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CHAPTER IX
THE BROKEN TRICYCLE

As soon as Livingston heard the kidnapers staggering down-stairs with their burden he unlocked the bed-room door and stole to the window. He saw Neil, his head hidden by the carriage robe, thrust into the hack and driven away, and saw the conspirators for whom the vehicle afforded no room separate and disappear in the gathering darkness. Livingston's emotions were varied: admiration for Neil's harebrained but successful ruse, distaste for the sorry part taken by himself in the affair, and amusement over the coming amazement and discomfiture of the enemy were mingled. In the end delight in the frustration of the sophomores' plan gained the ascendency, and he resolved that although Neil would miss the freshman dinner he should have it made up to him.

And so in his speech an hour or so later Fanwell Livingston told the astonished company of the attempted kidnaping and of its failure, and never before had Odd Fellows' Hall rang with such laughter and cheering. And a little knot of sophomores, already bewildered by the appearance of the freshman president on the scene, were more than ever at a loss. They stood under an awning across the street, some twenty or thirty of them, and asked each other what it meant. Content with the supposed success of the abduction, they had made no attempt to prevent the dinner. And now Livingston, who by every law of nature should be five miles out in the country, was presiding at the feast and moving his audience to the wildest applause.

"But I helped put him in the hack!" Carey cried over and over.

"And I saw it drive off with him!" marveled another.

"And if that's Livingston, where's Baker, and Morton, and Cowan, and Dyer?" asked the rest. And all shook their heads and gazed bewildered through the rain to where a raised window-shade gave them occasional glimpses of "Fan" Livingston, a fine figure in dinner jacket and white shirt bosom, leading the cheering.

"Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Fletcher!"

The group under the awning turned puzzled looks upon each other.

"Who's Fletcher? What are they cheering Fletcher for?" was asked. But none could answer.

But over in the hall it was different. Not a lad there, perhaps, but would have been glad to have exchanged places with the gallant confounder of sophomore plots, who was pictured in most minds as starving to death somewhere out in the rain, a captive in the ungentle hands of the enemy.

However, starving Neil certainly was not. For at that very moment, seated at the hospitable board of Farmer Hutchins, he was helping himself to his fifth hot biscuit, and allowing Miss Hutchins, a red-cheeked and admiring young lady of fourteen years, to fill his teacup for the second time. From the role of prisoner Neil had advanced himself to the position of honored guest. For after the first consternation, bewilderment, and mortification had passed, his captors philosophically accepted the situation, and under the benign influence of cold chicken and hot soda biscuits found themselves not only able to display equanimity, but to join in the laugh against themselves and to admire the cleverness displayed in their out-witting. Of the four sophomores Cowan's laughter and praise alone rang false. But Neil was supremely indifferent to that youth's sentiments. The others he soon discovered to be thoroughly good fellows, and there is no doubt but that he enjoyed the hospitality of Farmer Hutchins more than he would have enjoyed the freshman class dinner.

At nine o'clock the drive back to Centerport began, and as the horses soon found that they were headed toward home the journey occupied surprisingly little time, and at ten Neil was back in his room awaiting the return of Paul. To Neil's surprise that gentleman was at first decidedly grumpy.

"You might have let me into it," he grumbled.

But Neil explained and apologized until at length peace was restored. Then he had to tell Paul all about it from first to last, and Paul laughed until he choked; "I–I just wish–wish I had–seen Cowan's–face when–he–found it–out!" he shrieked.

One result of that night's adventure was that the Class of 1905 was never thereafter bothered in the slightest degree by the sophomores; it appeared to be the generally accepted verdict that the freshmen had established their right to immunity from all molestation. Another result was that Neil became a class hero and a college notable. Younger freshmen pointed him out to each other in admiring awe; older and more influential ones went out of their way to claim recognition from him; sophomores viewed him with more than passing interest, and upper-class men predicted for him a brilliant college career. Even the Dean, when he passed Neil the following afternoon and returned his bow, allowing himself something almost approaching a grin. Neil, however, bore his honors modestly even while acknowledging to himself the benefit of them. He learned that his chances of making a certain society, membership in which was one of his highest ambitions, had been more than doubled, and was glad accordingly. (He was duly elected and underwent rigorous initiation proudly and joyfully.)

