The Guarded Heights & The Straight Path. Charles Wadsworth Camp

modern fashion, the classic public games of ruddier days. In other words, I was actuated by a formless emotion called Princeton spirit. Don't ask me what that is. I don't know. One receives it according to one's concept. But when I saw in Bill something finer and more determined than most men possess, I made up my mind Princeton was going to be proud of him, on the campus, on the football field, and afterward out in the world."

      The hollow, wrinkled face flushed.

      "When Bill made a run I could think of it as my run. When he made a touchdown I could say, 'there's one score that wouldn't have been made if I hadn't booted Bill into college, and kept him from flunking out by sheer brute mentality!' Pardon me, Mr. Morton. I love the silly game."

      George smiled, sensing his way, if only he could make this fellow feel he would be the right kind of Princeton man!

      "I was going to say," he offered, "that while I had never had a chance to play on a regular team I used to mix it up at school, but I was stronger than most of the boys. There were one or two accidents. They thought I'd better quit."

      Bailly laughed.

      "That's the kind of material we want. You do look as if you could bruise a blue or a crimson jersey. Know where the field house is? Ask anybody. Do no harm for the trainer to look you over. Be there at three o'clock."

      "But my work? Will you help me?"

      "Give me," Bailly pled, "until afternoon to decide if I'll take another ten years from my life. That's all. Send that fellow Rogers in. Be at the field house at three o'clock."

      And as George passed out he heard him reviling the candidate.

      "Don't see why you come to college. No chance to make the team or a Phi Beta Kappa. One ought to be a requisite."

      The shrill voice went lower. George barely caught the words certainly not intended for him.

      "You know I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that fellow you brought me, if he had a chance, might do both."

      II

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      George, since he had nothing else to do, walked home. Bailly could get him in if he would. Did it really depend in part on the inspection he would have to undergo that afternoon? It was hard there was nothing he could do to prepare himself. He went to the yard, to which the landlady had condemned Sylvia's bulldog, and, to kill time, played with the friendly animal until luncheon. Afterward he sat in his room before Sylvia's portrait impressing on himself the necessity of strength for the coming ordeal.

      His landlady directed him glibly enough to the field house. As he crossed the practice gridiron, not yet chalked out, he saw Bailly on the verandah; and, appearing very small and sturdy beside him, a gray-haired, pleasant-faced man whose small eyes were relentless.

      "This is the prospect, Green," George heard Bailly say.

      The trainer studied George for some time before he nodded his head.

      "A build to hurt and not get hurt," he said at last; "but, Mr. Bailly, it's hard to supply experience. Boys come here who have played all their lives, and they know less than nothing. Bone seems to grow naturally in the football cranium."

      He shifted back to George.

      "How fast are you?"

      "I've never timed myself, but I'm hard to catch."

      "Get out there," the trainer directed.

      "In those clothes?" Bailly asked.

      "Why not? The ground's dry. A man wouldn't run any faster with moleskins and cleats. Now you run as far as the end of that stand. Halt there for a minute, then turn and come back."

      He drew out a stop watch.

      "All set? Then—git!"

      George streaked down the field.

      "It's an even hundred yards," the trainer explained to Bailly.

      As George paused at the end of the stand the trainer snapped his watch, whistling.

      "There are lots with running shoes and drawers wouldn't do any better. Let's have him back."

      He waved his arm. George tore up and leant against the railing, breathing hard, but not uncomfortably.

      "You were a full second slower coming back," the trainer said with a twinkle.

      "I'm sorry," George cried. "Let me try it again."

      Green shook his head.

      "I'd rather see you make a tackle, but I've no one to spare."

      He grinned invitation at Bailly.

      "My spirit, Green," the tutor said, "is less fragile than my corpus, but it has some common-sense. I prefer others should perish at the hands of my discoveries."

      "You've scrubbed around," the trainer said, appraising George's long, muscular legs. "Ever kick a football?"

      "A little."

      Green entered the field house, reappearing after a moment with a football tucked under his arm.

      "Do you mind stepping down the field, Mr. Bailly, to catch what he punts? I wouldn't go too far."

      Bailly nodded and walked a short distance away. The trainer gave George the football and told him to kick it to Bailly. George stepped on the grass and swung his leg. If the ball had travelled horizontally as far as it did toward heaven it would have been a good kick. For half an hour the trainer coached interestedly, teaching George the fundamentals of kicking form. Some of the later punts, indeed, boomed down the field for considerable distances, but in George's mind the high light of that unexpected experience remained the lanky, awkward figure in wrinkled tweeds, limping about the field, sometimes catching the ball, sometimes looking hurt when it bounded from his grasp, sometimes missing it altogether, and never once losing the flashing pleasure from his eyes or the excitement out of his furrowed face.

      "Enough," the trainer said at last.

      George heard him confide to the puffing tutor:

      "Possibilities. Heaven knows we'll need them a year from this fall, especially in the kicking line. I believe this fellow can be taught."

      Bailly, his hands shaking from his recent exercise, lighted a pipe. He assumed a martyr's air. His voice sounded as though someone had done him an irreparable wrong.

      "Then I'll have to try, but it's hard on me, Green, you'll admit."

      George hid his excitement. He knew he had passed his first examination. He was sure he would enter college. Already he felt the confidence most men placed in Squibs Bailly.

      "Wouldn't you have taken him on anyway, Mr. Bailly?" the trainer laughed. "Anyway, a lot of my players are first-group men. I depend on you to turn him over in the fall for the Freshman eleven. Going to town?"

      "Come on, Morton," Bailly said, remorsefully.

      Side by side the three walked through to Nassau Street and past the campus. George said nothing, drinking in the scarcely comprehensible talk of the others about team prospects and the appalling number of powerful and nimble young men who would graduate the following June.

      Near University Place he noticed Rogers loafing in front of a restaurant with several other youths who wore black caps. He wondered why Rogers started and stared at him, then turned, speaking quickly to the others.

      Green went down University Place. George paced on with Bailly. In front of the Nassau Club the tutor paused.

      "I'm going in here," he said, "but you can come to my house at eight-thirty. We'll work until ten-thirty. We'll do that every night until your brain wrinkles a trifle. You may not have been taught that twenty-four hours are allotted to each day. Eight for sleep. Two with me. Two for meals. Two at the field. Two for a run in the country. That leaves