T. Haviland Hicks Senior by J. Raymond Elderdice (page 3)

you did not promise not to tell about Hicks, if Bannister may be able to use Hicks against Ballard–though I can’t, by any stretch of the imagination, figure how–then it is your duty to tell! I think I glimpse the dark secret–Hicks possesses some sort of football prowess, goodness knows what, and he lacks the confidence to tell Coach Corridan! Now, were it only drop-kicking–“

“It is drop-kicking!” Theophilus burst forth desperately. “Hicks is a drop-kicker, Butch, and a sure one–inside the thirty-yard line. He almost never misses a goal, and he kicks them from every angle, too. He isn’t strong enough to kick past the thirty-yard line, but inside that he is wonderfully accurate. With Thor out of the Ballard game, a drop-kick may win for Bannister, and Deke Radford is so erratic! Oh, Hicks will be angry with me for telling; but he just won’t tell about himself, after all his practice, because he fears the fellows will jeer. He is afraid he will fail in the supreme test. Oh, I’ve betrayed him, but–“

“T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., a drop-kicker!” exploded the dazed Butch, who could not have been more astounded had Theophilus announced that the sunny youth possessed powers of black magic. “Theophilus Opperdyke, Tantalus himself was never so tantalized as I have been of late. Tell me the whole story, old man–hurry. Spill it, old top!”

Butch Brewster, by questioning the excited Human Encyclopedia, like a police official giving the third degree, slowly extracted from Theophilus the startling story. A year before, just as the Gold and Green practiced for the Ham game, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., one afternoon, had arrayed his splinter-structure in a grotesque, nondescript athletic outfit, and had jogged out on Bannister Field. The gladsome youth’s motive had been free from any torturesome purpose. He intended to round up the Phillyloo Bird, Shad Weatherby, and other non-athletic collegians, and with them boot the pigskin, for exercise. However, little Skeet Wigglesworth, beholding him as he donned the weird regalia of loud sweater, odd basket-ball stockings, tennis trousers, baseball shoes, and so on, misconstrued his plan, and believed Hicks intended to torment the squad. Hence, he hurried out, so that when Hicks appeared in the offing, the football squad and the spectators in the stands had jeered the happy-go-lucky Junior, and had good-natured sport at his expense.

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., after Jack Merritt had drop-kicked a forty-yard goal, made the excessively rash statement that it was easy. Captain Butch Brewster had indignantly challenged the heedless youth to show him, and the results of Hicks’ effort to propel the pigskin over the crossbar were hilarious, for he missed the oval by a foot, nearly dislocated his knee, and, slipping in the mud, he sat down violently with a thud. However, so the excited Theophilus now narrated, even as the convulsed students jeered Hicks, hurling whistles, shouts, cat-calls, songs and humorous remarks at the downfallen kicker, one of Hicks’ celebrated inspirations had smitten the pestersome Junior, evidently jarred loose by his crashing to terra firma.

“Hicks figured this way, Butch,” explained little Theophilus Opperdyke, eloquent in his comrade’s behalf, “nature had built him like a mosquito, and endowed him with enough power to lift a pillow; hence he could never hope to play football on the ‘Varsity; but he knew that many games are won by drop-kicks and by fellows especially trained and coached for that purpose, and they don’t need weight and strength, but they must have the art, that peculiar knack which few possess. His inspiration was this: Perhaps he had that knack, perhaps he could practice faithfully, and develop into a sure drop-kicker. If he trained for a year, in his Senior season, he might be able to serve old Bannister, maybe to win a big game. So he set to work.”

Theophilus hurriedly yet graphically narrated how T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had made the loyal, hero-worshiping little Human Encyclopedia his sole confidant. He told the thrilled Butch how the sunny youth, from that day on, had watched and listened as Head Coach Corridan trained the drop-kickers, learning all the points he could gain. Vividly he described the mosquito-like Hicks, as he with a football bought from the Athletic Association began in secret to practice the fine art of drop-kicking! For a year, at old Bannister and at his dad’s country home near Pittsburgh, Hicks had faithfully, doggedly kept at it. With no one bat Theophilus knowing of his great ambition, he had gone out on Bannister Field, when he felt safe from observation; here, with his faithful comrade to keep watch, and to retrieve the pigskin, he had practiced the instructions and points gained from watching Coach Corridan train the booters of the squad. To his vast delight, and the joy of his little friend, Hicks had found that he did possess the knack, and from before the Ham game until Commencement he had kept his secret, practicing clandestinely at old Bannister; he had improved wonderfully, and when vacation started the cheery collegian had told his beloved dad, Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., of his hopes.

The ex-Yale football star, delighted at his son’s ambition to serve old Bannister and joyous at discovering that Hicks actually possessed the peculiar knack of drop-kicking, coached the splinter-youth all summer at their country place near Pittsburgh. Under the instruction of Hicks, Sr., the youth developed rapidly, and when he returned to the campus for his final year, he was a sure, dependable drop-kicker, inside the thirty-yard line. As Theophilus stated, beyond that he lacked the power, but in that zone he could boot ’em over the cross-bar from any angle.

“He’s been practicing all this season, in secret!” quavered the little Senior, “and he’s a–a fiend, Butch, at drop-kicking. And yet, here it is time for the last game of his college years, and–he lacks confidence to tell you, or Coach Corridan. Oh, I’m afraid he will be angry with me for betraying him, and yet–I just can’t let him miss his splendid chance,
now that Thor is out and old Bannister needs a drop-kicker!”

Big Butch was silent for a time. The football leader was deeply impressed and thrilled by Theophilus Opperdyke’s story of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.’s ambition. As he roosted on the Senior Fence, the behemoth gridiron star visioned the mosquito-like youth, whom nature had endowed with a splinter-structure, sneaking out on Bannister Field, at every chance, to practice clandestinely his drop-kicking. He could see the faithful Human Encyclopedia, vastly excited at his blithesome colleague’s improvement, retrieving the pigskin for Hicks. He thrilled again as he thought of the bean-pole Hicks, who could never gain weight and strength enough to make the eleven, loyally training and perfecting himself in the drop-kick, trying to develop into a sure kicker, within a certain zone, hoping sometime, before he left college forever, to serve old Bannister. With Thor in the line-up at fullback, he would not have been needed, but now, with the Prodigious Prodigy out, it was T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.’s big chance!

And Butch Brewster understood why the usually confident Hicks, even with the knowledge of his drop-kicking power, hesitated to announce it to old Bannister. Until Butch had told the Gold and Green football team of Hicks’ being in earnest in his ridiculous athletic attempts of the past three years, no one but himself and Hicks had dreamed that the sunny youth meant them, that he really strove to win his B and please his dad. The appearance of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., on Bannister Field was always the cause of a small-sized riot among the squad and spectators. Hicks was jeered good-naturedly, and “butchered to make a Bannister holiday,” as he blithely phrased it. Hence, the splinter-Senior was reluctant to announce that he could drop-kick. He knew that when tested he would be so in earnest, that so much would hang in the balance and the youths, unknowing how important it was, would jeer. Then, too, knowing his long list of athletic fiascos, ridiculous and otherwise, Hicks trembled at the thought of being sent into the biggest game to kick a goal. He feared he might fail!

“You are a hero, Theophilus!” said Butch, with deep feeling. “I can realize how hard it was for Hicks to tell us. He would have kept silent forever, even after his training in secret! And how you must have suffered, knowing he could drop-kick, and yet not desiring to betray him! But your love for old Bannister and for Hicks himself conquered. I’ll take him out on the gridiron, before the fellows come from class, and see what he can do. Aha! There is the villain now. Hicks, ahoy! Come hither, you Kellar-Herman-Thurston. Your dark secret is out at last!”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., peering cautiously from the Gym. basement doorway, in quest of the tardy Theophilus, who was to have accompanied him on a clandestine journey to Bannister Field, obeyed the summons. Bewildered, and gradually guessing the explanation from the shivering little boner’s alarmed expression, the gladsome youth approached the stern Butch Brewster, who was about to condemn him for his silence. “Don’t be angry with me, Hicks, please!” pled Theophilus, pathetically fearful that he had offended his comrade, “I–I just had to tell, for it was positively your
last chance, and–and old Bannister needs your sure drop-kicking! I never promised not to tell. You never made me give my word, so–“

“It was Theophilus’ duty to tell!” spoke Butch, hiding a grin, for the grind was so frightened, “and yours, Hicks, knowing as you do how we need you, with Thor hurt! You graceless wretch, you aren’t usually so like ye modest violet! Why didn’t you inform us, then swagger and say, ‘Oh, just leave it to Hicks, he’ll win the game with a drop-kick?’ Now, you come with me, and I’ll look over your samples. If you’ve got the goods, it’s highly probable you’ll get your chance, in the Ballard game; and I’m glad, old
man, for your sake. I know what it would mean, if you win it! But–now that the ‘mystery‘ is solved, what’s that about your being a ‘Class Kid,’ of Yale, ’96?”

“That’s easy!” grinned T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his arm across Theophilus’ shoulders, “I was the first boy born to any member of Yale, ’96; it is the custom of classes graduating at Yale to call such a baby the class kid! Naturally, the members of old Eli, Class of 1896, are vastly interested in me. Hence, my Dad wrote they’d be tickled if I won a big game for Bannister with a field-goal!”

A moment of silence, Theophilus Opperdyke, gathering from Hicks’ arm, across his shoulders, that the cheery youth was not so awfully wrathful at his base betrayal, adjusted his big-rimmed spectacles, and stared owlishly at Hicks.

“Hicks, you–you are not angry?” he quavered. “You are not sorry. I–I told–“

“Sorry?” quoth T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., “Class Kid,” of Yale, ’96, with a Cheshire cat grin, “sorry? I should say not–I wanted it to be known to
Butch, and Coach Corridan, but I got all shivery when I tried to confess, and I–couldn’t! Nay, Theophilus, you faithful friend, I’m so glad, old
man, that beside yours truly, the celebrated Pollyanna resembles Niobe, weeping for her lost children.”

CHAPTER XIII

HICKS–CLASS KID–YALE ’96

“Brekka-kek-kek–Co-Ax–Co-Ax!
Brekka-kek-kek–Co-Ax–Co-Ax!
Whoop-up! Parabaloo! Yale! Yale! Yale! Hicks! Hicks! Hicks!”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., swathed in a cumbersome Gold and Green football blanket, and crouching on the side-line, like some historic Indian, felt a thrill shake his splinter-structure, as the yell of “old Eli” rolled from the stand, across Bannister Field. In the midst of the Gold and Green flags and pennants, fluttering in the section assigned the Bannister cohorts, he gazed at a big banner of Blue, with white lettering:

YALE UNIVERSITY–CLASS OF 1896

“Oh, Butch,” gasped Hicks, torn between fear and hope, “just listen to that. Think of all those Yale men in the stand with my Dad! Oh, suppose I do get sent in to try for a drop-kick!”

It was almost time far the biggest game to start, the contest with Ballard, the supreme test of the Gold and Green, the final struggle for The State Intercollegiate Football Championship! In a few minutes the referee’s shrill whistle blast would sound, the vast crowd in the stands, on the side-lines, and in the parked automobiles, would suddenly still their clamor and breathlessly await the kick-off–then, seventy minutes of grim battling on the turf, and victory, or defeat, would perch on the banners of old Bannister.

It was a thrilling scene, a sight to stir the blood. Bannister Field, the arena where these gridiron gladiators would fly at each other’s throats–or knees, spread out–barred with white chalk-marks, with the skeleton-like goal posts guarding at each end. On the turf the moleskin clad warriors, under the crisp commands of their Coaches, swiftly lined down, shifted to the formation called, and ran off plays. Nervous subs. stood in circles, passing the pigskin. Drop-kickers and punters, tuning up, sent spirals, or end-over-end drop-kicks, through the air. The referee, field-judge, and linesmen conferred. Team-attendants, equipped with buckets of water, sponges, and ominous black medicine-chests, with Red Cross bandages, ran hither and thither. On the substitutes’ bench, or on the ground, crouched nervous second-string players; Ballard’s on one side of the gridiron, and Bannister’s directly across.

