Over all were the great old pines and cedars, and far away the gleam of snow on the mountain-tops. It was a gay supper, indeed, with much laughter and great enjoyment of the simple fare. There were little informal speeches after the supper, when they were all gathered about a blazing fire of pine-knots and cones. Cochran told how he was bound to win the championship of the West, and Ketchem told how he was bound to help. A senior girl spoke for the women of the College, and said that nothing would be left undone that the women could do to bring victory to the old college colors. A junior told some good stories about football heroes, and a sophomore pledged the honor and purse of her class to the football-squad. Jean had been asked to speak for her class, but when her name was called the President, who was near her, said: "Our young friend asks me to say for her that she will tell you what she thinks on her violin-and what she wishes for you." 66 Awful rum notion that," Cochran whispered to the girl beside him, and the crowd stirred uneasily, for a crowd of college students hates the unusual above all things. "Who is she, anyway?" Ketchem asked his companion. "A freshman from a mountain cañon," was the answer. "A very peach for looks!" The President threw an extra log on the fire, and the flames leaping up brought into relief against the roughened bark of an old tree a childlike figure with halfclosed eyes. Cochran will never forget that music. It breathed of the hills and of the sea; it spoke to the very soul of the listeners, of a life rich in ideals and abundant in fruition. At the close there was the quiet hush of appreciation, broken after a time by the President's voice, almost querulous in its insistence. "But where did you learn to play like that, child?" wered simply. "He is a wonderful musician, sir. I wish you could hear him play." "Why have n't I? Where has he played?" "Never in public in this country," and there was a soft, sad tone in the girl's voice; "he is an invalid since twenty years or more. He was sent here from North Germany, and he found my mother in the cañon. She is an American, but she loves music, too." "You must take me home with you,' the President began, but he could not be heard for the cries of "More! More!" For an hour Jean played gay martial airs, hunting songs, and finest of all, perhaps, a rich spring melody. At the close of that the President called out: "Come, fellows, we must be off, or the trainer will have every last man of us before the Athletic Committee." There was a big 'bus for the Dean, and such of the girls as wished to ride, and poor Johnson, who had a sprained ankle, was tumbled in, of course, but the other men, the President's wife and many of the girls thought the six-mile tramp home, on the moon and starlit path, the pleasantest part of the evening. His The walkers started out in little groups, and Jean found Cochran beside her. eyes were full of honest admiration, and his voice had a wealth of good comradeship as he spoke about her music, and asked to carry her violin, so that she liked him at once in spite of her prejudice against football men. They talked at first of the moonlight and of the weather, as is the manner of young people. Then they talked of their college and its ideals and that brought them into the supreme intimacies of life, whither a man always drifts when he is alone with a girl who has touched him by her beauty or her charm. "Tell me of your home," he said to the girl, as he took her hand and placed it within his arm, explaining: "I must take care of you, you know, for the sake of the violin.' Jean told of her cañon home, with its glorious summer-days and their riot of flowers and ferns, its beautiful blue and yellow butterflies and bees glistening like rare jewels in the flower petals. "That is how you came by your wonderful music," the man said softly. "That splendid spring melody you played was like a bird's song, only finer." "I had thought of that," the girl answered. "It has always seemed to me the song of some glad free thing, whose feeling was its life. I am very proud that you felt that, too; I must have put some of it into my playing. "I must remember to tell daddy that he will be pleased. Last summer when he gave me that piece to play, he was much displeased with me at first. I remember how he tramped about, and mother came and sent me away because the excitement was bad for him. "But the next morning, just at sunrise, I heard his voice at my window. He told me to put on my riding-clothes, and then for three days we rode out across the range. We stopped to hear the birds' songs and the call of the wild things to their mates or their young. Once we surprised a beautiful brown deer at its morning drink, and we rode past a sheltered nook where a tiny fawn was hiding. We saw the wild red grass blown in waves across the hillside, and at night we slept in the open, and looked at the stars. O the stars are so wonderful," and the girl stopped with a contented sigh. "Please go on," the man begged. "Well, I must n't try to tell you all I thought and saw, those marvelous days, but when we reached home, father brought my violin. 'Play that spring melody,' he commanded, and I knew then something of what he wanted, and I tried to put the spirit of the spring in it, and the feel of glad free life." All along the line the crowd was singing college songs, and Cochran's deep voice took up the air, seconded by the girl's childish treble: "My bonny is out on the ocean, "Tell me of yourself, now," the girl said when the last echo of the song died away. "Tell me of your college-life; it is all so new and strange!" Cochran told her of his struggles to get on the team, and of how he won out in his freshman year. He told her of his ideals for himself and his men. "I like to think," he said, "that it is the modern representative of the old tournament. We struggle to show the perfection of our bodies, but there is more to it than that, for we try out souls, too—it is n't easy to fight fair within the rules, when you are in the heat of the play. It is most hard not to retaliate when the other fellow plays foul.” "I am glad you told me that," the girl said meditatively. "I shall always like football better after this. I had n't felt any real