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"You remember Cowan, I guess," Devoe was saying. "He played right-guard last year." Mills and Cowan shook hands. "And this is Fletcher, a new man," continued the captain, "and Gale, too; they're both Hillton fellows and played at half. It was Fletcher that made that fine run in the St. Eustace game. Gale was the captain last year."
Witter and Hurst were seized upon by the coaches and drilled in the tactics of right-guard. As Foster had said, Witter, while he was a good player, was light for the position. Hurst, against whom no objection could be brought on the ground of weight, lacked experience.
Cowan took Witter's place at right-guard, Reardon went in at quarter in place of Bailey, and Neil, who had watched the first half greedily from the side-line, went in at left half. It was Dexter's kick-off, and she sent the ball fully forty yards. Reardon called to Neil to take it. That youth got it on his ten yards, and by fine dodging ran it back to the eighteen-yard line.
From there a kick from placement had been tried, but Gale, Hillton's captain and right half-back, had been thrown before his foot had touched the leather, and the St. Eustace right-guard had fallen on the ball. A few minutes later a fumble returned the pigskin to Hillton on the Blue's thirty-three yards, and once more the advance was taken up.
The substitute was a lighter man, as the next try at his position showed, and the gains through the guard-tackle hole still went on. Yates's team now held four substitutes, although with the exception of Douglas, the substitute right-guard, none of them was perceptibly inferior to the men whose places they took.
"No, I haven't much flesh about me," panted Neil; "but I'm glad this is the last time around, just the same!" After their baths in the little green-roofed locker-house the two walked back to the yard together, Paul, as Neil saw, being in close companionship with a big youth whose name, according to Foster, was Tom Cowan. "He played right-guard last year," said Foster.
The veterans on the team, Tucker at left tackle, Graham at center, Cowan at right-guard, Foster at quarter, and Devoe at right end, played well with the glaring exception of Cowan, whose work in the second half especially was so slipshod that Mills, with wrath in his eye, took him out and put in Bell, a second eleven man.
Meanwhile the athletic authorities of Erskine and the coaches were met in extraordinary session. They were considering a letter which had arrived that afternoon from Collegetown. In the letter Robinson announced her protest of Thomas L. Cowan, right-guard on the Erskine football team, on the score of professionalism.
On the 5th of October a varsity and a second squad were formed, and Neil and Paul found themselves at left and right half respectively on the latter. Cowan was back at right-guard on the varsity, a position which he had played satisfactorily the year before. Neil had already made the discovery that he had, despite his Hillton experience, not a little to learn, and he set about learning it eagerly.
"It just means," wailed Foster, who had brought the tidings to Neil and Paul, "that it's all over with us. I don't know what Cowan has to say, but I'll bet a I'll bet my new typewriter! that Robinson's right. And with Cowan gone from right-guard, where are we? We haven't the ghost of a show. The only fellow they can play in his place is Witter, and he's a pygmy.
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