Two afternoons later Kendall ran across Charles Cotton on the football field. Cotton was still struggling along with the awkward squad, and when Kendall, chasing a pigskin that had gone over his head, encountered him he was on his way to the bench. “Sorry I wasn’t at home Sunday when you called,” said Kendall. “I hope you’ll try again.”
“Oh, it didn’t matter,” Cotton replied. “I didn’t have anything to do, and just thought I’d drop in for a minute.”
“Glad you did. Hope I’ll be there next time. How are you getting on?”
“Pretty fair.”
Kendall nodded and went his way, while Cotton, standing where he was, watched the other boy pick up the ball and hurl it cleverly back across the field. “Thinks he’s a smart guy,” he muttered with a curl of his lip. “Some day I’ll tell him what I think of him and his patronizing[80] ways. Not till I get what I want out of him, though.”
The first game of the season, that with Greenburg High School, was only four days away, and this afternoon the scrimmage was longer than heretofore. For the first time the school was able to get an idea of how the First Team or Varsity would be made up. Cousins played left end that afternoon; Plant, left tackle; Fales, left guard; Girard, center; McKesson, right guard; Stark, right tackle; Adler, right end; Simms, quarter; Crandall, left half; Fayette, right half, and Marion, full-back. Of course, McKesson at guard was only temporary, for that was Captain Merriwell’s position; and a good many looked for a change at right end before the season was much older. But it was generally agreed that the First Team, as made up this afternoon, would, with one or two changes and barring accidents and unforeseen circumstances, play the season through. A Second Team, captained by Jim Hough, was also formed, and it was this Second Team that went up against the First for three twelve-minute periods and was badly beaten.
The first cut came on Wednesday and some twenty-odd fellows left the squad and swallowed their disappointment. The First Team retained thirty-six players for the present, and the Second[81] Team twenty-three. Charles Cotton survived the weeding-out process and remained among the First Team substitutes. He was trying for end. Kendall was a little disappointed at finding himself second choice, but was comforted with the knowledge that he was certain of getting into a full share of the games since he was by far the best goal kicker in the squad. Holmes, who since the beginning of practice had been pushing Albert Simms hard for the quarter position, was more disappointed than Kendall. It was his last year, and he had been after the place ever since he had entered Yardley.
On Thursday the Second surprised themselves and everyone else by rushing the First Team off its feet in two periods and finally winning the practice game by 10 to 9, scoring two touchdowns and missing the goal in each case. The First Team got a touchdown, and Kendall, called on from the side-line, kicked the goal. Later, in the final period, having substituted Crandall, he added another three points by a goal from the field. But that wasn’t enough to beat the Second, and Hugh’s charges gamboled off highly pleased with themselves. There was no practice on Friday, although the players listened to a half-hour lecture in the gymnasium and afterward walked through a few simple plays.
[82]
Greenburg High School was not a formidable opponent, and the contest on Saturday was not much more than a glorified practice game. The school turned out to a fellow and filled the grand stand and nibbled peanuts and applauded every opportunity. Merriwell played through the first two periods and then gave way to McKesson. In the third period Yardley presented an almost entirely new line-up. Steger went in for Plant, Jackson for Fales, Best for Girard, Adler for Metz, Holmes for Simms, Kendall for Fayette, and Brinspool for Marion. Greenburg also seized the opportunity to try out her new material, and the latter part of the game was something of a comedy of errors. Yardley already had a score of 22 to 0, and Holmes received instructions to score by straight football only. That, however, proved easier to say than to do. Greenburg, even with a substitute back-field and a rather inexperienced line, was quick and heady and stopped the Yardley attack for short gains time after time. The third period ended without a score for either side.
Up on the grand stand, with a bag of peanuts between them, Gerald and Harry sat in the warm sunlight and viewed the contest with mild and critical interest.
“More changes,” murmured Harry as the[83] fourth period was about to begin. “Best is coming off and Lin Johnson is going in. And there goes Folsom to take Holmes’s place. Say, wouldn’t you hate to be a football coach, Gerald?”
“Why?”
“Oh, think of having to lick a bunch like that into shape every year. Gee, I’d get so discouraged I’d want to quit sometimes!”
“But you mustn’t judge a team by the first game it plays,” answered Gerald. “Wait a month and then have a look.”
“I know. Somebody’s hurt. There goes Andy with the water pail. Isn’t it funny that as long as we’ve been playing football, Gerald, nobody’s ever thought to carry water on to the field in anything but a pail?”
“What would they carry it in? A tumbler?”
“No, but you can’t run with a pail of water without splashing most of it out. Look at that! Why not use a can or something with a lid? Who is that chap? Whoever he is, they’re taking him out. It’s Adler, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know him. Somebody’s given him a nasty looking eye, though.”
