Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker

by Matthew M. Colton

CHAPTER XXI. GAMMA'S DESPERATE TACTICS.

Queen's School took the disbarment of Frank Armstrong and Jimmy Turner from athletics as a serious blow to their chances in baseball and on the track. Even the Gamma Tau boys, who bore no particularly kindly feeling toward these two, missed their strengthening presence—or at least they seemed to. There were some who, whatever they might have said before the School, inwardly rejoiced that "these disturbers of the peace" had been neatly shelved by Old Pop-Eye. Chip Dixon was among the latter. He could never repress a smile when he met Frank or Jimmy. And Jimmy ached to take him in hand and show him something that might not have been good for Dixon. But the opportunity did not come and peace was preserved.

Hockey came and went, and the School team, captained by Dixon and filled up with his followers from Gamma, lost miserably to Warwick. Jimmy and Frank watched the game from the side of the improvised rink on the Wampaug.

"There are better players among the Freshmen," said Jimmy contemptuously, "but they have no chance. I could pick up a team among the class teams that would beat the School team at hockey to a frazzle."

And Jimmy spoke the plain truth. Chip had followed his usual method of picking out his team from his Society, and he had no eyes for their faults. But the School was fretting under the burden of Gamma Tau and of Dixon himself. How much longer he was going to be allowed to boss everything was a matter of speculation in many a room after books were laid aside.

"Thank goodness, it is his last year!" said Lewis one night, when the possibility of the continuance of Dixon as a dictator was being discussed.

"Yes, but there is Howard Hotchkiss coming along. He is sure to be the next boss." Hotchkiss was in the third class. He was not an athlete, but a masterful fellow who could be depended upon to keep the prestige of the School in the hands of Gamma and not let it get away for a moment.

"The threatening storm against the Gamma is growing every day," said David, "and when it comes, there is bound to be fun. Two of the editors on the Mirror, Pickering and Westover, refused the last elections and they are hot for an opposition society."