“Well, let’s be getting back,” suggested Sid; and the others agreed that this might be a wise thing to do.
And while they are returning to college I will, in order that my new readers may have a better understanding of the characters, tell something of the books that precede this in the “College Sports Series.”
Our first volume was called “The Rival Pitchers,” and told how Tom Parsons, then a raw country lad, came to Randall College, with the idea of getting on the baseball nine. He succeeded, but it was only after a hard struggle and bitter rivalry. Tom made good against heavy odds. The second volume had to deal with college football, under the title, “A Quarter-back’s Pluck,” and in that I related how Phil Clinton, under trying circumstances, won the championship gridiron battle for his eleven.
“Batting to Win,” the third book of the series, was, as the title indicates, a baseball story. Besides the accounts of the diamond contests, there was related the manner in which was solved a queer mystery surrounding Sid Henderson. Going back to football interests, in the fourth book, “The Winning Touchdown,” there will be found many accounts of pigskin matters. Also how Tom Parsons, and his chums, saved the college from ruin in a strange manner.
The book immediately preceding this volume was “For the Honor of Randall,” and while it was, in the main, a story of various college athletics, there is detailed how a certain charge, involving the honor of Frank Simpson, and incidentally his college, was disproved.
My old readers know much about Randall, but I might mention, for the benefit of my new friends, that the college was located on the outskirts of the town of Haddonfield, in the middle west. Near the institution ran Sunny River, as I have said, and it was on this stream, and the connecting lake, that it was proposed to have Randall enter into aquatic sports. Randall, Boxer Hall and Fairview Institute—the latter a co-educational college—had formed the Tonoka Lake League in athletics, though in rowing only the two latter colleges had competed. But this was soon to be changed.
At the head of Randall was Dr. Albertus Churchill, dubbed Moses, in affectionate terms. Dr. Emerson Tines, alias “Pitchfork,” was head Latin instructor, and Mr. Andrew Zane was proctor. Dr. Marshall was a physician in residence, and also gave instruction in various lines.
Tom, Phil, Sid and Frank roomed together. Formerly they had had a large single dormitory to themselves, doing their studying there, and going from there to classes, lectures or chapel—but not the latter when it could conveniently be “cut.” In the book just before this I told of the Spring track games in which Randall had managed to come out the victor. These had been past a week or two when the present story opens.
Just after the games there had been thrown open to the use of the students a new dormitory, and study-building, with rooms arranged en suite, and the four chums had taken a large central apartment, with bedrooms opening from it. This gave them a much more convenient place than formerly.