First trotted, walked or limped back to the gymnasium a few minutes later with, for the time, nothing further to ask of life. Tom, smiting Johnny between his broad shoulders, asked solicitously yet joyously: “How’re you feeling, old son?” And Johnny, grinning painfully with swollen lips, croaked: “Like a two-year-old, Tom! Say, didn’t we give ’em fits?”
“Fits? We trampled on ’em, Johnny, we trampled on ’em! The Fighting Scrub, that’s us, boy!”
CHAPTER XV
TOM’S LUCK TURNS
The discouraging thing about beating the First was that the First wouldn’t stay beaten. If you scored on it one day it came back the following day and tried to see just how overbearing it could be. Or if you beat it on Monday, say, it spent the rest of the week rubbing your face in the dirt, until you almost wished you hadn’t been so rash. So the Scrub’s hour of triumph was brief. On Tuesday the enemy, with all its best talent present, took a long, craving look at the Scrub and proceeded to devour it. Three scores, two touchdowns and a field-goal resulted from the first period, by the end of which the Scrub was somewhat demoralized although still fighting. During the five minutes of intermission Mr. Babcock managed to restore his charges to a fair condition of usefulness. What no one could understand was why, when the Scrub had the ball, the First got the jump every time and upset every play before it reached the line. This had happened with such monotony that the most reasonable explanation seemed to be that the First had somehow since yesterday become endowed with clairvoyant powers that enabled it to know beforehand what the opponent meant to do. That the First had learned the Scrub signals had occurred to the latter, only to be promptly rejected. Neither Coach Otis nor Captain Lothrop would profit by such an advantage. Yet, merely to make a certainty more sure, or, perhaps, because no other remedy suggested itself, the signals, already changed when Clem Henning had joined the enemy forces, had been switched again since play had started. So that couldn’t be it.
Yet something was wrong. The Scrub wasn’t playing any slower than usual; in fact, both line and backfield were almost beating the ball; and yet to-day the only safe play for the Scrub was a punt, and even one of those had been nearly blocked! “Cocky” puzzled and wracked his brain without finding the solution, and the Scrub went back to the massacre still perplexed and irritated. Yet the second scrimmage period wasn’t so bad, for there was only one more score by the First, and the Scrub made four first downs and got within twenty yards of the enemy’s goal. Nevertheless it was a chastened and somewhat dazed squad which made its weary way back to the gymnasium in the early dusk. Perhaps the defeated army after Waterloo felt about the way the Scrub did. Yesterday they had been, to-day they were not. And no one was able to say why!
No one in the Scrub, that is. Almost any member of the First Team could have explained the mystery very promptly had he chose. But he didn’t choose. The First merely looked superior and a little bit contemptuous; and it took two Firsts and three Scrubs to separate Al Greene and “Swede” Hanbury in the shower room after “Swede” had made what sounded like a perfectly innocent observation regarding the afternoon’s proceedings. Even so the peacemakers didn’t intervene in time to prevent bloodshed, for Al was sniffing through an ensanguined nose as he was led protestingly away and “Swede” was working his jaws experimentally and prodding the left side of his chin with an inquiring finger.
Beside the First Team members, however, the secret of the Scrub’s overthrow was known to one other at least. Loring, seated in his chair beyond the third turn of the running track, attended by the faithful Wattles, had used his eyes and his book-learned knowledge of football to advantage, and so, after supper, when Tom did not appear promptly at the room on the first floor of East, Wattles was sent in search of him. As Tom was in Mr. Babcock’s study just then, Wattles failed to find him. Clif, encountered by Wattles in a corridor, was of no assistance, for Clif had been searching for Tom himself. But Clif agreed to deliver the message when the missing one was found, and Wattles returned to report failure. Clif didn’t find an opportunity to deliver that message, however, until he ran into Tom on the way to assembly hall, and so it wasn’t until after study hour that the two reached Loring’s room. Tom had done very little studying, for the fact that Loring had sent for him had plunged him into a sea of conjecture. It might just be that Loring could throw light on the engrossing mystery. The chap was certainly sharp! Already he had offered two or three suggestions that, passed on to Coach Babcock, had been adopted to the betterment of the Scrub. Tom had acknowledged to Clif no later than Saturday that Loring was really being of use!
“Say,” demanded Tom anxiously when Clif had closed the door behind them, “what’s on your mind, Loring?”
“What’s on yours?” asked Loring smilingly.