enthusiasm over it before. It seemed so ox-like, the way you charge, pounds against pounds, but this is better, more worthy of men; I shall always try to think of it so." Cochran swallowed. "You must n't think we live up to our ideals always," he said. He hoped she had n't heard the speeches the night before the Wilson game. He remembered that Ketchem had said: "We'll get the best men off the field, trust us for that," and the College had cheered, cheered like a great mad thing, and he had helped carry Ketchem about and had never hinted by word or manner that he disapproved. Well, it stung him now. This girl and her music had lifted him, someway. He saw Jean often after that night. Sometimes it was only a word, as they passed in the Quad.; sometimes he walked in the flickering light and shadow of the old oak avenue with her; sometimes it was at a dance or party, but always it was with the same intimate friendliness that they had begun that night on the hillside. It might be because he knew little of women that she charmed him so, for his had been a boy's life with boys, yet already he half-divined that no girl would ever hold and sway him as this girl did. It was no far-away niche in which he placed his idol. His every-day business, its work and play, he felt himself reading through those clear Irish blue eyes. When he rushed into the chemistry laboratory almost an hour late, kept to decide some football questions, and copied up the results of the day's experiment, carried conscientiously through by his partner, he felt like a sneak. All the football men do just so, had been enough excuse for him before, but now things looked different. "Bah!" he said to himself, "it's very little chemistry I'll get at these licks, and the old Governor won't like it. But he takes life too seriously." It was the habit of thought of three years, but he blushed now and went through the day very much sobered. He told Jean about it in the evening. "It's the style among many of the fellows," he explained, "but I do n't understand how I ever got in the way of it. My old man is such a brick! 'Why, Jean, he looks after every old tramp just as though he were a millionaire. Last year he was called to Chicago for a consultation, with a big fee attachment and all that, but he would n't go because he had a very serious case of pneumonia that he was pulling through -a working girl in a public hospital!" Tears were in the girl's eyes. "And you are to work with him afterwards; that is what you are planning? What a blessed prospect!" "Dad says I must do things much better than he does, since I have advantages for study that did n't exist in his days. But I am afraid," he added ruefully, "that I have n't taken much advantage of things. You'll hardly believe it, but I have n't been inside the new medical library!" "You'll have more time after Thanksgiving," the girl suggested. "No; we 're to play Jameson December the second, and there will be almost two weeks right out of the heart of things, and then it'll be all I can do to plug up for the finals, and the first semester will be over and no real work done. Whew! I had n't realized how black it looked. Yet the thing has been just so for three years; only once we played Wilson at Christmas, and then I flunked most of my finals." Thanksgiving day found the men in splendid form, with great pads of muscles on their backs and loins. Cochran looked on while the rubbers got them into shape. The team had never shown such perfection of training, he thought, and he was quite sure, too, that it was not overdone, for in that last practice they had shown a pliancy of muscle and a certain irrepressible spring in their movements that shows the high-water mark of training. It had cost a load of money, though, and he wondered a bit if it paid. The men were impatient to be away, and already the wild cheers and the swaying and straining of the ceiling and walls of their little dressing-room told them that the other team was on the field. The coach held them for a last word: "The honor of their college was at stake,” he said. Cochran had heard it all so many times before, and now with his mind concentrated on the game he meant to play, he scarcely heard what was being said. But even not listening, he heard, and felt himself stung through and through. The coach had said: “You 're sure to win except for their quarter. He's the fastest thing in the West, and it 's up to you to put him out, and mighty sudden, too." Cochran raised his hand and the men turned toward him. "Fellows," he said, and his face was strained and white, showing how difficult a thing it was to speak up in that way, "we play fair ball.” "What do you mean?" asked the coach, fairly choking with his anger. "I mean what I said." Cochran's voice was steady and clear. "We play fair ball, or I'm out.” "Hell you are! You would n't dare. The college would pull you to pieces,' the coach sneered. "What's struck Cochran?" the end asked of the fullback. "You'd think he 'd turned Sunday-school supe." But a sharp whistle sounded outside, and the men bounded out upon the field like a pack of bloodhounds, long leashed back. A terrible uproar greeted them, an uproar that expressed hope, confidence and pride. It warmed them up, filled them with patriotism for their College, which was giving them the first place in its life. How much it would mean if they could hold their own against this team of a larger school! Something of this seethed through the minds of the men as the preliminaries for beginning were arranged. What it might mean in men and money,—for rich men have gifts for those who get ahead. They must win! The kick-off gave Cochran's team the ball, and painfully, with heavy pushing they forged ahead. The lines were nearly matched in strength,-that was evident before the game was on three minutes,— and for fifteen minutes one side pushed back what the other side gained. There was almost no fumbling on either side. Cochran's men responded to the signals like a great machine, but they were met and baffled by teamwork just as perfect. Then the teams engaged in a punting duel, but this ended in a deadlock, and Cochran's men began to buck again, hammering and pounding away they gained twenty yards, but lost the ball on downs, and then they were