“He was a red-faced fellow in a green sweater!” the instructor was declaring when Dan reached the scene. “I saw him and if I could get my hands on him—”
“Well, he’s gone,” laughed Payson. “Come on or we’ll miss the train.”
The instructor turned and saw the boys around him. He colored, smiled uncertainly and walked back to the waiting coach. When he had taken his place again and they were once more jouncing along toward the station, he said:
“That was a very foolish thing to do, fellows. I—I feel like apologizing to you. I hope you’ll forget it.”
“Yes, sir, we will,” replied Colton gravely.
[CHAPTER XXI]
MR. PENNIMORE CONSENTS
“There was only two or three minutes left and we knew if we missed a score that time Brewer would kick and we wouldn’t be able to get back again. So Alf Loring—he’s the fellow I wrote about last week, and he’s quarter-back on the First—called for a ‘one man’ forward pass and gave me the chance. It worked beautifully and Capes made a dandy throw over the line and right into my arms. I had only about ten yards to go and so that was easy enough. But the fellows think I won the game for them and are awfully tickled about it. Of course it wasn’t any more me than it was Capes and Loring and the other fellows who made it possible for me to get the ball and make the touchdown, but it’s nice having the fellows like you, even if you don’t deserve it.
“It was a hard old game and a lot of us got bunged up, but not badly, except the fellow who played quarter for us most of the game. His name is Clapp. He got tackled hard by a big Brewer player and had to go off. But nobody thought much about it until we got home and the doctor looked him over. Now they say he’s got a fracture or a displacement or something of some little bone in his spine and he’s out of the game for the rest of the season and will have to be put in splints or a plaster cast or whatever it is they do to you. That leaves us in a bad way, for if anything should happen to Loring we’d be in a pickle. Payson is going to take King, the Second Team quarter, on to the First as substitute, but King has never played much and hasn’t had experience like Loring and Clapp. That leaves us without a good quarter to run the Second, and I guess we’ll be pretty easy the rest of the season.