“His kindness!” snarled Don. “Bah! He has found an opportunity to show off, and he’s making the most of it. It is my opinion that we might do better without his instructions and without him on the team. If we’ve got to have him, let him go up into the line and take his chance with the others. He chose his own position, where he’ll always have something important to do, yet where there is little danger of being hurt, for he never runs with the ball and he’s not in the front with the interference. I can see through him, if the rest of you do not.”
He would have said more, but Dick stopped him again.
“Not another word of this, Scott!” he cried. “You’ve lost your head entirely, and you’d better——”
“Oh, I’ll get out!” grated Scott. “Hands off me, Sterndale! You are not my master! You can keep your city cad on the team, and I’ll leave! That will settle it.”
He tore himself from Sterndale and strode away. Renwood was angry now and would have followed him, but the boys stopped him.
“Let him go,” said the captain. “No one can reason with him when he gets that way.”
“I don’t want to reason with him,” muttered Dolph, who was pale round his mouth; “I want to hit him!”
But Dick used his influence, and Don was permitted to walk away, while Thad Boland was called in to make up the eleven. Boland was given Smith’s position on the end, Smith being brought back to the place made vacant by Don.
Sitting alone on the bleachers, Don Scott saw the boys line up again and continue practice without him. He saw them try a number and variety of plays from signals, and he heard Renwood give them instructions in forming a wedge and in mass-play. He ground his white teeth together as he watched them, and the hot fury within him seemed burning and consuming his very heart. He noted that they seemed to get along quite well without him, and it was plain that they were beginning to understand some of the difficult strategy of the game, even if they could not execute it rapidly. The formation for sending a runner round the end was tried several times, and then the “criss-cross,” or double-pass, was essayed until Smith and Mayfair, working together, seemed to have obtained some skill at it.
It was gall-and-wormwood for the fiery-tempered youth, who, having put aside all desire to restrain and control his anger, now entertained the most bitter and revengeful thoughts. He was angry toward Bentley, too, for not speaking out and siding with him in his outburst against Renwood.