As Mr. Dana, followed by Kendall, had gone around the end of the stand the Yardley players had come crowding past. Behind them, talking to Dan, was Mr. Payson, and the coach, observing the football in Mr. Dana’s hand, had stopped a moment. “You’ll be lame to-morrow if you do,” he said with a smile.
“Not me,” replied Mr. Dana; “I know better. I’m going to try to solve a mystery, Payson.”
The coach nodded and went on, and Mr. Dana and Kendall skirted the back of the stand until they reached the edge of the links. Then Mr. Dana turned to Kendall.
“Now pull your coat and vest off, turn up your trousers and show me, Burtis!”
“Kick it, sir?” asked Kendall wonderingly.
“Kick the stuffing out of it! See how near you can come to putting it over there by that red flag.”
Kendall threw aside coat and vest, took a good[322] reef in his precious gray trousers at the bottoms and took the ball. “Drop-kick, sir?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Kendall poised the ball in his hands, judged distance and direction, took a step, dropped the pigskin and met it fairly with his toe. It was a fairly good kick, the ball traveling some thirty-five yards or more before it struck, but it landed twenty or thirty feet away from the flag. He turned apologetically to Mr. Dana.
“That wasn’t very good, but you see I haven’t kicked for two or three weeks. Shall I try it again?”
“Yes, try a placement.”
Mr. Dana led the way with long strides to where the ball lay and picked it up. “I’ll hold it for you,” he said. “Make it straight and goal-high, Burtis. Suppose you were kicking from the thirty yards.” Mr. Dana dropped his cane, tossed his hat beside it and stretched himself out on the turf. Then with the ball lengthwise between his hands he waited directions.
“I—I never had anyone hold it for me,” said Kendall dubiously. “Will you put it more that way, please?”
“How’s that?”
“All right, I guess.” Kendall stepped forward, swung and the ball shot away, turning on[323] its shortened axis, straight and true. Mr. Dana, poised on one knee, watched. Had there been a crossbar within thirty-five yards that ball would have gone over it with room to spare. Mr. Dana arose, brushed his knees and elbows lightly and shook his head. Kendall saw and was humble.
“It’s awfully hard to judge, Mr. Dana, when there aren’t any lines to go by. I’ll try again, if you like.”
Mr. Dana eyed him thoughtfully. Finally,
“I’ll tell you frankly, Burtis, that your form is miserable, but that’s something that can be easily mended. If you swung freer from your hip, kept your knee locked tightly, you’d get another ten yards, I believe. But I’m not finding any fault, my boy. I used to be a pretty good kicker in my day, but I couldn’t have equaled that last one before my freshman year in college. Let’s try a couple more if you’re not tired.”
“I’m not tired at all,” Kendall answered, trying to hide the pleasure he felt, “but I’m a little stiff yet.”
“All right; we’ll get rid of some of that stiffness.”
Ten minutes later Mr. Dana, satisfied, told Kendall to get his coat and vest. Then they went back to the field. On the way Mr. Dana said: “Burtis, I ought to apologize to you.[324] When you told me you’d done seven out of ten from the thirty-five-yard line I—well, frankly, I thought you were spreading it a bit thick. After what you’ve shown me, though, I don’t doubt it. The one thing I don’t understand is why Payson hasn’t had you in training. Well, I wonder how the fortunes of war are going. You go back to your bench, Burtis, and have a rest. I want to see Payson.”
He found the coach down opposite the play, crouching low and pulling gently on a pipe that had long since gone out. Broadwood had kicked her goal and Yardley had the ball near the Green’s forty yards. Mr. Payson looked up as the other knelt beside him.
“Hello,” he said. “Have you noticed that quarter-back of theirs, Dana? He’s going to make the All-American some day if he keeps on the way he’s started.”
“That so? I hadn’t noticed him especially.” Yardley lost the ball on downs and Broadwood punted. “Think we can do the trick, Payson?”
“I doubt it. Our fellows are getting pretty tired. Watch this now. Simms has got it.” The little quarter-back skirted the end and made his twenty-yard gain, while the stand behind them shrieked wildly. Then Fayette got through for twelve, and the coach took his pipe from his[325] mouth, tapped the ashes out carefully and replaced it between his teeth. Mr. Dana, watching sympathetically, smiled. He knew pretty well how the coach was feeling just then, for he had been through it himself.
A minute or two later came Fayette’s fumble, Broadwood’s punt and Stearns’s clever run after the catch.
“Time must be getting short,” said Mr. Dana. The coach nodded.
“I guess so. Not more than five or six minutes, I suppose. A clean forward pass might help now.”
But Simms was using his backs and Broadwood was steadily losing ground. Then came Simms’s run around the left end of the line and the ball lay on the thirty-five yards. Seven more by plunges, and time out for Stearns. Mr. Payson looked, walked up the line and called “Greene! Hurry up!” When the substitute ran up to him he only said: “All right. Send Stearns out. You know what to do. Tell Simms to plug away.”
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to try a field goal?” asked Mr. Dana. “There can’t be more than a couple of minutes left.”
“Haven’t a man who could come within twenty feet of the bar,” replied Mr. Payson shortly.
“Not out there you haven’t,” said Mr. Dana.[326] “But there’s a chap back there on the bench who could probably do it for you.”
Mr. Payson............