“A bit lame,” replied Dan. “He will be all right to-morrow, I guess.”
“We’ll let him lay off to-morrow. It will be light work for all unless this weather changes. It’s almost like summer to-day. Well, I must be getting back. How are you feeling, Vinton?”
“All right,” was the reply.
“How’s the ankle?”
“Oh, it was just a twist. It feels pretty good to-day.”
“Well, go easy on it and give it a good rubbing to-night. We got through yesterday very well as far as injuries go. Going to lick Broadwood cross-country Saturday, Pennimore?”
“Yes, sir, hard,” answered Gerald with conviction. “We’ve got a dandy team this year. Ryan picked the fellows last week.”
“Glad to hear it. That will mean two defeats for the Green on Saturday. Well, I’ll see you to-morrow, Vinton. Good morning.”
The next afternoon, as the weather still held warm, all those who had played for more than a period in the Nordham game were sent around the track a few times and then discharged for the day. But there was a hard battle between the First Team substitutes and the Second Team, and Kendall got into it for a whole ten-minute period. I can’t say that he especially distinguished himself, although he worked as hard as he knew how. But there were a great many fine points about the duties of a half-back that Kendall had never heard of, and it seemed to him that he came in for more than his share of criticism. The two teams battled through three ten-minute periods without a score on either side.
On Tuesday hard work began again and Mr. Payson sought to correct some of the faults shown in the Nordham contest. The two-day rest had brought the players around in fine shape and the spirit shown argued well for the team’s success. Only Dan was disappointing that day. He was badly off his game and seemed in a very low frame of mind. Mr. Payson watched him closely, and so did Andy Ryan, the trainer. The coach trusted that he would pull around by the morrow, but on Wednesday, the final day of real work, Dan was still listless and dumpy. After supper that evening Mr. Payson dropped into Number 28 Clarke again.