“Oh, I see.” Hedges' tone was no longer curt, and a sudden look of interest had flashed into his eyes. “But don't you like it? Doesn't this snow make you want to go out and try some stunts?”
Seabury glanced sidewise through the casement windows at the sloping, drifted field beyond. “N—no, I can't say it does,” he confessed hesitatingly; “it's such a beastly, rotten day.”
His interest in Plug's unexpected accomplishments made Hedges forbear to comment scornfully on such weakness.
“Rotten!” he repeated. “Why, it's not bad at all. It's stopped snowing.”
“I know; but it looks as if it would start in again any minute.”
“Shucks!” sniffed Hedges. “A little snow won't hurt you. Come ahead out and let's see what you can do.”
Seabury hesitated, glancing with a shiver at the cold, white field outside and back to the cheerful fire. He did not feel at all inclined to leave his comfortable chair and this enthralling book. On the other hand, he was curiously unwilling to merit Bill Hedges' disapproval. From the first he had regarded this big, strong, dominating fellow with a secret admiration and shy liking which held in it no touch of envy or desire for emulation. It was the sort of admiration he felt for certain heroes in his favorite books. When Hedges made some spectacular play on the gridiron or pulled off an especially thrilling stunt on the hockey-rink, Seabury, watching inconspicuously from the side-lines, got all hot and cold and breathlessly excited. But he was quite content that Hedges should be doing it and not himself. Sometimes, to be sure, he wondered what it would be like to have such a person for a friend. But until this moment Hedges had scarcely seemed aware of his existence, and Seabury was much too shy to make advances, even when the common misfortune of too-distant homes had thrown them together in the isolation of the empty school.
“I—I haven't any skees,” he said at length.
Hedges sprang briskly to his feet. “That's nothing. I'll fix you up. We can borrow Marston's. Come ahead.”
Swept along by his enthusiasm, Seabury closed his book and followed him out into the corridor and down to the locker room. Here they got out sweaters, woolen gloves and caps, and Hedges calmly appropriated the absent Marston's skees.