The kidnaping affair even affected his football standing, for Mills and Devoe and Simson, the trainer, spoke or looked applause, while the head coach thereafter displayed quite a personal interest in him. Several days subsequent to the affair Neil was taking dummy practise with the rest of the second eleven. Mills had appropriated the invention of a Harvard trainer, rigging the dummy with hook and eye-bolt, so that when properly tackled the stuffed canvas effigy of a Robinson player became detached from its cable and fell on to the soft loam much after the manner of a human being. But to bring the dummy from the hook necessitated the fiercest of tackling, and many fellows failed at this. To-day Neil was one of this number. Twice the dummy, bearing upon its breast the brown R of Robinson, had sped away on its twenty-foot flight, and twice Neil had thrown himself upon it without bringing it down. As he arose after the second attempt and brushed the soil from his trousers Mills "went for him."

"You're very ladylike, Fletcher, but as this isn't crewel-work or crochet you'll oblige me by being so rude as to bring that dummy off. Now, once more; put some snap into it! Get your hold, find your purchase, and then throw! Just imagine it's a sophomore, please."

The roar of laughter that followed restored some of Neil's confidence, and, whether he deceived himself into momentarily thinking the dummy a sophomore, he tackled finely, brought the canvas figure from the hook, and triumphantly sat on the letter R.

Signal practise followed work at the dummy that afternoon, and last of all the varsity and second teams had their daily line-up. Neil, however, did not get into this. Greatly to his surprise and disappointment McCullough took his place at left half, and Neil sat on the bench and aggrievedly watched the lucky ones peeling off their sweaters in preparation for the fray. But idleness was not to be his portion, for a moment later Mills called to him:

"Here, take this ball, go down there to the fifteen-yard line, and try drop-kicking. Keep a strict count, and let me know how many tries you had and how many times you put it over the goal."

Neil took the ball and trotted off to the scene of his labors, greatly comforted. Kicking goals from the fifteen-yard line didn't sound very difficult, and he set to work resolved to distinguish himself. But drop-kicks were not among Neil's accomplishments, and he soon found that the cross-bar had a way of being in the wrong place at the critical moment. At first it was hard to keep from turning his head to watch the progress of the game, but presently he became absorbed in his work. As a punter he had been somewhat of a success at Hillton, but drop-kicking had been left to the full-back, and consequently it was unaccustomed work. The first five tries went low, and the next four went high enough but wide of the goal. The next one barely cleared the cross-bar, and Neil was hugely tickled. The count was then ten tries and one goal. He got out of the way in order to keep from being ground to pieces by the struggling teams, and while he stood by and watched the varsity make its first touch-down, ruminated sadly upon the report he would have to render to Mills.

But a long acquaintance with footballs had thoroughly dispelled Neil's awe of them, and he returned to his labor determined to better his score. And he did, for when the teams trotted by him on their way off the field and Mills came up, he was able to report 38 tries, of which 12 were goals.

"Not bad," said the coach. "That'll do for to-day. But whenever you find a football, and don't know what to do with it, try drop-kicking. Your punting is very good, and there's no reason why you shouldn't learn to kick from drop or placement as well. Take my advice and put your heart and brain and muscle into it, for, while we've got backs that can buck and hurdle and run, we haven't many that can be depended on to kick a goal, and we'll need them before long."

Neil trotted out to the locker-house with throbbing heart. Mills had as good as promised him his place. That is, if he could learn to kick goals. The condition didn't trouble Neil, however; he could learn to drop-kick and he would learn, he told himself exultantly as he panted under the effects of a cold shower-bath. For a moment the wild idea of rising at unchristian hours and practising before chapel occurred to him, but upon maturer thought was given up. No, the only thing to do was to follow Mills's advice: "Put your heart and brain and muscle into it," the coach had said. Neil nodded vigorously and rubbed himself so hard with the towel as to almost take the skin off. He was late in leaving the house that evening, and as all the fellows he knew personally had already taken their departure, he started back toward the campus alone. Near the corner of King Street he glanced up and saw something a short distance ahead that puzzled him. It looked at first like a cluster of bicycles with a single rider. But as the rider was motionless Neil soon came up to him.

On nearer view he saw that the object was in reality a tricycle, and that it held beside the rider a pair of crutches which lay in supports lengthwise along one side. The machine was made to work with the hands instead of the feet, and a bow-shaped piece of steel which fitted around the operator's knee served as steering apparatus. The youth who sat motionless on the seat was a rather pale-faced, frail-looking lad of eighteen years, and it needed no second glance to tell Neil that he was crippled from his waist down. As Neil approached he was pulling the handles to and fro and looking perplexedly at the gear. The tricycle refused to budge.

