"This bucking the line all the time raises the devil with you," he said.
"How?" demanded Noyes.
The answer Monte could have returned was obvious. The fact that amazed him was that Noyes could have asked the question with the sun and the blue sky shut away from him. It only proved again what Monte had always maintained—that excesses of any kind, whether of rum or ambition or—or love—drove men stark mad. Blind as a bat from overwork, Noyes still asked the question.
"Look here," said Monte, with a frown. "Before the big events the coach used to take us one side and make us believe that the one thing in life we wanted was that game. He used to make us as hungry for it as a starved dog for a bone. He used to make us ache for it. So we used to wade in and tear ourselves all to pieces to get it."
"Well?"
"If we won it was n't so much; if we lost—it left us aching worse than before."
"Yes."
"There was the crowd that sat and watched us. They did n't care the way we cared. We went back to the locker building in strings; they went off to a comfortable dinner."
"And the moral?" demanded Noyes.
"Is not to care too darned much, is n't it?" growled Monte.