“I should say so! Yes, that’s Adler. He’s after Cousins’s place. Who’s the funny looking guy Payson’s sending in?”
[84]
“Oh, his name is Cotton. He doesn’t look much as though he could play end, does he?”
“Cotton?” Harry watched the substitute run on to the field. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know. I met him a week or so ago. He’s rooming with The Duke in Clarke. He’s new this Fall.”
“Funny,” muttered Harry, “but I seem to know that chap. Name sounds familiar, too. Cotton ... Cotton....”
“He’s a protégé of Kendall’s,” said Gerald. “Kendall has taken pity on him because he’s new and doesn’t know many fellows. He asked him around and he came last Sunday while we were away. Left his visiting card! What do you know about that for style?”
“Well, whoever he is, he can’t play end,” said Harry in disgust. “That Greenburg tackle is making him look like a canceled stamp——”
Harry stopped so abruptly that Gerald turned to regard him curiously. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
Harry shook his head. He was staring across the field at Cotton with a frown of perplexity on his face. “Nothing,” he answered finally. “Only that fellow bothers me. I’m almost certain I’ve seen him somewhere before.”
“You’ve probably seen him in class or around[85] school,” said Gerald. “That’s not quite impossible, you know.”
But Harry again shook his head. “If I’d seen him here before I’d remember it. Almost seems as if I’d met him. Where does he come from?”
“I don’t know. Hold on, though; seems to me The Duke said he came from Maryland.”
“Well, it wasn’t there, for I’ve never been in Maryland, except to go through it on a train. There goes Kendall with the ball. Good work, Burtis! That fellow is certainly a wonder at keeping his feet, Gerald!”
“And he’s pretty good at keeping his head, too,” replied Gerald with a smile.
“Funny idea you taking him in with you, though,” said Harry. “I like him first rate, but——”
“But what?” asked Gerald.
“Oh, I don’t know. He seems hardly your style. That’s all.”
Gerald was silent a moment, watching the efforts of Yardley to carry the pigskin over the remaining four white lines intervening between it and the Greenburg goal. At last, “I’ll tell you, Harry,” he said, “I’ve always felt a sort of interest in Kendall ever since he butted into the room one night with the calm announcement to[86] Dan that he’d like to join the football team. Towne put him up to it, you know.”
“I hear Towne isn’t coming back this year,” interpolated Harry.
“You can’t make me feel bad that way,” replied Gerald. “Well, I really meant to cultivate Kendall after that, but I got busy with the cross-country work and one thing and another and didn’t see much of him. Ned Tooker sort of took him up, though, and he seemed in pretty good hands. Then came that affair of the field goal and the school made a hero of him, or would have had he let them. Dan was interested in Kendall, too, and we got him over to the room once or twice, but he seemed afraid of coming when he wasn’t wanted, and we sort of gave him up after awhile.
“But Dan was a great believer in Kendall. Said he was the most ‘natural’ football player he had ever seen. And he also said”—Gerald lowered his voice—“that unless something happened, like Kendall getting hurt or leaving school, he would be captain before he got through here.”
Harry whistled softly but expressively.
“And you know Dan doesn’t make mistakes,” added Gerald, his fondness for his friend sounding in his voice.
[87]
“Looks as if he’d made one this time, though, doesn’t it?” asked Harry with a smile.
“Why?”
“Why? Well, look.” Harry nodded to where Kendall was racing up the field after a punt. “He’s only first sub now and next year is his last, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And that’s why we’ve got to get busy.”
“Eh? Who? Get busy doing what?”
“Proving that Dan wasn’t mistaken,” replied Gerald quietly. “If Kendall’s going to have the captaincy before he leaves here then next year’s his last chance. And that means that he’s got to win it this Fall.”
“Yes, but what did you mean when you said we’d got to get busy?”
“Just that,” answered Gerald with a smile. “Dan said Kendall would be captain. He expects him to be and wants him to be. Well, you know I’m pretty fond of old Dan, and so it’s up to me to see that things happen the way he wants them to.”
“But what the dickens can you do?” gasped Harry.
“I don’t quite know yet. But you can see what I have done. I’ve brought Kendall over to my room where he will meet a lot of fellows he ought to know. I want him to get close to the other[88] fellows on the team, for one thing, for it’s those fellows who will elect the captain next month. Of course, it’s up to him to make good on the gridiron, and I think he will. He will if I can make him, anyway!”
“But—but, look here, Gerald—that—that’s rank politics!”
