llen lips, trying to keep the pride
from his voice.

Amy threw up his hands in despair.

"I'll say no more," he declared. "You're past help, Clint. You've tasted
blood. Go on, you poor mistaken hero, and maim yourself for life. I
wash my hands of you."

"You'd better wash them of some of that dirt I see and come to supper,"
Clint mumbled. "Gee, if I'd talked half as much as you have in the last
ten minutes I'd be starved!"

CHAPTER IV

CLINT CUTS PRACTICE

Brimfield played the first game on her schedule a few days later,
winning without difficulty from Miter Hill School in ten-minute periods
by a score of 17 to 0. There was much ragged football on each side; but
Brimfield showed herself far more advanced than her opponent and had,
besides, the advantage of a heavier team. Clint looked on from the
bench, with some forty others, and grew more hopeless than ever of
making good this year. His present status was that of substitute tackle
on the third squad, and it didn't look as though he'd get beyond that
point. If he had expected his introduction to Jack Innes to help his
advancement he must have been disappointed, for the Captain, while he
invariably spoke when he saw him, and once inquired in the locker-room
how Clint was getting along, paid little attention to him. So far as
Clint could see, nobody cared whether he reported for practice or not.
Toward the end of an afternoon, when the third was fortunate enough to
get into a few minutes of scrimmage with the second, Clint usually
finished up at right or left tackle. But he couldn't help thinking that
were he not there his absence would go unremarked. Even on the to him
memorable occasion when he broke through the second's line on a fumble
and, seizing the ball, romped almost unchallenged over the last four
white lines for a touchdown the incident went apparently unnoticed. One
or two of his team-mates patted him approvingly on the back, but that
was all. Clint was beginning to have moments of discouragement.

But two days after the Miter Hill game an incident occurred which proved
him wrong in thinking that no one knew or cared whether he reported for
practice. That morning's Greek had gone unusually badly for Clint and
Mr. Simkins had kept him after class and talked some plain talk to him.
When Clint's final recitation of the day was over at three he was
out-of-sorts and depressed. He felt very little like playing football
and still less like studying, but