s. It was as if they were doubtfully testing
out Tompkins's statement that it was more fun to fight back than to
be walked over, and finding an unexpected pleasure in the process.

Amazed at first, Sherman Ward lost no time in helping along the good
work. After the third down he gave the scrub the ball and urged them to
make the other fellows hustle. They took him up with a will. Saunders's
perfunctory bark became snappy and full of life; more than one of the
hitherto grouchy players added his voice to the general racket. But
through it all, the good-natured urgence of Dale Tompkins, with that
underlying note of perfect faith in their willingness to try anything,
continued to stir the fellows to their best efforts. The swiftly falling
autumn twilight found the regulars fighting harder than they had ever
done before to hold back the newly galvanized scrub. To the latter it
brought a novel sensation. For the first time on record they were
almost sorry to see the end of practice.

Streaking across the field to the shed which had been fixed up for a
dressing-room, they laughed, and joked, and vehemently discussed the
latter plays.

"Wait till to-morrow!" shrilly advised one of the scrub. "We won't do
a thing to you guys, will we, Tommy?"

"That's the talk!" agreed Tompkins, smilingly. "We'll make 'em hump, all
right."

He seemed quite unconscious of having done anything in the least out
of the ordinary. On the contrary, he was filled with grateful happiness
at the subtle change in the manner of many of the fellows toward him.
It wasn't that they praised his playing. Except Sherman, who briefly
commended him, no one actually mentioned that. But instead of Tompkins,
they called him Tommy; they jollied and joshed him, argued and disputed
and chaffed with a boisterous friendliness as if he had never been
anything else than one of them. And the tenderfoot, hustling into his
clothes that he might make haste to start out with his papers, glowed
inwardly, responding to the treatment as a flower opens before the sun.

From the background Ranny Phelps observed it all with silent
thoughtfulness. Quick-witted as he was, it did not take long for him to
realize the changed conditions, to understand that he could not
longer treat the new-comer with open, careless insolence as a fellow
who did not count. But far from altering his opinion of Tompkins, the new
developments merely served to strengthen his dislike, which speedily
crysta