“I hope I’m made of different stuff than you are. I do want them to be beaten, but I’m not on the eleven. If I were on it, no matter how I felt, I’d have to do my best to help win. If you do anything else, you will be a traitor and a sneak.”
Some color mounted to Bentley’s thin cheeks.
“You’re the funniest fellow on legs!” he exclaimed. “Of course I wouldn’t do anything to down the team unless I could throw it all on Renwood’s shoulders. I’m keeping my eyes open for a chance to show him up dirty.”
Don was silent a moment, looking squarely at Leon with those dark, piercing eyes.
“Thad Boland may be lazy,” he finally said; “but a lazy man is better than a sneak and a traitor. Sterndale made a mistake when he took you back, and I’d tell him so if I thought he’d pay any attention to me.”
“You’ll be sorry some time for this kind of talk, Scott!” snapped Leon, in bewildered anger. “There come some girls, and I don’t want to talk with you any longer.”
Don saw several girls coming down the street, Dora Deland and Zadia Renwood among them, and he immediately said:
“I’m sure I don’t want to be seen talking with you, nor do I want anything further to do with you. You can keep away from me in the future. Understand?”
Without waiting for Leon to answer, he hastened onward toward home, leaving Bentley to wait for the girls and force himself upon them as a companion and escort, whether he was wanted or not.
That afternoon it rained. Don sat at his desk and listened to the dash of the wind-driven cloud-tears against a near-by window. Sometimes he studied, but oftener he was thinking of things far removed from books and recitations. The rain had begun late in the day and was pretty certain to continue, so there could be no practice for the Rockspur Eleven that night.