“He isn’t coach any longer, they’ve fired him,” said Stover. “He was here this afternoon for a little while watching the game. He picked Jason out of the crowd and made him a proposition. Go ahead, Jason!”
“He’s terribly sore on Newbury because they haven’t treated him right,” explained Dunn, eagerly. “He says he can let us have the diagrams of all their best plays and the signals for ’em. He doesn’t mean to sell ’em, he’s just going to give ’em to us; but all the same if they help us, and we want to make him up a purse of a few dollars on the quiet, he’ll take it. He left his address with me.”
Harrison looked from one face to the other, but said nothing.
“You see, if you had the signals,” continued Dunn, “and knew what the play was going to be, you could stop ’em wherever you wanted to. Of course you wouldn’t want to do it too often, or you’d give yourselves away. It might be better to let only four or five good fellows in on the thing, and then there wouldn’t be so much danger of getting caught at it.”
“We could raise ten or twenty dollars for Callahan among a few fellows who’d keep their mouths shut,” said Stover. “I’ll attend to that. Yards needn’t know a thing about it.”
“Do you think it’s quite—honorable?” asked Harrison, hesitatingly. He needed no lessons from either Stover or Dunn to appreciate the advantages to be derived from knowing an opponent’s signals.
Stover grinned. “Honorable? Sure! Why not? Ain’t it their business to have signals we can’t discover? Wouldn’t you play for the right side if some one came and told you the Newbury right tackle was weak? Don’t we always try to find out what kind of a ball a batter can’t hit?”
“The cases aren’t similar,” returned Harrison.
“There’s no use in arguing about it,” said Stover. “It’s nothing to me. We give you a chance to get the game. You can take it or leave it. I thought you wanted to win.”
Wanted to win! Was there anything Harrison at that moment wanted more? He looked up and caught sight of Talbot and Hardie sauntering past the corner on their way to Hardie’s room. “Here’s Pete,” said the captain; “let’s see what he says.” And before the emissaries of the disgruntled coach could interpose an objection, he had called the pair over and was bidding Dunn repeat Callahan’s offer.