Jack laughed, and after a moment of indecision Stuart managed a grin. Then they returned to the subject of the Pearsall—St. Charles game and thrashed it all out, if not to their satisfaction at any rate most exhaustively. When Jack took his departure, his precious papers under his arm again, Stuart’s “So long, Jack,” was almost cordial.
In the afternoon Stuart went over to the infirmary and called on Wally Towne. He spent only a few minutes with the patient, however, for Towne was not up to talking much, and the nurse discouraged a longer visit. Towne was certain that he’d be all right for the Pearsall game, but, secretly, Stuart doubted it. Nor could he find anything in the nurse’s expression to bear out Towne’s assertion. He left the room convinced that if there were any field-goals scored on Saturday next they would not be scored by poor old Wally!
Monday was rather an off day on the gridiron so far as the regulars were concerned. Stuart had some fifteen minutes with a first team that was largely substitutes, and the second managed to tie the game at 6 to 6. But so far as the education of Le Gette was concerned Monday was not an off day at all. There was a round sixty minutes of work in the morning and, because practice was shortened, a good forty-five in the afternoon. Le Gette already showed progress, and Stuart acknowledged the fact to the pupil on the way back from the field at dusk. Perhaps his words sounded more grudging than he really felt, for Le Gette laughed and answered: “Don’t say it if it hurts you, Harven.” Whereupon Stuart fell into a silence and wondered if punching the other on the nose would really yield him all the satisfaction he thought it would!
Tuesday the players put their noses back on the grindstone and Coach Haynes turned it fast and unremittingly. When the second team came over and the scrimmage started both sides realized that to-day’s battle was going to be real and earnest, and, although neither Mr. Haynes nor “Old Unabridged” so much as suggested it by word, look or gesture, fur began to fly right away. A day of rest or light work for the first team regulars had put them on their mettle and, paraphrasing the old story, they were determined that no second team could bite them and live! It was a hot, scrappy affair from the first whistle to the ten-minute intermission, and, from the intermission on to the last panting moment when, with their backs to the goal line, the first team warriors repelled the second for the fourth time inside the five-yard line, praying for the whistle. Nominally it ended in a victory for the first, 7 to 6, but virtually it was a tie, for that margin of one point was there only by reason that the second possessed no player with half the ability of Joe Cutts to kick a goal from placement.
Stuart played through the second period—they played two halves of fifteen minutes each—and worked hard. If he didn’t cover himself with glory he at least managed to get fairly well sprinkled with gore, for a second team end put an elbow against his nose in a heated moment of the contest, and life was going far too hectically just then for the administration of first aid. When the flow was staunched Stuart would have been denied admittance at any respectable abattoir! But that was all in the day’s work, and a puffy nose soon responds to the proper treatment, and, anyhow, they’d stopped the second four times inside the five yards! Still, Stuart felt the pace and showed it when the game was done, and Le Gette, himself a dirt-smeared, short-winded, disreputable object, took one brief look at his instructor and shook his head.
“It can’t be done,” he said. “Let’s call it off, Harven.”
And Stuart, wanting to act the Trojan but sensing the call of the showers, nodded as reluctantly as he could, arose and limped off on the trail of the others.
It was while The Laird was delicately administering to his enlarged and ensanguined nose that Stuart asked perplexedly: “Say what’s the matter with me, anyhow, Mac?”
The Laird tossed a wad of absorbent cotton into the basin and replied, “Naught, lad. There’s no break there. ’Twill be fine to-morrow.”
“Oh, shucks, I don’t mean my nose,” responded Stuart impatiently, “and you know it. I mean, what’s the reason I can’t play worth a hang any more? You’ve seen how it is, Mac. I’m not half as good as I was. I can’t play as well as I could at the beginning of last season! Something’s wrong, and I can’t put my finger on it!”