o
support the wavering tackle. Whenever it was possible, he contrived to
take a little more than his share of buffeting in the forward plunge,
to bear the brunt of each attack. There were times, of course--notably
when Ranny himself carried the ball--that this was impossible, and then
it was that Wilks's shrinking became unmistakable.

"He's got cold feet," decided Tompkins, with the mild wonder of one to
whom the game had never brought anything but exhilaration and delight.
"They must be mighty good friends for Phelps to help him out like that!"

He sighed a little wistfully. Ranny was letting no chance slip these days
to show his disapproval of the newest member of the troop. There were
others, too, who followed his example and treated the tenderfoot with
marked coldness. Even stout Harry Vedder, though occasionally forgetting
himself in the heat of play, lacked the good-natured friendliness of
that first day. To be sure, these were far from being a majority. They
included practically only the members of Ranny Phelps's own patrol;
the others had apparently accepted Tompkins as one of the bunch and
continued to treat him as such. But Dale's was a friendly nature, and
it troubled him a little, when he had time to think about it, to be the
object of even a passive hostility.

These moments, however, were few and far between. What with football
every afternoon, with lessons and occasional studying for the
second-class tests, to say nothing of his paper-route and some extra
delivery-work he had undertaken to add to his "suit" money, his days
were pretty full. Besides, that doubt as to the entire efficiency of
the team continued to worry him much more than any small personal trouble.

On Saturday they played Troop Six, and Dale sat among the substitutes on
the side-lines. It was an admirable chance for sizing up the playing
of the team as a whole, and before the end of the second quarter his
freckled forehead was puckered with worried lines. He had no fear of
their losing the game. Their opponents had notoriously the weakest team
in the entire scout league, and already two goals had been scored against
it. The tenderfoot was thinking of next Saturday, and wondering more and
more what sort of a showing the fellows would make then.

Earlier in the season, Dale had watched Troop One throughout an entire
game, and even then he had noted their clever team-work. As individuals,
perhaps, they might not match up to his own orga