The Mark of the Knife. Ernst Clayton Holt

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СКАЧАТЬ back. That was a good tackle you made and a good run, but you have a lot to learn yet. One thing is change of pace when you carry the ball. If you sprint the way you do in a track dash, the men against you have a good target for a swift tackle, but if you keep something in reserve and turn it on just as you're about to be tackled, you'll do better. Watch Durant; you can learn a lot from him."

      Teeny-bits walked on air on the way back to his room, but no one knew it, for it was his way not to show elation in things that concerned himself, and he told no one of his promotion, for he preferred to let the news get abroad by other means. Neil Durant overtook him before he reached the campus and walked with him to Gannett Hall. "You're always springing surprises, aren't you, Teeny-bits?" said the big half-back with a smile. "I didn't think you had so much speed."

      "I don't believe I could do it again," said Teeny-bits deprecatingly.

      "Of course you could," declared the captain. "Coach just told me you're to join our squad. I'm glad; I'm counting on you to do big things."

      Teeny-bits looked up at his companion and said to himself that one of the biggest reasons why he wanted to do big things was to win the close friendship of this hard-fighting, clean-playing "regular" at his side. Aloud he said: "I'm going to try like thunder!"

      When Coach Murray at the beginning of practice next day announced that Holbrook was to leave the scrub and join the first squad there were murmurs of approval that were joined in by nearly every one. The exception was Tracey Campbell, who considered that Teeny-bits had been unjustly promoted over his head. He determined to show up the newcomer if the opportunity came, and it was noticeable in the practice that afternoon, when Teeny-bits got a chance to play with the first team for a few minutes, that Campbell made a tremendous effort to down the new member of the squad with a crash.

      Bassett was watching on the side lines and that evening he came round to Campbell's room with a proposition.

      CHAPTER III

      A PLAN AND A GAME

      Campbell and the Western Whirlwind had certain qualities in common; both had ambitions to be "sporty." They shared an inclination for lurid neckties, fancy socks and striped silk shirts; they believed themselves wise as to the ways of the world, and each had been heard to express the opinion that Ridgley School was a "slow old dump." Campbell was the leader of the two – he dominated Bassett as a political boss dominates his hench-men. One reason was that Bassett foresaw favors to be had at the hands of Tracey Campbell.

      Tracey's home was only eight miles away – just on the other side of Greensboro – and within recent years his life had been greatly changed through the fortunes of war. To many homes in the busy town of Greensboro the struggle in Europe had brought privation and to some it had brought tragedy, but to the Campbells it had brought prosperity. Campbell, Senior, was a wholesale dealer in leather; he had caught the market just right and, in the expressive words of his neighbors, had made "a mountain of money." He had moved from his modest home in the town and had built a pretentious house on a hillock two miles to the west. Those of the townspeople who had been inside "the mansion" declared that every chair and every picture on the wall was screaming aloud, "He got rich quick! He got rich quick!"

      Campbell, Senior, did not believe that the son of a man who had made a million should remain in the public school, and so he had arranged to have Tracey go to Ridgley. The younger Campbell had come to the school on the hill with a certain feeling of superiority that was in no small measure owing to his belief that his father was richer than the father of any other fellow in sight.

      Bassett had been brought up in a somewhat similar home; his father was a promoter of mines and oil wells and had come naturally by a bombastic manner which he had in turn passed on to his only son. The elder Bassett was known behind his back as Blow-Hard Bassett, and it was said of him that he owned more diamond stick-pins than any other man alive.

      On the night after Teeny-bits had practiced for the first time with the "big team", Bassett knocked on Campbell's locked door.

      "Who is it?" demanded Campbell, and slipped the catch when he heard Bassett's voice. As soon as the "Whirlwind" had stepped inside, Campbell went over to the window and resumed the occupation in which he had been engaged when Bassett had interrupted him. From the window sill he took a smoldering cigarette and, holding it in his cupped hand so that the glow could not be seen from outside, sucked in, and after a moment cautiously blew the smoke out into the night air. Bassett watched him in silence for a moment and then he said:

      "They slipped something over on you, didn't they?"

      "What can you expect?" was Campbell's reply. "But I can tell you this – if I don't get a fair show pretty quick, I'm going to quit – and I'll not only quit playing football, but I'll say good-by for a lifetime to Ridgley School. I'm not going to be the goat much longer – you can bet your gold pieces on that."

      "You'd have been on the first team already if it hadn't been for Teeny-bits," said Bassett.

      "Some day I'm going to show that fellow up," said Campbell. "It makes me sick the way the whole crowd falls for him."

      "What are you going to do?"

      "Well you watch and see!"

      "Got any plan?"

      "Not yet."

      "I have – one that will work this time." Bassett looked at his friend keenly and seeing that Campbell's face betrayed skepticism he prepared himself mentally to exercise the same talents that had made his father, Blow-Hard Bassett, a successful seller of mining stock.

      The game with Wilton, on the last Saturday in October, was the first hard test of the season. The outcome of the struggle with Wilton had always been taken at Ridgley as an indication of the probable result of the game with Jefferson, – the final athletic event of the year and the crisis of the football season. If Ridgley pushed back the sturdy Wilton team and snatched victory from the wearers of the purple, then there were reasonable grounds for hoping that three weeks later there would be a bonfire on the campus and a midnight parade to celebrate a victory over Jefferson, the ancient and honored foe of Ridgley. If, on the other hand, Wilton showed an impertinent disregard for the best line that Ridgley could assemble and carried their impertinence to such an extreme as to romp home with the victory, the situation looked black as ink, and the tense atmosphere that accompanies forlorn hopes took possession of Ridgley School and penetrated not merely to the recitation halls, but even, it was said, to the office of Doctor Wells, the head. In such times there were mighty efforts to bolster up the spirit of the team, to feed it concentrated football knowledge and to ward off by Herculean effort the black shadow of defeat that raised its ugly head like a thunder cloud pushing itself higher and higher over the white buildings on the hill.

      Before the Wilton game Coach Murray had a few words to say to the team that made every member tingle with a desire to show what he could do. When the whistle blew and the game began, Teeny-bits was sitting on the side lines with the other substitutes.

      Ridgley kicked off to Wilton, and immediately received a terrific surprise. The pigskin went sailing through the air impelled by the heavy boot of big Tom Curwood; it fell into the purple-covered arms of a rangy Wilton half-back who, instead of running with the ball, immediately sent away a long spiral punt that flew over the heads of the charging Ridgley players. Neil Durant yelled out a quick warning and turned with his team-mates.

      Ned Stillson was nearest the ball when it struck the ground; he intended to gather it up as it bounced, and then he meant to carry it far back toward the Wilton goal, but his calculations went wrong. His outstretched fingers touched the ball and almost grasped it, but the pigskin oval slipped from him and next instant – to the horror of the Ridgley watchers – was СКАЧАТЬ