"I want to tell you, young gentlemen," he said in a very quiet voice, "that if you continue to play football as you are playing it now, I might as well quit the job. You haven't improved since that disgraceful defeat by the Milton High School three weeks ago. The material is here but you haven't as much spirit as a sick cat. You do not get together. Once in a while you show what you could do if you would get together. No team can get together and do anything unless it is a team, every one helping every one else, doing his own work and giving the other fellow a hand when he needs it. If you don't get this spirit, Warwick will show you up worse than they did a year ago. You know very well what the trouble is," (he referred to the Society domination of football interests), "and you know the remedy. Captain Harding, you've got to play the best men on your squad. I'm going to have a long practice to-morrow, and I want you all to report at 4 o'clock sharp. That's all, good day," and Horton turned on his heel and left the gymnasium.
CHAPTER IV.FRANK HAS A NEW NAME.
It was a gloomy lot of football players that took their shower that night. They dressed in silence. Horton was by no means a mild-spoken coach, yet his method was to get the best out of the players by persuasion and infinite care. But when he occasionally did open up, the words were all the sharper.
"Laid the hot shot into you fellows, didn't he?" said Patterson, sliding up to his classmate, Dixon, as they climbed the slope to the dormitories.
"Yes, Horton has had a grouch for the last two weeks and we can't please him. Better come out and try it yourself."
"You'd please him if you played the game," retorted the Wee One, who never lost a chance of sticking verbal pins into the quarterback. "I noticed a new back to-day, that young Turner fellow. He has Hillard beaten twenty ways for Sunday," he added. "Wouldn't be surprised if he made the team even at this late date."
"I didn't see him do anything wonderful," growled Chip. "Dutton went through him several times. I'll bet he'll be sore to-morrow where those old keen bones of the big fellow hit him. He's new and he probably put all he had into the practice to-day. To-morrow he'll be like putty."
"If I was a betting man," retorted the Wee One, "I'd lay you some good coin on it. He doesn't know much about it, but he has the stuff in him, and Horton will do the rest. I think he will play in the Warwick game, Chip."