"Halt! Rest!"
"Attention! Overhead to front and back. Commence! One, two, three, four!"
Coach Luce's voice rang out in a solid, carrying tone of military command.
The baseball squad was hard at work in the gymnasium, perspiring even though the gym. was not heated above fifty degrees.
Dumb-bell drill was going off with great snap. It was followed by work with the Indian clubs. Then, after a brief rest, the entire squad took to the track in the gallery. For ten minutes the High School young men jogged around the track. Any fellow in the lot would have been ashamed to drop out, short of breath.
As a matter of fact, no one was out of breath. Mr. Luce was what the boys called a "griller," and he certainly knew all about whipping a lot of youngsters into fine physical shape.
This training work was now along in the third week of the new winter term.
Three times weekly the squad had been assembled. On other days of the week, the young men were pledged to outside running, when the roads permitted, and to certain indoor work at other times.
Every member of the big squad now began to feel "hard as nails." Slight defects in breathing had been corrected; lung-power had been developed, and backs that ached at first, from the work, had now grown too well seasoned to ache. Every member of the squad was conscious of a new, growing muscular power. Hard, bumpy muscles were not being cultivated. The long, smooth, lithe and active "Indian" muscle, built more for endurance than for great strength, was the ideal of Coach Luce.
After the jogging came a halt for rest. Luce now addressed them.