“If you fellows don’t want to play,” he declared sarcastically, “just say so and I’ll let you off. But if you do, for goodness sake stop falling over your sticks! Goodyear, you and Roeder had better lay off awhile. Ridge and Pennimore! Come and see if you can at least stay on your feet. Hurry up, now. Let’s get some snap into this. You’re letting the Second put it all over you.”
But the next day the players showed some of their old form and the Second had all it could do to make its single tally. The weather remained cold and the ice hard and firm. On Friday there came indications of a thaw, and it wasn’t until after nine o’clock that French was certain enough of the morrow’s conditions to go to the telephone and communicate with the manager of the Rock Hill College team. “The ice may be a little soft in spots,” he said over the wire, “but there’s no doubt but that we can play. So we’ll expect you down on the train that gets here at two sixteen. We’ll play as soon after that as you’re ready.” Alf’s last act that night before getting into bed was to open the window and put his head out.
“What’s it doing?” asked Tom sleepily.
“Sort of cloudy, but it’s stopped dripping. It’ll probably freeze a little before morning. I wonder who invented the New England climate, anyway. You never know one minute what it’s going to do the next.”
“I didn’t,” murmured Tom, turning over in bed with a grunt.
[CHAPTER XXII]
GERALD GOES ON AN ERRAND
By eleven o’clock the next forenoon the thaw had begun in earnest, but it was too late to cancel the game. Rock Hill appeared on the scene promptly and at a quarter to three the game began. The ice was soft along the boards and there was a film of water everywhere, but it was possible to play for all of that. Felder was out of the game with tonsilitis and Sanderson took his place at cover point. The whole school turned out to see the contest and lined the rink two and three deep. Alf expected a hard game but defeat was not reckoned on. Yet at the end of the first twenty-minute period, with the score 2 to 0 in Rock Hill’s favor, it didn’t look so improbable. Rock Hill presented a team of older and more experienced players and far excelled Yardley in skating ability and stick work. Had it not been for Dan’s really brilliant performance at the cage the score would have been much larger. In the second half Yardley had what benefit there was from the wind, but, in spite of that, the play remained about her goal most of the time and that Rock Hill was able to add but one tally to her score was due to good work on the part of the defense, and the fact that Rock Hill’s shooting was not as brilliant as her other game. With the score, 3 to 0, and some four minutes to play, Alf saved the home team from a shut-out by taking the puck himself the length of the rink and, with one short pass to Hanley and back in front of goal, scoring Yardley’s only tally. But there was no disgrace in being beaten by Rock Hill, and, on the whole, Yardley’s work showed a distinct advance over that of the game with the Yale freshmen. If the Blue could play as well a week from that day, when she was due to meet the Green, Alf believed that the Pennimore Cup and the season’s championship would remain at Yardley.
But the weather was to be reckoned with, it seemed, for all Saturday and Sunday and Monday the warm spell continued, until the hockey rink was a shallow puddle of water with not a vestige of ice to be seen. The river broke up and the last of the snow melted in the drifts. The weather was almost springlike and Alf fumed and fretted and studied the predictions. And, meanwhile, the only practice to be obtained was in the gymnasium where, with two Indian clubs set up to indicate a goal, the fellows shot until their arms ached.