“Come on, Wall—­there’s Blair,” said Cloud.  “You’d better come too, Out, and learn something about a decent game.”  West shook his head, and the other two arose and hurried away to where the captain of the school eleven was standing beneath the west goal, surrounded by a crowd of variously attired football aspirants.  West, left to himself, sighed lazily and fell to digging holes in the turf with his brassie.  Tiring of this amusement in a trice, he arose and sauntered over to the side-line and watched the operations.  Some sixty boys, varying in age from fifteen to nineteen, some clothed in full football rig, some wearing the ordinary dress in which they had stepped from the school rooms an hour before, all laughing or talking with the high spirits produced upon healthy youth by the tonic breezes of late September, were standing about the gridiron.  I have said that all were laughing or talking.  This is not true; one among them was silent.

For standing near by was the youth who had aroused the merriment of Cloud and Clausen, and who West had shortly before dubbed “rural.”  And rural he looked.  His gray and rather wrinkled trousers and his black coat and vest of cheap goods were in the cut of two seasons gone, and his discolored straw hat looked sadly out of place among so many warm caps.  But as he watched the scene with intent and earnest face there was that about him that held West’s attention.  He looked to be about seventeen.  His height was above the ordinary, and in the broad shoulders and hips lay promise of great strength and vigor.

But it was the face that attracted West most.  So earnest, honest, and fearless was it that West unconsciously wished to know it better, and found himself drawing nearer to the straw hat and baggy gray trousers.  But their owner appeared to be unconscious of his presence and West paused.

“I don’t believe that chap knows golf from Puss-in-the-Corner,” mused West, “but I’ll bet a dozen Silvertowns that he could learn; and that’s more than most chaps here can.  I almost believe that I’d loan him my new dogwood driver!”

Wesley Blair, captain of the eleven, was bringing order out of chaos.  Blair was one of the leaders in school life at Hillton, a strongly built, manly fellow, beloved of the higher class boys, adored from a distance by the youngsters.  Blair was serving his second term as football captain, having been elected to succeed himself the previous fall.  At this moment, attired in the Crimson sweater, moleskin trousers, and black and crimson stockings that made up the school uniform, he looked every inch the commander of the motley array that surrounded him.

“Warren, you take a dozen or so of these fellows over there out of the way and pass the ball awhile.  Get their names first.—­Christie, you take another dozen farther down the field.”

The crowd began to melt away, squad after squad moving off down the field to take position and learn the rudiments of the game.  Blair assembled the experienced players about him and, dividing them into two groups, put them to work at passing and falling.  The youth with the straw hat still stood unnoticed on the side-line.  When the last of the squads had moved away he stepped forward and addressed the captain: