“I’ve been coaching the Ophir team for a long time, Mr. Bradlaugh,” he remarked, “and you saw the afternoon’s performance. It wasn’t a credit to me any more than it was to the eleven.”
“That’s the wrong way to look at it,” was the warm response. “If you haven’t the material to work with, what can you do?”
“I’ve got the material,” insisted Frank. “Your son is a crack half back; Handy, at full, and Spink, at quarter, are class A, and I haven’t any fault to find with the rest of the men. There’ll be some shifting, though, and I may take a couple of players from the scrubs for the regulars.”
“Suppose this Guffey gets into the Gold Hill line-up? He’s an amateur, the colonel tells me, and, by our rules, is qualified to play. Will you jump into the fight if Guffey does?”
“I’m going to do all I can to make Ophir win,” Frank answered determinedly.
“You still have hopes, then?”
The young coach had again got himself well in hand. The obstacles were thickening, and, because of them, final victory over Gold Hill would be a prize worth while.
“Ophir is going to win!” he declared, and there was a look on his face and a gleam in his dark eyes that went far to dispel the president’s gloomy forebodings.
“You’re a brick!” said Mr. Bradlaugh, clapping Frank on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit, my lad, that leads many a forlorn hope to victory. We’re going to win—I consider that settled. If you’re on your way back to town, jump into my car and I’ll take you. I was only waiting for a word with you before I started.”
The clubhouse and athletic field were a short mile out of Ophir. On the way back Merry communed with himself and took heart out of his very discouragements.