Frank was again on his feet, somewhat dizzy, but trying to appear just the same as before. He had received quite a hard blow on the head, as a lump proved; but could not even give a guess as to what had hit him.
Lef had not attempted to run away. He knew better. That must have proven him guilty of an intentional design to do Frank injury. He would have been mobbed before he had gone fifty feet.
So he hovered near the group, looking depressed as though he felt mortified to know it had all been his fault. Lanky, watching him closely, had difficulty in persuading himself that there was a trace of genuine regret in the mind of the other. He even fancied he could see the glitter of secret pleasure in those green eyes of the fellow, and believed Lef must be laughing in his sleeve.
"I hope you don't think I did that on purpose, Allen?" Lef exclaimed, pushing himself into the group as Ralph and Paul were examining the head of their friend to ascertain the extent of the damages.
Frank had been laughing as he assured his friends that he was all right. At the sound of the hateful voice of Lef the smile vanished from his face. Turning, he looked for almost half a minute squarely into the face of the other. Everyone held his breath, believing that the long-expected rupture between these two was about to break loose, and that in another minute they would be fighting it out then and there.
It was a mistake, for Frank deliberately turned his back upon Lef, who was standing there in an humble attitude, strangely unnatural for him. He had seen the same glitter in those half-veiled eyes that had appeared to Lanky. It told Frank that the blow had not only been intentional, but carefully planned. Still, he had not an atom of proof. Cunning Lef generally fixed it that way.
A dozen boys shouted as Frank thus showed his utter contempt for the other. As for Lef himself, he would really have preferred an open defiance to this expression of disdain.
"Oh! well, have it just as you like, Frank Allen," he muttered, with a shrug of his shoulders; "if it was one of your chums you'd be only too willing to call it an accident, and let it go at that. But everything that Lef Sellers does is a crime!"
"That's so, Lef," remarked one of the bystanders, jeeringly; "but that's what you get for having a bad name. If that stick of yours had struck Frank on the temple instead of where it did, they'd be carrying him home now on a shutter. So you see how lucky you are, after all."
Lef turned away. The game had been a grand disappointment to him. Still, even if his side came out at the small end of the horn, they had temporarily disabled several of the regular Columbia players, and this ought to give him some little satisfaction. But the trouble was, the game with Clifford was some days off, and none of them had been so seriously injured but that they would be all right when the time came to play again.