151“We’ll run across it before ten minutes more,” commented Jack; and sure enough that was just what they did.
So, thanks to the habit of observing things all the time, they were enabled to follow their former course just as unerringly as though they had been picking up a well-beaten trail.
Of course they talked of many things as they trudged along, for as yet there was no positive reason which made it necessary for them to keep quiet. That would come later on, when they drew nearer the danger zone.
As often happened Toby’s thoughts ran back in a groove and centred about the home country. It was only natural that this should be so; for no sooner are boys off on a vacation trip before home, which may have seemed very monotonous before, with its school duties, and the many restrictions on their liberty, begins to assume a highly magnified place in their concern. As the old saying has it, “you never miss the water till the well runs dry,” and boys become so accustomed to accepting the comforts of home that they fail to appreciate them until all of a sudden they find themselves cast upon their own resources, and face to face with responsibilities they may never have dreamed of before.
From time to time the faces of all his Chester comrades had a fashion of rising up before Toby, and he could even imagine himself talking with them, perhaps relating some of the lively happenings 152 of that two weeks in the woods up in the wonderful Pontico Hills country.
“I got to thinking yesterday afternoon, while dozing there in the tent,” Toby remarked at one time, “and wondering just what sort of an eleven Chester could put in the field this Fall. Some of us have had a little practice at football work, but other promising players would have to begin right at the start, and learn all there is to the game.”
“That can be done easily enough,” Jack informed him. “Fact is, it’s a more simple thing to start right in the beginning, than to have to undo some false notions, for let a fellow once get into a certain habit, and it’s hard to break him of it.”
“One thing we can count ourselves lucky over, Jack; that’s having such a good coach as old Joe Hooker. He used to be a crackerjack football player in his day; and it was a good deal owing to his work with the nine that Chester won through with Harmony in baseball.”
“We all give old Joe most of the credit,” Jack told him, bluntly; “and he’s promised to whip the eleven into a smoothly running team before the season begins. Inside of two months, or soon after school opens again, there’ll be pretty lively doings in Chester, with the squad out for drill nearly every afternoon. All of us have got to get as hard as nails, so we can stand every kind of thumping without weakening.”
“Have you made out any sort of list so far, 153 Jack, as to who’s going to get a chance for the big eleven?”