But that's another story.

After the quarter mile came the half, but nothing worth while turned up there. The event was run in slow time, and the Freshmen who were entered made a very poor showing.

Then came the first heat of the hundred yards dash. Twelve runners were entered—among them Frank Armstrong, who was drawn in the first lot to be sent over the distance. As they came from the gymnasium and trotted up to the start, their good points were commented on by the spectators.

"Armstrong looks like a runner," said one. "He has a good step and a good face."

"I don't care about his face," said another of the group, "if he has good legs and knows how to use them."

David and Gleason were perched on the uppermost row of the stand where they could see the entire length of the hundred. David was all excitement. "Do they all run together?" he asked Gleason.

"Oh, no, they run it in heats or trials. It wouldn't be fair to run them all at the same time for they couldn't all get an even start. This track will only accommodate six at one time. First, second and third in each heat qualify for the finals, so you see each runner has to go over the distance twice."

"I see."

"They're getting ready," announced Gleason. "See them getting down on their toes. They're off!"

A white puff of smoke came from the pistol in Patsy's hand, and the sound of the explosion came sharply to their ears. Away at the top of the stretch they saw the runners spring forward.

Down the track they swept for thirty yards, none having any advantage. Then the runner on the pole and Frank began to forge to the front. On they came, nip and tuck, until just near the finish the fellow on the pole made a great effort and broke the tape four or five feet ahead of Frank. The third man was a step behind Frank.

"Oh, what a pity he couldn't keep up," said David mournfully.

"What's the matter with you? He did exactly right," said Gleason.

"How is that—he was beaten, wasn't he?"

"Yes, my son," replied the Codfish, "he was beaten for first place, but he qualified for the final, and that's all you need. What was the use of his running himself out? You see what an effort the other fellow had to win, didn't you? I told Frank myself to run easy in this first heat even if he only came in third place. Third would have been just as good as where he finished."

Then came the second trial of the hundred immediately on the heels of the first. This was well run, but slower, and it was won by the bandy-legged Herring. A Freshman named King was second, and Wilson, a Sophomore, third.

The mile followed and showed nothing promising, no Freshmen getting nearer than fifth place.

"Didn't expect anything, anyway," said Patsy. "A fellow has to learn to run the mile." But in the hurdle trials Tommy Brown, the skinny spindle-shanks, surprised everybody by galloping off with first place, beating out Morris, the Junior hurdler. In the finals, however, Morris got back at him and won, but the Freshman made him stretch himself to the limit. Patsy was as happy as a lark at finding such youngsters.

"This Freshman class has some good stuff in it," he said, "the best that has come to Queen's for many moons. Armstrong and Brown are going to be corkers, you mark my words. Just watch Armstrong in the hundred. For a kid who has had no experience he is a wonder."

"All out for the finals of the hundred," cried Patsy's assistant, who was helping to run off the events. The summons brought out the six who had been successful in the trials—Collins, Herring, Armstrong, King, Wilson, and a Junior named Howard. The latter two were not expected to figure very heavily in the race.

"Collins and Herring will run scratch in this race," said Patsy, who was getting the six ready up at the start. "You two Freshmen go to that six-foot handicap mark; Howard and Wilson, you take an extra yard."

The boys went to their places, and there was a false start, but on the next attempt they got away splendidly. The first spring took Frank ahead of King, and he never saw him again until the race was over, but Collins, who had got a magnificent start, had made up most of the distance in the first thirty yards. Frank felt him at his elbow, and determined not to let him pass that point. On they flew. The spectators were crowding out on the track and craning their necks. Collins was running desperately for his reputation as the best sprinter in the school was at stake. He had come up on Frank inch by inch, but every inch was hard won. The crowd was close above them now and shouting:

"Collins!"

"Armstrong!"

"The Freshman's winning!"

"Gee, what a race!"

Inch by inch Collins gained till he was even with Frank, but past him he could not get. Frank was running with every ounce of power in his body, and still held on. He could see the little red line across his path at the finish now, and in another instant he felt the touch of it on his breast. But at the same instant Collins touched it, too.

"A dead heat, a dead heat," shouted the crowd. The boys had crossed the line exactly together.

"Good, Freshman!"

"That's the boy, Armstrong."

And half a score of his own class surrounded Frank and patted him on the back. The effort had been so great that he could hardly stand, and he was glad enough when Jimmy and Lewis took him by the shoulders and let him rest some of his weight on them, but he soon recovered a bit. Herring, who was third, and Collins came up and gave him a kindly word, and Patsy said when Frank had started for the gym, "There is a game kid, I tell you. When he knows how to run, as I mean he shall, you will all take off your hats to him. I guess we will have something to send down to the Interscholastics in New Haven next spring after all."

CHAPTER XVI.WARWICK INVADES QUEEN'S.

It was the morning of the closing football game of the Queen's School schedule, Saturday, November 12, and recitations were hurried the least little bit. Even the teachers felt the excitement of the day. This was shown by the generous disposition to overlook poor lessons for at least one morning of the school year, and some of them even cut the hours short.