"I guess you've broken down," said Neil, approaching. "Stay where you are and I'll have a look."

"Thanks, but you needn't bother," said the lad.

But Neil was already on his knees. The trouble was soon found; the chain had broken and for the present was beyond repair.

"But the wheels will go round, just the same," said Neil cheerfully. "Keep your seat and I'll push you back. Where do you room?"

"Walton," was the answer. "But I don't like to bother you, Mr. Fletcher. You see I have my crutches here, and I can get around very well on them."

"Nonsense, there's no use in your walking all the way to Walton. Here, I'll take the chain off and play horse. By the way, how'd you know my name?"

"Oh, every one knows you since that kidnaping business," laughed the other, beginning to forget some of his shyness. "And besides I've heard the coach speak to you at practise."

"Oh," said Neil, who was now walking behind the tricycle and pushing it before him, "then you've been out to the field, eh?"

"Yes, I like to watch practise. I go out very nearly every day."

"Come to think of it, I believe I've seen you there," said Neil. "It's wonderful how you can get around on this machine as you do. Isn't it hard work at times?"

"Rather, on grades, you know. But on smooth roads it goes very easily; besides, I've worked it every day almost for so long that I've got a pretty good muscle now. My father had this one made for me only two months ago to use here at Erskine. The last machine I had was very much heavier and harder to manage."

"I guess being so light has made it weak," said Neil, "or it wouldn't have broken down like this."

"Oh, I fancy that was more my fault than the tricycle's," answered the boy. As Neil was behind him he did not see the smile that accompanied the words.

"Well, I'll take you home and then wheel the thing down to the bicycle repair-shop near the depot, eh?"

"Oh, no, indeed," protested the other. "I'll–I'll have them send up for it. I wouldn't have you go way down there with it for anything."

"Pshaw! that's no walk; besides, if you have them send, it will be some time to-morrow afternoon before you get it back."

"I sha'n't really need it before then," answered the lad earnestly.

"You might," said Neil. There was such a tone of finality in the reply that the boy on the seat yielded, but for an instant drew his face into a pucker of perplexity.

"Thank you," he said; "it's awfully nice of you to take so much trouble."

"I can't see that," Neil replied. "I don't see how I could do any less. By the way, what's your name, if you don't mind?"

"Sydney Burr."

"Burr? That's why you were stuck there up the road," laughed Neil. "We're in the same class, aren't we?"

"Yes."

At the middle entrance of Walton Hall Neil helped Burr on to his crutches, and would have assisted him up the steps had he not objected.

"Please don't," he said, flushing slightly. "I can get up all right; I do it every day. My room's on this floor, too. I'm awfully much obliged to you for what you've done. I wish you'd come and see me some time–No. 3. Do you–do you think you could?"

"Of course," Neil answered heartily, "I'll be glad to. Three, you said? All right. I'll take this nag down to the blacksmith's now and get him reshod. If they can fix him right off I'll bring him back with me. Where do you stable him?"

"The janitor takes it down-stairs somewhere. If I'm not here just give it to him, please. I wish, though, you wouldn't bother about bringing it back."

"I'll ride him back," laughed Neil. "Good-night."

"Good-night. Don't forget you're coming to see me."

Sydney Burr smiled and, turning, climbed the steps with astonishing ease, using his crutches with a dexterity born of many years' dependence upon them. His lower limbs, slender and frail, swung from side to side, mere useless appendages. Neil sighed as he saw his new acquaintance out of sight, and then started on his errand with the tricycle.

"Poor duffer!" he muttered. "And yet he seems cheerful enough, and looks happy. But to think of having to creep round on stilts or pull himself about on this contrivance! I mustn't forget to call on him; I dare say he hasn't many friends. He seems a nice chap, too; and he'd be frightfully good-looking if he wasn't so white."

It was almost dark when he reached the repair-shop near the railroad, and the proprietor, a wizened little bald-headed man, was preparing to go home.

"Can't fix anything to-night," he protested shrilly. "It's too late; come in the morning."

"Well, if you think I'm going to wheel this thing back here to-morrow you've missed your guess," said Neil. "All it needs is to have a chain link welded or glued or something; it won't take five minutes. And the fellow that owns it is a cripple and can't go out until this machine's fixed. Now go ahead, like a good chap; I'll hold your bonnet."

