Sands and Melvin and Varrell trudged back to recitation together. “Where did you learn to play?” asked Sands. “You handle a stick like a professional.”
“I spent last year at a Canadian boarding-school,” answered Varrell. “There was good ice for months, and hockey was about the only game we had.”
“You and Durand played the whole game for the second. What a squirmer the little rascal is! He doesn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten, and yet you can’t knock him over to save you.”
“He checks low,” said Dick, “and is firm on his feet. But he’s awfully light. I doubt if he has much staying power.”
“I think you’re wrong,” said Varrell. “I’ve seen that kind before; they never get tired.”
In the next day’s practice, Varrell and Durand being on the scrub, the score at the end of the first half was even. In the second half the two men played with the first team, and the scrub defence was kept so busy that the game seemed to centre around their goal-posts, and Melvin had finally to transfer Sands to the other side to give him a share in the practice. To furnish some test of endurance, the length of the half was doubled. When time was called, Durand was bobbing and twisting and checking and shooting as busily as ever, while one of the big forwards was obviously fagged, and Melvin himself felt that his ankles were rebelling at the unusual strain.
That settled the question of the team; Varrell and Durand had earned their places upon it. Two or three days later a meeting of the team was held to receive Melvin’s resignation.
“I’ve got the team together,” he said, “and with that my duty is done. The best captain for us now is the man who knows most hockey and can teach us the most; I’m not that man.”
The players at first expostulated; then finding that Melvin was in earnest, very sensibly did what they knew he wanted them to do,—elected Varrell captain.
“I think it’s a mistake,” said Sands to Barnes, as they came down the dormitory stairs. “Nobody knows Varrell. But there’s no use arguing with Melvin about a thing of this kind. He’s one of those obstinately honest fellows who stand up so straight that they fall backwards.”