pushed and pounded back over the ground they had so painfully won. Cochran kept a cool head through it all. Sharp and steady, he gave signals, and all the craft he had mastered in a hundred games, and all the new ideas he had mastered from the season's coach he used now, but his science was met by science, as the weight of his men had been met by weight on the other side. As he fought and planned, he kept the little quarter in sight. Mostly he was snug behind his heavy line, and it was evident that he was being guarded by the men of his team. Twice they tried to play him, but Cochran had downed him before he was fairly started, though the long bound at the start, the almost lightning response when the ball was thrown him, showed Cochran that the quarter was, as the coach had predicted, likely to be their finish. The whole line felt it: the strain of watching that little fellow in the red sweater; and Cochran had double duty, for he must down the quarter at every turn, and he must see that none of his own men played him foul. The whistle of the referee called the end of the first half, and neither side had gained an apparent advantage. Cochran's men, limp and dazed, now that they stood up in the sunshine and heard the roar of the multitude, ran to their dressing-room. Then the rubbers got busy again. The men's mouths were sponged with water and lemon, and they all had a suck at the dirty sponges from the buckets of oatmealwater. Belts were loosened and stomachs were well rubbed. The accidents of the field were carefully looked after. Two men had fingers dislocated; these were skilfully taped by the doctor. One man had a great piece of skin torn from his leg; this was replaced and carefully bandaged. Another man had a great torn place in his scalp and his neck and shoulders were caked with blood and dirt; he was cleaned up, and a stitch or two taken to close the gaping wound. The coach was abusing them as the work went on. "They were poor things,' he said; "curs and quitters. They had n't fought with half their strength." Cochran listened to it all. He was resting flat on his back on the floor. The men had done their best; he knew that, and the coach knew it, too, but this was supposed to be the way to rouse the men to action for the second half. Cochran had sometimes taken a hand at the thing himself, but he had no stomach for it now. "They're laying for you with their quarter," the coach went on. "You'll see. He'll be down the field twice before this half is over. You've got to put him out. Don't you have the sand? Are you too weak-bellied to do the right thing? You'll let your college-colors be trampled in the dirt." He looked at Cochran, and his eyes shifted, as they met the steady gaze of the enigmatic eyes, watching and studying him. He was n't sure he had downed the man, and he was sorry he did n't speak up again. He thought he could put him to shame before the men, and lessen the influence of the earlier scene. But Cochran lay still. He had made his protest and he meant to stick by it. There was no use of more talking. In a tent, decorated with red flags and bunting, the visiting team were getting their instructions, too. When they had been on the field but a few minutes, Cochran knew what they had been. With the call of the first signal, the whole red line threw itself against him. The end threw himself across his legs, the tackle charged him like a mad bull, and someone struck him with great open palm, made desperately effective by a steel thumb-guard. He went down under the blow, but it dazed him for only a minute. His own men had seen the blow, and were wild as tigers at the unfair play against their captain. "Steady, boys; keep your heads!" It was Cochran's usual clear tone, though the blood was washing a dirty stream down on his shoulder-guards from a cut near his temple. "You'd better try that again," Ketchem was saying to the men opposite him, grinding his teeth with rage. "Two can play at that very game!" The men looked unconscious, down through the assemblage of blue stockings and shin-guards. With the next signal-call, an unspoken signal passed among Cochran's men. felt it, so keen had his insight become into what the other fellow would do, and He he knew what it portended, and threw himself toward the little quarter with all the power of his mighty body, but another blow and a jab just under the chin from a knee laid him prone, but he saw the quarter bound forward, and then go down under two men. Then he saw, with sickening dismay, that the first man was throwing all the weight of his own and the other man's body toward the point of his great hob-nailed shoe, and the toe rested on the quarter's neck and shoulder. Cochran was near enough to hear a crunching of bone as two other men threw themselves on the pile. The mass was slow in unraveling itself, and the quarter lay limp and unconscious at the bottom. The doctors ran in from the side-lines; a stretcher was brought, and the college cheered as he was carried off the field. The professor of German jammed the man ahead of him with an umbrella. "Gad, is n't it fine! That ends their show of beating us!" A girl in red was softly crying. She was the little quarter's sister, but she sat quite still, for Jack would be disgraced if she even ventured to ask how bad was his hurt. The college was venting its frenzy now in the wild song: "What have we done, What have we done, We've broke the back of Sunny Jack, That's what we 've done!" The lines were quickly in place again. A football game no more than a battle waits at injury or death. Cochran said a word or two to the umpire, and then walked off the field. is it? What has happened?" passed The college stopped in dismay. "What from mouth to mouth. The umpire explained to those near and the word quickly spread: "Foul play, foul play-he won't stand for it," and the college frenzied with anger, called and yelled for it knew not what. 'Our men played foul," the word went on and on. "Bah, what matters," and the college called wildly: "Cochran, Cochran, get into the game!" But Cochran saw nothing of their frenzy and hate; he saw only the tearful, frightened face of a girl, which exulted even in its fear for her knight, suffering loss of power and place for fair play! WILMATTE PORTER COCKERELL. |