"Eh? What bonnet?" The little man stared perplexedly.

"I meant I'd help," answered Neil unabashed.

"Help! Huh! Lot's of help, you'd be to any one! Well, let's see it." He knelt and inspected the tricycle, grumbling all the while and shaking his head angrily. "Who said it was broke?" he demanded presently. "Queer kind of break; looks like you'd pried the link apart with a cold-chisel."

"Well, I didn't; nor with a hot chisel. Besides, I've just told you it didn't belong to me. Do I look like a cripple?"

"More like a fool," answered the other with a chuckle.

"You're a naughty old man," said Neil sorrowfully, "and if you were my father I'd spank you." The other was too angry to find words, and contented himself with bending back the damaged link and emitting a series of choking sounds which Neil rightly judged to be expressions of displeasure. When the repair was finished he pushed the machine angrily toward the boy.

"Take it and get out," he said.

"Thanks. How much?"

"Fifty cents," was the reply, given with a toothless grin and a chuckle. "Twenty-five cents for the job and twenty-five cents for working after hours."

"Cheap enough," answered Neil, laying a quarter on the bench. "That's for the job; I'll owe you the rest."

When he reached the first corner the proprietor of the repair-shop was still calling him names and shaking his fist in the air.

"Looked just like a he-witch or something," chuckled Neil, as he propelled his steed toward the campus. "Maybe he will put a curse upon me and my right foot will wither up and I won't be able to kick goals!"

CHAPTER X
NEIL MAKES THE VARSITY

On the 12th of October, Woodby College sent a team of light but very fast football players to Erskine with full determination to bring back the pigskin. And it very nearly succeeded. It was the first game of the season for Erskine, but Woodby had already played two, and was consequently rather more hardened. The first half ended with the score 6 to 6, and the spectators, fully three hundred supporters of the Purple, looked glum. Neil and Paul were given their chance in the second half, taking the places of Gillam and Smith. Many other changes were made, among them one which installed the newly discovered Browning at left guard vice Carey, removed to the bench.

There was no use in attempting to disguise the fact that Woodby literally played all around the home team. Her backs gained almost at will on end runs, and her punting was immeasurably superior. Foster, the Erskine quarter-back, sent kick after kick high into the air, and twenty yards was his best performance. On defense Woodby was almost equally strong, and had Erskine not outweighted her in the line some five pounds per man, would have forced her to kick every time. As it was, the purple-clad backs made but small and infrequent gains through the line, and very shortly found that runs outside of tackle or end were her best cards, even though, as was several times the case, her runners were nailed back of her line for losses.

Team play was as yet utterly lacking in the Erskine eleven, and though the men were as a rule individually brilliant or decidedly promising, Woodby had far the best of it there. Fumbles were many on both sides, but Erskine's were the most costly. Stone's fumble of a free kick soon after the second half began gave Woodby her second touch-down, from which, luckily, she failed to kick goal. The veterans on the team, Tucker at left tackle, Graham at center, Cowan at right-guard, Foster at quarter, and Devoe at right end, played well with the glaring exception of Cowan, whose work in the second half especially was so slipshod that Mills, with wrath in his eye, took him out and put in Bell, a second eleven man.

With the score 11 to 6 against her, Erskine braced up and fought doggedly to score. Neil proved the best ground-gainer, and made several five-and ten-yard runs around right end. Once, with the ball on Woodby's twelve yards and the audience shouting vehemently for a touch-down, Foster called on Paul for a plunge through right tackle. Paul made two yards, but in some manner lost the ball, a fumble that put Erskine back on her fifty-yard line and that sent her hopes of tying the score down to zero.

The second half was to be but fifteen minutes long, and fully ten of the fifteen had gone by when Erskine took up her journey toward Woodby's goal again. Mason, the full-back, and Neil were sent plunging, bucking, hurdling at the enemy's breastworks, and time after time just managed to gain their distance in the three downs. Fortune was favoring Erskine, and Woodby's lighter men were slower and slower in finding their positions after each pile-up. Then, with the pigskin on Woodby's twenty-eight yards, Neil was given the ball for a try outside of right tackle, and by brilliantly leaving his interference, which had become badly tangled up, got safely away and staggered over the line just at the corner. The punt-out was a success and Devoe kicked goal, making the score 12 to 11 in Erskine's favor. For the rest of the half the home team was satisfied to keep Woodby away from its goal, and made no effort to score. Woodby left the field after the fashion of victors, which, practically, they were, while the Erskine players trotted subduedly back to the locker-house with unpleasant anticipations of what was before them–anticipations fully justified by subsequent events. For Mills tore them up very eloquently, and promised them that if they were scored on by the second eleven before the game with Harvard he'd send every man of them to the benches and take the second to Cambridge.

