This prowler under the benches, chuckling over the disappointment of the Ophir coach and the ragged work of the Ophir team, was not there for any good. But for his own daring and ingenuity and unscrupulousness, he would not have been there at all.
“Thunder!” muttered Merriwell. “Why, Pink, the team isn’t playing half so well as it did in that little practice game with Gold Hill, on the mesa at Tinaja Wells!”
“It doesn’t look like the same team, Chip,” replied Ballard. “What’s got into them? Mayburn’s a joke at center, Doolittle as right tackle is all that his name implies, and Spink, at quarter, is all balled up. By George! Say, I’ll bet a peck of prunes against a celluloid collar that the scrubs score in the next half.”
“No, they won’t,” gritted Merriwell. He was on his feet, taking personal odds and ends from his trouser’s pockets and stowing them in his coat. At last he threw off the coat and dropped it where he had been sitting. “Come on, Pink,” he added, leaping over the rail and into the field, “you and I have got to get into this.”
The first half was over. Clancy, who was acting as referee, was walking up and down the side lines, telling the sweating club eleven what he thought of them. Merriwell stopped him and did a little talking on his own account. Handy, the captain, seemed utterly demoralized and in a daze. Even the scrubs seemed a bit awed by what they had accomplished.
Merriwell’s temper was struggling to get the best of him. He had tried, to the best of his ability, to make a winning team of the club eleven. But all his work seemed to have gone for nothing. With a tremendous effort he kept his feelings in check. The look on his face, however, was enough for the regulars. They knew how intense was Merriwell’s disappointment, and they realized that they were the cause of it.
“You fellows have got to get together,” said Frank, his voice low and deliberate. “You play as though it was every fellow for himself, and seem to forget what I have been pounding into you about teamwork. Every man is a cog in the machine, and all the cogs have got to work together if you don’t want the machine to go wrong. There were times, Spink,” and he turned not unkindly to the quarter, “when it seemed to me as though you had paralysis of the intellect. It’s just possible that you got rattled because Handy interfered with you. I saw that.” He faced the captain. “I guess you got excited, Handy,” he continued, “when you tried to tease the scrubs and found them giving you a handful. You know better than to mix in with the work of the quarter back, so please restrain yourself during the next half, Mayburn,” and he turned to that husky player, “I’m surprised at you. For the rest of this game Ballard will play your position and I’ll try and fill Spink’s place. It would be fine to have the scrubs score against you, wouldn’t it? Get on your toes and work together during the next half, all of you. And,” he finished, with a grim smile at the scrubs, “I want you fellows to do your best and put it over the regulars—if you can. So far, you’ve played a great game. Keep it up.”
While this talk was going forward, a hand had crept out from between the seats in the grand stand and had groped for Merriwell’s coat. Finding the garment, the fingers of the hand closed on it and withdrew it from sight. At about the time the players took they field for the second half, the coat had been returned, and the greedy, evil eyes were again studying the football field.
There was a decided improvement in the work of the club team after Merriwell and Ballard had taken the places of Spink and Mayburn. But there was no scoring on the part of the regulars, for the scrubs continued to hold them and to fight like madmen for every yard in front of their goal posts. Most of the battling was in scrub territory.
Merriwell had not retired Spink temporarily and taken his place because the quarter back had become rattled. What Merry wanted was to get into the game and study at close and active quarters the unsuspected defects of the Ophir team. All the plays were carefully directed for this one purpose.