David, who had interviewed the Doctor and taken his place with his class the first of the week, felt the thrill of enthusiasm, and was burning for the slow hours to drag along till 2 o'clock when the great contest was to be called. Football was literally in the air, for everywhere in the school yard, where there was a chance for it between the recitations, groups of boys were gathered and footballs flew high from vigorous toes, and there was the resounding thwack as the ball dropped in some fellow's arms thirty yards away from the kicker.

It was an ideal day for the game—just a little nip of frost in the air, the merest suggestion of the coming winter, but this was tempered by a bright, warm sun. It was not so warm that the players would be exhausted by the heat, nor was it so cold that spectators were put to the inconvenience and discomfort of heavy wraps.

About noon the invading hosts of Warwick began to reach the Queen's School, and spread themselves about the grounds, flaunting the red and black colors of Warwick. Here and there groups of boys from the two schools gathered together, and there was some little fraternizing, but as a general thing the black and red and the blue and gold did not mix well. The rivalry between the two schools in everything was intense, and the members of each thought the other school just a little inferior in most things.

This feeling sometimes resulted in blows being struck and blood shed from bruised noses when encounters took place between representatives of the two away from school grounds. But to-day was the day of the year, and while rivalry was strong, the feeling of antagonism was held in check, for wasn't Queen's the host to-day, and Warwick the guest? No blood should be shed this day except on the fair field of battle—the gridiron.

"What's the matter, Jimmy?" said Frank to that individual, whom he chanced to meet hurrying along the path in front of Warren Hall. "Have you seen that ghost again?"

"No, but I'm pretty nervous."

"Been losing sleep over the apparition?"

"Oh, shucks, no. The old ghost doesn't bother me, but I just met Horton and he told me that he may put me in before the game is over. I'm scared to death."

"And what's to worry you about that? I thought that's what you wanted most of anything on this green, grassy earth."

"Well, I do, but what would happen if I didn't make good?"

"Oh, don't worry about that, you'll be Johnny on the spot, I'm willing to bet. And if you get in, you'll get your 'Q.' Just think of it—your first year!"

"I'm not thinking of the 'Q' so much as whether I can do what I've got to do. I feel just like I did that day when you and I swam at the water carnival at Turner's Point last summer—shaky all over."

Frank grinned as he recalled it.

"I remember that well enough. Before the race came off I was sure that the moment I hit the water I'd go down, and drown, but as soon as I hit the water I thought no more about it. And you will be like that. I tell you it's a big honor to be able to get on the team the first year. Not many Freshmen get the chance. I'm proud to know you, Mr. James Turner."

"Quit your jollying, Frank, and tell me if you've seen the ghost since. You never saw such a scared kid as Lewis was that night, and you couldn't get him down on the playgrounds after eight o'clock if you were to pay him real money."

"Yes," said Frank, "David and I saw it night before last in exactly the same place. It seemed to come from nowhere and disappeared behind the football stand. Seems as if it went into the water. Isn't it queer?"

"It is mighty queer, indeed. What did Gleason say about it?"

"Oh, he wasn't in at the time. He'd gone over to the library early in the evening, and David and I were alone. When he came in and we told him about it, he said it must surely be the ghost of the drowned boy. He had inquired of old Peter Flipp, the shoemaker up on the hill, and Peter told him that the meadows were what he called 'hanted'."

"Did you see it clearly this time?"

"No, not so clearly as the first time; the moon, you know, is on the wane now, and the grounds were darker, but still light enough to show pretty plainly. It was the same figure, and seemed to move pretty swiftly, faster than a walk, I should say, and slower than a run, and, as before, it was above the ground."

"Well, it beats me," said Jimmy. "I've never heard of anything like it. I must be getting along. Here comes Gleason now. Good-bye, old speed. I'll see you later," and Jimmy turned away, as Gleason came up.

"Telling him what the score is going to be this afternoon, old Web-foot?" inquired Gleason.

"No, Codfish, I was telling him about the second visitation of that thing down on the grounds by the river. When this football season is over, I'm going to lay for that old ghost or whatever it is."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," said Gleason, "you don't know what might happen. I've heard of people who tried a hand with ghosts and their hair turned white in a single night from sheer fright. I wouldn't like to see my trusty wife in such a condition as that."

"Just the same I'd like to take a closer look at that thing, and I don't believe I'd be afraid; but at present there is something else to be done, and that's to get something to eat and get down to the grounds in time for a good seat."

"Looks like a big crowd to-day. Guess these Warwickers have all left their happy homes to see the slaughter, and I'm afraid they're not going to be disappointed," said Gleason.

"Oh, don't lose heart, you can't tell. There may be a Freshman in the game before it's through, and that will help a lot." Frank threw this last word over his shoulder to Gleason as he hurried to the dining-room. Coming from the hall, after a hastily snatched bite, he overtook the Wee One, and together they journeyed to the gymnasium, where both teams were to dress for the fray, Warwick having been given the big locker room on the second floor, while Queen's retained the lower floor.

As they approached the gymnasium a big coach drove down the river road in a cloud of dust. It was positively covered with boys. It bore the football eleven of Warwick and its immediate crowd of heelers. Wherever a boy could stick, he had stuck himself, and every one swung the colors of the school.

"Gee whiz, look at those mastodons," cried Wee Willie as the Warwick players began to uncoil themselves from various parts of the coach. "They'll eat us alive. I know they must be cannibals. Poor Queen's, poor Queen's."