“You dropped the Greaser captaincy like a hot shot,” quoth John Curtis on the way out from chapel, as he grabbed Melvin by the coat collar with the familiarity of an old crony, and grinned in his face. “Knew you were going to get licked, didn’t you? You’re a foxy one.”
Dick looked up and caught a fleeting troubled look on the face of Varrell, who stood eying them intently some distance away. “I wasn’t good enough,” he said aloud, as if Varrell could hear him. “On a team like ours, I’m content to fight in the ranks.”
As John did not understand this, he merely uttered an incredulous “Oho!” and, giving his classmate a slap on the shoulder to convey the impression that he was not to be fooled, went outside to consider the answer more fully and wonder if the Greasers were really trying to spring some new trick upon the Yanks. Melvin swung into the Greek room and opened his Homer with a chuckle of pride. “That would pass for a Delphic response. He doesn’t know what I meant. And he won’t know until the game,” he added, with the old determined look coming back into his face.
CHAPTER III
THE BATTLE
Varrell took to the management of the team with a quietness and assurance that put hope into the hearts of the small but determined band which represented the great West. The few days that were left for practice were used to the utmost. In the morning the captain found time to show individual players about shooting and lifting and stopping shots. In the afternoon he drilled the team in passing and dodging and checking. There was a little murmuring when a big forward was taken out of the game because he was uncertain on his skates; and more still when another was relegated to the list of substitutes for playing his own game instead of fitting into the scheme for team work. But Varrell’s answer was conclusive: “Our only chance to win is by team play. We have no stars, and on their team are two or three men who have played in the best city rinks. United we win; scattered we lose.” The murmurers said no more.
That last Saturday before the Christmas holidays was clear and cold. The course had been chosen on the river where high banks ran nearly parallel twenty yards apart. The snow, which had been cleared away the day before, was piled up behind the goal-posts, forming end barriers sixty yards from each other, and completing, with the river banks, a natural enclosure of about the regular rink size.
The Western contingent were established among the pines on the right.—Page 26.
On the banks gathered the patriotic factions,—the New Englanders in the open field on the left, swaggering merrily about their fires and hurling derisive cheers across the ice to the Western contingent, who were established among the pines on the right. This latter band of supporters, though weaker in numbers, had, from their position, a certain advantage which they made the most of. They swarmed into the trees with impromptu banners; when they were out-cheered, they devised an unintelligible chant which made up for lack of voices; and, finally, Tompkins of Montana developed a weird, penetrating yell, something between a whoop and a scream, which no one on the opposite bank could imitate or match, and which he uttered at impressive intervals from the upper branches of the tallest pine.