“He did, and Toddy told Marks the Yanks would clean us off the ice so quickly you’d think they’d used Sapolio.”
“He must consider us either sandless or mighty green,” said Dick.
“And he’s more than half right, too,” replied Sands, “as far as the greenness is concerned. It’s one thing to play with a mob in the old-fashioned go-as-you-please way, and quite another to run a regular team of seven, with complicated rules, and lifts and shoots and body checks and passes and on-side and off-side play, and all the tricks of the new game.”
“I don’t believe he’ll find us as simple as we look,” replied Melvin, as he opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper. “I’ll take the captaincy, provisionally at any rate; and we’ll call out candidates this very afternoon. I’ll post the notice as soon as I can write it. See all the fellows you can; tell them the Yanks are crowing, and we’ll have a big push and lots of zeal. Do you know any hockey experts on our side of the river?”
“The only crack I’ve heard of is a fellow named Bosworth, but he’s on the other side.”
“I’m glad of it,” said Melvin; “I don’t like him.”
In answer to the captain’s call a score of enthusiasts gathered on the upper river. Varrell was among them, and Sands, and Burnett, and several heavy men who seemed promising for forwards, and a little, wiry, dark-haired fellow from Minneapolis named Durand, whom Dick immediately picked out as likely to prove a steady player on the second team. The first task was to find who were well used to the game, and who needed special instruction; the second, to set the experienced to coach the inexperienced; the third, to divide the men into squads, set several games going, and watch the work. Finally, the captain chose a trial seven, gave the scrub an extra man, and tried a ten-minute half.
Little Durand and Varrell, who had never impressed his classmates as an athlete, found themselves on the scrub. Varrell took coverpoint and Durand put himself among the forwards. The puck was faced and started on its erratic, whimsical journey, darting like a wild thing back and forth, up and down. Before the game seemed really well begun, the circular piece of rubber came within Varrell’s sweep, and clung to the heel of his stick. He whirled to the right to dodge Barnes, passed across to little Durand when Melvin blocked his way, took the puck again from Durand as the latter was stopped in his turn, and then, with a swing and a snap, shot it hard at the posts. The goal-tender brought his feet together as quickly as he could, but not quite quickly enough; the puck was already past him, flying knee-high over the ice like a swallow skimming the ground.
“Centre again!” cried Melvin, surprised and vexed at the ease with which the thing was done. “Brace up, Sands,” he called encouragingly to the goal-keeper. “Accidents will happen; they won’t do it again.”
The first forwards did better for a time, driving the puck down by sheer force through the intimidated second defence. Twice they shot for goal and missed, and then Varrell got a chance again and with a kind of scoop with stick directly in front, lifted the puck in a long beautiful arch twenty feet high to the farther end. Sands sent it back again with almost as good a lift. A lucky second stopped it, passed it to Varrell who nursed it along in a strange, wabbling course, and delivered it safely to Durand. The latter swept ahead in turn, and then while Melvin was wondering in what direction Durand was going to wheel, Varrell took the puck again and shot a beautiful goal right under the captain’s own nose.