This afternoon had been a particularly trying one. Tempest had seemed even more unreasonable and domineering than usual, compelling Kenny to exercise every bit of will power he possessed to refrain from flaring up and causing an open outbreak.
He did not want to do this. He knew the fatal nature of a team playing at loggerheads, and the great game of the season—the contest with Harvard—was too close at hand to run any chances. But he felt that if Tempest continued in his present course very much longer no power on earth could prevent an explosion.
“He’s so darned thick-headed and set in his ways that it makes a fellow wild,” he grumbled to himself as he crossed the field toward the track house. “If it wasn’t for the game Saturday, I’d have let him have a piece of my mind to-day, and he could have done what he liked about it. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing for him to hear what some of the boys really think about him.”
Still scowling fiercely, he entered the house and found several of the fellows there ahead of him. They were gathered in a little group on the farther side of the locker room, and had evidently been discussing something with a relish; but as Kenny entered they all stopped abruptly and glanced swiftly toward the door.
“Oh, it’s only Ken,” remarked Phil Keran, who had taken Hollister’s place at right end. “He’s all right. We were just talking about the crazy stunts Tempest went through this afternoon.”
“Yes,” chimed in Rudolph Rose; “did you ever see anything more senseless than that fool double pass he wasted half the afternoon on. Why a child would catch on to it, and it couldn’t be used more than once during the entire game.”
“And that crisscross play with Baxter and Merriwell,” spoke up Bud Baulsir, who played centre. “You didn’t like that for a cent, did you, Ken? I heard you kicking about it to Tempest, but a fellow might as well argue with a stone wall as to try and convince him he’s wrong.”
“He’s so thick-headed and stuffed full of conceit that it drives a man wild!” Kenny burst out, unable to contain himself any longer. “He seems to think nobody but himself knows anything about the game. It was all I could do to keep from giving him some talk straight from the shoulder, when he spent the whole afternoon on those two pet stunts of his.”
“Why didn’t you?” Rose asked quickly. “Might have done him good.”
Kenny’s lip curled.