Up to Monday of the last week, the opinion around the campus was unanimous that the day of defeat had arrived; but, with the opening of the week and the flocking in of the old players, a new spirit was noticeable, and (among the freshmen) a tentative loosening of the purse-strings on news of extra-insulting challenges from the South.
At the practise, the season's marked division among the coaches was forgotten, and the field was alive with frantic assistants. The scrimmage between the varsity and the scrub took on a savageness that was sometimes difficult to control. The team, facing the impossible, with eagerness to respond, had clearly overworked itself. Stover himself weighed a bare one hundred and forty, an unspeakable depravity which he carefully concealed.
Still, the team began to feel a new impulse and a new unity, inspired by the confidence of the returned heroes. The grim silence of the past began to be broken by hopeful comments.
"By George, I believe there's something in those boys."
"We've come up smiling before."
"We may do it again."
"Shouldn't be surprised if they gave those Princeton Tigers the fight of their lives."
"Oh, they'll fight it out all right."
One or two trick plays were perpetrated behind closed gates, and a thorough drill in a new method of breaking up the Princeton formation for a kick, under the instruction of returning scouts. The team itself began to question and wonder.