the game in his own hands. He saw the faces of Tough McCarty and
the Coffee-colored Angel in the blank crowd about him and he saw the
sneer on their faces as they waited for his answer. Then he saw the
faces of his own teammates and knew what they, in their frenzy,
expected from him.

He hesitated.

"Goal or no goal?" cried the umpire, for the second time.

Then suddenly, face to face with the hostile mass, the fighting blood
came to Dink. Something cold went up his back. He looked once more
above the riot, to the shadowy posts, trying to forget Tough McCarty,
and then, with a snap to his jaws, he answered:

"Goal."

XVIII

Dink returned to his room in a rage against everything and every one,
at Slugger Jones for having submitted the question, at Tough McCarty
for having looked as though he expected a lie, and at himself for ever
having acted as linesman.

If it had not been the last days before the Andover match he would
have found some consolation in rushing over to the Woodhull and
provoking McCarty to the long-deferred fight.

"He thought I'd lie out of it," he said furiously. "He did; I saw it.
I'll settle that with him, too. Now I suppose every one in this
house'll be down on me; but they'd better be mighty careful how they
express it."

For as he had left the field he had heard only too clearly how the
Kennedy eleven, in the unreasoning passion of conflict, had expressed
itself. At present, through the open window, the sounds of violent
words were borne up to him from below. He approached and looked down
upon the furious assembly.

"Damn me up and down, damn me all you want," he said, doubling up his
fists. "Keep it up, but don't come up to me with it."

Suddenly, back of him, the door opened and shut and Dennis de Brian de
Boru Finnegan stood in the room.

"I say, Dink----"

"Get out," said Stover furiously, seizing a pillow.

Finnegan precipitately retired and, placing the door between him and
the danger, opened it slightly and inserted his freckled little nose.

"I say, Dink----"

"Get out, I told you!" The pillow struck the door with a bang. "I
won't have any one snooping around here!"

The next instant Dennis, resolved on martyrdom, stepped inside,
saying:

"I say, old man, if it'll do you any good, take it out on me."

Stover, thus defied, stopped and said:

"Dennis, I don't want to talk about it."

"All right," said Dennis, sitting down.

"And I want to be alone."