“I made a monkey of myself yesterday,” declared Handy, with a firm determination to shoulder all the consequences of his own mistakes, “and that’s what played the dickens with the quarter. But I was nervous, and the way the scrubs lit into us had me rattled. I’ve a notion all the boys felt the same way. We went into that game overconfident and careless; then, when we began getting the worst of it, we slopped over in the other direction and took our backsets too much to heart. We’ll do better to-morrow.”
“You’ve got to, that’s all,” said Merriwell grimly. “What will happen if Gold Hill gets the best of it in next Saturday’s game?”
“It would make the third time, hand-running, that we’ve gone down to defeat at the hands of that other crowd. If that happens, everybody in Ophir will be disgusted, and this athletic club of ours will go to the dogs.”
“Is it as bad as that?”
“It’s worse!” declared Handy. “If you had lived in this town for a year or two, you’d know more about the feeling that prevails regarding these football games.”
“Then, if that’s the way you hook up, we’ve got to win.”
“We have, if it takes a leg.”
After two hours of thoughtful discussion, during which each individual player on the regular team was thoroughly studied, two or three shifts made in the line-up, and a little talk indulged in that renewed the captain’s ardor and determination, the meeting broke up.
For most of the regulars and second-string men, however, it was a blue Monday when they assembled in the gym for the afternoon’s work. Their faces were long and gloomy as they squatted around on the floor in their football togs and listened to a little sharp grilling from the captain.
Merriwell followed Handy. The faults and mistakes of the preceding Saturday afternoon he flashed before the player’s eyes in detail. There was terror in the souls of the regular eleven; but fears were relieved somewhat when not one of the team was publicly disgraced by being dropped to the scrub. At last, tingling in every nerve, the men were sent to the field for another contest with the second eleven.