However, Harry did not at once borrow The Duke’s red mustache and go sleuthing. As curious as he was about Cotton, he was much too busy these days to play detective, for, although he was pretty certain of winning the cross-country race from Broadwood, Gerald wasn’t taking any chances, and the way he and Andy Ryan kept the team on the go was a caution. The race was to be held, as usual, on the morning of the day of the football game between the rivals, and over a course which might be called neutral, lying as it did practically halfway between the two schools. Broadwood Academy was situated some four miles from Yardley on the other side of Greenburg and so far inland that at Yardley they spoke of it humorously as a “freshwater college.” Broadwood was slightly smaller than Yardley in point of enrollment, but for all of that was an ideal rival, since she fought hard[124] in every competition and obligingly went down in defeat oftener than she triumphed. There was no student now in Yardley who could recall a Broadwood victory on the gridiron, although there had been some heart-breaking struggles and alarmingly close scores. In baseball Broadwood was not so obliging, although since John Payson’s advent at Yardley she had experienced more defeats than victories. The rivalry between the two preparatory institutions, both good ones, was healthy. Yardley fellows simulated a contempt for the wearers of the Green that they really didn’t feel, and Broadwood pretended similar sentiments toward the Blue. In reality, however, each school entertained a deep-seated respect for the other. While Yardley graduates were likely to go up to Yale to complete their education, Broadwood traditions favored Princeton.
But while Broadwood usually excelled at hockey, garnered a full share of the track and field honors, proved herself as good as her rival at baseball, and accepted defeat on the gridiron only after the gamest battles, she was weak at cross-country running and had been beaten each of the few times that she had met Yardley. Gerald, who would have liked to complete his hill-and-dale career and celebrate his year as captain[125] with a hard-fought victory, lamented Broadwood’s weakness this year.
“I wish we might give them a handicap,” he confided to Harry that Saturday morning as they went back to the gymnasium after a two-mile jaunt. It was the day of the Forest Hill game, and partly because it seemed fair to let the cross-country runners witness the afternoon contest and partly because it was advisable to accustom the team to morning work, since the race was to be run in the forenoon, to-day’s work had started at ten-thirty. Gerald seemed as fresh as when he had started out, and save for the disks of red which had not yet faded from his cheeks, one would never have suspected that he had led nine others over approximately two miles of the hardest sort of going. Harry Merrow, however, showed the pace. He had managed to finish fourth and was rather proud of himself, although when Gerald had clapped him on the back at the finish and congratulated him he had only smiled depreciatingly.
“We might give them a quarter-mile start,” proposed Harry, with a laugh, in response to Gerald’s remark. “But I don’t see why you’re so anxious to get beaten, Gerald.”
“I’m not, but I’d like to have the race a really close one. As it is, we’re just as likely as not to[126] finish the first four men ahead of them. I’m pretty certain we will if you run as well as you did to-day.”
“I ought to do three or four minutes better on the eighteenth,” said Harry. “How far behind you was I to-day?”
“About six minutes. And I did as well within three minutes as I ever did,” said Gerald.
Harry thought that over for a minute as they climbed the footpath that affords a short cut to the gymnasium from the village road, and before he had succeeded in figuring out what their relative positions would probably be in the race Gerald introduced a change of subject.
“How do you think the campaign is going, Harry?” he asked.
“Campaign? Oh, you mean Kendall’s. Why, pretty well, I think. But I hear that there’s a good deal of talk of making Crandall captain. He’s pretty popular, you know. And a good player, too.”
“That so? I hadn’t heard it. Well, Howard’s a fine chap, and if our candidate loses he ought to make a good captain. Have you heard talk of any other fellows for captain?”
“No, I guess not. Fales would take it if he could get it. So would two or three others. Pete Girard, for one.”
[127]
“He’d be a wonder,” laughed Gerald. “No, I guess it will be up to either Howard Crandall or Kendall. You haven’t heard Kendall’s name mentioned, have you?”
“For the captaincy? No, but I don’t hear much of the talk. But Kendall has certainly made good so far, hasn’t he? I mean with the fellows. They all seem to like him. If he’d get busy and pull off some brilliant stunt this afternoon or next week, or win the Broadwood game with a field-goal, I guess he could have the captaincy, eh?”
“I think so. Unfortunately, we can’t advise him to get off any gallery plays. He wouldn’t if we did. Besides, a fellow can’t make opportunities. All he can do is to grab them when they come. I hope, though, that Kendall will put up a good game to-day. It’s time the fellows began to consider him as a possibility. If they don’t we’ll have to drop a hint pretty soon.”
“You’re a regular old politician,” laughed Harry.
“Say diplomat,” said Gerald. “It sounds more respectable.”
“Schemer is more like it,” responded Harry, as they entered the gymnasium. “Something tells me that a shower is going to feel mighty good.”
[128]
Half an hour later, when they rounded the front of Oxford, the Golf Team was just setting off for Broadwood, after an early dinner, in a three-seated carriage. George Kirk waved to them and then spoke to the driver, and the carriage stopped. Kirk leaned out and called to Gerald.
“Say, Gerald, do something for me? Find The Duke; he’s at the telephone, I think, and tell him never mind about New York; I’ll call up this evening.”
“Never mind about New York, you’ll call up this evening. All right, George; I’ll tell him. Good luck! Go to it and eat ’em alive!”
Kirk nodded and waved, and the carriage went on down the drive.
“I suppose,” mused Harry as he followed Gerald back to Oxford, “that Kirk is just as much excited about his old golf match as you and I will be about the race two weeks from now. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Funny?” repeated Gerald as he ran up the steps. “Why?”
“Oh, funny to think it matters who wins a golf match!”
“It’s evident you’re not a golfer,” laughed Gerald. “I’ll bet that if George’s outfit gets licked this afternoon he will be like a bear[129] with a sore head! There’s The Duke in the booth.”
The long-distance booth was halfway down the main corridor of Oxford, and, although it was rather dim, they could descry a figure behind the glass. It was dinner hour and Oxford was otherwise quite deserted. Gerald walked down the corridor, Harry sauntering behind.
“Hi, Duke! Kirk says never mind about New York!” shouted Gerald.
The Duke looked very angry and red-faced behind the window as Gerald drew near, and was gesticulating wildly. He was also saying things, but what they were Gerald was still too far away to hear.
“The Duke’s having a fit, Harry,” he announced interestedly. “Come and watch him.”
“... Door ... lemme out....”
“What’s he saying?” asked Harry grinning as he realized The Duke’s dilemma. Gerald shook his head.
“Can’t understand him. Can you? Seems quite worked up about something, though.”
“Lemme out! Don’t be a fool! Can’t you see this blamed door’s stuck?” And The Duke mouthed and grimaced behind the glass.
Gerald and Harry, maintaining a respectful distance, viewed him gravely.
[130]
“Can’t get his number, I suppose,” said Harry sympathetically.
“Maybe he’s got hold of a live wire somehow. Anything wrong, Duke?”
“You open this door, Gerald! I’m suffocating in here!”
“He wants you to open the door,” explained Harry brightly. “But do you think you’d better? He looks a bit dangerous, doesn’t he?”
“Y-yes,” responded Gerald doubtfully. “Perhaps we’d better have help in case he gets——”
But there was such a rattling of the door, such an assault on the side of the booth that Gerald’s words were drowned. “I do hope he’s hung up the receiver so that the operator can’t ............