, Reddy?" asked Hendricks, aghast.

"I wish I wasn't," was the answer, "but I've seen too many of them not
to know."

To poor Ellis the words sounded like the knell of doom. The pain was
excruciating, but in the rush of sensations it seemed nothing. The real
disaster lay in the fact that it put him definitely off the football
team. All his work, all his sacrifice of time and ease, all his hopes of
winning honor and glory under the colors of the old college had vanished
utterly. Henceforth, he could be only a looker on where he had so fondly
figured himself as a contender. His face was white as ashes, and the
coach shrank from the look of abject misery in his eyes.

"Come now, old man, buck up," he tried to comfort him. "We'll send for
the best surgeon in New York, and he'll have you on your feet again
before you know it. You may make the big games yet." But in his heart he
knew that it was impossible, and so did all the pale-faced crowd of
players who gathered round their injured comrade and carried him with
infinite care and gentleness to his rooms.

The rest of the practice was foregone that afternoon as, under the
conditions, it would have been simply a farce, and the players made
their way moodily off the field, chewing the bitter cud of their
reflections. Sympathy with Ellis and consternation over this new blow to
their prospects filled their minds to the exclusion of everything else.

Bert and Tom and Dick--the "Three Guardsmen," as they had been jokingly
called, as they were always together--walked slowly toward their rooms.
The jaunty swing and elastic step characteristic of them were utterly
gone. Their hearts had been bound up in the hope of victory, and now
that hope was rapidly receding and bade fair to vanish altogether.

Apart from the general loss to the team, each had his own particular
grievance. Tom, as quarterback, saw with dismay the prospect of drilling
the new men in the complicated system of signals, of which there were
more than sixty, each of which had to be grasped with lightning
rapidity. The slightest failure might throw the whole team in hopeless
confusion. Dick was ruminating on the loss of Ellis, whose position in
the line had been right at his elbow, and with whom he had learned to
work with flawless precision on the defense. And Bert would miss sorely
the swift and powerful cooeperation of Axtell at right half. Those two in
the back field had been an army in themselves.

"The whol