“I have a list of all available candidates, if that’s what you mean, Toby; but no selection can possibly be made until they’ve all had a chance to show what’s in them. Some who don’t seem to promise a great deal in the start will surprise everybody before they’ve been at work a week. On the other hand there will be bitter disappointments in the bunch, and fellows on whom I’ve depended may fail to come up to the scratch and qualify.”
“Well, I certainly hope I’m not one of that lot,” said Toby, between his set teeth, since his heart had long been yearning for a chance to shine on the gridiron as a particular star, to hear the roar of plaudits from the vast crowd assembled, when fortune allowed him to make some sensational play that would advance his side closer to final victory.
“Nobody can tell until the test comes, what they will be able to do, Toby. For my part I shall be bitterly sorry if both you and Steve do not make the team. And then there’s Big Bob Jeffries, who ought to be a magnificent full-back; while long-legged Joel Jackman, and Fred Badger should shine as right and left tackle. Besides, I’d surely love to see Phil Parker, Herbert Jones and Hugh McGuffey pull through, because they’re all good fellows, and with the right sort of grit to do well in football.”
154“I know I’m going to be on needles and pins up to the time the final selection is made,” affirmed Toby. “And you’d better believe I want to go in, if at all, on my honest individual merits. No favoritism can ever be tolerated in football, where a single weak link in the chain spells ultimate defeat for the team, no matter how strong the other ten men may be. The opposing players can quickly learn where the soft snap lies, and after that will devote all their efforts to tearing a hole through the ranks just there where the line will give way soonest.”
“Game words for you to speak, Toby,” commented Jack, full of satisfaction over the thought of having such an honest chum, whose every interest was for the glory of his team, rather than a desire to make an individual reputation, regardless of the general good.
Later on they found themselves at a well-remembered spot. The morning was fairly well advanced by that time. Toby was looking around him eagerly.
“Say, wasn’t it right about here we were held up by that onery cat the other afternoon, Jack?” he asked, with a trace of excitement in his voice.
“There’s the tree right over in front of us, in which she was located when we first heard her angry snarls and spitting,” his companion told him. “But that’s no sign at all the beast is anywhere near here now. For all we know she may be ten or a dozen miles away.”
155“I hope so, anyhow,” honest Toby hastily remarked; but he still continued to cast nervous glances to the right and to the left as they pushed slowly forward, keeping to the open line of the little ridge.
Several times something gave him a start. Now it was a rabbit that, without warning, leaped from a clump of grass, and darted away with long bounds. Then a bird flew up from a bush, and the sound of its wings made Toby unconsciously remember the singular spitting noise which the mottled cat with the ears that lay back on her head gave utterance to, as she warned them to advance no further on penalty of being clawed.