A glorious, sunshiny day in late November, with scarcely a breath of wind, the air crisp and bracing; the radiant sunlight fell athwart the white-barred field, and glinted from the gay pennants and banners in the stands! Here was a riot of color, the gold and green of old Bannister; in the next section, the orange and black of Ballard. The bright hues and tints of varicolored dresses, and the luster of the official flowers all contributed to a bewilderingly beautiful spectacle! Flower-venders, peddlers of pennants, sellers of miniature footballs with the college colors of one team and the other, hawked their wares, loudly calling above the tumult, “Get yer Ballard colors yere!” “This way fer the Bannister flags!” Ten thousand spectators, packed into the cheering sections of the two colleges, or in the general stands, or standing on the side-lines, impatiently awaited the kick-off. At the appearance of each football star, a tremendous cheer went up from the mass. Across the field from each other, the two bands played stirring strains. The confident Ballard cohorts cheered, sang, and yelled and those of Bannister, not quite so sure of
victory, with Thor out, nevertheless, cheered, sang, and yelled as loudly, for the Gold and Green.

The sight of that vast Yale banner, so conspicuous, with its big white letters on a field of blue, amidst the fluttering pennants of gold and green, excited comment among the Ballard followers. The Bannister students, however, knew what it meant; Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., and thirty members of Yale, ’96, were in the stand, ready to cheer Captain Butch’s eleven, and hoping for a chance to whoop it up for T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., if he got his big chance.

Two days before, when little Theophilus Opperdyke, after a terrible struggle with himself, divided between loyalty to Hicks and a love for his Alma Mater, had betrayed his toothpick class-mate to Captain. Butch Brewster, that behemoth Senior had rounded up Coach Corridan, and together they had dragged the shivering Hicks out to the football field. Here, while the rest of the student body, unsuspecting the important event in progress, made good use of the study-hour, or attended classes in Recitation Hall, the Gold and Green Coach, with the team-Captain, and the excited Human Encyclopedia, watched T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. show his samples of drop-kicks. And the success of that happy-go-lucky youth, after his nervous tension wore off, may be attested by the Slave-Driver’s somewhat slangy remark, when the exhibition closed.

“Butch,” said Head Coach Patrick Henry Corridan, impressively, “what it takes to drop-kick field-goals, from anywhere inside the thirty-yard line, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., is broke out with!”

The proficiency attained by the heedless Hicks in the difficult art of drop-kicking, gained by faithful practice for a year, aided by his Dad’s valuable coaching, was wonderful. Of course, Hicks possessed naturally the needed knack, but he deserved praise for his sticking at it so loyally. He had no surety that he would ever be of use to his college, and, indeed, with the advent of Thor, his hopes grew dim, yet he plugged on, in case old Bannister might sometime need him–and yet, but for Theophilus, he would not have summoned the courage to tell! To the surprise and delight of the Coach and Captain, Hicks, after missing a few at first, methodically booted goals over the crossbar from the ten, twenty, and thirty-yard lines, and from the most difficult angles. There was nothing showy or spectacular in his work, it was the result of dogged training, but he was almost sure, when he kicked!

[Illustration D: He was almost sure, when he kicked!]

“Good!” ejaculated Coach Corridan, his arm across Hicks’ shoulders, as they walked to the Gym. “Hicks, the chances are big that I’ll send you in to try for a goal tomorrow, if Bannister gets blocked inside the thirty-yard line! Just keep your nerve, boy, and boot it over! Now–I’ll post a notice for a brief mass-meeting at the end of the last class period, and Butch and I will tell the fellows about you, and how you may serve Bannister.”

“That’s the idea!” exulted Butch, joyous at his comrade’s chance to get in the biggest game. “The fellows will understand, Hicks, old man, and they won’t jeer when you come out this afternoon. They’ll root for you! Oh, just wait until you hear them cheer you, and mean it–you’ll astonish the
natives, Hicks!”

Butch’s prophecy was well fulfilled. In the scrimmage that same day, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., shivering with apprehensive dread, his heart in his shoes, sat on the side-line. In the stands, the entire student-body, informed in the mass-meeting of his ability, shrieked for “Hicks! Hicks! Hicks!” Near the end of the practice game, the hard-fighting scrubs fought their way to the ‘Varsity’s thirty-yard line, and another rush took it five yards more. Coach Corridan, halting the scrimmage, sent the right-half-back to the side-line, and a moment later, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. hurried out on the field with the Bannister Band playing, the collegians yelling frenziedly, and excitement at fever height, the sunny youth took his position in the kick formation. Then a silence, a few seconds of suspense, as the pigskin whirled back to him, and then–a quick stepping forward, a rip of toe against the leather, and–above the heads of the ‘Varsity players smashing through, the football shot over the cross-bar!

“Hicks! Hicks! Hicks!” was the shout, “Hicks will beat Ballard!”

That night, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., having crossed the Rubicon, and committed himself to Coach Corridan and Captain Brewster, had dispatched a telegraphic night-letter to his beloved Dad. He informed his distinguished parent that his drop-kicking powers were now known to old Bannister, and that the chances were fifty-fifty that he would be sent in to try for a field-goal in the biggest game. On the day before the game, Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., in a night-letter, had wired back:

Son Thomas:

Am on my way to New Haven for Yale-Harvard game. Will stop off at old Bannister–bringing thirty members of Yale ’96. We hope our Class Kid will get his chance against Ballard.

Dad.

On the morning of the Bannister-Ballard game, Mr. Hicks’ private car the Vulcan, with the Pittsburgh “Steel King,” and thirty other members of Yale, ’96, had reached town. They had ridden in state to College Hill in good old Dan Flannagan’s jitney, where T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., proudly introduced his beloved Dad to the admiring collegians. All morning, Mr. Hicks had made friends of the hero-worshiping youths, who listened to his tales of athletic triumphs at Bannister and at old Yale breathlessly. The ex-Yale star had made a stirring speech to the eleven, sending them out on Bannister Field resolved to do or die!

“My Dad!” breathed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., crouched on the side line; as he gazed at the Yale banner, he could see his father, with his athletic figure, his strong face that could be appallingly stern or wonderfully tender and kind. Like the sunny Senior, Mr. Hicks, despite his wealth, was thoroughly democratic and already the Bannister collegians were his comrades.

“Here we go, Hicks!” spoke Butch Brewster, as the referee raised his whistle to his lips. “Hold yourself ready, old man; a field-goal may win for us, and I’ll send you in just as soon as I find all hope of a touchdown is gone. If they hold us back of the thirty-yard line, I’ll try Deke Radford, but inside it, you are far more sure.”

The vast crowd, a moment before creating an almost inconceivable din, stilled with startling suddenness; a shrill blast from the referee’s whistle cut the air. The gridiron cleared of substitutes, coaches, trainers, and rubbers-out, and in their places, the teams of Bannister and Ballard jogged out. Captain Brewster won the toss, and elected to receive the kick-off. The Gold and Green players, Butch, Beef, Roddy, Monty, Biff, Pudge, Bunch, Tug, Hefty, Buster, and Ichabod, spread out, fan-like, while across the center of the field the Ballard eleven, a straight line, prepared to advance as the full-back kicked off. There was a breathless stillness, as the big athlete poised the pigskin, tilted on end, then strode back to his position.

“All ready, Ballard?” The Referee’s call brought an affirmative from the Orange and Black leader.

“Ready, Bannister?”

“Ready!” boomed big Butch Brewster, with a final shout of encouragement to his players.

The biggest game was starting! Before ten thousand wildly excited and partisan spectators, the Gold and Green and the Orange and Black would battle for Championship honors; with Thor out of the struggle, Ballard, three-time Champion, was the favorite. The visitors had brought the strongest team in their history, and were supremely confident of victory. Bannister, however, could not help remembering, twice fate had snatched the greatest glory from their grasp, in Butch’s Sophomore year, when Jack Merritt’s drop-kick struck the cross-bar, and a year later, when Butch himself, charging for the winning touchdown, crashed blindly into the upright. Old Bannister had not won the Championship for five years, and now–when the chances had seemed roseate, with Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy–smashing Hamilton out of the way, Fate had dealt the annual blow in advance, by crippling him.

“Oh, we’ve got to win!” shivered T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. “Oh, I hope I don’t get sent in–I mean–I hope Bannister wins without me! But if I do
have to kick–Oh, I hope I send it over that cross-bar–“

A second later the Ballard line advanced, the fullback’s toe ripped into the pigskin, sending it whirling, high in air, far into Bannister’s territory; the yellow oval fell into the outstretched arms of Captain Butch Brewster, on the Gold and Green’s five-yard line, and–“We’re off!” shrieked Hicks, excitedly. “Come on, Butch–run it back! Oh, we’re off.”

The biggest game had started!

CHAPTER XIV

THE GREATER GOAL

“Time out!”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., enshrouded in a gold and green blanket, and standing on the side-line, like a majestic Sioux Chief, gazed out on Bannister Field. There, on the twenty-yard line, the two lines of scrimmage had crashed together and Bannister’s backfield had smashed into Ballard’s stonewall defense with terrific impact, to be hurled back for a five-yard loss. The mass of humanity slowly untangled, the moleskin clad players rose from the turf, all but one. He, wearing the gold and green, lay still, white-faced, and silent.

“It’s Biff Pemberton!” chattered Hicks, shivering as with a chill. “Oh, the game is lost, the Championship is gone. Biff is out, and the last quarter is nearly ended. Coach Corridan has got to send me in to kick. It’s our very last chance to tie the score, and save old Bannister from defeat!”

The time keeper, to whom the referee had megaphoned for time out, stopped the game, while Captain Butch Brewster, the campus Doctor, and several players worked over the senseless Biff. In the stands, the exultant Ballard cohorts, confident that victory was booked to perch on their banners, arose en masse, and their thunderous chorus drifted across Bannister Field:

“There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea, And we’ll put Bannister in that hole!
In that hole–in–that–hole–
Oh, we’ll put Bannister in that hole!”

From the Bannister section, the Gold and Green undergraduates, alumni, and supporters, feeling a dread of approaching defeat grip their hearts, yet determined to the last, came the famous old slogan of encouragement to elevens battling on the gridiron:

“Smash ’em, boys, run the ends–hold, boys, hold—
Don’t let ’em beat the Green and the Gold! Touchdown! Touchdown! Hold, boys, hold,
Don’t let ’em win from the Green and the Gold!”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., with a groan of despair, sat down on the deserted subs. bench. With a feeling that all was lost, the splinter-like Senior gazed at the big score-board, announcing, in huge, white letters and figures:

4TH QUARTER; TIME TO PLAY–2 MIN.; BANNISTER’S BALL ON BALLARD’S 22-YD. LINE; 4TH DOWN–8 YDS. TO GAIN; SCORE: BALLARD–6; BANNISTER–3.

It had been a terrific contest, a biggest game never to be forgotten by the ten thousand thrilled spectators! Each eleven had been trained to the second for this decisive Championship fight, and with the coveted gonfalon of glory before them, the Bannister players battled desperately, while Ballard’s fighters struggled as grimly for their Alma Mater. For six years, the Gold and Green had failed to annex the Championship, and for the past three, the invincible Ballard machine had rushed like a car of Juggernaut over all other State elevens; one team was determined to wrest the banner from its rival’s grasp, and the other fully as resolved to retain possession, hence a memorable gridiron contest, to which even the alumni could find none in past history to compare, was the result.

Weakened by the loss of Thor, whose colossal bulk and Gargantuan strength would have made victory a moral certainty, presenting practically the same eleven that had faced Ballard the past season and had been defeated by a scant margin, old Bannister had started the first quarter with a furious rush that swept the enemy to midfield without the loss of a first down. Then Ballard had rallied, stopping that triumphal march, on its own thirty-five yard line, but unable to check Quarterback Deacon Radford, who booted a forty-three-yard goal from a drop-kick, with the score 3-0 in Bannister’s favor, and Deacon, a brilliant but erratic kicker, apparently in fine trim, the Gold Green rooters went wild.

In the second half, however, came the break of the game, as sporting writers term it. The strong Ballard eleven found itself, and with a series of body-smashing, bone-crushing rushes, battering at the Bannister lines like the Germans before Verdun, they steadily fought their way, trench by trench, line by line, down the field. Without a fumble, or the loss of a single yard, the terrific, catapulting charges forced back old Bannister, until the enemy’s fullback, who ran like the famous Johnny Maulbetsch, of Michigan, shot headlong over the goal line! The attempt for goal from touchdown failed, leaving the score, at the end of the third quarter, Ballard–6; Bannister–3.

And Deacon Radford, whose first effort at drop-kicking had been so brilliant, failed utterly. Three times, taking a desperate chance, the Bannister quarter booted the pigskin, but the oval flew wide of the goal posts, even from the thirty-yard line. With his mighty toe not to be depended on, with the Gold and Green line worn to a frazzle by Ballard’s battering rushes, unable to beat back the victorious enemy, the Bannister cohorts, dismayed, saw the start of the fourth and final quarter, their last hope. The forward pass had been futile, for the visitors were trained especially for this aerial attack, and with ease they broke up every attempt. And then, with the ball in Ballard’s possession on Bannister’s twenty-yard line, came a fumble–like a leaping tiger, Monty Merriweather had flung himself on the elusively bounding ball, rolled over to his feet, and was off down the field.

“Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!” shrieked old Bannister’s madly excited students, as Monty sprinted. “Go it, Monty–touchdown! Sprint, old man,
sprint!”

But Cupid Colfax, Ballard’s famous sprinter, playing quarterback, was off on Monty’s trail almost instantly, and his phenomenal speed cut down the Ballard end’s advantage; still, by dint of exerting every ounce of energy, it was on Ballard’s forty-yard line that Monty Merriweather, hugging the pigskin grimly, finally crashed to earth.

“Come on, Bannister!” shouted Captain Butch Brewster, as the two teams lined down. “Right across the goal-line, then kick the goal, and we win! Play the game–fight–Oh, we can win the Championship right now.”

Then ensued a session of football spectacular in the extreme, replete with thrilling plays, with sensational tackles, and blood-stirring scrimmage. The Bannister players, nerved by Captain Brewster’s exhortation, by sheer will-power drove their battered bodies into the scrimmage. End runs, line-smashing tandem plays, forward passes, followed in bewildering succession, until the ball rested on Ballard’s twenty-yard line, and a touchdown meant victory and the Championship for old Bannister, Another rush, and five yards gained, then, Ballard, fighting at the last ditch, made a stand every bit as heroic and thrilling as that sensational march in the first half. The Gold and Green’s tigerish rushes were hurled back–three times Captain Butch threw his backfield against the line, and three times not an inch was gained. On the third down, Monty Merriweather was forced back for a loss, so now, with two minutes to play and the ball in Bannister’s possession, with eight yards to gain, the play was on Ballard’s twenty-two-yard line!

And the biggest game had produced a new hero of the gridiron. Biff Pemberton, left half-back, imbued with savage energy, had borne the brunt of that spectacular advance; and now, he stretched on the turf, white and still.

“Hicks, old man,” T, Haviland Hicks, Jr. turned as a hand rested grippingly on his shoulder. Head Coach Patrick Henry Corridan, his face grim, had come to him, and in quick, terse sentences, he outlined his plan.

“It’s Bannister’s last chance–” he said, tensely. “We can’t make the
first down, the way Ballard is fighting, unless we take desperate odds. Now, Hicks, it’s up to you. On you depend old Bannister’s hopes.”

A great, chilling fear swept over T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., leaving him weak and shaken. It had come at last-the moment for which he had trained and practiced drop-kicking, for a year, in secret, that moment he had hoped would come, sometime, and yet had dreaded, as in a nightmare. Before that vast, howling crowd of ten thousand madly partisan spectators, he must
go out on Bannister Field, to try and boot a drop-kick from the twenty-eight-yard-line, to save the Gold and Green from defeat. And he thought of the great glory that would be his, if he succeeded-he would be a campus hero, the idol of old Bannister, the youth who saved his Alma Mater from defeat, in the biggest game! Then he remembered his Dad, inspiring the eleven, between the halves, by a ringing speech; he heard again his sentences:

“–And to serve old Bannister, to bring glory and honor to our dear Alma Mater, is our greater goal! Go back into the game, throw yourselves into the scrimmage, with no thought of personal glory, of the plaudits of the crowd–it is a fine thing, a splendid goal, to play the game and be a hero; it is a far more noble act to strive for the greater goal, one’s Alma Mater!”

“Now listen carefully,” Coach Corridan rushed on, “Biff is knocked out. They’ll start again soon, we are going to take a desperate chance; your Dad advises it! A tie score means the Championship stays with Ballard. To win it, we must win this game–and on you everything depends.”

“But–how–” stammered Hicks, dazed–the only way to tie the score was by
a drop-kick; the only way to win, by a touchdown–did the Coach mean he was not to realize his great ambition to save old Bannister by a goal, the reward of his long training?

“You jog out,” whispered Coach Corridan, hurriedly, for a stretcher was being rushed to Biff Pemberton, “report to the Referee, and whisper to Butch to try Formation Z; 23-45-6-A! Now, here is the dope: our only chance is to fool Ballard completely. When you go out, the Bannister rooters, and your Yale friends, will believe it is to try a drop-kick and tie the score. I am sure that the Ballard team will think this, too, because of your slender build. You act as though you intend to try for a goal, and have Captain Butch make our fellows act that way. Then–it is a fake-kick; the backfield lines up in the kick formation, but the ball is passed to Butch, at your right. He either tries for a forward pass to the right end, or if the end Is blocked, rushes it himself! Hurry-the referee’s whistle is blowing; remember, Hicks, my boy, it’s the greater goal, it’s for your Alma Mater.”

In a trance, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., flung off the gold and green blanket, and dashed out on Bannister Field. How often, in the past year, had he visioned this scene, only–he pictured himself saving the game by a drop-kick, and now Coach Corridan ordered him to sacrifice this glory! From the stands came the thunderous cheer of the excited Bannister cohorts, firmly believing that the slender youth, so ludicrously fragile, among those young Colossi, was to try for a goal.

“Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Hicks! Kick the goal–Hicks!”

And from the Yale grads., among them his Dad, came a shout, as he jogged across the turf:

“Breka-kek-kek–co-ax–Yale! Hicks-Hicks-Hicks!”

But the Bannister Senior did not thrill. Now, instead, a feeling of growing resentment filled his soul; even this intensely loyal youth, with all his love for old Bannister, was vastly human, and he felt cheated of his just rights. How the students were cheering him, how those Yale men called his name, and he was not to have his big chance! That for which he had trained and practiced; the opportunity to serve his Alma Mater, by kicking a goal at the crucial moment, and saving Bannister from defeat, was never to be his. Now, in his last game at college, he was to act as a decoy, as a foil. Like a dummy he must stand, while the other Gold and Green athletes ran off the play! Instead of everything, a tie game, or a defeat, depending on his kicking, defeat or victory hung on that fake play, on Butch Brewster and Monty Merriweather! So–the ear-splitting plaudits of the crowd for “Hicks!” meant nothing to him; they were dead sea fruit, tasteless as ashes–as the ashes of ambition. And then–

“–And to serve old Bannister, to bring glory and honor to our dear Alma Mater, is our greater goal–no thought of personal glory–a splendid goal, to play the game and be a hero; It is a far more noble act to strive for the greater goal–one’s Alma Mater–“

“I was nearly a traitor” gasped T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his Dad’s words echoing In his memory, and a vision of that staunch, manly Bannister ex-athlete before him. “Oh, I was betraying my Alma Mater. Instead of rejoicing to make any sacrifice, however big, for Bannister, I thought only of myself, of my glory! I’ll do it, Dad, I’ll strive for the greater goal, and–we just can’t fail.”

Reaching the scrimmage, Hicks, whose nervous dread had left him, when he fought down selfish ambition, and thirst for glory, reported to the Referee, and hurriedly transferred Coach Corridan’s orders to Captain Butch Brewster; half a minute of precious time was spent in outlining the desperate play to the eleven, for “time!” had been called, and then–

“Z-23-45-6-A!” shouted Quarterback Deacon Radford. “Come on, line–hold! Right over the cross-bar with it, Hicks–tie the score, and save Bannister from defeat–“

The Gold and Green backfield shifted to the kick formation. Ten yards back of the center, on the thirty-two-yard line of Ballard, stood T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.; the vast crowd was hushed, all eyes stared at that slender figure, standing there, with Captain Butch Brewster at his right, and Beef McNaughton on his left hand-the spectators believed the frail-looking youth had been sent in to try a drop-kick. The Ballard rooters thought it, and–the Ballard eleven were sure of their enemy’s plan–Hicks’
mosquito-like build, his nervous swinging of that right leg, deluded them, and helped Coach Corridan’s plot.

It was the only play, if Bannister wanted the Championship enough to try a desperate chance; better a fighting hope for that glory, with a try for a touchdown, than a field-goal, and a tie-score! The lines of scrimmage tensed. The linesmen dug their cleats in the sod, those of Ballard tigerish to break through and block; old Bannister’s determined to hold. Back of
Ballard’s line, the backfield swayed on tip-toe, every muscle nerved, ready to crash through; the ends prepared to knock Roddy and Monty aside, the backs would charge madly ahead, in a berserk rush, to crash into that slim figure.

“Boot it, Hicks!” shrieked Deke Radford, and as he shouted, the pigskin shot from the Bannister center’s hands; the Gold and Green line held nobly, but not so the ends. Monty Merriweather, making a bluff at blocking the left end, let him crash past, while he sprinted ahead–Captain Butch Brewster, to whom the pass had been made, ran forward, until he saw he was blocked, and then, seeing Monty dear, he hurled a beautiful forward pass.

Into the arms of the waiting Monty it fell, and that Gold and Green star, absolutely free of tacklers, sprinted twelve yards to the goal-line, falling on the pigskin behind it! Coach Corridan’s “100 to 1” chance, suggested by Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., had succeeded, and–the Biggest Game and the Championship had come to old Bannister at last!

Followed a scene pauperizing description! For many long years old Bannister had waited for this glory; years of bitter disappointment, seasons when the Championship had been missed by a scant margin, a drop-kick striking the cross-bar, Butch Brewster blindly crashing into an upright. But now, all their pent-up joy flowed forth in a mighty torrent! Singing, yelling, dancing, howling, the Bannister Band leading them, the Gold and Green students, alumni, Faculty, and supporters, snake-danced around Bannister Field. A vast, writhing, sinuous line, it wound around the gridiron, everyone who possessed a hat flinging it over the cross-bars. The victorious eleven, were borne by the maddened youths–Captain Butch, Pudge, Beef, Monty, Roddy, Ichabod, Tug, Hefty, Buster, Bunch, and–T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. Ballard, firmly believing Hicks would try a field-goal, had been taken completely off guard. Surprised by the daring attempt, it had succeeded with ease, and the final score was Bannister–10; Ballard–6!

“At last! At last!” boomed Butch Brewster, to whom this was the happiest day of his life. “The Championship at last. My great ambition is realized. Old Bannister has won the Championship, and I was the Team Captain!”

After a time, when “the shouting and the tumult died,” or at least quieted somewhat, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., felt a hand on his arm, and looking down from the shoulders on which he perched, he saw his Dad. Mr. Hicks’ strong face was aglow with pride and a vast joy, and he shook his son’s hand again and again.

“I understand, Thomas!” he said, and his words were reward enough for the youth. “It was a big sacrifice, but you made it gladly–I know! You gave up personal glory for the greater goal, and–old Bannister won the Championship! You helped win, for the winning play turned on you. It was
splendid, my son, and I am proud of you! No matter if your sacrifice is never known to the fellows, I understand.”

A moment of silence on Hicks’ part; then the sunny youth grinned at his beloved Dad, as he responded blithesomely: “I’m Pollyanna, that old Bannister and I won out, Dad!”

CHAPTER XV

HICKS HAS A “HUNCH”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, human beings, and–Freshmen! Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., the Olympic High-Jump Champion, holder of the World’s record, and winner at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition National Championships, in his event, is about to high jump! The bar is at five feet, ten inches. Mr. Hicks is the Herculean athlete in the crazy-looking bathrobe.”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his splinter-structure enshrouded in that flamboyant bathrobe of vast proportions and insane colors, that inevitably attended his athletic efforts, shaming Joseph’s coat-of-many-colors, gazed despairingly at his good friend, Butch Brewster, and Track-Coach Brannigan, with a Cheshire cat grin on his cherubic countenance.

“It’s no use, Butch, it’s no use!” quoth he, with ludicrous indignation, as big Tug Cardiff, the behemoth shot-putter, through a huge megaphone imitated a Ballyhoo Bill, and roared his absurd announcement to the hilarious crowd of collegians in the stand. “Old Bannister will never
take my athletic endeavors seriously. Here I have won two second places, and a third, in the high-jump this season, and have a splendid show to annex first place and my track B in the Intercollegiates, but–hear them!”

It was a balmy, sunshiny afternoon in late May. The sunny-souled, happy-go-lucky T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had trained indefatigably for the high jump, with the result that he had won several points for his team–however, he had not realized his great ambition of first place, and his track letter.

As Hicks now exclaimed to his team-mate and Coach Brannigan, no matter, to the howling Bannister youths, if he had won three places in the high
jump, in regularly scheduled meets; his comrades had been jeering at his athletic fiascos for nearly four years, and even had Hicks suddenly blossomed out as a star athlete, they would not have abandoned their joyous habit. Still, those football ‘Varsity players to whom good Butch had read Hicks, Sr.’s, letters, and explained the sunny youth’s persistence, despite his ridiculous failures, though they kept on hailing his appearance on Bannister Field with exaggerated joy, understood the care-free collegian, and loved him for his ambition to please his Dad. Since Hicks had absolutely refused to accept his B, for any sport, unless he won it according to Athletic Association eligibility rules, the eleven had kept secret the contents of the letters Butch Brewster had read to them, for Hicks requested it.

The Bannister College track squad, under Track Coach Brannigan and Captain Spike Robertson, had been training most strenuously for that annual cinder-path classic, the State Intercollegiate Track and Field Championships. The sprinters had been tearing down the two-twenty straightaway like suburban commuters catching the 7.20 A.M. for the city. Hammer-throwers and shot-putters–the weight men–heaved the sixteen-pound shot, or hurled the hammer, with reckless abandon, like the Strong Man of the circus. Pole-vaulters seemed ambitious to break the altitude records, and In so doing, threatened to break their necks; hurdlers skimmed over the standard as lightly as swallows, though no one ever beheld swallows hurdling. The distance runners plodded determinedly around the quarter-mile track, broad-jumpers tried to jump the length of the landing-pit. And T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., vainly essayed to clear five-ten In the high-jump!

It was the last-named event that “broke up the show,” as the Phillyloo Bird quaintly stated, somewhat wrongly, since the appearance of that blithesome youth in the offing, his flamboyant bathrobe concealing his shadow-like frame, had started the show, causing the track squad, as well as a hundred spectator-students, to rush for seats in the stand. The arrival of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., to train for form and height in the high-jump, though a daily occurrence, was always the signal for a Saturnalia of sport at his expense, because–

“You can’t live down your athletic past, Hicks!” smiled good-hearted Butch Brewster. “Your making a touchdown for the other eleven, by running the wrong way with the pigskin, your hilarious fiascos in every sport, your home-run with the bases full, on a strike-out-are specters to haunt you. Even now that you have a chance to win your B, just listen to the fellows.”

The track squad’s “heavy weight–white hope” section, composed of hammer-heavers and shot-putters–Tug Cardiff, Beef McNaughton, Pudge Langdon, Buster Brown, Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, and Bunch Bingham, equipped with megaphones, and with the basso profundo voices
nature gave them, lined up on both sides of the jumping-standards, and chanted loudly:

“All hail to T. Haviland Hicks!
He runs like a carload of bricks;
When to high jump he tries
From the ground he can’t rise–
For he’s built on a pair of toothpicks!”

This saengerfest was greeted with vociferous cheers from the vastly amused youths in the stands, who hailed the grinning Hicks with jeers, cat-calls, whistles, and humorous (so they believed) remarks:

“Say, Hicks, you won’t never be able to jump anything but your
board-bill!”

“You’re built like a grass-hopper, Hicks, but you’ve done lost the hop!”

“If you keep on improving as you’ve done lately, you’ll make a high-jumper in a hundred more years, old top!”

“You may rise in the world, Hicks, but never in the high jump!”

“Don’t mind them, Hicks!” spoke Coach Brannigan, his hands on the happy-go-lucky youth’s shoulders. “Listen to me; the Intercollegiates will be the last track meet of your college years, and unless you take first place in your event, you won’t win your track B. Second, McQuade, of Hamilton, will do five-eight, and likely an inch higher, so to take first place, you, must do five-ten. You have trained and practiced faithfully this season, but no matter what I do, I can’t give you that needed two
inches, and–“

“I know it, Coach!” responded the chastened Hicks, throwing aside his lurid bathrobe determinedly, and exposing to the jeering students his splinter-frame. “Leave it to Hicks, I’ll clear it this time, or–“

“Not!” fleered Butch, whom Hicks’ easy self-confidence never failed to arouse. “Hicks, listen to me, I can tell you why you can’t get two inches higher. The whole trouble with you is this; for almost four years you have led an indolent, butterfly, care-free existence, and now, when you must call on yourself for a special effort, you are too lazy! You can dear five-ten; you ought to do it, but you can’t summon up the energy. I’ve lectured you all this time, for your heedless, easy-going ways, and now–you pay for your idle years!”

“You said an encyclopedia, Butch!” agreed the Coach, with vigor. “If only something would just make Hicks jump that high, if only he could do it once, and know it is in his power, he could do it in the Intercollegiates, aided by excitement and competition! Let something scare him so that he
will sail over five-ten, and–he will win his B. He has the energy, the build, the spring, and the form, but as you say, he is so easy-going and lazy, that his natural grass-hopper frame avails him naught.”

“Here I go!” announced Hicks, who, to an accompaniment of loud cheers from the stand, had been jogging up and down in that warming-up process known to athletes as the in place run, consisting of trying to dislocate one’s jaw by bringing the knees, alternately, up against the chin. “Up and over–that’s my slogan. Just watch Hicks.”

Starting at a distance of twenty yards from the high-jump standards, on which the cross-bar rested at five feet, ten inches, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., who vastly resembled a grass-hopper, crept toward the jumping-pit, on his toe-spikes, as though hoping to catch the cross-bar off its guard. Advancing ten yards, he learned apparently that his design was discovered, so he started a loping gallop, turning to a quick, mad sprint, as though he attempted to jump over the bar before it had time to rise higher. With a beautiful take-off, a splendid spring–a quick, writhing twist in air, and two spasmodic kicks, the whole being known as the scissors form of high jump, the mosquito-like youth made a strenuous effort to clear the needed height, but–one foot kicked the cross-bar, and as Hicks fell flat on his back, in the soft landing-pit, the wooden rod, In derision, clattered down upon his anatomy.

“Foiled again!” hissed Hicks, after the fashion of a “Ten-Twent’-Thirt'” melodrama-villain, while from the exuberant youths in the grandstand, who really wanted Hicks to clear the bar, but who jeered at his failure, nevertheless, sounded:

“Hire a derrick, Hicks, and hoist yourself over the bar!”

“Your head is light enough–your feet weigh you down!”

“‘Crossing the Bar’–rendered by T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.!”

“Going up! Go play checkers, Hicks, you ain’t no athlete!”

While the grinning, albeit chagrined T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., reposed gracefully on his back, staring up at the cross-bar, which someone kindly replaced on the pegs, big Butch Brewster, who seemed suddenly to have gone crazy, tried to attract Coach Brannigan’s attention. Succeeding, Butch–usually a grave, serious Senior, winked, contorted his visage hideously, pointed at Hicks, and sibilated, “Now, Coach–now is your
chance! Tell Hicks–“

Tug Cardiff, Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, Bunch Bingham, Buster Brown, Beef McNaughton, and Pudge Langdon, who had been attacked in a fashion similar to Butch’s spasm, concealed grins of delight, and made strenuous efforts to appear guileless, as Track-Coach Brannigan approached T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. To that cheery youth, who was brushing the dirt from his immaculate track togs, and bowing to the cheering youths in the stand, the Coach spoke:

“Hicks,” he said sternly, “you need a cross-country jog, to get more strength and power in your limbs! Now, I am going to send the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope Brigade for a four-mile run, and you go with them. Oh, don’t protest; they are all shot-putters and hammer-throwers, but Butch, and they can’t run fast enough to give a tortoise a fast heat. Take ’em out two miles and back, Butch, and jog all the way; don’t let ’em loaf! Off with you,”

The unsuspecting Hicks might have detected the nigger in the woodpile, had he not been so anxious to make five-ten in the high-jump. However, willing to jog with these behemoths, with whom even he could keep pace, so as to develop more jumping power, the blithesome youth cast aside his garish bathrobe, pranced about in what he fatuously believed was Ted Meredith’s style, and howled:

“Follow Hicks! All out for the Marathon–we’re off! One–two–three–go!”

With the excited, track squad, non-athletes, and the baseball crowd, which had ceased the game to watch the start, yelling, cheering, howling, and whistling, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., drawing his knees up in exaggerated style at every stride, started to lead the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade on its cross-country run. Without wondering why Coach Brannigan had suddenly elected to send him along with the hammer-throwers and
shot-putters, on the jog, and not having seen the insane facial contortions of the Brigade, before the Coach gave orders, the gladsome Senior started forth in good spirits, resembling a tugboat convoying a fleet of battleships.

“‘Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! And over the country we go!'” warbled Hicks, as the squad left Bannister Field, and jogged across a green meadow. “‘–O’er hill and dale, through valley and vale, Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho!'”

“Save your wind, you insect!” growled Butch Brewster, with sinister significance that escaped the heedless Hicks, as the behemoth Butch, a two-miler, swung into the lead. “You’ll need it, you fish, before we get
back to the campus! Not too fast, you flock of human tortoises. You’ll be crawling on hands and knees, if you keep that pace up long!”

A mile and a half passed. Butch, at an easy jog, had led his squad over green pastures, up gentle slopes, and across a plowed field, by way of variety. At length, he left the road on which the pachydermic aggregation had lumbered for some distance, and turned up a long lane, leading to a farm-house. Back of it they periscoped an orchard, with cherry-trees, laden with red and white fruit, predominating. Also, floating toward the collegians on the balmy May air came an ominous sound:

“Woof! Woof! Woof! Bow-wow-wow! Woof!”

“Come on, fellows!” urged Butch Brewster. “We’ll jog across old Bildad’s orchard and seize some cherries–the old pirate can’t catch us, for we are attired for sprinting. Don’t they look good?”

“Nothing stirring!” declared Hicks, slangily, but vehemently, as he stopped short in his stride. “Old Bildad has got a bulldog what am as big as the New York City Hall. He had it on the campus last month, you know! Not for mine! I don’t go near that house, or swipe no cherries from his trees. If you wish to shuffle off this mortal coil, drive right ahead, but I will
await your return here.”

T, Haviland Hicks, Jr.’s, dread of dogs, of all sizes, shapes, pedigrees, and breeds, was well known to old Bannister; hence, the Heavy-weights now jeered him unmercifully. Old “Bildad,” as the taciturn recluse was called, who lived like a hermit and owned a rich farm, did own a massive bulldog, and a sight of his cruel jaws was a “No Trespass” sign. With great forethought, when cherries began to ripen, the farmer had brought Caesar Napoleon to the campus, exhibited him to the awed youths, and said, “My cherries be for sale, not to be stole!” which object lesson, brief as
it was, to date, had seemed to have the desired effect. Yet–here was Butch proposing that they literally thrust their heads, or other portions of their anatomies, into the jaws of death!

“Well,” said Bunch Bingham at last, “I tell you what; we’ll jog up to the house and ask old Bildad to sell us some cherries; we can pay him when he comes to the campus with eggs to sell, Come along. Hicks, I’ll beard the bulldog in his kennel.”

So, dragged along by the bulky hammer-throwers and shot-putters, the protesting T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., in mortal terror of Caesar Napoleon, and the other canine guardians of old Bildad’s property, progressed up the lane toward the house.

“I got a hunch,” said the reluctant Hicks, sadly, “that things ain’t a-comin’ out right! In the words of the immortal Somebody-Or-Other, ‘This ‘ere ain’t none o’ my doin’; it’s a-bein’ thrust on me!’ All right, my comrades, I’ll be the innocent bystander, but heed me–look out for the bulldog!”

CHAPTER XVI

THANKS TO CAESAR NAPOLEON

The Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade, towing the mosquito-like T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., advanced on the stronghold of old Bildad, so named because he was a pessimistic Job’s comforter, like Bildad, the Shuhite, of old–like a flock of German spies reconnoitering Allied trenches. Hearing the house, with Butch and Beef holding the helpless, but loudly protesting Hicks, who would fain have executed what may mildly be termed a strategic retreat, big Tug Cardiff boldly marched, in close formation, toward the door, when the portal suddenly flew open.

“Woof! Woof! Bow! Wow! Woof! Let go, Butch–there’s the dog!”

Amid ferocious howls from Caesar Napoleon, and alarmed protests from the paralyzed Hicks, who could not have run, with his wobbly knees, had he been set free by his captors, old Bildad, towed from the house by Caesar Napoleon, who strained savagely at the leash until his face bulged, burst upon the scene with impressive dramatic effect! It was difficult to decide, without due consideration, which was the more interesting. Bildad, a huge, gnarled old Viking, with matted gray hair, bushy eyebrows, a flowing beard, and leathery face, a fierce-looking giant, was appalling to behold, but so was Caesar Napoleon, an immense bulldog, cruel, bloodthirsty, his massive jaws working convulsively, his ugly fangs gleaming, as he set his great body against the leash, and gave evidence of a sincere desire to make free lunch of the Bannister youths. As Buster Brown afterward stated, “Neither one would take the booby prize at a beauty show, but at that, the bulldog had a better chance than Bildad!” T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., let it be recorded, could not have qualified as a judge, since his undivided attention was awarded to Caesar Napoleon!

“What d’ye want round here, ye rapscallions?” demanded Bildad, courteously, holding the savage bulldog with one hand, and constructing a ponderous fist with the other, “Hike–git off’n my land, y’hear? Git, er Caesar
Napoleon’ll git holt o’ them scanty duds ye got on!”

“We want to–to buy some cherries, Mr.–Mr. Bildad!” explained Bunch Bingham, edging away nervously. “We won’t steal any, honest, sir. Well pay you for them the very next time you come to the campus with milk and eggs.”

“Ho! Ho!” roared old Bildad, piratically, his colossal body shaking, “A likely tale, lads–an’ when I come for my money, ye’ll jeer me off the campus, an’ tell me to whistle for it! Off my land–git, an’ don’t let me
cotch ye on it inside o’ two minutes, or I’ll let Caesar Napoleon make a meal off’n yer bones–git!”

To express it briefly, they got. T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., not standing on the order of his going, set off at a sprint that, while it might have caused Ted Meredith to lose sleep, also aroused in Caesar Napoleon an overwhelming desire to take out after the fugitive youth, so that Mr. Bildad was forced to exert his vast strength to hold the massive bulldog. Butch, Beef, Hefty, Tug, Buster, Bunch, Pudge, and Biff, a pachydermic crew, awed by Caesar Napoleon’s bloodthirsty actions, jogged off in the wake of Hicks, who confidently expected to hear the bulldog giving tongue, on his trail, at every second.

Another lane, making in from a road making a cross-roads with the one from which they came to Bildad’s house, ran alongside the orchard for two hundred yards, inside the fence; at its end was a high roadgate. At what they decided was a safe distance from the “war zone,” the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade, and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., the latter forcibly restrained from widening the margin between him and peril, held a council on preparedness.

“The old pirate!” stormed Butch Brewster, gazing back to where the vast figure of old Bildad, striding toward the house, towered. “We can’t let him get away with that, fellows. I’ll have some of his cherries now, or–“

“No, no–don’t, Butch!” chattered Hicks, whose dread of dogs amounted to an obsession. “He can still see us, and if you leave the lane, he will send Caesar Napoleon after us! Oh, don’t–“

But Butch Brewster, evidently wrathful at being balked, strode from the path, or lane, of virtue, toward a cherry-tree, whose red fruit hung temptingly low, and his example was followed by every one of the Brigade, leaving the terrified Hicks to wait in the lane, where, because of his alarm, he had no time to wonder at the bravado of his behemoth comrades. However, finding that Bildad had disappeared, and believing he had taken Caesar Napoleon into the house, the sunny Hicks, who was far from a coward otherwise, but who had an unreasonable dread of dogs, little or big, was about to wax courageous, and join his team-mates, when a wild shout burst from Pudge Langdon:

“Run, fellows–run! Bildad’s put the bulldog on us! Here comes–Caesar Napoleon–!”

With a blood-chilling “Woof! Woof!” steadily sounding louder, nearer,
a streak of color shot across the orchard, from the house, toward the affrighted Brigade, while old Bildad’s hoarse growl shattered the echoes with “Take ’em out o’ here, Nap–chaw ’em up, boy!” For a startled second, the youths stared at the on-rushing body, shooting toward them through the orchard-grass at terrific speed, and then:

“Run!” howled T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., terror providing him with wings, as per proverb. Down the lane, at a pace that would have done credit to Barney Oldfield in his Blitzen Benz, the mosquito-like youth sprinted madly, and ever, closer, closer on his trail, sounded that awful “Woof! Woof!” from Caesar Napoleon, who, as Hicks well knew, was acting with full authority from Bildad! He heard, as he fled frantically, the excited shouts of his comrades.

“Beat it, Hicks–he’s right after you–run! Run!”

“Jump the fence–he can’t get you then–jump!”

“He’s right on your trail, Hicks–sprint, old man!”

“Make the fence, old man–jump it–and you’re safe!”

The terrible truth dawned on the frightened youth, as he desperately sprinted: the innocent bystander always gets hurt. He had protested against the theft of Bildad’s cherries, and naturally, the bulldog had kept after him! But it was too late to stop, for the old adage was extremely appropriate, “He who hesitates is lost.” He must make that road-gate, and
tumble over it, in some fashion, or be torn to shreds by Caesar Napoleon, the savage dog that the cruel Bildad had sent after the youths.

Nearer loomed the road-gate, appallingly high. Closer sounded the panting breath of the ferocious Caesar Napoleon, and his incessant “Woof-woof!” became louder. It seemed to the desperate Hicks that the bulldog was at his heels, and every instant he expected to feel those sharp teeth take hold of his anatomy! Once, the despairing youth imitated Lot’s wife and turned his head. He saw a body streaking after him, gaining at every jump, also he lost speed; so thereafter, he conscientiously devoted his every energy to the task in hand, that of making the gate, and getting over it, before Caesar Napoleon caught his quarry!

At last, the road-gate, at least ten feet high, to Hicks’ fevered imagination, came so close that a quick decision was necessary, for Caesar Napoleon, also, was in the same zone, and in a few seconds he would overhaul the fugitive. T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., realizing that a second lost, perhaps, might prove fatal to his peace of mind, desperately resolved to dash at the gate, and jump; if he succeeded even in striking somewhere near the top, and falling over, he would not care, for the bulldog would not follow him off Bildad’s land. From his comrades, far in the rear, came the chorus:

“Jump, Hicks! He’s right on your heels!”

Like the immortal Light Brigade, Hicks had no time to reason about anything. His but to jump or be bitten summed up the situation. So, with a last desperate sprint, a quick dash, he left the ground–luckily, the earth was hard, giving him a solid take-off, and he got a splendid spring. As he arose In air, al! the training and practicing for form stayed with him, and instinctively he turned, writhed, and kicked–

For a fleeting second, he saw the top of the gate beneath his body, and he felt a thrill as he beheld twisted strands of barbed wire, cruel and jagged, across it; then, with a great sensation of joy, he knew that he had cleared the top, and a second later, he landed on the ground, in the country road, in a heap.

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., that sunny-souled, happy-go-lucky, indolent youth, for once in his care-free campus career aroused to strenuous action, scrambled wildly to his feet, and forcibly realized the truth of Longfellow’s, “And things are not-what they seem!” Instead of the ferocious, bloodthirsty bulldog, Caesar Napoleon, a huge, half-grown St. Bernard pup gamboled inside the gate, frisking about gleefully, and exhibiting, even so that Hicks, with all his innate dread of dogs, could understand it, a vast friendliness. In fact, he seemed trying to say, “That’s fun. Come on and play with me some more!”

“Hey, fellows,” shrieked the relieved Hicks, “that ain’t Caesar Napoleon! Why, he just wanted to play.”

Bewildered, the members of the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade of the Bannister College track squad rushed on the scene. To their surprise, they found not a savage bulldog, but a clumsy, good-natured St. Bernard puppy, who frisked wildly about them, groveled at their feet, and put his huge paws on them, with the playfulness of a juvenile elephant.

“Why, it isn’t Nappie, for a fact!” gasped Butch. “Oh, I am so glad that old Bildad wasn’t mean enough to put the bulldog after us, for he is dangerous. He scared us, though, and put this pup on our trail. He wanted to play, and he thought it all a game, when Hicks fled. Oho! What a joke on Hicks.”

“I don’t care!” grinned Hicks, thus siding with the famous Eva Tanguay. “You fellows were fooled, too! You were too scared to run, and if it had
been Caesar Napoleon, I’d have saved your worthless lives by getting him after me! I’ll bet Bildad is snickering now, the old reprobate! Why, Tug, are you crazy?”

Tug Cardiff, indeed, gave indications of lunacy. He marched up to the road-gate, and stood close to it, so that the barbed wire top was even with his hair; then he backed off, and gazed first at the gate, then at the bewildered Hicks, while he grinned at the dazed squad in a Cheshire cat style.

“Measure it, someone!” he shouted. “I am nearly six feet tall, and it comes even with the top of my dome! Can’t you see, you brainless imbeciles, Hicks cleared it.”

“Wait for me here!” howled big Butch Brewster, climbing the fence and starting down the road at a pace that did credit even to that fast two-miler. The Brigade, In the absence of their leader, tried to estimate the height of the gate, and Hicks, gazing at its barbed-wire top, shuddered. The St. Bernard pup, having caused T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., for once in his indolent life to exert every possible ounce of energy in his splinter-frame, groveled at his feet, and strove to express his boundless joy at their presence.

Butch Brewster, in fifteen minutes, returned, panting and perspiring, bearing a tape-measure, borrowed at the next farm-house. With all the solemnity of a sacred rite being performed, the youths waited, as Butch and Tug, holding the tape taut, carefully measured from the ground to the top of the barbed wire on the gate. Three times they did this, and then, with an expression of gladness on his honest countenance, Butch hugged the dazed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., while Tug Cardiff howled, “Now for the Intercollegiates and your track B, Hicks! You can do five-ten in the
meet, for Coach Brannigan said you could dear it, if only you did it once.”

“Why–what do you mean, Tug?” quavered Hicks, not daring to allow himself to believe the truth. “You–you surely don’t mean–“

“I mean, that now you know you can jump that high,” boomed Tug, executing a weird dance of exultation, In which, the Brigade joined, until it resembled a herd of elephants gone insane, “for you have done it–allowing for the sag, and everything, that gate is just five feet, ten inches high, and–you cleared it!”

“Ladies and gentlemen–Hicks, of Bannister, is about to high jump! Hicks and McQuade, of Hamilton, are tied for first place at five feet eight inches! McQuade has failed three times at five-ten! Hicks’ third and last trial! Height of bar–five feet ten inches!”

This time, however, it was not big Tug Cardiff, imitating a Ballyhoo Bill, and inciting the Bannister youths to hilarity at the expense of the sunny-souled T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.; it was the Official Announcer at the Annual State Intercollegiate Field and Track Championships, on Bannister Field, and his announcement aroused a tumult of excitement in the Bannister section of the stands, as well as among the Gold and Green cinder-path stars.

“Come on, Hicks, old man!” urged Butch Brewster, who, with a dozen fully as excited comrades of the cheery Hicks, surrounded that splinter-athlete. “It’s positively your last chance to win your track B, or your letter in any sport, and please your Dad! If they lower the bar, and you two jump off the tie, McQuade’s endurance will bring him out the winner.”

“You can clear five-ten!” encouraged Bunch Bingham. “You did it once, when you believed Caesar Napoleon was after you. Just summon up that much energy now, and clear that bar! Once over, the event and your letter are won! Oh, if we only had that bulldog here, to sick on you.”