“No, it isn’t,” replied Gerald, shaking his head gently. “It’s politics, but it isn’t rank. It amounts to this, Harry: Kendall hasn’t the push to get himself elected captain if left to his own efforts. But there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be captain if he’s wanted——”
“But he won’t be!”
“Not if he’s left to himself, but I intend to see that he is wanted. What I am conducting is a quiet campaign in the interests of Kendall Burtis. If he does his part you’ll find when it comes time to elect a captain for next year that they’ll be crying for Kendall!”
Harry viewed the other in rapt and admiring awe for a moment. Then, doubtfully, “But it doesn’t seem to me that he’s got it in him to be a good captain, Gerald. He—he isn’t a leader. I don’t say he can’t play football, for I think he can, although even that’s got to be proved a bit more, hasn’t it? But—well, it takes certain qualities to be a good captain.”
[89]
“What are they?”
“Eh? Oh, I don’t know. Pluck, of course, and brains and—and executive ability——”
“Whatever that is,” laughed Gerald. “Well, you can’t say Kendall hasn’t pluck after the way he went overboard the other day without being able to swim a stroke. And as for brains, well, you think a minute.”
Harry nodded. “Yes, he’s got a good thinker, I guess.”
“And he can be wonderfully cool in an emergency,” continued Gerald.
“How do you know that?”
“By the way he stepped out on the field last year at the eleventh hour, grabbed off the grand stand in a pair of long trousers and hustled into a sweater, and stood there and kicked that goal with the whole Broadwood team trying to get through and kill him.”
“Y-yes, but——”
“As for the other thing, what you call executive ability and what the rest of us, who haven’t your visiting acquaintance with fine English, call leadership, why, no, he hasn’t displayed any of that yet. He hasn’t had a chance, I guess. That’s something we’ll have to develop in him, or, at least, bring out. And he’s discouragingly shy. He will have to get over some of that. I[90] don’t expect to make him popular in the general meaning of the word. That isn’t necessary. I don’t think you can call Charlie Merriwell a very popular chap.”
“He isn’t, and it remains to be seen what sort of a captain he will make. Simms ought to have had it.”
“Yes, Simms is popular, but he didn’t get the captaincy. I know of at least two fellows on the team who don’t really like Merriwell and who cast their votes for him because they knew he could play football and believed he’d make a good captain and because they respected him. See? Well, I mean to have Kendall prove that he can play football, show that he can lead, and win the respect of the fellows.”
“Gee, you’ve got a job! Sounds like a confidence game to me, too, Gerald. Hanged if you aren’t deliberately setting to work to—to—what’s that word?—to foist a captain on the school that they don’t even know!”
“But they will know him before the time comes,” replied Gerald confidently. “As for foisting”—he shrugged his shoulders—“it’s a fine old word, Harry, but it’s in wrong. Dan has chosen Kendall for next year’s captain; Dan knows; Kendall shall be captain. There it is in a nutshell!”
[91]
“You’ve certainly got plenty of cheek,” laughed Harry. “And you can bet I’ll be watching things with rapt attention, Gerald. I wish you luck, and Kendall, too, but I’m very much afraid you’ll be disappointed.”
“Perhaps. If we are we’ll stand it. There’s one thing you seem to miss, though. You talk about standing by and watching things. I have tried to convey the idea that you were in on the campaign, Harry.”
“Me! What the dickens can I do?”
“I don’t know yet. I think you can be useful, however. Perhaps I’ll make you head of the publicity department. Anyhow, I want your help. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have told you all this. Because it’s got to be kept a secret from everyone, Harry, and especially Kendall.”
“What? Isn’t he to know?”
“Not a word of it!”
“Then I don’t see how you can expect him to—to do things, to get next to the fellows, to——”
“Don’t you see that if we told him he’d back out right now? He hasn’t any more idea of getting the captaincy that he has of—of flying. And even if he agreed to it he’d be so self-conscious all the time that he’d make a horrible mess of it. No, you and I, and maybe another chap before we’re through, must keep this to ourselves. No[92] one must even guess that we’re booming Kendall.”
“Sounds difficult,” Harry objected.
“Not very. There’s no reason why anyone should suspect that we are doing it, is there? Just now Kendall Burtis is about the last fellow anyone would think of as next year’s captain, isn’t he?”
“He certainly is,” agreed Harry, with conviction.
“Then why should anyone suspect that we’re pushing him for it? Diplomacy, Harry, diplomacy! Also secrecy!”
“Two orders of each,” said Harry. “Well, it sounds sort of crazy to me, but I’ll take a chance with you. And now, as the practice has been over for some five minutes and as we’re about the only fellows in sight, I’d like to move along. Even politicians have to eat, Gerald.”