“But if you had not been with those fellows——”
“Oh, I know what you’re driving at now. Look here, Stone, I like you; you’ve treated me like a white man. I can’t say as much for some other chaps around here. Just because I kept my mouth shut and minded my own business when I came here, a lot of pin-heads began to sneer about me and say I was a fake who’d never even seen the State of Texas. I was born in Rogers County, which is located in the Panhandle of the Lone Star State. Those fellows didn’t disturb me a whole lot, Ben; but, just for a joke, I decided to give them something really worth talking about. As long as they had the notion that every Texan must talk dialect and act like a half-civilized man, I took a fancy to play the part for them. It was a sort of a joke with me. I’ll say right here and now that I reckon we’ve got as decent and refined people in Texas as you can find anywhere around these parts, though doubtless it would be right difficult to pound this fact into the heads of some chaps.”
“That’s not what I’m driving at,” said Ben, “and I don’t believe your statement that you hail from Texas had anything to do with turning the fellows against you. The team needed strengthening; they wanted you to play football, and——”
“I claim, as a free and independent individual, that I have a right to play football or not, just as I choose.”
“Of course you have, but loyalty to the school——”
“Whatever I may do or decline to do, Stone, you may be sure I have good and sufficient reasons. A fellow’s motives are sometimes misunderstood.”
“That’s quite true,” agreed Stone. “I had an experience decidedly more unpleasant than yours when I first came to Oakdale.”
“But you pulled out on top. Why? Because you played football?”
“No, not that; because circumstances and events made me understood at last. I’ve never questioned your courage, Grant, but you know lots of times a fellow has to prove himself before he’s estimated correctly. I don’t believe you’re a quitter; I don’t believe you’ve a yellow streak.”
“Thanks,” said Rod, with a slight touch of sarcasm which he could not wholly repress.