Sad to chronicle, the score-board of the Intercollegiates recorded the results of the events, so far, thus:

HAMILTON …………35 BALLARD ………….20 BANNISTER ………..28

It was the last event, and even did Hicks win the high-jump, McQuade’s second place would easily give old Ham. the Championship. Hence, knowing that victory was not booked for an appearance on the Gold and Green banners, the Bannister youths, wild for the lovable, popular Hicks to win his Bs vociferously pulled for him:

“Come on, Hicks–up and over, old man–it’s easy!”

“Jump, you Human Grass-Hopper–you can do it!”

“Now or never, Hicks! One big jump does the work!”

“Sick Caesar Napoleon on him, Coach; he’ll clear it then!”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., casting aside that flamboyant bathrobe, for what he believed was the last athletic event of his campus career, stood gazing at the cross-bar. One superhuman effort, a great explosion of all his energy, such as he had executed when he cleared the gate, thinking Caesar Napoleon was after him, and the event was won! He had cleared that height, it was
within his power. If he failed, as Butch said, the bar would be lowered, and then raised until one or the other missed once. McQuade, with his superior strength and endurance, must inevitably win, but as he had just missed on his third trial at five-ten, if Hicks cleared that height on his final chance, the first place was his.

“And my B!” murmured Hicks, tensing his muscles. “Oh, won’t my Dad be happy? It will help him to realize some of his ambition, when I show him my track letter! It is positively my last chance, and I must clear it.”

With a vast wave of determined confidence inundating his very being, Hicks started for the bar; after those first, peculiar, creeping steps, he had just started his gallop, when he heard Tug Cardiff’s basso, magnified by
a megaphone, roared:

“All together, fellows–let ‘er go–“

Then, just as Hicks dug his spikes into the earth, in that short, mad sprint that gives the jumper his spring, just as he reached the take-off, a perfect explosion of noise startled him, and he caught a sound that frightened him, tensed as he was:

“Woof! Woof! Bow! Wow! Woof! Woof! Woof! Look out, Hicks, Caesar Napoleon is after you!”

Psychology Is inexplicable. Ever afterward, Hicks’ comrades of that cross-country run averred strenuously that their roaring through megaphones, in concert, imitating Caesar Napoleon’s savage bark at the psychological moment, flung the mosquito-like youth clear of the cross-bar and won him the event and his B. Hicks, however, as fervidly denied this statement, declaring that he would have won, anyhow, because he had summoned up the determination to do it! So it can not be stated just what bearing on his jump the plot of Butch Brewster really had. In truth, that behemoth had entertained a wild idea of actually hiring old Bildad and Caesar Napoleon to appear at the moment Hicks started for his last trial, but this weird scheme was abandoned!

Fifteen minutes later, when T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had escaped from the riotous Bannister students, delirious with joy at the victory of the beloved youth, the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope Brigade, capturing the grass-hopper Senior, gave him a shock second only to that which he had experienced when first he believed Caesar Napoleon was on his trail.

“Perhaps our barking didn’t make you jump it!” said Beef McNaughton, when Hicks indignantly denied that he had been scared over the cross-bar, “but indirectly, old man, we helped you to win! If we had not put up a hoax on you–“

“A hoax?” queried the surprised Hicks. “What do you mean–hoax?”

“It was all a frame-up!” grinned Butch Brewster, triumphantly. “We paid old Bildad five dollars to play his part, and as an actor, he has Booth and Barrymore backed off the stage! We got Coach Brannigan to send you along with us on the cross-country jog, and your absurd dread of dogs, Hicks, made it easy! Bildad, per instructions, produced Caesar Napoleon, and scared you. Then, with a telescope, he watched us, and when I gave the signal, he let loose Bob, the harmless St. Bernard pup, on our trail.

“The pup, as he always does, chased after strangers, ready to play. We yelled for you to run, and you were so scared, you insect, you didn’t
wait to see the dog. Even when you looked back, in your alarm, you didn’t know it was not Caesar Napoleon, for his grim visage was seared on your brain–I mean, where your brain ought to be! And even had you seen it wasn’t the bulldog, you would have been frightened, all the same. But I confess, Hicks, when you sailed over that high gate, it was one on us.”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., drew a deep breath, and then a Cheshire cat grin came to his cherubic countenance. So, after all, it had been a hoax; there had not been any peril. No wonder these behemoths had so courageously taken the cherries! But, beyond a doubt, the joke had helped him to win his
B. It had shown him he could clear five feet, ten inches, for he had done it–and, in the meet, when the crucial moment came, the knowledge that he had jumped that high, and, therefore, could do it, helped–where the thought that he never had cleared it would have dragged him down. He had at last won his B, a part of his beloved Dad’s great ambition was realized, and–

“Oh, just leave it to Hicks!” quoth that sunny-souled, irrepressible youth, swaggering a trifle, “It was my mighty will-power, my terrific determination, that took me over the cross-bar, and not–not your
imitation of–“

“Woof! Woof! Woof!” roared the “Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade” in thunderous chorus. “Sick him–Caesar Napoleon–!”

CHAPTER XVII

HICKS MAKES A RASH PROPHECY

“Come on, Butch! Atta boy–some fin, old top! Say, you Beef–you’re asleep at the switch. What time do you want to be called? More pep there, Monty–bust that little old bulb, Roddy! Aw, rotten! Say, Ballard, your
playing will bring the Board of Health down on you–why don’t you bring your first team out? Umpire? What–do you call that an umpire? Why, he’s a highway robber, a bandit. Put a ‘Please Help the Blind’ sign on that hold-up artist!”

Big Butch Brewster, captain of the Bannister College baseball squad, navigating down the third-floor corridor of Bannister Hall, the Senior dormitory, laden with suitcases, bat-bags, and other impedimenta, as Mr. Julius Caesar says, and vastly resembling a bell-hop in action, paused in sheer bewilderment on the threshold of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.’s, cozy room.

“Hicks!” stormed the bewildered Butch, wrathfully, “what in the name of Sam Hill are you doing? Are you crazy, you absolutely insane lunatic? This is a study-hour, and even if you don’t possess an intellect, some of the fellows want to exercise their brains an hour or so! Stop that ridiculous action.”

The spectacle Butch Brewster beheld was indeed one to paralyze that pachydermic collegian, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., the sunny-souled, irrepressible Senior, danced madly about on the tiger-skin rug in midfloor, evidently laboring under the delusion that he was a lunatical Hottentot at a tribal dance; he waved his arms wildly, like a signaling brakeman, or howled through a big megaphone, and about his toothpick structure was strung his beloved banjo, on which the blithesome youth twanged at times an accompaniment to his jargon:

“Come on, Skeet, take a lead (plunkety-plunk!) Say, d’ye wanta marry
first base–divorce yourself from that sack! (plunk-plunk!) Oh, you
bonehead–steal–you won’t get arrested for it! Hi! Yi! Ouch, Butch! Oh,
I’ll be good–“

At this moment, the indignant Butch abruptly terminated T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.’s, noisy monologue by seizing that splinter-youth firmly by the scruff of the neck and forcibly hurling him on the davenport. Seeing his loyal class-mate’s resemblance to a Grand Central Station baggage-smasher, the irrepressible Senior forthwith imitated a hotel-clerk:

“Front!” howled the grinning Hicks, to an imaginary bellboy, “Show this gentleman to Number 2323! Are you alone, sir, or just by yourself? I think you will like the room-it faces on the coal-chute, and has hot and cold folding-doors, and running water when the roof leaks! The bed is made once a week, regularly, and–“

“Hicks, you Infinitesimal Atom of Nothing!” growled big Butch, ominously. “What were you doing, creating all that riot, as I came down the corridor? What’s the main idea, anyway, of–“

“Heed, friend of my campus days,” chortled the graceless Hicks, keeping a safe distance from his behemoth comrade, “tomorrow-your baseball aggregation plays Ballard College, at that knowledge-factory, for the Championship of the State. Because nature hath endowed me with the Herculean structure of a Jersey mosquito, I am developing a 56-lung-power voice, and I need practice, as I am to be the only student-rooter at the game tomorrow! Q.E.D.! And as for any Bannister student, except perhaps Theophilus Opperdyke and Thor, desiring to investigate the interiors of their lexicons tonight, I prithee, just periscope the campus.”

“I guess you are right, Hicks!” grinned Butch Brewster, as he looked from the window, down on an indescribably noisy scene. “For once, your riotous tumult went unheard. Say, get your traveling-bag ready, and leave that pestersome banjo behind, if you want to go with the nine!”

Several members of the Gold and Green nine, embryo American and National League stars, roosted on the Senior Fence between the Gymnasium and the Administration Building, with, suitcases and bat-bags on the grass. In a few minutes old Dan Flannagan’s celebrated jitney-bus would appear in the offing, coming to transport the Bannister athletes downtown to the station, for the 9 P.M. express to Philadelphia. Incited by Cheer-Leaders Skeezicks McCracken and Snake Fisher, several hundred youths encouraged the nine, since, because of approaching final exams., they were barred by Faculty order from accompanying the team to Ballard. In thunderous chorus they chanted:

“One more Job for the undertaker!
More work for the tombstone maker! la the local cemetery, they are very–very–very
Busy on a brand-new grave for–Ballard!”

As the lovable Hicks expressed it, “‘Coming events cast their shadows before.’ Commencement overshadows our joyous campus existence!” However, no Bannister acquaintance of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., could detect wherein the swiftly approaching final separation from his Alma Mater had affected in the least that happy-go-lucky, care-free, irrepressible youth. If anything, it seemed that Hicks strove to fight off thoughts of the end of his golden campus years, using as weapons his torturesome saengerfests, his Beefsteak Busts down at Jerry’s, and various other pastimes, to the vast indignation of his good friend and class-mate, Butch Brewster, who tried futilely to lecture him into the proper serious mood with which Seniors must sail through Commencement!

“You are a Senior, Hicks, a Senior!” Butch would explain wrathfully. “You are popularly supposed to be dignified, and here you persist in acting like a comedian in a vaudeville show! I suppose you intend to appear on the stage, and, when handed your sheepskin, respond by twanging your banjo and roaring a silly ballad.”

Yet, the cheery Hicks had been very busy, since that memorable day when, thanks to Caesar Napoleon and the hoax of the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope- Brigade of the track squad, he had cleared the cross-bar at five-ten, and won the event and his white B! Mr. T. Haviland Hicks, Sr., overjoyed at his son’s achievement, had sent him a generous check, which the youth much needed, and had promised to be present at the annual Athletic Association Meeting, at Commencement, when the B’s were awarded deserving athletes, which caused Hicks as much joy as the pink slip. With his final study sprint for the Senior Finals, his duties as team- manager of the baseball nine, his preparations for Commencement, his social duties at the Junior Prom., and multifarious other details coincident to graduation, the heedless Hicks had not found time to be sorrowful at the knowledge that it soon would end, forever, that he must say “Farewell, Alma Mater,” and leave the campus and corridors of old Bannister; yet soon even Hicks’ ebullient spirits must fail, for Commencement was a trifle over a week off.

“Hicks, you lovable, heedless, irrepressible wretch,” said Big Butch, affectionately, as the two class-mates thrilled at the scene. “Does it penetrate that shrapnel-proof concrete dome of yours that the Ballard game tomorrow is the final athletic contest of my, and likewise your, campus career at old Bannister?”

“Similar thoughts has smote my colossal intellect, Butch!” responded the bean-pole Hicks, gladsomely. “But–why seek to overshadow this joyous scene with somber reflections? You-should-worry. You have annexed sufficient B’s, were they different, to make up an alphabet. You’ve won your letter on gridiron, track, and baseball field, and you’ve been team-captain of everything twice! Why, therefore, sheddest thou them crocodile tears?”

“Not for myself, thou sunny-souled idler!” announced Butch, generously, “But for thee! I prithee, since you pritheed me a few moments hence, let that so-called colossal intellect of yours stride back along the corridors of Time, until it reaches a certain day toward the close of our Freshman year. Remember, you had made a hilarious failure of every athletic event you tried-football, basketball, track, and baseball; you had just made a tremendous farce of the Freshman-Sophomore track meet, and to me, your loyal comrade, you uttered these rash words, ‘Before I graduate from old Bannister, I shall have won my B in three branches of sport!’

“I reiterate and repeat, tomorrow’s game with Ballard is the last chance you will have. There is no possibility that you, with your well-known lack of baseball ability, will get in the game, and–your track B, won in the high-jump, is the only B you have won! Now, do you still maintain that you will make good that rash vow?”

“‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ ‘Never say die.’ ‘While there’s life, there’s hope.’ ‘Don’t give up the ship.’ ‘Fight to the last ditch.’ ‘In the bright lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail,'”
quoth the irrepressible Hicks, all in a breath. “As long as there is an infinitesimal fraction of a chance left, I repeat, just leave it to Hicks!”

“You haven’t got a chance in the world!” Butch assured him, consolingly. “You did manage to get into one football game, for a minute, and you were a ‘Varsity player that long. By sticking to it, you have won your track B in the high-jump, thanks to your grass-hopper build, and we rejoice at your reward! Your Dad is happy that you’ve won a B, so why not be sensible, and cease this ridiculous talk of winning your B in three sports, when you
can see it is preposterously out of the question, absolutely impossible–“

It was not that Butch. Brewster did not want his sunny classmate to win
his B in three sports, or that he would have failed to rejoice at Hicks’ winning the triple honor. Had such a thing seemed within the bounds of possibility, Butch, big-hearted and loyal, would have been as happy as Hicks, or his Dad. But what the behemoth athlete became wrathful at was the obviously lunatical way in which the cheery Hicks, now that his college years were almost ended, parrot-like repeated, “Oh, just leave it to Hicks!” when he must know all hope was dead. In truth, T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., in pretending to maintain still that he would make good the rash vow of his Freshman year, had no purpose but to arouse his comrade’s indignation; but Butch, serious of nature, believed there really lurked in Hicks’ system some germs of hope.

“We never know, old top!” chuckled Hicks, though he was sure he could
never fulfill that promise, as he had not played three-fourths of a season on both the football and the baseball teams, “Something may show up at the last minute, and–“

At that moment, something evidently did show up, on the campus below, for the enthusiastic students howled in: thunderous chorus, as the “Honk! Honk!” of a Claxon was heard, “Here he comes! All together, fellows–the Bannister yell for the nine–then for good old Dan Flannagan!”

As Hicks and Butch watched from the window, old Dan Flannagan’s jitney-bus, to the discordant blaring of a horn, progressed up the driveway, even as it had done on that night in September, when it transported to the campus T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., and Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy. Amid salvos of applause from the Bannister youths, and blasts of the Claxon, old Dan brought “The Dove” to a stop before the Senior Fence, and bowed to the nine, grinning genially the while.

“The car waits at the door, sir!” spoke T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., touching his cap after the fashion of an English butler, before seizing a bat-bag, and his suit-case. “As team manager, I must attempt to force into Skeet Wigglesworth’s dome how he and the five subs, are to travel on the C. N. & Q., to Eastminster, from Baltimore. Come on, Butch, we’re off–“

“You are always off!” commented Butch, good-humoredly, as he seized his baggage and followed the mosquito-like Hicks from the room, downstairs, and out on the campus. Here the assembled youths, with yells, cheers, and songs sandwiched between humorous remarks to Dan Flannagan, watched the thrilling spectacle of the Gold and Green nine, with the Team Manager and five substitutes, fifteen in all, squeeze into and atop of Dan Flannagan’s jitney-Ford.

“Let me check you fellows off,” said Hicks, importantly, peering into the jitney, for he, as Team Manager, had to handle the traveling expenses. “Monty Merriweather, Roddy Perkins, Biff Pemberton. Butch Brewster, Skeet Wigglesworth, Beef McNaughton, Cherub Challoner, Ichabod Crane, Don Carterson; that is the regular nine, and are you five subs, present? O. K. Skeet, climb out here a second.”

Little Skeet Wigglesworth, the brilliant short-stop, climbed out with exceeding difficulty, and facing T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., he saluted in military fashion. The team manager, consulting a timetable of the C. N. &.Q. railroad, fixed him with a stern look.

“Skeet,” he spoke distinctly, “now, get this–myself and eight regulars,
nine in all, will take the 9 P. M. express for Philadelphia, and stay there all night. Tomorrow, at 8 A. M., we leave Broad Street Station for Eastminster, arriving at 11 A. M. Now I have a lot of unused mileage on
the C. N. & Q., and I want to use it up before Commencement. So, heed: you want to go via Baltimore, to see your parents. You take the 9.20 P. M. express tonight, to Baltimore, and go from that city in the morning, to Eastminster, on the C. N, & Q.–it’s the only road. And take the five subs with you, to devour the mileage. Now, has that penetrated thy bomb-proof dome?”

“Sure; you don’t have to deliver a Chautauqua lecture, Hicks!” grinned Skeet. “Say, what time does my train leave Baltimore, in the A.M., for Eastminster?”

“Let’s see.” T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., handing the mileage-books to the shortstop, focused his intellect on the C. N. & Q. timetable. “Oh, yes–you leave Union Station, Baltimore, at 7:30 A.M., arriving at Eastminster at noon; it is the only train, you can get, to make it in time for the game,
so remember the hour–7.30 A.M.! Here, stuff the timetable in your pocket.”

In a few moments, the team and substitutes had been jammed into old Dan Flannagan’s jitney, and the Bannister youths on the campus concentrated their interest on the sunny Hicks, who, grinning a la Cheshire cat,
climbed atop of “The Dove,” which old Dan was having as much trouble to start as he had experienced for over twenty years with the late Lord Nelson, his defunct quadruped. Seeing Hicks abstract a Louisville Slugger from the bat-bag, the students roared facetious remarks at the irrepressible youth:

“Home-run Hicks–he made a home-run–on a strike-out!”–“Put Hicks in
the game, Captain Butch–he will win it.”–“Watch Hicks–he’ll pull some bonehead play!”–“Bring home the Championship, but–lose Hicks somewhere!”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as the battered engine of the jit. yielded to old Dan’s cranking, and kindly consented to start, surveyed the yelling students, seized a bat, and struck an attitude which he fatuously believed was that of Ty Cobb, about to make a hit; taking advantage of a lull in the tumult, the lovable youth howled at the hilarious crowd:

“Just leave it to Hicks! I will win the game and the Championship, for my
Alma Mater, and–I’ll do it by my headwork!”

CHAPTER XVIII

T. HAVILAND HICKS, JR’S. HEADWORK

“Play Ball! Say, Bannister, are you afraid to play?”

“Call the game, Mr. Ump.–make ’em play ball!”

“Batter up! Forfeit the game to Ballard, Umpire!”

“Lend ’em Ballard’s bat-boy-to make a full nine!”

Captain Butch Brewster, his honest countenance, as a moving-picture director would express it, “registering wrathful dismay,” lumbered toward the Ballard Field concrete dug-out, in which the Gold and Green players had entrenched themselves, while from the stands, the Ballard cohorts vociferated their intense impatience at the inexplicable delay.

“We have got to play,” he raged, striding up and down before the bench. “The game is ten minutes late now, and the crowd is restless! And here we have only eight ‘Varsity players, and no one to make the ninth–not even a sub.! Oh, I could–“

“That brainless Skeet Wigglesworth!” ejaculated T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., who, arrayed like a lily of the field, reposed his splinter-structure on the bench with his comrades. “In some way, he managed to miss that train
from Baltimore! They didn’t come on the noon C, N. & Q. train, and there isn’t another one until night. My directions were as plain as a German war-map, and it beats me how Skeet got befuddled!”

Gloom, as thick and abysmal as a London fog, hovered over the Bannister dug-out. On the concrete bench, the seven Gold and Green athletes, Beef, Monty, Roddy, Biff, Ichabod, Don, and Cherub, with Team Manager T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., stared silently at Captain Butch Brewster, who seemed in imminent peril of exploding. Something probably never before heard of in the annals of athletic history had happened. Bannister College, about to play Ballard the big game for the State Championship, had lost a short-stop and five substitutes, in some unfathomable manner, and it was impossible to round up one other member of the Gold and Green baseball squad. True, a hundred loyal alumni were in the stands, but only bona fide students, of
course, were eligible to play the game, and–the Faculty ruling had kept them at old Bannister!

“Here comes Ballard’s Manager,” spoke Beef McNaughton, as a brisk, clean-cut youth advanced, a yellow envelope in hand. “Why, he has a telegram. Do you suppose Skeet actually had brains enough to wire an
explanation?”

“Telegram for Captain Brewster!” announced the Ballard collegian, giving the message to that surprised behemoth. “It was sent in my care–collect, and the sender, name of Wigglesworth, fired one to me personally, telling me to deliver this one to Captain Butch Brewster, and collect from Team Manager Hicks–he surely didn’t bother to save money! I’ve been out of town, and just got back to the campus; of course, the telegrams could not be delivered to anyone but me, hence the delay.”

Big Butch, thanking the Ballard Team Manager, and assuring him that the charges he had paid would be advanced to him after the game, ripped open the yellow envelope, and drew out the message. Like a thunder-storm gathering on the horizon, a dark expression came to good Butch’s countenance, and when he had perused the lengthy telegram, he transfixed the startled and bewildered T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., with an angry glare:

“Bonehead!” he raged, apparently controlling himself with a superhuman effort. “Oh, you lunatic, you wretch, villain–you–you–“

To the supreme amazement and dismay of the puzzled Hicks, Beef, next in line, after he had scanned Skeet’s telegram, followed Butch’s example, for he glowered at the perturbed youth, and heaped condemnations on his devoted head. And so on down the line on the bench, until Monty, Roddy, Biff, Ichabod, Don, and Cherub, reading the message, joined in gazing indignantly at their gladsome Team Manager, who, as the eight arose en
masse and advanced on him, sought to flee the wrath to come.

“Safety first!” quoth T, Haviland Hicks, Jr. “‘Mine not to reason why, mine but to haste and fly,’ or–be crushed! Ouch! Beef, Monty–have a heart!”

Captured by Beef and Monty Merriweather, as he frantically scrambled up the steps of the concrete dug-out, the grinning Hicks was held in the firm grasp of that behemoth, Butch Brewster, aided by the skyscraper Ichabod, while Cherub Challoner thrust the telegram before his eyes. In words of fire that burned themselves into his brain–something his colleagues denied he possessed–T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., saw the explanation of Skeet Wigglesworth’s missing the train from Baltimore that A. M. Dazed, the sunny youth read the message on which over-charges must be paid:

“Hicks–you bonehead! The time-table of the C.N. & Q. you gave me was an old one–schedule revised two weeks ago! Train now leaves Balto. at 6.55 A.M.! When we got to station at 7.05 A.M. she had went! No train to Ballard till night! I and subs, had to wire Bannister for money to get back on! You mis-manager–the head-work you boasted of is boneheadwork! Pay the charges on this, you brainless insect! I’ll send it to Butch, for you’d never show it to him if I sent it to you! Indignantly–

“SKEET.”

“Mis-manager is right!” seethed Captain Butch, for once in his campus career really wrathy at the lovable Hicks. “We are in a fix–eight players, and the crowd howling for the game to start. Oh, I could jump overboard, and drag you with me!”

“Bonehead! Bonehead!” chorused the Gold and Green players, indignantly. “Gave Skeet an out-of-date time-table–never looked at the date! Let’s drag him out before the crowd, and announce to them his brilliant headwork!”

Captain Butch, “up against it,” to employ a slightly slang expression, gazed across Ballard Field. In the stands, the students responding thunderously to their cheer-leaders’ megaphoned requests, roared, “Play ball! Play ball! Play ball!” Gay pennants and banners fluttered in the glorious sunshine of the June day. It was a bright scene, but its glory awakened no happiness in the heart of the Bannister leader, as his gaze wandered to the somewhat flabbergasted expression on the cheery Hicks’ face. That inevitably sunny youth, however, managed to conjure up a faint resemblance of his Cheshire cat grin, and following his usual habit of letting nothing daunt his gladsome spirit, he croaked feebly: “Oh, just leave it to Hicks! I will–“

“Play the game!” thundered Butch, inspired. “Beef, see the umpire and say we’ll be ready as soon as we get Hicks into togs-show him the telegram, and explain our delay! I’ll shift Monty from the outfield to Skeet’s job at short, and put this diluted imitation of something human in the field, to do his worst. Come to the field-house, you poor fish–“

“Oh, Butch, I can’t–I just can’t!” protested the alarmed Hicks,
helpless, as the big athlete towed him from the trench, “I–I can’t play ball, and I don’t want to be shown up before all that mob! It’s all right at Bannister, in class-games, but–Oh, can’t you play the game with eight
fellows?”

