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From that moment until dinner was over at the training-house Ken appeared to be the centre of a humming circle. What was said and done he never remembered. Then the coach stopped the excitement. "Boys, now for a heart-to-heart talk," he said, with a smile both happy and grave. "We won to-day, as I predicted.
On the afternoon of the game Worry waited at the training-house until all the players came down-stairs in uniform. "Boys, what's happened in the past doesn't count. We start over to-day. I'm not goin' to say much or confuse you with complex team coachin'. But I'm hopeful. I sort of think there's a nigger in the woodpile. I'll tell you to-night if I'm right.
He travelled all night, sleeping on the train, and got home to the training-house about nine the next morning. Worry was out, Scotty said, and the boys had all gone over to college. Ken went up-stairs and found Raymond in bed. "Why, Kel, what's the matter?" asked Ken. "I'm sick," replied Kel. He was pale and appeared to be in distress. "Oh, I'm sorry. Can't I do something? Get you some medicine?
And I hold my breath when I tell you." It was remarkably quiet about the training-house all that morning. The coach sent a light lunch to the boys in their rooms. They had orders to be dressed, and to report in the reading-room at one-thirty. Raymond came down promptly on time. "Where's Peg?" asked Worry. "Why, I thought he was here, ahead of me," replied Raymond, in surprise.
At this juncture Reddy Ray entered the training-house. More than once Ken had gone to the great sprinter with confidences and troubles, and now he began impulsively, hurriedly, incoherently, to tell the story. "And Reddy," concluded Ken, "I've got to tell the directors. It's something hard for me to explain. I couldn't pitch another game with this hanging over me.
The boys roared, and Weir strode off in high dudgeon. That day Duncan purchased a box of pink envelopes, and being expert with a pen, he imitated the neat handwriting and addressed pink envelopes to every boy in the training-house. Next morning no one except Weir seemed in a hurry to answer the postman's ring. He came in with the letters and his jaw dropping.
"I'm in for anything now." "We'll go back to the training-house with long faces. When we get in you run up-stairs as if you couldn't face any one, but be sure to sneak back to the head of the stairs to see and hear the fun. I'll fix Worry all right. Now, don't flunk. It's a chance." Ken could not manage to keep a straight face as they went in, so he hid it and rushed up-stairs.
The slow return to the tavern, dressing and going to the station, the ride home, the arrival at the training-house, the close-pressing, silent companionship of Reddy Ray, Worry, and Raymond these were dim details of that day of calamity. Ken Ward's mind was dead locked on that fatal moment when he pitched a low ball to MacNeff.
Then began the triumphant march about Grant Field and to the training-house. It was a Wayne day, a day for the varsity, for Homans and Raymond, and for the great sprinter, but most of all it was Peg Ward's day. The Wayne varsity was a much-handled, storm-tossed team before it finally escaped the clutches of the students. Every player had a ringing in his ears and a swelling in his heart.
He wore a disreputable uniform and a small green cap over one ear. "Aw! don't get funny!" he replied. Ken moved away muttering to himself: "That fellow's a grouch." Much to his amazement, when he got to the training-house, Ken found that he could not get inside because so many players were there ahead of him.
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