CHAPTER IX

Could Dave Make Good?

Dave Darrin, a good deal disheveled and covered with soil and perspiration on his face and neck, came striding in after time had been called on the first half.

Dave’s generalship had kept Hallam Heights from scoring, but Gridley hadn’t put away any points, either.

“You saw it all from the side lines, Dick?” Dave asked, as the chums, arm in arm, strolled into dressing quarters.

“Yes.”

“What are your instructions for the second half.”

“I haven’t any.”

“Your advice, then?”

“I haven’t any of that, either.  Dave, any fellow who can hold those young human cyclones back as you’ve done doesn’t need any pointers in the game.”

“But we simply couldn’t score against them,” muttered Darrin.  “So I know there’s something wrong with my leadership.  What is it?”

“Nothing whatever, Darrin.  It simply means that you’re up against the hardest line to get through that I’ve ever seen Gridley tackle.  Why, yesterday I was looking over the record of these Hallam boys, and I find that they’ve already whipped two college second teams.  But you’ll get through them in the next Dave, if there’s any human way of doing it.  So that’s all I’ve got to say, for I’m not out there on the gridiron, and I can’t see things from the side line the same as you can on the ten-yard line.  Perhaps Mr. Morton may have something to offer.”

But the coach hadn’t.

“You’re doing as well as any man of Gridley could do, Darrin,” the submaster assured the young second captain.  “Of course, with Prescott at center, and yourself jumping around as quarter-back the team would be stronger.  But in Prescott’s enforced absence, I don’t see how you can play any point of the line more forcefully than you’ve been doing.”

But Dave, instead of looking puffed up, replied half dejectedly: 

“I was in hopes you could both show me where I’m weak.”

“You’re not weak,” insisted Coach Morton.

“That throws me back on thinking hard for myself,” muttered Darrin.

Where a weaker man would have been pleased with such direct praise Dave felt that he was not doing his duty because he had not been able to lead as brilliantly as Dick had done in earlier games.

“Brute strength isn’t any good against these Hallam fellows,” Darrin told himself, as he returned to the field.  “They’re all A-1 athletes.  Even if Gridley played a slugging game, it wouldn’t bear these Hallam boys down.  As to speed and scientific points, they seem to be our masters.  Whatever we do against them, it must be something seldom heard of on the gridiron something that will be so brand new that they can’t get by it.”

Yet twice in the half that followed Gridley barely escaped having to make a safety to save their goal line.  Each time, however, Dave wriggled out of it.