Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point Part 19

"If I really thought you needed me-----" began d.i.c.k.

"Of course, if you did actually need two duffers like-----" broke in Cadet Holmes.

"Need you!" retorted Brayton. "I'm almost ashamed to be sitting here with two such cold-blooded duffers. But do you know why I'm here? Because Lieutenant Carney, our coach, told me to come here and actually beg you to turn out---if I had to beg. Now, am I going to be submitted to that humiliation by two fellows I've always liked and considered my friends?"

"Is the football situation as bad as that?", asked d.i.c.k seriously.

"Bad?" repeated Brayton gloomily. "Man, it's _rotten_! Today is Thursday. Sat.u.r.day we have to meet Lehigh. That's a team we can usually beat. Lieutenant Carney is so blue that I believe he'd like to compromise by giving Lehigh the game at a score of twelve to nothing! And the Navy! Think of the fun of having Annapolis strutting around with the Army scalp tied to an anchor!"

"If you really mean what you've been saying," said d.i.c.k slowly, "then we're going tomorrow afternoon. I'm taking the liberty of speaking for Greg."

"That's straight and correct," affirmed Holmes hastily.

"But I'm not sure, Brayton, that you'll find us such bang-up material as you appear to think."

"Oh, bother that!" cried the Football captain jubilantly. "I know what Lieutenant Carney can do with you. So, for the glory the Army, then, you'll come out, after this, and stand by us for the rest of the season?"

"For the glory of the Army, if we have anything to do with it,"

cried d.i.c.k heartily, "we'll 'fess' cold in every confounded study on the third-year list. For the glory of the Army we'll consent to being 'found' and kicked out of the service!"

"Hear, hear!" came rousingly from Cadet Holmes.

"Fellows---thank you!" gasped Brayton, grasping both their hands and shaking them hard. "Lieutenant Carney will be delighted.

So will all the fellows. Mr. Carney has had a hard, up-hill time of it as couch this year. But now---!"

There could be no question that Brayton's joy was real. He was a keen judge of football material, and he had been deeply chagrined when d.i.c.k and Greg had withdrawn from the early training work of the squad.

"It has been fearful work trying get the interest up this year,"

continued Brayton with a reminiscent sigh. "So many good man have been dodging the squad! Even Haynes, who is the best we have at left end, ducked this afternoon. Caesar's ghost may know what Haynes was doing with his time---I don't. But I don't believe he was boning."

Prescott smiled quietly to himself as he recalled how Cadet Haynes had been employing his leisure in this very room.

"Well, I'm happy, and Lieutenant Carney will be," muttered Brayton, turning to go. "A whole lot of us will feel easier."

"Any idea where you'll try to play us?" asked d.i.c.k, as the captain of the Army eleven rested his hand on the k.n.o.b.

"Not much; we'll find out during tomorrow afternoon's practice.

Be sharp on time, won't you?"

"If we're able to walk," promised d.i.c.k.

Just after Brayton had gone the orderly came through with mail.

"You got something, eh?" asked Greg.

"Yes; a letter from grand old Dave Darrin," cried d.i.c.k, as he broke the seal of the envelope.

"Let me know the news," begged Holmes.

"Whoop! Dave is on the Navy football team. So is Dan Dalzell!

Both have gone in at the eleventh hour."

"Great Scott!" breathed Greg, rising to his feet. "I wonder if we're going to be placed on the line where we'll have to b.u.mp 'em in the Army-Navy game?"

"We may be, if we get on the line," uttered Prescott, as he finished the epistle. "Here, Greg, read it for yourself. That will be quicker than waiting for me to tell you the news from our old chums."

The next afternoon both Prescott and Holmes turned out on the gridiron practice work. Both proved to be in fine form. Lieutenant Carney, the Army coach, devoted most of his attention to them.

After some preliminary work the Army eleven was lined up against a "scrub" team of cadets.

"Mr. Prescott, go to left end on the team," directed Coach Carney.

"Mr. Haynes, take the right end on scrub. Mr. Holmes, you will be left tackle on the Army team for this bit of work. The captains of both teams will now line their men up. Scrub will have the ball and make the kick-off. Make all the play brisk and snappy.

Work for speed and strategy, not impact."

With that, Lieutenant Carney ran over to the edge of the gridiron, leaving another officer, of the coaching force, to officiate as referee.

The ball was placed in play. At the kick-off the ball came to Greg, who pa.s.sed it to d.i.c.k. The interference formed, backed by Brayton.

"Put it around their right end!" growled Brayton, the word pa.s.sing swiftly to Prescott.

Haynes was darting in, blood in his eye, backed the whole right flank of scrub.

Greg and the rest of the available interference got swiftly and squarely in the way of Haynes and the others. There was a scrimmage.

Out of it, somehow---none looking on could tell just how it was done---Prescott emerged from the mix-up, darting swiftly to the left and around. He had made twenty-five yards with the ball Before he was nailed and downed.

Lieutenant Carney looked, as he felt, delighted. The spectators, all of them crazy for the Army's success, broke into yells of joy. d.i.c.k had done the spectacular part of the trick, but he could not have succeeded without the swift, intelligent help that Holmes had given. Playing together, they had sprung one of the clever ruses that both had perfected back in the old Gridley days.

Haynes was furious. He was panting. There was an angry flash in his eyes as both teams lined up for the snap-back.

"That fellow has come out into the field just to spite me," snarled Haynes to himself.

At the signal, the ball was snapped back, and pa.s.sed swiftly to d.i.c.k. Haynes fairly leaped into the scrimmage, as though it were deadly hand-to-hand conflict. But d.i.c.k and Greg, with the backing of their comrades on the Army eleven, bore Haynes down to earth in the mad stampede that pa.s.sed over him. Fifteen yards more were gained, and scrub's half-backs were feeling sore in body.

"That man Prescott is a wonder," muttered Lieutenant Carney to a brother officer of the Army. "Or else Holmes is. It's hard to say which of the pair is doing the trick. I think both of them are."

"How on earth, Carney, did you come to overlook that pair until now?"

"I didn't overlook them," retorted the Army coach. "I had them spotted when the training first began. But both dropped out on the claim that they feared for their standing in academy work."

"A pair like that," muttered Captain Courteney, "ought to be excused for any kind of recitations during the football season. Jove! Look at that---Prescott has made a touchdown"

"Prescott carried the ball," amended Lieutenant Barney, "but Holmes certainly had as much to do with the touchdown as Prescott did."

"They're wonders!" cried Captain Courteney joyously. "And to think that you didn't have that pair out last year."

"Both refused even to think of going into training last year,"

retorted the Army coach. "Both were keen on the bone. But, bone or no bone, we've got to have them on the eleven the rest of this season."