at he
knew it, for once in a lull of the signal practice he looked up to find
Roy's eyes on him sympathetically, and he smiled back with a dubious
shake of his head that spoke volumes. Things weren't going very well,
and that was a fact. The loss of Horace Burlen during that first month
of practice meant a good deal, for Horace was a steady center and an
experienced one. To a lesser extent the absence of Pryor and Warren,
Horace's friends in exile, retarded the development of the team. By the
end of the second week of practice a provisional eleven had been formed,
for Mr. Cobb believed in getting the men together as soon as possible,
having learned from experience that team work is not a thing that can
be instilled in a mere week or two of practice. Whitcomb was playing
center on the first squad in Horace's absence. Roy was at quarter on the
second, with a slow-moving young giant named Forrest in front of him.
But Forrest was good-natured as well as slow, and in consequence he and
Roy got on very well, although they never exchanged unnecessary remarks.
The back field had learned that Jack Rogers would not stand any
nonsense, and if they had any desire to make things uncomfortable for
the quarter-back they didn't indulge it on the football field. The
second stood up very well in those days before the first, in spite of
the fact that sometimes there weren't enough candidates to fill the
places of injured players. With only forty-odd fellows to draw from it
was remarkable that Ferry Hill turned out the teams that it did.

Meanwhile life was growing easier for Roy. Even the younger boys had
begun to tire of showing their contempt, while the fact that Chub Eaton
had "taken up" the new boy went a long way with the school in general.
Chub was not popular in the closest sense of the word; he was far too
indifferent for that; but every fellow who knew him at all liked
him--with the possible exception of Horace--and his position of baseball
captain made him a person of importance. Consequently, when the school
observed that Chub had selected Roy for a friend it marvelled for a few
days and then began to wonder whether there might not be, after all,
extenuating circumstances in the new boy's favor. And besides this
Roy's work on the gridiron had been from the first of the sort to
command respect no matter how unwilling. And it was about this time that
another friend was restored to him.

Roy had come across Harry but once or twic