Neil walked back to college beside Sydney Burr, insisting that that youth should take his hands from the levers and be pushed. Paul had got into the habit of always accompanying Cowan on his return from the field, and as Neil liked the big sophomore less and less the more he saw of him, he usually fell back on either Ted Foster or Sydney Burr for company. To-day it was Sydney. On the way that youth surprised Neil by his intelligent discussion and criticism of the game he had just watched.

"How on earth did you get to know so much about football?" asked Neil. "You talk like a varsity coach."

"Do I?" said Sydney, flushing with pleasure. "I–I always liked the game, and I've studied it quite a bit and watched it all I could. Of course, I can never play, but I get a good deal of enjoyment out of it. Sometimes"–his shyness returned momentarily and he hesitated–"sometimes I make believe that I'm playing, you know; put myself, in imagination, in the place of one of the team. To-day I–to-day I was you," he added with a deprecatory laugh.

"You don't say?" cried Neil. Then the pathos of it struck him and he was silent a moment. The cripple's love and longing for sport in which he could never hope to join seemed terribly sad and gave him a choking sensation in his throat.

"If I had been–like other fellows," continued Sydney, quite cheerfully, "I should have played everything–football, baseball, hockey, tennis–everything! I'd give–anything I've got–if I could just run from here to the corner." He was silent a minute, looking before him with eyes from which the usual brightness was gone. Then, "My, it must be good to run and walk and jump around just as you want to," he sighed.

"Yes," muttered Neil, "but–but that was a good little run you made to-day." Sydney looked puzzled, then laughed.

"In the game, you mean? Yes, wasn't it? And I made a touch-down and won the game. I was awfully afraid at one time that that Woodby quarter-back was going to nab me; that's why I made for the corner of the field like that."

"I fancied that was the reason," answered Neil gravely. Then their eyes met and they laughed together.

"Your friend Gale didn't play so well to-day," said Sydney presently. Neil shook his head with a troubled air.

"No, he played rotten ball, and that's a fact. I don't know what's got into him of late. He doesn't seem to care whether he pleases Mills or not. I think it's that chap Cowan. He tells Paul that Mills and Devoe are imposing on him and that he isn't getting a fair show and all that sort of stuff. Know Cowan?"

"Only by sight. I don't think I'd care to know him; he looks a good deal like–like–"

"Just so," laughed Neil. "That's the way he strikes me."

After dinner that evening Paul bewailed what he called his ill luck. Neil listened patiently for a while; then–

"Look here, Paul," he said, "don't talk such rot. Luck had nothing to do with it, and you know it. The trouble was that you weren't in shape; you've been shilly-shallying around of late and just doing good enough work to keep Mills from dropping you to the scrub. It's that miserable idiot Tom Cowan that's to blame; he's been filling your head with nonsense; telling you that you are so good that you don't have to practise, and that Mills doesn't dare drop you, and lots of poppycock of that kind. Now, I'll tell you, chum, that the best thing to do is to go honestly to work and do your best."

Paul was deeply insulted by this plain speaking, and very promptly took himself off up-stairs to Cowan's room. Of late he spent a good deal of his time there and Neil was getting worried. For Cowan was notably an idler, and the wonder was how he managed to keep himself in college even though he was taking but a partial course. To be sure, Cowan's fate didn't bother Neil a bit, but he was greatly afraid that his example would be followed by his roommate, who, at the best, was none too fond of study. Neil sat long that evening over an unopened book, striving to think of some method of weakening Cowan's hold on Paul–a hold that was daily growing stronger and which threatened to work ill to the latter. In the end Neil sighed, tossed down the volume, and made ready for bed without having found a solution of the problem.

The following Monday Neil was rewarded for his good showing in the Woodby game by being taken on to the varsity. Paul remained on the second team, and Cowan, greatly to that gentleman's bewilderment and wrath, joined him there. The two teams, with their substitutes, went to training-table that day in Pearson's boarding-house on Elm Street, and preparation for the game with Harvard, now but nine days distant, began in earnest.