“By Jove!” exclaimed Tom, “that’s the same paper that we saw Shambler have in the reading room one day—the paper that he tore a picture from! It was his own likeness, and he was afraid we’d recognize him.”
Several recalled that incident.
“I guess there’s nothing else to be said,” admitted Holly with a sigh. “I suppose I needn’t assure you Exter fellows that we knew nothing of this,” he added quickly. “We never would have admitted Shambler to the contests if we had dreamed of such a charge hanging over him.”
“We know that,” Wallace assured him quietly. “It’s too bad, but there’s no harm done. Do we understand that you withdraw Shambler’s name?”
“Sure!” exclaimed Kindlings. “It’s too bad, for he is a fine athlete. I’m glad, now, he wasn’t in the hurdle race.”
“I guess he got in the wrong kind of company,” went on Wallace. “I understand he has been seen several times of late with a fellow named Nelson. He, too, is a professional, but he has been barred from even his own class because of cheating. He helped Shambler train.”
“Nelson,” mused Tom. “That must be the fellow I saw with Shambler, and the one I heard him talking to.” It developed later that this was so.
Wallace laid before the committee several other items of proof of the charge he had made. They tended to show that Shambler had been one of the best amateur all-round athletes in the West. But he began going with a “sporty” set, and, needing more money than his folks could supply him, he accepted the invitation of a professional ball team to play for them one Summer. He managed to conceal the fact and returned to his college as an amateur until chance betrayed him. Then, having found in professional athletics a comparatively easy way to make money, he continued along that line, coming to Randall under false colors.
It was believed that he intended doing as he had often done before, secretly placing bets through Nelson, and so clearing a tidy sum. Wallace showed Shambler’s professional record in several events, and in every case the time, or distance, made was much better than the record of Shambler at Randall.