CHAPTER XII
TWO IN A CANOE
“What do you think about when you are running with the ball as you were yesterday?” asked Hugh.
“Think about?” repeated Nick. “Why, I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. There isn’t time. You just—just run like the dickens and watch for the opponents and get ready to straight-arm them or side-step them or something, you know, and keep on going until they nab you. Then you hold on to the ball hard and try to drop easy and get your head out of the way. I suppose you really do do a whole lot of thinking, ’Ighness, but it’s sort of like a dream. That is, you can’t remember afterwards. I’ve heard fellows who have made long runs, maybe the length of the field, or pretty near, tell afterwards just what they thought and planned, but I don’t believe them. They made that up afterwards. You don’t do much planning. You couldn’t, anyway. You get the ball and look for a place to turn in. Then a fellow smashes at you and you dodge him if you can or you put your hand out and let him have it hard. And then two or three others are coming at you and you swing in, maybe, or you swing out, and you get by them somehow—you never know quite how—and you beat it as hard as you can for the goal line. And about that time the quarter or a half makes for you and you try to get past him, and you do or you don’t. Mostly you don’t!”
“It must be jolly exciting,” mused Hugh. “I thought they had you two or three times yesterday before they had.”
“So did I. I missed my guess with that quarter of theirs. I thought that if I kept near the side line he would think I meant to turn in and then I’d keep on straight. But he didn’t fall for it.”
“Why, then you did think, after all, didn’t you?”
Nick looked puzzled. “I guess I must have,” he acknowledged. “I guess you’d call it unconscious cerebration. Here we are!”
It was afternoon of Sunday, the day succeeding the St. James game, and Nick and Hugh were going canoeing. A backwater of the river formed a little cove in the southwest corner of the playing field and save when the water was very high there was a slope of coarse sand and gravel there which was facetiously called the Beach, just as the cove was known as the Pool. It provided a fairly good place for swimming, since the water was not deep, although the mud was somewhat of a drawback; and it made a convenient haven for canoes. They were drawn up on the grass under the well-nigh leafless branches of a grove of maple and ash trees, a flotilla of some twenty brightly hued craft. Nick’s canoe, which he owned in partnership with Bert, was easily located, for it was the only white one in the lot. It had a neat stripe of gold along its side and the name in gilt letters at the bow: Omeomi. Hugh had been fooled by that name, to Nick’s delight, pronouncing it Om-e-om-e, believing the statement that it was an Indian word. Nick, however, pronounced it “O me! O my!”
Hugh took a paddle and seated himself in the bow and Nick pushed off and guided the gleaming craft out of the cove and around a point of alders to the river. There he headed up stream, against a barely perceptible current.
“Now dig if you like,” he called, and Hugh dipped his paddle very awkwardly and tried his best to perform as he had seen Nick and others perform. But this was his first attempt and he wasn’t very successful. Nick let him toil for several minutes. Then: