All Bannister turned out to behold the "Prodigious Prodigy" on the football
field. Somewhere—Hicks won't divulge where—Thor has learned the rudiments
of the game. With that bulldog tenacity of his, he has learned them well.
Hence he was ready for the scrubs, and in the practice game it was a
veritable slaughter of the innocents. The 'Varsity could not stop Thor.
Remember 'Ole' Skjarsen, the big Swede of George Fitch's 'Siwash College'
tales? Thor, after the ten minutes required to teach him a play, would take
the ball and just wade through the regulars for big gains. The only way to
stop him was for the entire eleven to cling affectionately to his bulk,
and then he transported them several yards. He is a phenom, a veritable
Prodigious Prodigy, and maybe old Bannister isn't wild with enthusiasm.
His development will be slow but sure, and by the time the big games for
the championship come, he will be a whole team in himself. Right now he
goes through daily scrimmage as solemnly as if performing a sacred rite. He
doesn't thrill with college spirit, but as for football—
Leaving Hicks to read the rest of Scoop Sawyer's long missive, terminating
with indignant condemnation of the sunny youth's love of mystery, the
terrific enthusiasm roused at old Bannister by the daily appearance on
Bannister Field of Thor, and his irresistible marches through the 'Varsity,
must be chronicled and explained.
Not for five seasons, not since the year before Hicks, Pudge, Butch, Beef
and the others of 1919 were Freshmen, had the Gold and Green corraled that
greatest glory, The State Intercollegiate Football Championship! In Captain
Butch's Sophomore year, he had flung his bulk into the fray, training,
sacrificing, fighting like a Trojan, only to see the pennant lost by a
scant three inches, as Jack Merritt's forty-yard drop-kick for the goal
that would have won the Championship struck the cross-bar and bounded back
into the field. And the past season-old Bannister could still vision that
tragic scene of the biggest game.
The students could picture Captain Brewster, with the Bannister eleven a
few yards from Ballard's goal-line, and the touchdown that would give the
Gold and Green that supreme glory. One minute to play; Deacon Radford had
given Butch the pigskin, and like a berserker, he fought entirely through
the scrimmage. But a kick on the head had blinded him, in the mêlée—free
of tacklers, with the goal-line, victory, and the Championship so near, he
staggered, reeled blindly, crashed into an upright, and toppled backward,
senseless on the field, while the Referee's whistle announced the end of
the game, and glory to Ballard. Even then, after the first terrible shock
of the loss, of the cruel blow fate dealt the Gold and Green two
successive seasons, the slogan was: "Next year—Bannister will win the
Championship—next year!"
It was now "next year!" Losing only Jack Merritt, Babe McCabe and Heavy
Hughes from the line-up, and having Monty Merrlweather and Bunch Bingham,
fully as good, Coach Corridan's Gold and Green eleven, before the season
started, seemed a better fighting machine than even the one of the year
before. But when the irrepressible T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., in some
mysterious fashion making good his rash vow to produce a smashing full-back
that can't be stopped, towed that stolid, blond Colossus, Thor, to old
Bannister, enthusiasm broke all limits!
Mass-meetings were held every night. Speeches by Coaches, Captain, players,
Faculty, and students, aroused the campus to the highest pitch; every day,
the entire student-body, with The Bannister Band, turned out on Bannister
Field to cheer the eleven, and to watch the Prodigious Prodigy perform
valorous deeds, like the god Thor. "Bannister College—State Championship!"
was the cry, and with the giant Thor to present an irresistible catapulting
that could not be stopped, the Gold and Green exultantly awaited the big
games with Hamilton and Ballard.
And yet, the stolid, unemotional, unawakened Thor, on whom every hope of
the Championship was based, whom all Bannister came out to watch every day,
practiced as he studied, doggedly, silently. It was evident to all that
he hated the grind, that he wanted to quit, that his heart was not in the
game, but for some cause, he drove his Herculean body ahead, and could not
be stopped!
"Now, you abandoned wretch," said Butch Brewster grimly, as the
happy-go-lucky Hicks finished Scoop's letter, and glanced about him wildly
seeking a way of escape, "in one minute you will tell us all about John
Thorwald, alias 'Thor,' or be tossed sky-high in a blanket by the football
squad, and please believe me, you'll break all altitude records!"
"Spare me, you banditti!" pleaded Hicks, reluctant to cease torturing
Bannister with his Billion-Dollar Mystery, yet equally unwilling to aviate
from a blanket heaved by the husky athletes. "Why seek ye to question the
ways of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.? You have your Prodigious Prodigy—your
smashing full-back is distributing the 'Varsity over the scenery with
charming nonchalance that promises dire catastrophe for other teams, once
he makes the regulars, so—"
At that dramatic moment, just as Butch Brewster glanced at Hicks'
alarm-clock, to start the minute of grace, a startling interruption saved
the gladsome youth from having to make a decision. A heavy, creaking tread
shook the corridor, and the squad beheld, looming up in the doorway, Thor.
He was not in football togs, and as he started to speak his fair face as
stolid and expressionless as that of a sphinx, Captain Butch Brewster
stepped toward him.