“That is just what we intend to do!” said Butch, with grim humor. “But–we’ll have a dummy in the ninth position, to make the people believe we have a full nine! Cheer up, Hicks–‘In the bright lexicon of youth there ain’t no such word as fail,’ you say! As for your making a fool of yourself, you haven’t brains enough to be classed as one! Now–you’ll pay dearly for your bonehead play.”

Ten minutes later, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as agitated as a prima donna
making her debut with the Metropolitan: Opera Company, decorated the Bannister bench, arrayed in one of the substitutes’ baseball suits. It was too large for his splinter-structure, so that it flapped grotesquely, giving him a startling resemblance to a scarecrow escaped from a cornfield. With the thermometer of his spirits registering zero, the dismayed youth, whose punishment was surely fitting the crime, heard the Umpire bellow:

“Play ball! Batter up! Bannister at bat–Ballard in the field!”

Hicks, that sunny-souled youth, had often daydreamed of himself in a big game of baseball, for his college. He had vividly imagined a ninth inning crisis, three of the enemy on base, two out, and a long fly, good for a home-run, soaring over his head. How he had sprinted–back–back–and at the last second, reached high in the air, grabbing the soaring spheroid, and saving the game for his Alma Mater! Often, too, he had stepped up to bat in the final frame, with two out, one on base, and Bannister a run behind. With the vast crowd silent and breathless, he had walloped the ball, over the left-field fence, and jogged around the bases, thrilling to the thunderous cheers of his comrades. But now–

“Oooo!” shivered Hicks, as though he had just stepped beneath an icy shower-bath. “I wish I could run away. I just know they’ll knock every
ball to me, and I couldn’t catch one with a sheriff and posse!”

However, since, despite the blithesome Hicks’ lack of confidence, it was that sunny Senior, after all, whom fate–or fortune, accordingly as each nine viewed it–destined to be the hero of the Bannister-Ballard Championship baseball contest, the game itself is shoved into such insignificance that it can be briefly chronicled by recording the events that led up to T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.’s, self-prophesied “head-work.”

Without Skeet Wigglesworth at shortstop, with the futile Hicks in right-field, and the confidence of the nine shaken, Captain Butch Brewster and the Gold and Green players went into the big game, unable to shake off the feeling that they would be defeated. And when Pitcher Don Carterson, in his half of the frame, passed the first two Ballard batters, the belief deepened to conviction. However, a fast double play and a long fly ended the inning without damage, and Bannister, likewise, had failed to make an impression on the score-board. In the second, Don promptly showed that he was striving to rival the late Cy Morgan, of the Athletics, for he promptly hit two batters and passed the third, whereupon, as sporting-writers express it, he was “derricked” by Captain Butch.

Placing the deposed twirler in left field, Captain Brewster, as a last resort, believing the game hopelessly lost, with his star pitcher having failed, and his relief slabmen, thanks to Hicks, mislaid en route, sent
out to the box one Ichabod Crane, brought in from the position given to Don Carterson. This cadaverous, skyscraper Senior, who always announced, himself as originating, “Back at Bedwell Center, Pa., where I come from–” was well known to fame as the “Champion Horse-Shoe Pitcher of Bucks County,” but his baseball pitching was rather uncertain; like the girl in the nursery jingle, Ichabod, as a twirler, “When he was good, he was very, very good, and when he was wild, he was horrid!” Like Christy Mathewson,
after he had pitched a few balls, he knew whether or not he was in shape for the game, and so did the spectators. With terrific speed and bewildering curves, Ichabod would have made a star, but his wildness prevented, and only on very rare days could he control the ball.

Luckily for old Bannister’s chances of victory and the Championship, this was one of the elongated Ichabod’s rare days. He ambled into the box, with the bases full, and promptly struck out a batter. The next rolled to first, forcing out the runner at home, while the third hitter under Ichabod’s regime drove out a long fly to center-field. Thus the game settled to one of the most memorable contests that Ballard Field had ever witnessed, a pitchers’ battle between the awkward, bean-pole youth from “Bedwell Center, Pa.,” and Bob Forsythe, the crack Ballard twirler. It was a fight long to be remembered, with hits as scarce as auks’ eggs, and runs out of the reckoning, for six innings.

At the start of the seventh, with the Ballard rooters standing and thundering, “The lucky seventh! Ballard–win the game in the lucky seventh!” the score was 0-0. Only two hits had been made off Forsythe, of Ballard, whose change of pace had the Bannister nine at his mercy, and but three off Ichabod, who had superb control of his dazzling speed. T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., cavorting in right field, had made the only error of the contest, dropping an easy fly that fell into his hands after he had run bewilderedly in circles, when any good fielder could have stood still and captured it; however, since he got the ball to second in time to hold the runner at third, no harm resulted.

“Hold ’em, Bannister, hold ’em!” entreated Butch Brewster, as they went to the field at their end of the lucky seventh, not having scored. “Do your best, Hicks, old man–never mind their Jokes. If you can’t catch
the ball, just get it to second, or first, without delay! Pitch ball, Ichabod–three innings to hold ’em!”

But it was destined to be the lucky seventh for Ballard. An error on a hard chance, for Roddy Perkins, at third, placed a runner on first. Ichabod struck out a hitter, and the runner stole second, aided somewhat by the umpire. The next player flew out, sacrificing the runner to third; then–an easy fly traveled toward the paralyzed T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., one that anybody with the most infinitesimal baseball ability could have corralled, as Butch said, “with his eyes blindfolded, and his hands tied behind him!” But Hicks, who possessed absolutely no baseball talent, though he made
a desperate try, succeeded in doing an European juggling act for five heartbreaking seconds, after which he let the law of gravity act on the sphere, so that it descended to terra firma. Hence, the “Lucky Seventh” ended with the score: Ballard, 1; Bannister, 0; and the Ballard cohorts in a state bordering on lunacy!

“Oh, I’ve done it now–I’ve lost the game and the Championship!” groaned the crushed Hicks, as he stumbled toward the Bannister bench. “First I made that bonehead play, giving Skeet an old time-table I had on hand, and not telling him to get one at the station. How was I to know the old railroad
would change the schedule, within two weeks of this game? And now–I’ve made the error that gives Ballard the Championship. If I hadn’t pulled that boner, Skeet would be here, and the regular right-fielder would have had that fly. What a glorious climax to my athletic career at old Bannister!”

Hicks’ comrades were too generous, or heartbroken, to condemn the sorrowful youth, as he trailed to the dug-out, but the Ballard rooters had absolutely no mercy, and they panned him in regulation style. In fact, all through the game, Hicks expressed himself as being butchered by the fans to make a Ballard holiday, for he struck out with unfailing regularity at bat, and dropped everything in the field, so that the rooters jeered him, whenever he stepped to the plate, and–it was quite different from the good-natured ridicule of his comrades, back at old Bannister.

“Never mind, Hicks,” said good Butch Brewster, brokenly, seeing how sorrow-stricken his sunny classmate was, “We’ll beat ’em–yet! We bat this inning, and in the ninth maybe someone will knock a home-run for us, and tie the score.”

The eighth Inning was the lucky one for the Gold and Green. Monty Merriweather opened with a clean two-base hit to left, and advanced to third on Biff Pemberton’s sacrifice to short. Butch, trying to knock a home-run, struck out-a la “Cactus” Cravath in the World’s Series; but the lanky Ichabod, endeavoring to bunt, dropped a Texas-Leaguer over second, and the score was tied, though the sky-scraper twirler was caught off base a moment later. And, though Ballard fought hard in the last of the eighth, Ichabod displayed big-league speed, and retired two hitters by the strike-out route, while the third popped out to first.

“The ninth Inning!” breathed Beef McNaughton, picking up his Louisville Slugger, as he strode to the plate. “Come on, boys–we will win the Championship right now. Get one run, and Ichabod will hold Ballard one more time!”

Perhaps the pachydermic Beef’s grim attitude unnerved the wonderful Bob Forsythe, for he passed that elephantine youth. However, he regained his splendid control, and struck out Cherub Challoner on three pitched balls. After this, it was a shame to behold the Ballard first-baseman drop the ball, when Don Carterson grounded to third, and would have been thrown out with ease–with two on base, and one out, Roddy Perkins made a sharp single, on which the two runners advanced a base. Now, with the sacks filled, and with only one out–

“It’s all over!” mourned Captain Butch Brewster, rocking back and forth on the bench. “Hicks–is–at–bat!”

T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his bat wobbling, and his knees acting in a similar fashion, refusing to support even that fragile frame, staggered toward the plate, like a martyr. A tremendous howl of unearthly joy went up from the stands, for Hicks had struck out every time yet.

“Three pitched balls, Bob!” was the cry. “Strike him out! It’s all over but the shouting! He’s scared to death, Forsythe–he can’t hit a barn-door with a scatter-gun! One–two–three–out! Here’s where Ballard wins the Championship.”

Twice the grinning Bob Forsythe cut loose with blinding speed–twice the extremely alarmed Hicks dodged back, and waved a feeble Chautauqua salute at the ball he never even saw! Then–trying to “cut the inside corner” with a fast inshoot, Forsythe’s control wavered a trifle, and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., saw the ball streaking toward him! The paralyzed youth felt like a man about to be shot by a burglar. He could feel the bail thud against him, feel the terrific shock; and yet–a thought instinctively flashed on him, he remembered, in a flash, what a tortured Monty Merriweather had shouted, as he wobbled to bat:

“Get a base on balls, or–if you can’t make a hit–get hit!”

If he got hit–it meant a run forced in, as the bases were full! That, in all probability, would give old Bannister the Championship, for Ichabod was invincible. It is not likely that the dazed Hicks thought all this out, and weighed it against the agony of getting hit by Forsythe’s speed. The truth is, the paralyzed youth was too petrified by fear to dodge, and that before he could avoid it, the speeding spheroid crashed against his noble brow with a sickening impact.

All went black before him, T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., pale and limp, crumpled, and slid to the ground, senseless; therefore, he failed to hear the roar from the Bannister bench, from the loyal Gold and Green rooters in the stands, as big Beef lumbered across the plate with what proved later to be the winning run. He did not hear the Umpire shout: “Take your base!”

“What’s the matter with our Hicks–he’s all right! What’s the matter with our Hicks–he’s all right! He was never a star in the baseball game, But he won the Championship just the same– What’s the matter with our Hicks-he’s all right!”

“Honk! Honk!” Old Dan Flannagan’s jitney-bus, rattling up the driveway, bearing back to the Bannister campus the victorious Gold and Green nine, and the State Intercollegiate Baseball Championship, though the hour was midnight, found every student on the grass before the Senior Fence! Over three hundred leather-lunged youths, aided by the Bannister Band, and every known noise-making device, hailed “The Dove,” as that unseaworthy craft halted before them, with the baseball nine inside, and on top. However, the terrific tumult stilled, as the bewildered collegians caught the refrain from the exuberant players:

“He was never a star in the baseball game– But he won the Championship just the same– What’s the matter with our Hicks–he’s all right!”

“Hicks did what?” shrieked Skeezicks McCracken, voicing through a megaphone the sentiment of the crowd. Captain Butch had simply telegraphed the final score, so old Bannister was puzzled to hear the team lauding T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., who, still white and weak, with a bandage around his classic forehead, maintained a phenomenal quiet, atop of “The Dove,” leaning against Butch Brewster.

“Fellows,” shouted Butch, despite Hicks’ protest, rising to his feet on the roof of the “jit.”–“T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., today won the game and the Championship! Listen–“

The vast crowd of erstwhile clamorous youths stood spellbound, as Captain Butch Brewster, in graphic sentences, described the game–Don Carterson’s failure, Ichabod’s sensational pitching, Hicks’ errors, and–the wonderful manner in which the futile youth had won the Championship! As little Skeet Wigglesworth and the five substitutes, who had returned that afternoon, had spread the story of Hicks’ bonehead play, old Bannister had turned out to ridicule and jeer good-naturedly the sunny youth, but now they learned that Hicks had been forced by his own mistake into the Big Game, and had won it! Of course, his comrades knew it had been through no ability of his, but the knowledge that he had been knocked senseless by Forsythe’s great speed, and