t, I want to play guard but I don't know
how, and I wish you'd tell me how you do it,' why, you wouldn't have any
trouble, would you?"

"N-no, sir, I guess not," replied Don a trifle doubtfully.

"Well, there you are. Try it, anyway. You'll get on all right. I'll be
right on hand to dig the spurs in when your courage fails." Mr.
Boutelle smiled. "We're going to have a dandy second team this fall, my
boy. We've got nothing to build on, only a lot of green material, and
that's the best part of it. I don't care how inexperienced the material
is if it's willing to learn and has the usual number of arms and legs
and such things and a few ounces of grey matter in the cranium. Well,
here we go. Nothing today but passing and punting, I guess. Sure your
hand's all right?"

"Yes, sir, thanks. I don't really need this contrivance; it's awfully
clumsy; but Doc said I'd better wear it for a few days."

"Best to be on the safe side. I'll have you take one squad of these
chaps, I guess, and I'll give the other to Lewis. You know the usual
stuff, Gilbert. Rest 'em up now and then; they're soft and the weather's
warm. But work 'em when they're working. Any fellow who soldiers gets
bounced. All out, second squad!"

There wasn't anything that afternoon but the sort of drudgery that tries
the enthusiasm of the tyro: passing the ball in circles, falling on it,
catching it on the bound and starting. Don was surprised to discover how
soft he was in spite of his daily exercise on the cinders. When the
hour's practice was over he was just about as thankful as any of the
puffing, perspiring youths around him. Considering it afterward, Don was
unable to view the material with the enthusiasm Mr. Boutelle had
displayed. To him the thirty-odd boys who had reported for the second
team were a hopeless lot, barring, of course, a few, not more than four
in all, who had had experience last season. In another week Mr. Robey
would make a cut in the first squad and the second would find itself
augmented by some ten or twelve cast-offs. But just now the second squad
looked to Don to be a most unlikely lot. When he confided all this to
Tim that evening the latter said:

"Don't you worry, old man. Boots will make a team out of them. Why, he
could make a football team out of eleven clothing store dummies!
Sometimes I think that Boots ought to be head coach instead of Robey.
I've got nothing against Robey, either. He's a bit of a 'miracle man'
himself, _b