passing stadium, met overhead,
broke and descended upon the head of the speeding runner in a shower of
fragmentary vowels and consonants. Still on and on went Right Tackle
Thayer. Friend and enemy were far behind. Victory stretched eager arms
toward him. With a last, gallant effort he plunged across the goal line
and fell unconscious beneath the cross-bar. At a given signal a wreath
of laurel descended from above and fitted about his noble brow. The
score: Thayer, 98; Claflin, 0!'"

"Just the same," muttered Clint, when he had stopped laughing, "I'm
scared. And I _do_ wish Robey had let me alone."

"Coward!" taunted Amy. "Quitter! Youth of chilly extremities!"

"I'll have to learn new signals, too. And that's a beast of a job, Amy."

"Sluggard! Lazy-bones! Dawdler!"

"Shut up! I wish it was you, by ginger!"

"If it was me," replied Amy, "do you think I'd be sitting there clasping
my hands agonisedly? Not much I wouldn't be sitting there handing my
clasp ango--Well, I wouldn't! I'd be out on the Row with my head up and
my thumbs in the pockets of my vest; only I haven't any vest on; and I'd
be letting folks know what had happened to me. You don't deserve the
honour of making the 'varsity in your fourth year, Clint. You don't
appreciate it. Why, look at poor old Freer. He's been trying to make
himself a regular for three years and he's still just a substitute!"

"That's what I'll be," said Clint. "You don't suppose, do you, that
they're going to put me in the first line-up?"

"Well, not for a day or two," answered Amy airily. "But after that
you'll be a regular feature of the day's entertainment. And, zowie, how
the second will lay for you and hand it to you! They'll consider you a
traitor, a renegade, a--a backslider, Clint, and they'll go after you
hard. Better lay in a full supply of arnica and sterilised gauze and
plaster, my noble hero, for you'll get yours all right, all right!"

"I don't see why they need to look at it that way," objected the other.
"I didn't _want_ to leave the second!"

"But they won't believe it, Clint. I'm sorry for you, but the path of
glory is indeed hard!"

It was.

And Clint frequently doubted during the next week that glory had
anything to do with it. When, on Tuesday afternoon, he reported to Mr.
Robey, that gentleman cast a speculative look over him, nodded and said
briefly: "See Mr. Detweiler, Thayer."

Clint sought the assisting coach. "Mr. Robey told me to report to you