Читать книгу Dick Merriwell's Fighting Chance; Or, The Split in the Varsity - Burt L. Standish - Страница 4

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Bob Hollister played right end on the varsity, and was one of the most valuable men on the team. He was remarkably speedy, quite equaling the Indian, Joe Crowfoot; absolutely tireless, with the added advantage of having played the game ever since his prep school days, so he was familiar with every phase of it.

No matter in what apparently direful straits the team might be, Bob never gave up hope. Not until the final whistle blew, announcing that the game was finished, would he acknowledge that he was beaten, and his cheery optimism always had an inspiring effect on the discouraged members of the team, more than once being the means of pulling them out of the slough of despondency and changing defeat into victory.

Perhaps more than anything else, the quality which made him valuable was the fact that he never lost his head. No matter what might be happening, Bob Hollister could always be depended on to use his brains. And not only did he use them to advantage during the progress of a game, but he was noted for the ingenious combinations and strategic plays which he worked out and submitted to Bill Fullerton, the head coach.

The latter had often remarked that Hollister had either a perfectly phenomenal mind, or else he spent his entire waking hours doping out these plays, so many of which had proved invaluable to the eleven.

His latter supposition had been the correct one. Hollister’s brain did, indeed, work very quickly; and that, together with his perfect knowledge of football, enabled him to work out clever schemes in far less time than the ordinary mortal; but what had at first started as a more or less interesting pastime now reached a point when it absorbed almost every conscious moment.

Dick Merriwell’s words opened his eyes to the truth, and, as he crossed the campus to his rooms in Vanderbilt, he gave them very serious thought and attention.

He would start in the very next day with the necessary reform. He would do as Dick advised, and cut out thinking about football except when he was on the field. It was too bad the profs hadn’t let him alone until after the end of the season, for then he could have turned his attention to his books with a much freer mind; but since they hadn’t, he must simply make the best of it. It would be a hard pull, but he did not doubt his ability to succeed.

He went to sleep that night thinking over a new variation of the forward pass.

Before leaving his rooms next morning, the expected warning from the dean, regarding his extremely poor showing in history, appeared.

Hollister read it with an expression of whimsical annoyance on his pleasant face.

“Darn his buttons!” he muttered. “Why couldn’t Piercy have passed over that break of mine! He might have known I wasn’t paying attention. I suppose he thought I was trying to be funny and cod him. Well, I’ll have to make the best of it. I hope he doesn’t get after me again to-day, though. I haven’t the most remote idea what his lecture was about yesterday.”

Nor had he a much clearer conception of any of the other recitations or lectures he was to attend that day, and his face was rather glum as he ran downstairs and out onto the campus. He was due at the chemical lab at ten o’clock, and, as he hurried across one of the walks, head down and thoughts, sad to say, very far away from chemistry, he suddenly heard some one calling his name.

“What’s your hurry, Bob? Where you rushing to?”

Hollister looked up quickly, and when he saw who the speaker was, his face brightened.

“Hello, Jarv,” he said quickly. “I’m due at the lab at ten o’clock.”

“As it lacks just sixteen minutes of that hour, and you can’t possibly use up more than five getting over there, I fail to see the reason for your hurry,” commented Jarvis Blake, as he continued to advance slowly and leisurely. “I’m going there myself, but I don’t propose to run my legs off.”

He was a big, blond fellow, with thick, straight, almost tow-colored hair, eyelashes and eyebrows so light as to be nearly invisible. He wore a neatly clipped yellow mustache, which was the exact color of corn silk.

His eyes were dark blue and set wide apart, his features clean-cut and handsome, except that his mouth was large and loosely set. He was one of the best subs on the varsity and played an exceedingly good, brainy game.

Men about college said he had a pronounced case of swelled head. Certainly he was not likely to undervalue himself, but for all that he was well liked among a certain class, and Hollister had always found him genial and entertaining, a good fellow in every respect.

“Didn’t know I had so much time,” the latter explained, as they pursued their way along the walk together.

“How are things?” inquired Jarvis. “Strikes me you look a bit glum this morning.”

Hollister hesitated for an instant.

“Oh, it’s those warnings, I suppose,” he said, at length. “I got the third one right after breakfast.”

Blake whistled.

“Well, what have you been doing to get the profs down on you?” he asked.

“It’s what I haven’t done that’s got them going, I reckon,” Hollister returned. “I don’t know as I blame them much after the way I’ve flunked lately.”

“Rot!” exclaimed Blake emphatically. “You’re no worse than half the other fellows in the class.”

“I don’t know about that,” Hollister said doubtfully. “I’d hate to count up the number of goose eggs I’ve accumulated this term. You heard the fool thing I said to Piercy yesterday?”

Blake grinned.

“Say, that was sort of funny, wasn’t it?” he remarked. “But anybody could see you weren’t paying attention. You heard from old Pierson, then?”

Hollister nodded.

“That’s the one I got this morning.”

“Well, I wouldn’t let a thing like that worry me,” Blake went on quickly. “The profs don’t seem to realize that a fellow can’t give much time to work during the football season. They get down on a man, too, and, once he flunks, they keep pounding him out of sheer spite. I haven’t got any warnings so far, but I’d be willing to bet that one or two will come along within the next two weeks.”

“Hope you don’t, I’m sure,” Hollister returned absently. “There’s no doubt about it, though, I’ve got to take a brace and cut out thinking about football at all off the field, if I want to stay on with the class.”

A look of dismay came into Blake’s sun-burned face.

“Why, what the mischief are you thinking of, Bob?” he asked quickly. “Stop thinking about football when you’re the brains, practically, of the team! Why, only a couple of days ago I heard old Bill saying that three-quarters of the clever stunts he had made use of this fall were due to you.”

Hollister’s face flushed a little and his eyes gleamed with pleasure.

“Is that straight?” he asked eagerly. “Did he really say all that?”

“He certainly did, and a lot more, which I won’t repeat for fear you’ll have to buy a bigger-sized hat. You can’t stop now, Bob, when we’re all counting on you for so much. The new rules have practically made a different game out of football, and you’ve been one of the few that have risen to the occasion and doped out a bunch of new tricks which will knock spots out of Harvard. All this warning business is tommyrot. They won’t drop you, and after the season is over you can buckle down to work and make up for lost time.”

Blake’s words made a deep impression on Hollister, especially since they coincided exactly with his own ideas. After all, what was the use in worrying himself about the matter when there were only a few more weeks left before the season would be over? He would have no trouble then in recovering the ground he had lost, once his mind was freed from the constant consideration of football problems. And, according to Jarvis Blake, his help was really needed by the team.

“Better reconsider,” Blake urged presently. “Don’t give up the ship just yet.”

They were going into the laboratory as he spoke, and Hollister hesitated an instant in the doorway.

“I will, Jarv,” he said slowly. “Much obliged for all you told me about old Bill. That sort of thing is mighty encouraging, you know.”